Tuesday, T-1 Briefing and Set up Day at WSMR and Wednesday Schedules

SystemsGo and the participating schools had a productive first day at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) today. They started the day with the T-1 Briefing, which included several presentations by WSMR staff on all they do to make these launches possible. It was an educational and informative session.

WSMR personnel made introductions so all involved would know who they are and who to contact for help from the base. At the end, Scott Netherland introduced the SystemsGo team and specified their roles with the organization. We finished around 11:00 and headed out to West Center 50 launch site(WC50).

All equipment and rockets had to be set up and completed to meet the Wednesday testing schedule. Everything was eventually finished by 8:00 p.m. It was a very productive day albeit a little long and quite hot. It was a bit of a “Murphy’s Law kind of day”.

The first incident was our truck running out of diesel about 6 miles from the launch site. Gary, one of our range specialists, came and saved the day for us. Then the fill and fire system wouldn’t work correctly, only to discover that it was a bit of human error not system error. We were able to find humor and relief in the fact that it was actually all ok. One of the generators ran out of fuel as well. The last thing for the day was a screw on the rail that prevented the loading of the Fredericksburg rocket and much maneuvering had to be done to fix both the rail and the rocket lugs to get it loaded so we could all finally go home for the evening. There were other minor things, but it was all things that could be fixed.

Tomorrow will be a super early morning for all of us. Teams launching and SystemsGo personnel will be headed out to WC50 at 2:30 a.m. And those going to watch the launches from Mission Control will be heading out at 3:30 a.m. to meet our rep at the main gate by 4:30 a.m.

6:00 a.m. Fredericksburg High School
7:30 a.m. Union Grove High School
9:00 a.m. Alamo Heights High School

If it is a perfect day and all goes well with no exceptions with each launch, then the tests should be complete by 12:00 p.m. Realistically, this is a very tight launch sequence with little to no room for errors. If we do not get all three launches tomorrow, then there will be four launches on Thursday. Friday has now been canceled as WSMR has other high priority missions that need the range, so there is no longer a back up day.

Therefore, let us all hope and pray for the best for each school so that they may have a successful launch tomorrow and that all schedules hold true.

Here is the current preview of the launches scheduled for Thursday. Tomorrow’s blog will have a final schedule for the day based on Wednesday’s test success.

Thursday launch order: Anahuac, Booker T. Washington (1), Booker T. Washington (2)
Event details will continue to be available here. I will provide more information each morning as to how the schedule and other event details will progress for that day and how launches went for the schools testing that day. Pictures are not allowed on the range, but some pictures of teams getting ready to leave for the range with their vehicles might be available. If anything is available I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. You may also email them at info@systemsgo.org .Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited.