Apr 8, 2009
First day of testing started slow, but ended well.
The capsule was moved from Hangar AF to the Trident Turning Basin by 6am this morning. We then had to wait for the test team and crane to arrive for us to begin our first bit of data gathering, namely the calibration of the ship’s water pumps that will be used to fill and drain the capsule to achieve our desired ballast when at sea. The plan was to perform a crane lift with a load cell in place to get the capsule’s dry weight, then fill the capsule’s plenum with a predetermined amount using a water pump provided by USA. The pump provides water at a given flow rate, we fill for a set time and then we calculate how many pounds of water we should have on board. We then verify this by performing a second crane lift. Once we know how many pounds of water were actually loaded we know what the actual flow rate of the pump is and we can perform future fills and drains with confidence that we know how heavy we are making the capsule.
We started off with a (nearly) dry capsule weight of 17,700 lbs. We calculated that we increased the capsule to a weight of 27,000 pounds and found our actual weight to be 26,900 pounds. That produced our first set of smiles today. The first delay came when the fill and drain actually took about twice as long as anticipated. As a result, our operation that was scheduled to begin at 0930 was ready to begin at 1120 when the capsule was FINALLY relocated from its shipping cradle on the pier into the water of the turning basin. Lesson learned for future operations.
We broke for lunch after the capsule was tied off to LIBERTY STAR’s fan tail and then held our pre task briefing for water operations. PAO arrived as promised at 1200 with the media and had them set up on the pier to record our activities. Our first set of evolutions of data gathering by the Naval Surface Warfare Center and PJs applying a stabilization collars began at about 1230 and completed at about 1300. We took about a 90 minute break to reload the stabilization collars into their deployment bags and practice filling and draining the capsule with it in the water beside the ship. This also gave us the opportunity to answer PAO’s request to talk to some of the test’s key players (including HSFS’s CDR Quiett and a certain very happy test director from KSC).
Our second set of evolutions started at about 1440 and completed at 1540. Again good data was gathered all around. The twist for the second set was that we used one of the LIBERTY STAR’s AMVER (rigid hull inflatable) boats to circle the capsule and PJs at high speed to generate waves while the collars were being applied. This gave the PJs their first taste of what working in open water will be like. This also gave us the ability to modulate the waves to keep the PJs safe. It was a great way to make the transition from “crawling” to “walking” per our test plan.
The only goal that didn’t get achieved was deploying the aerostat. Winds were EXTREMELY variable in direction today and the risk of the aerostat getting blown back into the ship’s superstructure was deemed too great.
We ended the day with our post test briefing where we reviewed the day’s activities and laid out our plans for Thursday.
Our plans for Thursday are for the American Bureau of Shipping to do the inspection of the PORT crane at about 1100. When complete we will place the capsule in the water around 1230 or so (either with the PORT crane or with a mobile crane like we did today) and tow it out of the inlet to a point about 2 to 3 miles off shore. We will be looking for 1 – 2 foot seas for the PJ’s to get more practice applying the collars in a fairly benign environment. Since we will be able to keep the bow of the ship pointed into the wind we should also be able to deploy the aerostat. We will return shore at the POSEIDEON Wharf no later than 2000 due to personnel constraints.