Crew Dragon launch escape demonstration
spacex.com
spacex.com
Think about all the bad publicity that Boeing got when Starliner was off course.
But here SpaceX is constantly blowing things up and everyone is just like "Ah shucks, they will get it next time though."
A lot of that has to do with how out in the open they have made a lot of these failures and tests. Everybody expects it now and views it in a positive light.
Whether we really need that much military capacity... well, I'll leave that up to you. But it's not really hidden that we're throwing more money at them than the market would call for. This corporate welfare scheme is very glorified.
For me personally I can only wonder how much further along SpaceX might be if all the money we’ve given to Boeing had instead gone to SpaceX.
This test was exactly as planned. The one failure they did have unintentionally blow up (the dragon fueling explosion) was actually not on a live stream.
All that did kinda work for their attempts at landing the first stage a few years back though, however that was heavily wrapped in “experiment” and Was PR covered at every moment.
It is true that they do testing differently from Boeing. Boeing uses a NASA testing plan where hardware is verified on the ground through extensive part or subsystem-level testing. This method has a downside which is that many things end up needing a higher factor of safety than absolutely necessary due to uncertainty in the risk calculations.
SpaceX uses a different testing strategy where a lot more stuff is tested as a complete system. There is increased potential for full system failures, which we have seen, but the entire system can be vetted more quickly.
I'm sure they are tested as integrated systems, but they are also exercised extensively ahead of that. The Super Dracos used for the launch escape system have been test-fired since well before the Crew Dragon got its name.
Though I think it was recorded by at least one unofficial one covering the hot fire.
Not all accidents have been on an official live stream but I’ve seen more accidents from Spacex than I’ve seen launches from Boeing and friends.
SpaceX is basically Kerbal Space Program in real life
And here's Boeing's "Inside the Starliner Pad Abort Test" -- https://youtu.be/L9ifJzokFgA?t=98 -- Copyright @ 2019 Boeing, All rights reserved.
So sure, you can see whatever you like: SpaceX is worse than NASA, or SpaceX is better than almost every other company. Your call.
The Spacex presenters generally have a mix of knowlege and charisma that news presenters don't.
Except that it isn't. All that classic NASA space footage was shared because it was copyright-free. As products of the US federal government they were not subject to copyright protection. They were transmitted and used everywhere. When "The Six Million Dollar Man" or "Buck Rogers" wanted to use NASA launch footage (or USAF crash footage) they just did. No questions asked.
SpaceX footage isn't from the US fed. It is private and therefore protected copyright. It cannot be used anywhere anytime. We all must ask SpaceX for permission. Use it in a manner that SpaceX disagrees with and you can expect lawyers. You wont see the failure footage from SpaceX ever used as nasa footage was used by countless scifi productions.
So no, this is no amazing thing. While modern footage is a visual feast, in terms of freedom it is a step down from what we once had. I think those running TV news networks (or youtube, or any other distribution network) would rather return to the old system whereby they could use footage however they liked. We won't ever see SpaceX crash footage used for much of anything.
What I am talking about. Six Million Dollar Man opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGO57y4td-c
Original NASA footage: (Crash at about 2:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50dDWT48b9M
So much pessimism. I think it's great a private for profit corporation is doing as much as it is given it has no obligation to do so.
I don't see why having NASA as a customer means SpaceX loses the right to private property.
If a government agency decided to become a paying customer of your SaaS project, should you be forced to open source all your code because you are now receiving public money? I suspect the answer is the same as with the SpaceX footage - the public may benefit if it was released, but it seems an unreasonable burden.
However if the government didn't ask for it and hasn't paid for it specifically, if the company chooses to do it anyway then they own it and it's up to them. Otherwise where do you draw the line as to what video and photography created internally by government contractors in their usual course of business should have to be publicly released?
Where is ULA's reusable rocket stage? Where is Arianespace's Starship competitor? Why is NASA building a disposable rocket?
That's the big change, the lack of obligation. If SpaceX is going to be fulfilling government contracts, on government facilities/ranges, using countless government employees, resulting footage should be free.
It hasn't happened yet, but with human spaceflight nearing we may see SpaceX drafting license deals in a manner NASA never contemplated.
