6 ms·
How often is the self-destruct mechanism tested?
by jsprogrammer 10y ago
How often is the self-destruct mechanism tested?
- akiselev 10y agoVery often. Air Force range safety guidelines require a million dollar flight termination system and most of that cost is testing and quality control. I don't have an authoritative list of all flight terminations but it happens at least once every few years whenever a rocket fails to follow the set flight path.
- Phlarp 10y agoI also have to suspect things like isolated, dedicated and redundant comm links with the flight termination system are part of these guidelines. Perhaps even a "dead man's switch" that terminates the flight if this separate communication system loses signal at some point. (Even if this means a costly false positive or two~)
- Animats 10y agoFor the Space Shuttle, the flight termination system had two huge 10KW transmitters to send the signal. That would get through despite damaged receiving antennas, noise, or jamming.
- dingo_bat 10y ago10kW? That sounds like a lot of energy to dump into air. Certainly unhealthy for operators or people near the tx site.
- MertsA 10y agoAs an example, the strut failure in the falcon 9 a while back didn't explode from the failure, that was the flight termination system that actually caused the fireball when things started going south.