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"Static fire" = holding down the rocket and firing the engines for some time. It's a rehearsal of the whole launch procedure short of actually releasing the roc
by gliptic 10y ago
"Static fire" = holding down the rocket and firing the engines for some time. It's a rehearsal of the whole launch procedure short of actually releasing the rocket.
- revelation 10y agoWhy do they still do that? I was under the impression that the rocket was held down for a second or so with the engines firing during the real launch, also.
- gizmo686 10y agoIt is. However the point of holding the rocket for a moment during the actual launch is to give the engines time to fire. The point of a static fire is to test the launch systems. The hope is that problems can be noticed before the actual launch, where they are more likely to cause catastrophic failure (and where we they might not be noticed in time to abort).
- zzalpha 10y agoThis "anomaly", as they're calling it, is why. Better to have the rocket explode on the pad in a controlled test than in the air over a populated area.
- haddr 10y agoThanks! I was quite puzzled, as they had this roadmap of having manned mission in like 2 years from now. Now as I learned that they do static fire shortly before lanching, and given that in this moment the astronauts should be already there in the rocket... I can't really imagine this.
- grkvlt 10y agono, the static fire is a day or so before the launch. in this case, the payload was integrated, and for a manned mission the dragon 2 capsule would be mated, but no crew/astronauts present yet.