SpaceX literally uploaded a video of all their crashes spliced together in a comedic montage. It's called How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster.
Even crash footage is good PR for them. There are still millions of Americans who do not know what SpaceX is or what it does.
[1] But not public domain. It's still copyrighted.
I don't think the opinion of "those running TV news networks" really matters all that much when we're talking about space.
The quality of the coverage has set a new bar for space companies / agencies. That alone is amazing because we all get to benefit.
Against that possibility and chance, I honestly don't give a damn about whether or not some of the footage is public domain. I'd rather argue about who has the right to do what with various bits of launch footage from our Martian colony. Beats the heck out of having more public domain launch footage to use in sci-fi movies, and having our crowning achievement in human space exploration being a handful of short missions to the Moon that left behind absolutely no useful infrastructure, and was only done to show up our geopolitical rivals.
We will if SpaceX allows it. How can you be sure they won't?
This really is not a good assumption. The federal government has plenty of ways around this. The federal government can buy copyrights, and also enter into work for hire arrangements with contractors and employees. When naked and operating without contracts, the federal government does have this default status, simple boilerplate copy and pasted contracts change this.
Putting the legal aspects to one side, do you not think it's amazing? If not, what would it take to impress you?
Or maybe there are several people with very specific interests about what logos appear in the stock footage used in hypothetical documentary style near future science fiction movies ...
Except technology achieved many other things besides shooting rockets into space, one of which is really good CGI, so it's really not about the ability to tell a good visual story.
This is probably true, but it's hard to be certain that they'd prevail. Has this actually been tested in court?
Unless it's critical or satirical of the military, like Starship Troopers.
Except that it is. Free as in beer, not as in freedom.
I think it's incredibly satisfying to note that SpaceX is so good at the launch sequence with the Falcon 9 that there were zero delays except weather. With any new rocket system test, I completely expect there to be multiple delays with the countdown.
Again, congrats to everyone and their hard work.
Also, I'm really interested in knowing if the fireball was performed by the automated abort system.
I would love these to be the answer, so looking forward to clarification.
No, that was the rocket breaking up and exploding. If the range safety system had triggered, it would have blown up the second stage, which flew off and crashed into the ocean in a massive explosion
The capsule controlled the abort. It shuts down the main engines then lights it own engines. These things aren't instant, it takes a second to spin up turbo pumps and get fuel flowing and for the fuel in the lines of the main engine to flow out after it sends the signal - that's why the rocket exhaust was still burning as the abort system lit up.
As for the fireball, from the press conference I got the sense that the fireball was not triggered manually, that the rocket just broke up.
Again, on neither I'm 100% sure.
It might not necessarily be an issue. The steps took only split-seconds anyways from what it sounds. Shutting down the main engines helps to escape but appears to not be required for a successful abort. The order might be required though (e.g. the commands need to be sent before the connection between the vehicles is severed) or just beneficial (maybe to give the turbo-pumps of the main engiens a few more moments to spin down already).
One thing that is clear is that the phrase of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil will be used. Multiple times. That's as sure as SpaceX livestream hosts using the formulation 'Historic' Launch Complex 39A ;)
Elon says, Hardware for first launch will be ready end of Feb, but lots of double checks have to happen before launch and schedules lined up for ISS. Expect launch to happen in 2Q.
Elon adds that they need to get the space craftback and check it over to make sure all is well and there is nothing to address.
Elon teases trying to catch the dragon on re-entry to remove some of the constraints a splash down imposes.
Worth remembering the Crew Dragon wouldn't need a major redesign to do a powered landing. That's one of the reasons why the escape system uses liquid fuel - it needs to be throttlable - instead of a simpler solid fuel design.
39B is going be used by NASA's Space Launch System. Boeing finally shipped a booster last week.
What is more relevant for me, is that if NASA follows their own rules, it also means that SpaceX will beat Boeing to having a manned spacecraft capability.
