family – Page 4 – On the Wings of Angels

Tuesay, First Launch Day at WSMR

Today was a great success for the SystemsGo program as they met and/ or exceeded three T times with three rockets off the rails. The action started off well with a T time of 8:30 a.m. for Alamo Heights Heights School. They began the day with their smaller rocket built for extra height. It left the rail well, had a beautiful flight and reached a total height of 10086′. At this point the paper phenolic cover around the fuel grain burned off causing the body tube to melt through developing a hole with a side burn after which it rolled over and returned to the range in a ballistic fall. Reports from WSMR have it plugged into the range 970′ from the launch site in lawn dart fashion. This was not totally unexpected since a recovery system was not part of the vehicle.

The 11:00 a.m. T time for Union Grove’s launch meant that SystemsGo had to load the vehicle on the rail, fill and be ready to fire within two and a half hours. This was met and exceeded as their rocket left the rail at 10:59. The rocket had a great lift off but not far into the flight, the engine case blew apart dumping the motor and fuel grain. Preliminary reports are that the nozzle came off causing engine explosion. Their nose cone and shoot deployed, but the shoot did not open. Their max height was 600′. This was actually the first time that Union Grove High School has left the rail in what is now their third attempt at WSMR. This is a great triumph for them. They are now their school’s first flight at WSMR. Great job, Union Grove students.

Alamo Heights had a second rocket launch today with a T time of 2:00 p.m. SystemsGo did great work and exceeded this sending them off the rail at 1:48. This rocket only made 180′ after clearing the rail. The same paper phenolic fuel grain cover caused a hole to melt through the rocket at which point it began tumbling end over end back to the range.

Congratulations to both schools, at having achieved getting a rocket off the rail at WSMR. Post Flight Analysis on all these vehicles should prove to be enlightening and educational.

Tomorrow’s schedule is tentative because at this point the scheduled schools’ rockets are not pad ready. They are all going out to the range at 5:00 a.m. to complete work on them and hopefully keep the tight schedule for the day. The following is the schedule at this time:

Wednesday launch order:

8:30 a.m. Anahuac
11:00 a.m. Booker T. Washington (1)
2:00 p.m. 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.

The picture was provided by parent, Lori Davis of the Union Grove High School Rocket team after their launch here at WSMR.

Monday, T-1 Briefing and Set up Day at WSMR Results in Slight Schedule Change

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. This is basically WSMR rules and regulations for the range. It covers all basic information such as weather conditions, wind speeds, airspace schedules and logistics.

WSMR personnel made introductions so all involved would know who they are and who to contact for help from the base. After the T-1 brief they teased that it was the “dumbed down” version for civilians. At the end Scott Netherland introduced the SystemsGo team and specified their roles with the organization.

By 10:30 they were headed down range to West Center 50 launch site. This is where the schools, SystemsGo, and WSMR personnel spent the afternoon getting ready for tomorrow’s launches. All equipment and rockets had to be set up and completed to meet the Tuesday testing schedule. Everything went well and it was a very productive day albeit a little long and quite hot.

Union Grove had a small problem with their vehicle that kept it from passing the pressure tests so in order to be sure that the schedule would stay on course tomorrow, they moved Alamo Height’s smaller rocket into the first launch window for tomorrow morning, because they had to have one on the rail and ready tonight to keep the schedule. Union was able to fix their problem and pass the second round of pressure tests so they will resume as the second launch in the morning.

Because of this tomorrow launch schedule is as follows:

8:30 a.m. Alamo Heights High School (1)
11:00 a.m. Union Grove High School
3:00 p.m. Alamo Heights High School (2)

Due to the 8:30 T time tomorrow will be an early day for SystemsGo team and schools. They will be leaving for the range by 5:30 a.m. Alamo Heights parents going to Range Control to view the launches will be leaving at 6:15 a.m. Subsequently parents with Union Grove will be heading to Range Control by 9:00 a.m.

