Yesterday's RS-25 Test

Gebus! That's a powerful rocket Batman!

Somehow, that viewing area seems dangerously close should that thing become a giant grenade. Those cars parked near it are toast for sure.

I'm currently fascinated with NASA's latest Star Trek Sci-fi turned reality gizmo... The Ion propulsion system. The estate of Gene Roddenberry should be getting a kick back. The damned thing actually works! Crazy how many fantasy gadgets and gear from my youth have become reality.
 
Mark Wein said:
I sent that to my son, who is infatuated with all things rocketry and space.
Click to expand...
Here's another, with a long-time friend and engineer Dawn Davis. She goes into more detail. She's been in to the data acquisition end of things as long as I've been there.

Every valve, gauge, transducer, pressure and transmitter you see in this video comes through our labs. My job is to verify the entire process, from the time they come the cal lab to the time they go back into service meets specifications, contains accurate data and standards, and all procedural requirements are followed. I am responsible for over 1,500 standard operating procedures.

 
Steverino said:
The SLS will use four, and will be simultaneously cluster-fired sometime next year. That will be one for the books.
Click to expand...
Or it will turn coastal central Florida into a deep crater.

The potential for catastrophic failure of unprecedented magnitude is extremely high. Assholes better check those O-Rings with vigor before they lite that wick.

I have great confidence in NASA, as I've always had, but the cold hard fact is that they have on occasion made some horrendous and even idiotic mistakes (forgetting to convert metric values to standard values such as kilometers to miles etc...).

The prospect of cluster firing 4 of those things in tight physical proximity leaves ZERO room for error. If that thing goes boom on the launch pad, the debris might reach escape velocity without the vehicle ever clearing the tower. (Ok, not really, but can you imagine the ferocity and potential for ground casualties in such an event?).
 
DFB said:
Kilometers to miles? Cut it in half and add 10%?
Click to expand...
They lost a very, very expensive Mars mission spacecraft because somebody failed to take telemetry data programming code provided by ESA in Metric value and convert it to standard before including that data in the trajectory sequence that had ONE JOB... tell the spacecraft where to go. Whoops!

Uh, Houston? We have a problem. Our Billion dollar, decade in development project thinks it's French and has decided to swing by Mercury for a bagguette and a pack of cigarettes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DFB
OGG said:
Or it will turn coastal central Florida into a deep crater.

The potential for catastrophic failure of unprecedented magnitude is extremely high. Assholes better check those O-Rings with vigor before they lite that wick.

I have great confidence in NASA, as I've always had, but the cold hard fact is that they have on occasion made some horrendous and even idiotic mistakes (forgetting to convert metric values to standard values such as kilometers to miles etc...).

The prospect of cluster firing 4 of those things in tight physical proximity leaves ZERO room for error. If that thing goes boom on the launch pad, the debris might reach escape velocity without the vehicle ever clearing the tower. (Ok, not really, but can you imagine the ferocity and potential for ground casualties in such an event?).
Click to expand...

I'm just east of New Orleans (in MS). They're tested here first.

Yes, it'll definitely be pucker time. Not sure if you're using O rings in regards to SRBs, but the engines I'm talking about are LOX/LH engines. The SLS will use SRBs though, just like the Shuttle.

That being said, a whole lot more than O rings will be gone over again and again. And yes, some stupid mistakes have been made, Hubble first, then the Mars Orbiter you mentioned. As long as humans are in the loop, mistakes will be made.

It's been a long time, before my time there, but 5 F1 engines were also fired simultaneously here, on the same test stand these RS-25s will be tested. The old guys have long retired (my Dad being one of them) but the facility will be the same, all the history data, and documentation are still here,and at least we know that if it'll hold down 5 Saturn V engines, it will surely hold 4 of these. But you just never know, and that's why we test them here on the ground before they go to Kennedy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top