The "rules" in play here is that Boeing had a requirement of doing a successful unmanned flight. In government contracts this is known as a 'threshold requirement' meaning that it has to be done before the contract can be completed. Boeing also had a parachute deployment failure during their drop test. As NASA (and some members in Congress) have been emphasizing on how important safety is and relentlessly hammering SpaceX over their refueling techniques and their "history", if they do not want to be seen as hypocritical they should require Boeing to at least achieve a successful unmanned flight to the space station and they could piggy back the parachute deployment test on that flight (and get a twofer, both the parachute test and the end to end flight test.) Requiring that however, will cost Boeing money (they have to pay the expenses for the retest out of their pocket) and more importantly time (they need another launch vehicle from ULA and a launch window). Versus SpaceX which only needs the results of today's test audited and signed off before they can launch their test crew. So perhaps 60 days, 90 at the most before they are cleared to fly people.
So I think it is highly likely that SpaceX gets people up into orbit first. And that is a pretty amazing milestone and it slaughters a couple of sacred cows in the aerospace industry.
The most impressive one for me is that an aerospace company can be started from scratch and beat all established players in capability, cost, and launch cadence. It is both a huge endorsement of SpaceX's approach and a huge black eye for the existing players. Given that the existing companies actually want to survive it heralds some really exciting times ahead for space.
The other thing is that a company has this capability at all. I was talking with some friends about how do you "value" that in the market? How does it affect the geopolitics of space? What happens when Bigelow aerospace or another "space industry" partner starts selling access to orbital facilities that aren't government owned and operated?
As far as I'm concerned I wish this had started 40 years ago rather than a bit less than 20, but I'm glad I have had a chance to watch it unfold. Exciting times.
Absolutely agree.
I bought an 8-pack of used Heinlein paperbacks the other day that I hadn't read since I was a wee lad, which included 'The Rolling Stones' -- a slim volume about a family that live in comfort on the moon, but who get the itch and buy a used spaceship and head off for more exciting parts of the Solar System.
In a paragraph or two it explained gravity well maneuvers and other Kepler-ish things better than current YouTube subject matter experts. It also described, in a sentence or two, that the starships had 3-way voting computer systems, where 3 computers get the same sensor inputs and 2 of them can overrule the 3rd in the case one differs.
To the author, these were basic things that would clearly exist, because of physics.
Sure, it missed some marks -- underestimated the computer, for one; its heroes were still manually 'astrogating' and doing a lot of difficult math to plot their courses, when now we know they could have just played Kerbal Space program ;) -- though I thoroughly enjoyed seeing a reference to them handing their flight plans to a 'programmer' who filed them into a big computer system. Of course, it was imagining a world where we would found a moon base in the 1980's.
But I appreciated the solidity of its underlying premise: that a robust human presence in space was inevitable, because the difficulties that space flight presents, especially once you climb out of Earth's gravity well, are just not that far out of reach.
That spirit was alive and well when that book was published ...
... in June of 1952.
It turns out that, given human nature, we needed a lot of advances in computing to overcome difficulties, some engineering but others that no one could have foreseen -- like the fact that radioactive rockets and the additional power they could bring to the table were effectively off-limits on earth for human and political reasons, or that geopolitical and business reasons would concentrate space investment in areas that could be considered inefficient if conquering Earth's gravity well is your aim.
But they weren't off by that much.
The physics that stared them in the face continue to stare us in the face, and declare: this is doable, folks.
There's no reason humans can't live and work in space on a large scale. We need some vehicles built, but some of them are getting built right now ...
Clarke invented the communications satellite. Did Heinlein invent the consensus algorithm?
I also see from Wikipedia something I didn't know -- that he recruited Asimov to work where he did during the war! -- and those must have been very heady times, with all of them exposed to practical engineering at the intersection of math, circuits, early computing, design and fabrication.
The key events of the disaster took place over about three seconds.
A leak of high-temperature gas in the right solid rocket booster damaged the external stack of solid rocket boosters and external fuel tank.
The damage to the external tank caused it to come apart, and resulted in a fireball from the released liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The solid rocket boosters broke free of their mountings as the disaster unfolded.
The Challenger orbiter momentarily survived both the fireball and external tank failure. But those events made it impossible to keep the orbiter correctly oriented.
The loss of proper orientation while travelling ~1000mph meant Challenger was hit with very high stress forces, far beyond anything it was designed to survive, and swiftly broke apart.
Shortly afterward, the Range Safety Officer remotely detonated both solid rocket boosters, which had survived the disaster mostly intact and were careening out of control.
