Former NASA Astronaut Breaks Down a Rocket Launch
Every rocket launch is different and it takes a lot of people and safety checks to ensure that a 5.75 million pound rocket can safely launch into space. Mike Massimino, a former NASA astronaut and spacecraft communicator in the Mission Control Center breaks down what happens from eight hours before liftoff until launch. Director: Katherine Wzorek Director of Photography: Brad Wickham Edito: Joshua Pullar Expert: Mike Massimino Producer: Katherine Wzorek Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas Production Manager: Eric Martinez Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila Camera Operator: Jack Belisle Sound: Jeff Gaumer Production Assistant: Ryan Coppola Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Video Transcript
- [Narrator] Every rocket launch is different and it takes a lot of people and safety checks to ensure that this 5.75 million pound rocket can safely launch into space.
[futuristic music] - We had a saying, "it might be someone else's job, but when it comes down to it, it's your ass."
I'm Mike Massimino, a former NASA astronaut and also a former spacecraft communicator, or CAPCOM, in the Mission Control Center.
Today we're gonna break down what happens from eight hours before liftoff until launch.
[futuristic music continues] [stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-minus eight hours.
- Cryogenic fuel is being added to the tank.
Once you put fuel in that tank, you more or less have a bomb sitting there.
It's not right next to Disney World, but it's close enough to humanity.
It also results in a little burn off because it's cryogenic fuel.
It looks like smoke it, it's water vapor.
Even at a low temperature, you'll still lose a little bit.
But primarily they want to wait till the last minute to make sure everything's good to go 'cause they would not want that tank sitting around loaded for a long period of time.
It could get a bit dangerous.
- [Narrator] Astronauts have been in quarantine, preparing for launch.
- When you would sleep, even if it was during the day, you had these really dark curtains.
They wanted to make it dark in there.
So you tried to train your brain or trick your brain into thinking that night was day and day was night, and it actually worked pretty well.
There is science involved there, understanding how the circadian rhythm works, your sleep patterns work.
Following those rules was effective.
One of the things that we learned, I think mainly from our Russian cosmonaut colleagues, was that you might not want to go to the bathroom the first couple days in space.
They took no chances and actually tried to clear out their system by giving themselves an enema.
Practically, it's not a bad idea and so that was added to the checklist of things to consider doing on launch day.
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-minus five hours.
- The tank is still getting fueled and the payload systems are being activated.
So the payload on the Artemis launch is Orion, which is the spacecraft at the top of the space launch system.
And the payload at the top are in this case moon-equins, but will also be people when the real day comes.
A scrub is canceling the launch before you go anywhere.
So for example, what happened with Artemis, those were scrubs.
So we've had a scrub because they had a faulty sensor and then they had another scrub because they couldn't fuel the vehicle correctly and then they had a weather scrub because the hurricane was headed in their direction.
So, "oops, didn't work out today, but standby, folks.
We're pretty close.
We're gonna look at this again and come back as soon as we can."
That's what a launch scrub is.
- [Narrator] Astronauts suit up and prepare for the launchpad after.
- Now, this is a secret, so don't tell anybody this, okay?
The tradition was that the chief of the astronaut office would play a hand of poker with the commander of the flight and they would continue to play until the commander of the flight lost because you wanted to leave all your bad luck on Earth.
Can you imagine?
Out of all the technology that we developed to go to space, this is what it comes down to!
You have to lose that hand of poker and until that happens they keep playing and then it's safe to go and and go out.
So after breakfast, you go back to your room and you start getting ready to get dressed to go to space.
And so the first thing is the diaper.
You have to have the diaper 'cause you're gonna be in a spacesuit and you're not gonna have easy access to a toilet, especially once you're get inside.
There is a toilet you can use on the launchpad, but once you get inside that spaceship, it's not like, "oh, I forgot, I gotta..." No, you're staying right there, so you're not going anywhere once you're strapped in and if you need to do something, you're gonna do it in the diaper.
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-minus three hours.
- NASA is still fueling the rocket and they're also checking out the telemetry data, which tells 'em about the health of the spaceship.
Important for launch, but also important for when the mission is in orbit as well.
So they're making sure that they can communicate with the spacecraft, that they can get all the data on the health of the systems of the spaceship.
That telemetry data is very important and they're checking that out.
- [Narrator] Astronauts disembark from the holding room, say goodbye to their families, and travel to the launchpad.
