Does anyone know what has happened in NM?

reply to post by Sammamishman


Out in the desert area though there's plenty of wide open deserted area. I roll through the area this happened and can goa couple hours with nothing but truck stops.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Plus the Air Force are pretty good at keeping their black projects safe from people taking pictures, and the ones that do don't usually share them with the exception of the RQ-170.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


I would love to have one of those pictures I could never share.

reply to post by Sammamishman


I stumbled upon this while researching something completle different...maybe???


behindtheblack.com...
October 29, 2013 at 5:06 PM

Sierra Nevada reveals that its Dream Chaser engineering test vehicle survived its bad landing this weekend in reasonably good shape.

After lining up on the runway, the spacecraft’s nose landing skid and right main landing gear deployed normally about 200 feet off the ground. But the left main gear hung up for some reason. Sirangelo said the software issued the proper commands, leading engineers to suspect a mechanical problem of some sort.

The landing gear in the test vehicle were taken from an F-5 training jet and will not be used on operational versions of the Dream Chaser.

In any case, the Dream Chaser’s flight software responded to the unbalanced load at touchdown, keeping the spacecraft’s left wing off the ground as long as possible. But it eventually came down and the craft skidded off the runway in a cloud of dust. [emphasis mine]

They should release the video. If the vehicle’s software was able to keep the vehicle stable, even as it was speeding down a runway short one wheel, this would impress people. Not releasing video of this only feeds the doubts people have.

By Robert Zimmerman
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video:
behindtheblack.com... m-chaser-engineering-test-vehicle#more-25616

reply to post by Sammamishman



behindtheblack.com...
October 28, 2013 at 7:06 PM

Sierra Nevada provides an update on the condition of its Dream Chaser test vehicle after this weekend’s glide flight and bad landing.

SNC has not yet decided whether to repair the Dream Chaser test craft, which does not use the same landing gear the orbital vehicle would use. Investigating what went wrong will take “a couple of weeks,” Sirangelo estimated. He said the vehicle, which is now in a hangar in Mojave, Calif., was “fully intact” after the crash.

“The pressure vessel was completely pristine, the computers are still working, there was no damage to the crew cabin or flight systems,” Sirangelo said. “I went inside it myself and it was perfectly fine. There was some damage from skidding.

“We learned everything we wanted to on this test, and learned more than we expected to learn,” Sirangelo said. “We believe we’ve got most of the data we need [but] I can’t honestly say, I just don’t know yet. It’s not going to affect our schedule in the long term [but] It might affect whether we do another free flight test this year or next year. We’re still assessing that.”

The company also claims that the flight met the requirements of a $15 million NASA milestone payment, since the goals of the flight were to test the vehicle’s flight capabilities, not its landing gear. (The failed landing gear used will not be the gear used on the final flight vehicle.)

They have scheduled a press conference for tomorrow. Stay tuned.

reply to post by AFewGoodWomen


There's a video of the dream chaser landing, without the final part where it crashed but it's not the craft that crashed in NM.

Stealthbomber
reply to post by AFewGoodWomen

 

There's a video of the dream chaser landing, without the final part where it crashed but it's not the craft that crashed in NM.

good enough for me...I wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the NM crash, but I figured I'd post anyway, just in case.

The plot thickens?

Say Hello to the RQ-180

reply to post by AlphaHawk


Indeed.

Would you be referring to the numerous warnings about unmanned aircraft such as almogrodo airports notams if so that really is a super clue in the right direction a reply to: Zaphod58