More detail at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disas...
I suppose it is worth mentioning that it did not "explode" in the sense people normally understand though: a blast of rapid combustion of fuel.
Technically it was a deflagration, not a detonation, but energetic deflagrations are a type of explosion.
Slightly hard to find digitally but it's the first "episode" here: https://smile.amazon.com/The-Challenger-Disaster/dp/B00GQUM7...
William Hurt does a great job in it and its pretty interesting!
(Be careful because there's also a worse seeming/rated movie with the same name that came out recently.)
Challenger did not. Later shuttle launches included the "Inflight Crew Escape System", or ICES.
https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/escap...
The only shuttle to ever was anything resembling a launch abort system were the first few flights of Columbia. It had ejection seats for the pilot and commander. However, later statements by NASA and the astronauts said that using them probably would’ve resulted in the death of the astronauts due to descending through the extremely hot exhaust of the launch.
The guys said at the beginning that they are expecting Falcon to blow up because aerodynamics change significantly once the nose separates.
Stupid question, couldn't they just give Falcon it's own nose so that it doesn't blow up after dragon separates? Dragon could have been mounted on that nose.
There are no stupid questions.
The abort system is only there as a last resort in case of booster failure. So in a situation where the abort system is fired, the falcon has probably already failed beyond the point where it is expected to be able to land.
A VERY brief summary of reasons from memory: deceleration causes fuel to rise up in the tanks likely rupturing them from hydralic impact alone, lack of thrust even momentarily causes the rocket to become unstable end to end, only 3 engines are equipped to be relightable and may not relight because the fuel would be at the top of the tanks, too much fuel mass to burn off before landing, too much mass with second stage, etc.
Elon tweeted out the same, that they played with it and deemed it not possible. As such I beleive the rocket was stripped of landing legs and grid fins too. Was a one way ride only.
However, the Falcon wasn't intentionally detonated! This was also by design; if explosive charges were placed down the side and made it come apart naturally, it would come apart in a predictable way. If you know anything about test-driven development, someone would try to made assumptions about the explosion. By allowing an uncontrolled explosion at the time when the Falcon is experiencing the most extreme aerodynamic forces, it's basically creating a worst-case scenario.
SpaceX successfully proved that the Dragon capsule can escape from that worst-case, and that's great news. It'll be flying with crew very soon, I think.
Can't wait for the crewed launch. Historic moment for the United States space program.
Also the flight can be delayed if NASA decides to extend astronauts' time on ISS which would require additional training for them.
EDIT: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/16/spacex-abort-test-serv... has more details about the recovery operations and the Air Force's role.
Also there, it still takes a while for boats to arrive.
I can't see Starship being approved for Nasa use by 2024 even if it were flying today.
This abort happened after the rocket reached max Q (highest dynamic pressure) when it was flying East (and still upward, but to get to orbit you must fly sideways over water). Returning West to get back over land would be fuel prohibitive on a fully loaded crew capsule.
The reusable falcon 9 stages have almost nothing in them when they fly back to land.
See trajectories: https://i.redd.it/xaisqxao5ef01.png
“The reason we decided not to pursue (powered landings) heavily is it would have taken a tremendous amount of effort to qualify that for safety, particularly for crew transport,” Musk said. “And then there was a time when I thought that the Dragon approach to landing on Mars, where you’ve got a base heat shield and side-mounted thrusters, would be the right way to land on Mars, but now I’m pretty confident that is not the right way, and that there’s a far better approach.” [0]
[0] https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/07/19/propulsive-landings-ni...
The design has 4 parachutes, likely for packaging and design constraints, but also provide some level of redundancy.
My comment wasn't clear now that I re-read it, but if you use a propulsive landing after a propulsive abort, you'd need additional fuel. If you remove the parachutes, that weight could then be used for landing fuel, but fuel weight may still exceed that. I haven't run the numbers.
The aborted dragon, after leaving Falcon, is now a self-contained vehicle carrying multiple people. It is a redundant and failsafe safety part of the entire system, but it's hard for me to believe it would be designed with everything having to work perfectly after an abort in order to safely return the occupants. Guidance and Control, life support, propulsion...
I'm mainly wondering if you were aware of the systems they would have in place on a propulsive return.