If it is a perfect day and all goes well with no exceptions with each launch, then the tests should be complete by 3:00 p.m. Realistically this is a very tight launch sequence with little to no room for errors. As long as each rocket that loads the rail leaves without any issues at ignition this schedule will hold and therefore the next days will follow as currently scheduled. If one vehicle has to be taken down from the rail then the next launch window will be lost and the schedule will have to shift.

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 Wednesday. Tomorrow’s blog will have a final schedule for the day based on Tuesday’s test success.

Wednesday launch order: Anahuac, Booker T. Washington (1), Booker T. Washington (2)

Sunday Rockets Headed to White Sands-Day 1-Report and Monday Early Information

The SystemsGo team rolled out of Fredericksburg at just before 9:00 a.m. this morning to head out to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico and arrived at Alamogordo around 5:30 this evening. Travel went well, and two schools, Alamo Heights and Booker T. Washington met us there.

Tomorrow is an informational and set up day. SystemsGo personnel and only student and teacher participants from the schools head out at 6:00 a.m. for T-1 briefing and afterwards setup at West Center 50 launch site.

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 the previous 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.

Team photo includes from left to right, Ginger Burow, Scott Netherland, Randy Kuhlmann, Steve Burow, Brian Heffner, Gene Garrett, Andrew Matthes ,Rebecca Hyatt, and Josh Hampton. Not available for this picture, Chelsea Burow.

2 More Days- Here’s What’s Happening for WSMR

The SystemsGo team and schools leave for New Mexico to launch rockets at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) on Sunday, June 26. That is two days from today. The list and schedules have been finalized and packing is underway.

The schedule will proceed as follows:

Sunday will be their travel day to Alamogordo, NM to the hotel.
Monday morning will be T-1 briefing
Monday afternoon they will travel to West Center 50 Range and do site set up and rocket prep
Tuesday launch order: Union Grove, Alamo Heights (1), Alamo Heights(2)
Wednesday launch order: Anahuac, Booker T. Washington (1), Booker T. Washington (2)
Thursday launch order: Fredericksburg, Make up #1, Make up #2
Friday will be travel back home for each group.
If for any reason tests run late on Tuesday and Fredericksburg is delayed then they will shift to first on Wednesday and subsequent launches will shift as needed.

The final list of schools participating in this year’s WSMR tests is:

Alamo Heights High School
Anahuac High School
Booker T. Washington High School
Fredericksburg High School
Union Grove High School

Parents be sure your child and yourselves if you are already on the approved list with SystemsGo, and attending, has proper identification with them. State driver’s license, federal pass port, or state id card are required for access to the base. Also be sure they have medical insurance information with them in case of an emergency.

Please be advised that WSMR is an Army base and does not allow spectators in to view these launches. Only the students, personnel, and parents who have been previously approved through SystmsGo and added to the list may enter the base with the group. Please do not drive to White Sands and attempt to enter on your own, or expect to do so with the group, because you will be turned away.

Event details will continue to be available here. I will provide information as made available to me from team members on site as to how launches have gone for those schools testing on that particular 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 and passed on, I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

WSMR Report-17 More Days

Today marks 17 days until the SystemsGo team and schools head to New Mexico to launch rockets at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). Already the schedule has changed since this time last week. Luckily the dates haven’t changed only brought the return date to Friday now instead of Saturday.

The classified tests WSMR had scheduled for Wednesday have been canceled allowing launches to continue on Wednesday instead of having a down day on that date. Sorry folks, that means no scheduled sight-seeing after all, but at least you will be home with more of your July 4th weekend in tact for fun.

I will not be posting the actual launch schedule for the schools until next week once we are positive there are no more changes and all schools slated to go are on board for sure. Fredericksburg is still feverishly working on the completion of their rocket. At this point no other schools on the list have given indication that any critical problems could cause them to abort.

