Steve Burow – Page 8 – On the Wings of Angels

Rockets 2017-Houston, Done-Fredericksburg Launches Start Tomorrow in Willow City-Thursday Schedule Included

The SystemsGo team arrived home around 11:00 Sunday night from the Houston Rockets 2017 launches. They had a good event with over with 39 rockets tested at the new location in Smith Point, south of Anahuac. They transitioned to Willow City on Monday as launches begin there tomorrow, Thursday for Fredericksburg Rockets 2017.

Set up and preparations have been underway all week to insure a great event at Hillview Ranch again this year.

The schedule boasts 26 schools and 87 rockets for this year’s event.

Launches will be Thursday through Sunday between 8:30 and 5:30. Phil Houseal will be there providing Livestream from the site again this year so friends and family can watch the action online if they cannot be at the event. Joyce BK Abbey the voice of rockets will be keeping us informed and up to date throughout each day.

As in past years, Texas Concessions will be providing food, snacks, and refreshments. Restrooms will be available on site.

There are chances of rain all weekend, as well as sun and wind so be prepared for either while you are in attendance. Sunscreen, rain gear and a chair are recommended. Also be advised that weather will play a factor in launch time availability and may cause delays. Please be patient.

Please remember that since there is public access to this event, there are registration tickets for order and those may be found on the SystemsGo website as well at this link: https://www.greateventseats.com/events.php They are FREE, but REQUIRED.

Here is the link to the live stream again. https://livestream.com/systemsgo

A map to the site is on the SystemsGo website at the following link:

http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

But just in case here is a picture of the same map:

Pictures will be available here in this blog and in Facebook albums for you to view at the end of each days launches, as well as during the day from Phil and SystemsGo on Facebook as well. Links to both our Facebook pages are below.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow

https://www.facebook.com/SystemsGoEducation/

Here is the schedule of schools launching tomorrow.It boasts 7 schools and 22 rockets:

Thursday, May 18, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Birdville CTAL Lynn Barrett	5	2
Fredericksburg High School Andrew Matthes		2
Granger High School Chaston Kubacak	1
Harleton HS Karen Brasher	1	1
Hollenstein Career & Tech Center Richard Griffith		2
Kingwood High School Louis Mascolo	5	1
New Diana High School Shawn Warden	1	1
7
Schools Launching
Totals	13	9
May 12^th Total Rockets	22

I will post each days schedules in this blog. They can also be found in original format on the SystemsGo website Events page.

Good luck to all the schools and students.

Event details will be available here each day as the event unfolds in Willow City at Hillview Ranch. Reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures, and some editorial content will also be posted at the end of day. If I get a chance to do some updates during the event each day, then I will but don’t count on it. I work recovery so I am usually busy.

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

Have a great evening. I will see you at T minus 10 tomorrow morning.

#Rockets2017 #SystemsGo #Launcher01 #FredericksburgSTEMAcademy

Sunday, Day 3 and The Last Day of Houston Rockets 2017-Recap

Today, Sunday, was the last day of launches at the Smith Point site for the SystemsGo team. They had two more schools, Northstar High School and Booker T Washington High School and five more rockets on the original schedule.

This made for another long day on the range, or at least longer than originally anticipated, but it allowed all the students’ hard work their chance to fly. They were up and out on the range early enough to watch the sunrise while they waited for rockets to load on rails, as seen here.

The team finally finished packing up and were highway bound headed back to Fredericksburg at about 4:45 this evening.

One of the highlights of the day was from Northstar High School. A guitar playing, singing, rocket engineer, Mr. Ian Barthlolmee, sat down with Phil and gave the live stream audience a small concert while they waited for his team’s rocket to get clearance down at the pad. What an enjoyable treat for folks there and online. You just never know who you will find in this rocket science business. Thank you for the musical treat Ian.

Here are a few shots of the action from the day.

Here is Ian’s team cheering their launch.

These were provided by pad team member, Chelsea Burow. Seen here with the Sunday Pad Team.

She also provided the sunrise, and the lead image for the article tonight, as well as some in the Facebook album mentioned below.

And this one is of the final rocket team of the day, Booker T Washington’s Transonic:

Thank you, Chelsea.