It seems that the amount of fuel to return all the way downrange back to land on a propulsive abort would be more than the parachute weight, which forces a water landing. And since you already design the capsule for carrying those parachutes, you might as well use them on a normal landing as well. That cuts down on additional weight for an abort return. I also don't know that if you have a successful launch, that you have enough reserve from un-used launch abort fuel to then land the capsule without chutes. Seems unlikely, especially with needing failsafe/redundancy.
The boats get there pretty quickly.
The time required is for safety checks and so on - there's some pretty nasty materials involved in those thruster engines, and all that stuff has to be checked first.
They're working on a second stage that can carry a few more astronauts and land itself, it's a bit bigger though ;)
Dragon2 is no use in the efforts to build a city on Mars. And even for a Moon colony, its too small. Its just there to earn money from flying people to the ISS and back. And for that its already good enough.
From my understanding, the host meant that getting the dragon and crew back to the shore would take 2 hours, not the recovery boat to get to them. They could probably even have helicopters around the area which could fly and pick the dragon up.
Keep in mind it wouldn't be able to choose its landing site either.
Official (SpaceX) close-up video of the separation event / IFA:
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1218976479150858241
Great shots of the fireball:
https://twitter.com/GregScott_photo/status/12189514406910730...
https://twitter.com/BrandonHSlam/status/1218923590260645889
https://twitter.com/Mimikry_/status/1218937739590230016
https://twitter.com/_flsportsguy/status/1218930068887613441
https://twitter.com/thelanjampod/status/1218949597231489024 (multiple frames)
Falling booster or second stage (the ratio of black to white hull area is the same on both stages, so I can not tell which one of both it is):
https://twitter.com/mike_deep/status/1218926880381902849/pho...
Impact of said part on the surface of the sea:
https://twitter.com/johnpisaniphoto/status/12189461666389401...
Infrared images:
https://twitter.com/turndownformars/status/12189257207366000...
https://twitter.com/turndownformars/status/12189415996080783...
In-flight abort test appearing on the weather radar:
https://twitter.com/NWSSpaceflight/status/121892435399747584...
https://twitter.com/wxmeddler/status/1218925147861790720 (animation)
Lift-off and others:
https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/121896406755938713...
https://twitter.com/RDAnglePhoto/status/1218968896885215235 (viewing angle and height suggests it was taken from the roof of the VAB (vertical assembly building))
Splash-down of the capsule:
https://twitter.com/FutureJurvetson/status/12189766841347153... (strange that Mr. Innsprucker called the parachutes white-orange. That looks rather like red?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06svtpboEJs
You can manually set the playback rate to values not available from the video player's menu by using the following snippet in the developer console (it works at least with Firefox, if you are not familiar with this: press F12 and go to the Console tab, there is an input box (">>") where you can paste it). This here sets it to 5% of normal playback speed (1.0 is normal speed):
document.querySelector('video').playbackRate = 0.05Remember that if you're like me, 99%+ of fireballs that I've ever witnessed were also made up / post processed for maximum impact. Reality could just be more mundane.
but as you say, most fireballs i see are post-processed to hell, that's why i'm curious what's up with these - are they more or less post-processed than normal?
That was all expected to happen and why they launch these things out over the ocean. These rockets also usually have a self-destruct mechanism that a range safety officer can trigger if the rocket starts coming back towards land.
(and on an entirely unrelated note, I really hate watching those parachutes bounce off each other. I know it must be perfectly safe or else it wouldn't have been the unquestioned method off choice for at least half a century, but it looks so uncontrolled it gives me nausea)
I'm not sure whether this would actually make a difference, but if you know it works at nominal fuel weight then you have some confidence it would work during a real launch.
It looked too instantaneous and clean of an explosion to have broken up naturally.
I suspect the FTS was appropriately triggered and that the 2nd stage simply survived the initial carnage via happenstance or potentially unintentionally due to changes in the structure regarding the missing front piece.
It was a very different "failure", which would naturally look different.
https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/epzayc/german_raumz...
Then again I don't blame them for not wanting to spend the $50-100M each on additional tests. But if I were NASA I would commission them since they are so cheap.