Parents if you will be joining your child on this trip, and if they have a vehicle to launch, then you should be, then please get your identifying information in to your child’s teacher immediately. Only those on the list with information in ahead of time will be allowed on the base to observe the launches. Do not miss out on this it is definitely a trip in which you should participate.

Event details will continue to be available here. As schools and schedules finalize I will provide an updated list of those schools traveling to WSMR and the launch schedule. The week of the launches I will provide information as made available to me from team members on site as to how launches have gone for those schools testing on that particular day. Pictures are not allowed on the range, but maybe some pictures of teams getting ready to leave for the range with their vehicles might be available. If anything is available and passed on, I will post it for your viewing pleasure.

Houston Rockets 2016-Sunday

Sorry I am late again today! I had to get a certain US Navy girl to the airport first. So I’m in the airport posting from my phone. Sure hope it works! Safe travels Kasey Burow! We will miss you!

Yesterday, a storm late in the afternoon soaked the electronics equipment, taking out the Livestream for the weekend. Launches continued though. I will still post the link just in case you want to see some of the previous feeds.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5423012

Today the SystemsGo team will have three more schools and eleven more rockets to launch plus yesterday’s group that cancelled because of rain,before packing the whole site up again and heading back to Fredericksburg. This schedule is a rigorous one for them that makes for a really long day. So for their sake, I hope that all the launches go off quickly and perfectly so that they can get done early and get on the road. Please no 3:30 am arrival time back in Fritztown again this year. Rain has already been a big factor for them today with storms rolling through adding water to an already water-logged range.

Below is the schedule for launches for tomorrow. Good luck to all the schools.

Sunday, May 22, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Booker T. Washington HS Dr. Nghia Le	2	1
Channelview High School Alan Stone	3
SF Austin High School Richard Hubbard	5







Schools Launching	3
Totals	10	1
May 22^nd Total Rockets	11

Here are just a few pictures sent in from team members on site. Credits are attributed to each. Looks like it is an interesting launch down there this year.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1142293862458410.1073741866.100000334203350&type=3

No new pictures yet today so the link is ysterday’s.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Houston Rockets 2016- Travel & Set up

The StsytemsGo team left Thursday after noon headed to Clute, Texas down by Lake Jackson, which is south of Houston. They arrived safely at their hotel at 7:44 that evening. Today, they are busy setting up the launch site, and readying everything for an early start tomorrow.

Launches will be all day tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday with 12 schools launching a total of 27 vehicles. Hopefully weather will not give them any trouble with all the recent rains and flooding.

Please be advised that this is a very small launch site, and it doesn’t allow public access, but there will be Livestream from there again so friends and family can still watch the action.

As I mentioned previously, Phil Houseal will be traveling along with the team this year to conduct interviews on the site with students, teachers, team and other person’s of interest at this launch much like he did here at Willow City. This is a great new addition that allows the public to get a glimpse at education in motion. Get online and watch these students as they learn and share first hand.

Zach Pooser, owner of Chassis by Zach is on site providing the Livestream up-link. Here is the link to the live stream for the Houston launches.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5422984

Zach and Phil provide a great experience for both viewers at home and the students and team on site while helping to bolster the STEM program. Allowing the public to share in the actions and see what these students are accomplishing as they apply all they have learned and continue to learn from their launch results helps SystemsGo to grow interest in the future of the STEM program and the hands on approach to learning.

Here are just a few pictures from when the team left on Thursday.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1142293862458410.1073741866.100000334203350&type=3

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

After Fredericksburg and Before Houston Rockets

Yesterday was the first day after Fredericksburg Rockets 2016, time to go back to work and the real world. It was my daughter, Kasey’s 21st birthday. We celebrated with her at Auslander Restaurant with good food and family. No drinks though, she just wasn’t interested. I think she has seen too much in the military with friends that drink. Not a bad thing though. We are just excited to have her home for her birthday, something that hasn’t happened in three years. Her sister, Chelsea is on the way home right now to do a little celebrating with her today since she couldn’t be here last night, so there is still more fun to be had. Congratulations Kasey on your birthday. We love you bunches!

