3 ms·
SRBs weren’t reused; some of their parts were. Hitting the ocean at 200 MPH and floating in corrosive saltwater damaged them pretty significantly. It would ha
by valuearb 6y ago
SRBs weren’t reused; some of their parts were. Hitting the ocean at 200 MPH and floating in corrosive saltwater damaged them pretty significantly.
It would have been cheaper to build new ones.
- stetrain 6y agoThe number I can find is 76 feet per second, or about 50mph. They had parachutes. My understanding is that refurbishment meant basically stripping them for parts and using them to build new boosters, but still a significant amount of percentage re-use of parts. It just highlights how important the amount of type of required refurbishment is to making re-usability actually practical. Falcon 9 is noteworthy because it's relatively inexpensive up-front compared to traditional boosters, relatively simple in design and part count (compared to STS) and relatively quick and inexpensive to re-use.