Along with the ones Chelsea shared, here is a link for some really nice ones from today from David Brady, from NASA. He and his daughter, Erika, helped at the pad today. This is their second year to be a part of the action down in Houston. These are some really good pictures, be sure to check out the link.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m5wgwe636vpqilg/AADj-yt145Wm1ppMqRNsHrKma?dl=0

More pictures will be in two Facebook albums for you to view at:

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1472882699399523&type=3&pnref=story These are from Chelsea and myself.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1472979219389871.1073741887.100000334203350&type=3&pnref=story Note, these are also the pictures by David Brady.

Event details will be available here each day of next week’s event in Willow City at Stewart Ranch. Daily reports featuring schedules, school names, results, pictures, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Saturday, Day 2 For Houston Rockets 2017-Recap and Sunday’s Schedule

Today, Saturday, the SystemsGo team had seven schools and twenty rockets to launch on this, their normal full day of launching at the Houston location. It was a productive day, albeit a long and tiring day for the team at the range. The action finally ended and the Livestream shut down about 9:15 this evening.

Weather at the site was sunny with only slight clouds and some wind. Reports from recovery members say it was a beautiful day for launching rockets.

Phil and Rebekah had a very special guest at Mission Control today. Norman Chaffee, retired Deputy Director of NASA Johnson Space Center, was there.He consults with some of the schools in the area on their rockets and STEM programs. In the interview today, he remembered coming to Fredericksburg in the early days of these launches to consult with Brett Williams, program founder, on safety and logistics. It was a genuinely interesting interview as he recounted all his work history through the years with the space program, all the way to where he is now retired and helping young high school students learn.

Later in the day, Phil took time to talk to Christy Bible Glass about her history and how she came to work for SystemsGo. Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear much of hers because my system crashed on my phone and computer about that time, which is why the quality of her picture is so bad, and she appears to have a monocle over one of her glasses. Sorry about that Christy, maybe you can say you were practicing for the upcoming Pirates movie. “Arrgh!”

What I was able to hear and see was a really nice and interesting interview.

In spite of issues on my part, the team still had a great day on the range. Here are a few of the better screen grabs I managed to get today.

The rest of today’s screen shots will be posted on Facebook at the following address for public sharing:

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471968966157563&type=3

The link below is screen shots from yesterday’s action at the range. Chelsea Burow, pad operator, may add more to either of these albums later. I know she took some really nice pictures from the pad.

https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow/media_set?set=a.1471692176185242.100000334203350&type=3&uploaded=36

Apparently students, teachers, parents and other humans were not the only spectators watching the rockets. This fellow was sent in by recovery team member, Steve Burrow.

The current launch schedule for Sunday is shown below and may also be downloaded from SystemsGo website at the following address: http://www.systemsgo.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Flight-Schedule-Rockets-2017-Houston-4-4-17-.2.pdf

Sunday, May 22, 2016
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Booker T. Washington HS Dr. Nghia Le	1	1
Northstar High School Alan Stone	2	1

Schools Launching 2
Totals	3	2
May 22^nd Total Rockets	5

Public access is available at this new site this year. A map to the location as well as directions are available at the SystemsGo Events page found here:

http://www.systemsgo.org/events/

There will also be Livestream from there again this year so friends and family can watch the action online, provided by Phil Houseal and Zach Pooser .

http://livestream.com/systemsgo

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.

Please remember that since there is pubic access to this event this year, there are tickets for order and those may be found on the SystemsGo website as well at this link: 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 if available, and some editorial content will also be posted.

Friday, Day 1 For Houston Rockets 2017-Recap and Saturday’s Schedule

Today, Friday was the first day of Houston rocket launches. This is new for this year. Usually Friday is just a set up day, but do to more rocket volume to achieve launching, Friday afternoon was added. Eight schools tested a total of 12 rockets this afternoon.

According to reports from team members at the site, all 12 rockets left the rail. That does not mean each was a perfect launch, but then that is why they are considered test vehicles. All in all it was a good day with fabulous weather, and a great new location with good results. And they get to do it all over again Saturday.

These are screen shots of the action in Houston. Quality isn’t always perfect but at least you can see some of what went on today. I will add more to Facebook and post them at some point on Saturday. The link to my page is down below these photos.

I do have more photos I grabbed from the live feed as well as some from team members that I will be posting Saturday morning. https://www.facebook.com/ginger.burow

Here is the schedule for Saturday as listed on the SystemsGo website.

