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Friday, March 19, 2021
CONTINUITY: March 1965: Atlas-Centaur Fifth Flight Launch Attempt
This is a slow-motion silent film (the launch takes a while to get underway) of the fifth attempt to launch an Atlas-Centaur booster on 1965-03-02. The goal was to place a payload simulating the Surveyor lunar landing probe into a highly elliptical orbit using a single burn of the Centaur upper stage.
It ended badly. Moments after liftoff, the two Atlas booster engines shut down (you can see them “coughing” in the video) and the rocket settled back onto the launch pad, creating a huge explosion. Investigation concluded the booster's fuel pre-valves had only opened partially, then shut due to fuel pressure, starving the engines of fuel.
Here is a view of the same event showing the entire rocket, while it lasted.
Posted at March 19, 2021 13:34