Chelsea and Steve are heading to Houston on Thursday with SystemsGo to help schools in that area launch more vehicles. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make this trip this year so no pictures to post unless Chelsea, Phil, Steve, or other team members send me some shots. Usually I do get one or two from their phones that I can use with this blog, just no big picture posts on Facebook. They will be quite busy so I am not counting on anything like that. I do good to get daily report information to pass along for this blog, but I will get that.

This launch will be Saturday and Sunday. There will be 12 schools and 27 new rockets to send skyward. This is a very small launch site out in the swampy area near Clute, and it doesn’t allow public access, but there will be Livestream from there again so friends and family can still watch the action.

Phil Houseal will be traveling along with the team this year to conduct interviews on the site with students, teachers, team and other person’s of interest at this launch much like he did here at Willow City. This is a great new addition that allows the public to get a glimpse at education in motion. Get online and watch these students as they learn and share first hand.

Here is the link to the live stream again. This is actually the link for Sunday’s live feed at Willow City last weekend, but for now, until new feeds start on this Saturday, it will get you to the Livestream site.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379604

Please remember that since there is no pubic access to this event, there are no tickets for order like there were last week in Fredericksburg.

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Rockets 2016-Sunday’s Report-End of Fredericksburg Launches

Today was a light day for launches. Only two schools and four rockets. All launched and three were recovered. The fourth a Transonic, once again sailed off into oblivion. Unfortunately that is just the nature of the beast, but hopefully where ever it lands someone will return it. Shoots never deployed on it as far as we were able to tell, so it may be a lawn dart in someone’s pasture and may be too unrecognizable for them to know what they have and where to return it. We can only hope that is not the case. The goal is always to return the vehicle to the students because they learn from what happens after launch and landing as well as from building and firing the rocket.

I would like to congratulate SystemsGo on another successful launch weekend at Stewart’s Hillview Ranch for Rockets 2016. While this weekend’s launches are completed, there are still launches in Houston next weekend and White Sands Missile Range(WSMR), later this summer.

Launches here at Fredericksburg Rockets went amazingly smooth this year. We held a tight schedule this year. With the exception of only a few, if a rocket made it to the pad, and onto a rail, it launched the first try. They were racking them on and putting them up in phenomenal order. Everyone involved actually had down time in the evenings after launches were done this year. That was a nice and welcomed thing.

This last evening we even had time to go home rest and then come back together for a little fun and visiting outside of the site. Thank you to Scott Netherland for providing that time.

I would also like to say how thankful I am to this program. I have had two daughters go through it and continue on to schooling and careers related to what they learned from SystemsGo and the high school program.

Secondly I would like to thank SystemsGo for having us as volunteers for the program each year.It is so wonderful to be counted as a valued part of this group and it’s operations. I am really happy to be part of such a fantastic education based program for our youth.

As I mentioned earlier, the Houston launches are next weekend, May 21 and 22. I will try to have updates on how those are going, as information is available. Also the Livestream will be operational from there as well. Phil Houseal will be there doing PR and conducting interviews with people involved there. The Livestream link is still the same and is provided below.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379604

Good luck to those schools launching in Houston. I will post schedules for those on those days. One thing to note is that the Houston launches are not open to viewing by the public. The facility is not large enough to provide parking and spectator area for this event, so schools and students involved only.

The Goddard level launches are still coming up hopefully in late June. There is a tentative date, but I won’t be posting that until closer to time since they can still be subject to change at the Army’s need. I will keep everyone posted on that as well as information is available. Good luck to all those schools and safe travels when you go there. For more information as usual check their website at www.systemsgo.org .