- One of the tricks that they play on the rookies, when I was on my first flight, I was one of those, is the chief of the office will come in and say, "can I have everyone's boarding pass for the space shuttle?"
And all the veterans who have flown before hands 'em this piece of plastic, which says "you can board the space shuttle".
So they hand it to the chief, sitting there like, "ha ha ha.
You don't have a boarding pass.
You can't go to space."
And I'm like, "who you gonna get at this point?"
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-minus 50 minutes.
- The NASA test director holds the final briefing.
So that final briefing would include things like the weather, the vehicle health, making sure every system that's being watched at the Kennedy Space Center and at the Johnson Space Center Mission Control, everyone needs to agree.
And they get a final briefing, primarily in this case it's the weather, to make sure that they're clear to continue with the launch count.
Lightning is not a good thing to launch into.
They did have a lightning strike on Apollo 12.
They were able to overcome that, but you don't like they get hit by lightning.
- [Narrator] Astronauts get into the craft.
- And then you get inside of the space shuttle.
You get assistance in getting into your seat.
You're lying on your back.
You have to strap yourself in.
You hook up your cooling.
You hook up your communication.
Hook up your oxygen 'cause you need oxygen flow.
If you close your visor, you're gonna need oxygen flow in there for the launch.
You get all that set and then you get asked a series of questions by the technician, just in case you have an abort.
[stopwatch ticks] Different from a scrub, an abort is like something serious is going on, For some reason, if there was something really wrong with the spaceship and it might explode or there might be toxic fumes or a fire or something like that is going on, we need to get away from it and get to these slide wire baskets that were up high where the crew cabin was, where the entrance of the spacecraft was.
And you would zip down this line, kind of like an amusement park ride and go into a net with this and then you would open it up and then jump out and then help each other get into a bunker.
And if that wasn't good enough, if you really needed to get out of town, right outside of the bunker was an armed personnel vehicle, which looked like a tank, but it didn't have any weapons on it, of course, it was just to transport people, but it drove like a tank apparently.
I never drove a tank, but I did get to practice driving this.
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-40 minute and holding.
- The built-in 30-minute countdown hold begins.
The 30-minute hold gives the launch team a chance to kind of sort everything out.
They're going along the clock, from eight hours and moving, moving, moving, but this built-in hold is a 30-minute placeholder for them to regroup, make sure everything looks good, and really narrow in on the exact time that they'll be able to launch.
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] L-minus 15 minutes.
- The launch director polls the team to make sure everyone is a go for launch.
Go for launch means that we are go, that whatever systems that flight controller is looking at, that they are a go.
No go means "nope, we're not ready to launch".
And so if someone speaks up, they better mean it.
Astronauts aren't allowed to chime in on the go, no-go.
They don't really ask us, maybe for fear that one of us might say, "no, I don't want to go."
And they're like, "well it's too late.
You're going!"
I've never heard of anyone on the launchpad having second thoughts.
It's too late by then.
Just keep quiet.
It doesn't matter.
You're going.
[stopwatch ticks] - [Narrator] T-minus 10 minutes.
- Final checks and system's go for lift off.
- [CAPCOP] Novel check of the SRBs.
Firing chain is armed.
- Once we get into, "ten, nine, eight," when that's going on and you're just a few seconds away, you're like, "okay, I guess they're really gonna do this to us!"
- [CAPCOP] T-minus ten, nine.
- And it just keeps going.
And then at six seconds on the space shuttle, the main engines would light.
So now the beast has come to life, is what it feels like.
You still didn't go anywhere You're still held down.
Explosive bolts would hold the solid rocket boosters in place.
They would explode when it was time for the whole stack to take off.
You're on your way.
It might not be where you want to go, but that's where you're headed.
And you're at the mercy of those things for two and a half minutes until they leave the vehicle and then for the final six minutes, you continue to ride the main engines, the liquid fueled engines, to orbit.
Once you lift off, there's no doubt that you have lifted off.
You accelerate immediately.
Before you clear the tower, You're already going 100 miles an hour and you're accelerating from 0 to 17,500 miles an hour in just eight and a half minutes.
And the words that kept going through my mind were speed and power, speed and power.
And right at about maybe the two-minute mark leaving the planet, I had this sensation that I was really leaving home for the first time.
[tranquil music] There was a sense of I'm really heading somewhere that I'd never been before, far away from home.
[tranquil music continues]
