In the shadow of the Earth #5

"Forty five seconds. Good highs good lows, no out lights."
"Firefly copies."

So, here we are. Roughly a minute from having four thousand tons of very dangerous things explode underneath us, and we weren't even breaking a sweat.

"Thirty seconds. All arms retracted."
"Roger, arms clear."

I looked over at the other two, sitting to my right.

"In the infamous words of a certain person, get ready for a little jolt."
"Whatever you say Pat." Quipped Brandon.

"Fifteen seconds. RSLS has the count. Engine pre-start is active."
"Rog."
"Ten, nine, eight, main engine start, six, five, four, all engines are running, two, one, LRB igniton. Liftoff!"

All three of us were shoved into our seats as the five main engines, and the four LRBs thrust the rocket off the pad.

"Clock is running. Gimbals are tracking."
"Roger that."
"We've started the roll."
"We copy that Firefly. Standby for engine throttle back. Hitting the bucket in ten seconds."

My eyes darted from display to display, checking the numbers with what I had memorized in my head. Everything was right on the line.

"In the bucket."
"We can feel it. Max-Q!"

The cabin shuddered as the rocket went through the trans-sonic turbulence.

"Firefly, engines are throttling up."
"Roger that. Sensors concur."
"Firefly, switch to ACM 2."
"Switching to ACM 2."
"Will, hit it."
"On it."

Will reached up and turned the appropriate dial.

"Ninety seconds to LRB jettison."
"Firefly copies."

I sat there, watching the individual numbers tick by, the digital gauges point to the appropriate numbers. I had a fairly good grasp on what everything did, and displayed, but it still gave me a small amount of amazement.

For a split second, we lunged forward in our seats, then were pushed back.

"LRBs are away and clear Firefly. Also, switch to ACM 3. MECO in seven minutes. Staging in seven plus zero five."
"We felt the JRB jett, switching to ACM 3. We roger the MECO and staging counts."

I motioned for Will to turn the dial. He did. I would have done it myself, but a combination of G-force and harnesses kept me just out of reach.

A few minutes later, it was nearing MECO.

"Thirty seconds to MECO. LH2 in the second stage is just right, looks like a smooth staging."
"Good to know. Firefly standing by for MECO."

Unlike the staging performance of the Apollo days, the five main engines throttled back slowly, as to prevent any undue stress to the hab module. We hardly felt a thing, aside from a slight bump.

"CAPCOM, this is Firefly, we have MECO."
"Roger. You are go for staging."

I reached up, flicked the two switches and heard three bangs. Then an alarm.

"CAPCOM, instuments registering bolt number four failure, how copy?"
"Solid copy Firefly, looks like nothing was hurt, you're still go for second stage light. Be advised, fairing jett in fifteen."
"Roger that. Good to know."

I glanced at the clock and counted down the seconds. I pushed a button and a brilliant flash of light shot through the forward windows, and a blue ocean appeared in the hatch window. The light soon faded as the LAS tower pulled the protective fairing away from the stack.

"Tower clear."
"We copy Firefly."




Better late than never I always say