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1139283419426121.1073741865.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

Rockets 2016-Saturday Report & Sunday Schedule

Stewart’s Hillview Ranch boasted a very packed lawn today as Rockets 2016 continued into its third day of launches. Seven schools launched today for a total of 20 launches.

Our recovery teams ran an 80% recovery rate today bringing in 16 of those 20. Overall the teams are running about 79% for the weekend with 52 of 67 found. After final launches tomorrow the teams will have a chance to go out and hunt down more of the missing rockets. Of course there are a few that are not expected to be found any time soon since they went so far that there was not real line of sight to follow on them. For those we count on good neighbors to return them to SystemsGo if they locate them on their properties out of our viewing and hunting area. Each vehicle has SystemsGo contact information on it just for this reason. There are a few Transonics from the first two days that fall into that category, but we hope to locate a good portion of the missing 15 by the end of the day tomorrow.

The launches went smoothly and quickly again today, very little down time. All crews were kept busy, with the only real break happening due to rain showers late in the afternoon. With this recovery crew there is no such thing as being bored. If you are then you aren’t using your imagination, wit and blank radio space wisely.

Kasy Burow and James Drury were our third and fourth for Team 4 again today, and they made the day entertaining. They also taught Team 3 yesterday that there is no way to beat a team to rockets in their own front yard, whether you are at your spot when they fall or not. I always thought Steve was competitive in this recovery action, but I think the kids might have him beat.

I learned a valuable lesson about my camera battery today. Just because it used to make it through the event on one charge, doesn’t mean that a year later it still will. I ended up having to charge it half way through the day and so missed a lot of the action. I still managed 200 pictures though. Of course they will have to be narrowed down before posting as usual. But the moral is lesson learned, charge the battery whether you think it needs it or not.

Phil Houseal caught up with me today out at the launches for an interview. We talked about how long my family has been involved in this program. A good six years for sure. The first year helping Chelsea with her rocket and watching it launch and from then on helping in recovery here, Houston, and New Mexico.

Before our own involvement in the program we watched it and became interested because Josh Jung, and Melissa Jung our niece and nephew went through the early years. By the time they completed it and Josh started returning as a rep and volunteer from SpaceX, we were hooked and couldn’t wait for our children to take interest and be part of the engineering curriculum. Both girls, Chelsea and Kasey Burow did and are pursuing career paths in engineering fields. Brett is not in the program, but has helped with recovery in past years.

Now Chelsea is the one that returns each year to help with the launches in all three venues. Of course, this year she is missing Willow City because of college finals. She will be in Houston next weekend though.

I can’t believe we are down to one day and 4 rockets left to the Fredericksburg edition of Rockets 2016. I want a job doing this for a living, chasing rockets and then writing about it each day. Life is perfect. Anyone know where I can find one?

Below is the launch schedule for tomorrow, Sunday. There are 2 schools launching a total of 4 rockets tomorrow.

Sunday, May 15, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Manor High School Will Davis	2
RL Turner High School (Carrollton) Bill Richardson	1	1






Schools Launching	2
Totals	3	1
May 15^th Total Rockets	4

The following is a link to the album of pictures from today’s launch. Have a look you and your school rocket just might be in there.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1138090906212039.1073741863.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story

Good luck to all the schools launching on Saturday. I will update the blog after we complete our day again tomorrow. Here is the link to the live stream again.

http://livestream.com/accounts/3165037/events/5379565

Please remember that although there is no charge for the event, and these launches are open to public viewing, parking and seating is limited due to safety requirements. For this reason, SystemsGo has a provided a link for you to pre-order tickets for those in your party. This also provides SystemsGo with a way to monitor the number of people in attendance each year. This is in no way meant to discourage your attendance, but is instead to help them provide a great experience for students and spectators, while doing all possible to monitor safety issues and attendance numbers at any one time during the launches.

https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php?lID=92

Event details will be available here each day of the event. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures and some editorial content will also be posted.

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