3 ms·
There's no "idle thrust" on Falcon 9 since even the lowest thrust is enough to lift the almost empty booster. You also don't want to completely run out of fuel
by arctor_bob 9y ago
There's no "idle thrust" on Falcon 9 since even the lowest thrust is enough to lift the almost empty booster. You also don't want to completely run out of fuel because your engine will probably explode. This was just a residual fire.
- antsar 9y ago> You also don't want to completely run out of fuel because your engine will probably explode. Can anyone suggest keywords/links about this? Sounds interesting.
- msl 9y agoOne problem here would probably be turbopumps [1] running dry. These things run very close to their limits when fully stressed and would presumably run higher still if they no longer needed to pressurize anything. The fuel is also used as a coolant [2] so you would not want to run out of fuel in the plumbing before you run out of propellants in the combustion chamber. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbopump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbopump [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family) (search "regeneratively cooled")