Saturday, May 13, 2017
School Name	# 1st Level Tsiolkovsky	# 2nd Level Oberth
Brazosport High School Bradley Nelson	1
Brazoswood High School Dale Hobbs	3	1
Channelview High School Alan Stone	3
Davis High School Hasan Johnson	2
Kingwood Park High School Jim Brown	2
Liberty High School Matthew Williams	2	1
SF Austin High School Richard Hubbard	5

7
Schools Launching
Totals	18	2
May 21^st Total Rockets	20

Livestream is available again this year so friends and family can watch the action online. The link for that is on SystemsGo‘s website or posted here: http://livestream.com/systemsgo

Here is Phil Houseal keeping the Livestream action going:

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.

Happy Thanksgiving All

I had planned to post something that I had written in the past for Thanksgiving, only to discover I couldn’t find anything I had written in the past for Thanksgiving. How sad, I thought, such a wonderful holiday and I have never taken the time to write a word about it. Well, now I shall remedy that, even if at the moment I have no idea what I plan to say. So you will just have to bear with me a bit!

It is odd that I haven’t taken the time to write about this holiday since I know it is one of my favorites and I know many say the same. I think it stands out as such because it involves all the wonderful aspects of a holiday without so much commercial fuss. Yes, it does still have some, but not like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween.

It is designed as a holiday of thanks and sharing of all that we have, so we take the time to get together with family and friends and prepare and share food, fellowship, fun, parades, football, hunting, church, prayer and thanks. We share sheer joy at just being together. Our gifts for this particular holiday are our food, our joy, our love, and our companionship. We wrap them in smiles, hugs, tears and laughter.

We relax, visit, watch football, play games and eat all day long, and in our case late into the night. In fact sometimes it becomes a campfire party later in the evening.

The biggest stress is preparing food and cleaning at the house. Yes I said it that way on purpose because quite often all the cleaning never gets done (mostly dusting, the floors and bathrooms are clean-hey if you can’t handle that, write your name in the dust and then politely leave through the same door in which you came), and my family never seems to mind. What didn’t get done will get finished as the Christmas decorations go up next week. Besides, I live in a sand field and I can dust today and it will look like I never did by tonight, especially if the windows are open which they have been off and on lately. But I digress, that is not the point. The point is we get together for this holiday to give great thanks and to just plain eat and have fun.

The stressful stuff starts on Friday as we start shopping for that next biggest holiday of Christmas. But for Thanksgiving Day, wake up, watch the sun rise and go enjoy your family. I know that is what I am going to do. Actually most of them are coming to my house. I wish every last one of them was, but unfortunately some due to circumstances just cannot. I pray that where ever they are, they are safe and have a wonderful day anyway.

God bless and give thanks for all you have, and pray for those less fortunate than you that may not being having such a wonderful day. May God bless and keep them and fill their needs as well.

Happy Thanksgiving All may you have a wonderful and blessed day.

Friday, SystemsGo’s Rockets 2016 Officially Ends as Team Travels Home and Transitions into Next Year Preps

At 7:30 a.m. this morning, the SystemsGo team and Fredericksburg students traveled home from White Sands Missile Range, arriving safely in Fredericksburg around 5:30 p.m.

WSMR marks the end of another successful year with launches in Houston, Willow City included. The group helped test 90 Tchaikovsky and Oberth rockets and 7 Goddard level rockets for the Rockets 2016 season.

Now the volunteer staff returns to their daily lives and the SystemsGo team enjoys a much needed break before continuing with more schools, students and rockets. It won’t be long and the “launch season” will be back again with Rockets 2017. This coming season will start a little earlier with launches in April for the new New Mexico schools that will be coming online. It should prove to be an exciting year.

For now, SystemsGo transitions back to helping schools and teachers implement this STEM based program so that more students can participate in this system of learning.

That concludes Friday’s WSMR Rocket update.

www.systemsgo.org as always is the place for more information on this program. Take the time to get your school involved, the future of your students will be greatly benefited. SystemsGo is a Texas-based STEM curriculum program.

Team photo includes from left to right, (SystemsGo founder), Cade Ottmers, Brian Heffner, Josh Hampton, Chelsea Burow, Gene Garrett, Steve Burow, Randy Kuhlmann, Robert Dever, and Andrew Matthes (FHS STEM program instructor).

Thursday, Final WSMR Launch Day

Today was the final day of testing at WSMR for SystemsGo student programs. Fredericksburg was the only official launch scheduled, with two remaining test times for any retests needed. Unfortunately it was a sad day for Fredericksburg as well. Their rocket had ignition but the injector failed therefore it never left the pad.