I believe the abort did actually take place at full throttle though, it happened at the point of max drag which occurs shortly after Max Q, and is after the rocket has throttled back up. The intent was definitely to trigger the abort at the worst time during the normal flight path.
What I was surprised is that the Dragon sent a command to the Falcon to shut down the engines. In a catastrophic scenario, it may be that the Falcon does not accept commands and is "stuck" at full throttle. I was expecting them to test ejection while the rocket is at full power without shutting down engines.
I guess they do not need to test it that way, they can easily calculate or measure if the acceleration was high enough and by initiating throttle down the capsule minimizes the risk of being hit by rocket debris after it falls apart. In a real life emergency such risks are acceptable, but in a test probably unnecessary.
Although there's probably not much of a difference if they full throttled shortly after MaxQ and then aborted.
Dragon doesn't need Falcon 9 to throttle down to abort, the Falcon 9 needs to slow down a bit during MaxQ, but the instantaneous acceleration of the Falcon 9 during abort isn't supposed to matter.
Looks like the test went well.
Edit: Splashdown
There's no scientific reason for manned spaceflight at this time, and virtually no science is performed on the ISS.
Go watch NASCAR if you want entertainment thrills.
Because they're both very well established technologies and there are tons of people with deep expertise in this area.
Space is full of kafkaesque levels of bureaucracy, it's shocking that we haven't been doing this for a long time.
It's the scale of these industries that he's taking on that is mind-boggling, not really the tech itself. It's operational exceptionalism more than anything.
I really wish more billionaires, govts and VCs poured money into serious hardware and manufacturing.
It really seems like US has lost its edge in manufacturing. 90% of the things in the mall/online seem to be from China.
The economy may be doing great today but really not a great sign of the future.
That's besides the point that someone should be advancing the usage of metric for the general public, and who is best suited for it, if not someone already invested in it like SpaceX. Their HUD in the video is already using metric for example.
By using them both, it's a good way to give someone who doesn't use metric a basic understanding of the conversions.
The government basically gave up on it, leaving metrication in shambles. So SpaceX is in good position to do something about it.
And using one or another intermittently only adds confusion IMHO, unless you literally use both for each value which is even more annoying (at least to me).
The goalposts seem to have drifted a bit here...
They expected the splashdown to happen several seconds later than it did. This could mean the capsule was going faster than it should have before its parachute deploy or it didn't slow down enough when hitting the water which would be worse.
Finally the main parachutes where touching each other pretty aggressively it wouldn't seem than unfathomable that two or more of them get tangled up, I don't think there is a backup solution for if that happens.
Regarding splashdown timing, we will see. They've been testing this extensively in the background, and parachutes have been a pain point all around.
Like others have pointed out: as far as F9 was concerned, the test ended when Dragon detached. Whatever happened after that point is immaterial to the test, so to start saying that would require a reflight is nonsense.
> so to start saying that would require a reflight is nonsense
I said "most likely" and "if you want to be safe enough" I'm not sure why you assumed I meant "require"
I think your reception here would be better if you dropped the attitude and recognized that your comment used pure speculation to imply that the outcome of the test was negative. Maybe that was not your intent, but then you should have asked more open-ended questions rather than slant them so obviously negatively.
What evidence do you have that it was a "controlled detonation"? Seems like you're making baseless assumptions and then getting upset when people don't understand what you're trying to say.
I also have no idea what an unplanned or unexpected controlled detonation looks like. It seems like a controlled explosion has to be planned or expected by definition?
A rocket with no nosecone will basically lose structural integrity very, very quickly. A rocket 'breaking down' doesn't look like fluttering bits and bobs raining down, it looks like a big fireball.
While you can control for variables greatly when you're flying under an engine, I'd imagine it's not so easy to control for environmental variables (such as local variations in wind speed) when you're landing under parachutes. It probably would have been safer for the broadcasters to have had an estimated time of landing with a +/- 20 or so seconds on the display, but I personally doubt landing a little sooner than expected will be a major concern.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/eq24ap/rspacex_infl...
As far as I know the AFTS consists of a detonating cord that runs along the tanks for fuel and oxidizer and rips them open when triggered. The substances mix and deflagrate and only the massive parts will actually reach ground (or sea).
Nothing I've seen or heard yet suggests that the test experience was outside expectations.