At first they were going to allow them a second test time at 12:30 p.m. but after inspection it was determined that they did not have enough spare components to repair the vehicle and so the second test was scrubbed.

At that point the SystemsGo team, Fredericksburg students and WSMR personnel cleaned up West Center 50 and left, officially ending our White Sands Missile Range launch operations.

This evening the team gets some much-needed rest time before returning to Fredericksburg. Except for Chelsea and Steve they are returning to Lubbock this evening and then to Fredericksburg on Friday evening. The team and the Fredericksburg students spent the afternoon seeing the New Mexico Museum of Air and Space and the White Sands National Monument, where they met the challenge of climbing and sliding down the dunes.

Tomorrow is back to Texas and a long Fourth of July Holiday weekend.

There were four out of seven rockets that left the rail this year. Seven out of seven would have been even better but this is still a good end to the season. The thing to bear in mind is that with all these tests whether they leave the rail or not there is always and element of further knowledge to be obtained from what transpired with each vehicle. That deducing, understanding and learning from both what went right and what went wrong whether the vehicle launched of not, and all the education and skills each student learned to get it to this point is the true important lesson.

Thank you so much to White Sands Missile Range for all the support, man power, time, education, entertainment, information and fun you provided in order for SystemsGo and these four schools to come out and test their vehicles. Your continued support in this education of future generations is highly appreciated.

The picture on this blog piece is of the Fredericksburg rocket team this morning prior to their vehicle test. It was provided by team member Zane Brown. Team members are from left to right: Katie Habecker, Link Millard, Dorian Jones, Garrett Ottmers, Nathan Weatherford, Alex Scudder, Zane Brown, and teacher, Andrew Matthes.

Late Update to Wednesday, Launch Day 2 at WSMR

This is just a quick update to my earlier post. Booker T Washington has decided not to go for a retest on either of their failed rockets today. That means Fredericksburg is tomorrow’s only attempted launch test. It’s T time is 8:30 a.m.

Wednesday, Launch Day 2 at WSMR

The Anahuac rocket left the rail this year at 8:36 a.m. It traveled 171 meters (appx. 576.27’). The Estes motor blew out at ignition as the rocket started its lift off. This caused the rocket to spiral upward and eventually nose over and continue into the range a few hundred yards to the right of the launch rail, digging a crater and leaving dust for some distance. The Anahuac teachers were prepared and blew party horns to celebrate as soon as the vehicle came to rest. Congratulations Anahuac on your first successful launch!!!!!

The next two T times were both held by Booker T Washington High School. Both of these rockets were carrying a payload consisting of a PVC container with space pebbles that they were testing to see how they would react upon reentry to the earth’s surface.

Unfortunately it was not a good day for Booker T. They achieved success in making it to the pad, but flight was not to be. Neither vehicle left the pad.

On the 11:00 a.m. test of Golden 5 the Junior class rocket, the valve froze shut not allowing the Nitrous Oxide to mix with the fuel at ignition resulting in a small puff of smoke and a misfire.

The 2:15 p.m. test of their Senior class rocket, failed due to a fault in the ignition wire which resulted in no ignition and the system venting out the Nitrous. There is no word at this time as to whether either vehicle will be able to retest in one of tomorrow’s two available retest T’s. Even if one of the vehicles can be repaired in time there may not be more Nitrous available for them to conduct any additional testing.

At this time, the 8:30 a.m. T time is scheduled for Fredericksburg’s Red Bird #17 rocket. If no other retesting occurs, then the mission will be complete, then clean up and pack up will end the day for SystemsGo, students, and WSMR personnel.

Good luck to Fredericksburg and tomorrow and safe travels to all schools heading home.

Tomorrow’s test schedule is as follows:

8:30 a.m. Fredericksburg
11:00 a.m. Retest (1)
2:00 p.m. Retest (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.

The picture was provided by parent, Teresa Moore, of the Anahuac High School Rocket team after their launch here at WSMR. Students pictured are (not in order) Anne-Marie Henry, Madalyn Orozco, Maria Magana, Kaitelynn Innerarity, Mason Duhon, Shon Patton, Dante Nguyen, Beau Cendejas, Austin Hodges, Meghan Thomas, Zack Rose, and Caleb Moore.

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)

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

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