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I'm fascinated. I didn't even know that rocket engines could simply be shut down like this. I guess that's because they don't use solid fuel engines?
by perlgeek 14y ago
I'm fascinated. I didn't even know that rocket engines could simply be shut down like this. I guess that's because they don't use solid fuel engines?
- reneherse 14y agoAlso, the rocket is held in place during the first moments after ignition, giving a window of time for the launch to be aborted without loss of the vehicle.
- gouranga 14y agoOr a spectacular ground based explosion which appears to be prevalent in the leading edge of rocket development :(
- raverbashing 14y agoSeeing a gentle shutdown of a rocket is an amazing feet But the "explosions" are usually from the rocket self destruction mechanism Pretty and kinda sad yes, the alternative is worse. I believe there are some videos of russian rockets not self-destructing on Youtube
- gouranga 14y agoIt is unforutnately a rarity. The N1 looked like the ultimate awesome machine but it failed miserably :(
- rst 14y agoThe semi-formal term of art is RUD --- Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
- gouranga 14y agoNever heard that one before. Made me LOL :)
- toemetoch 14y agoSame question here. On the upside: they probably have a boatload of raw data on this failure now. Those are the first baby steps towards building in-house expertise.
- rbanffy 14y agoThat's a problem with solid rockets (such as the shuttle's SRBs): once started, they burn. On the shuttle, the SRBs were started only after the SMEs were running. An Ares I or Liberty launch cannot be aborted like this.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ballooney 14y agoThe space shuttle engines could do (and did on I think 5 occasions) the same thing. That is why they turned on before the solid boosters were lit, to be checked out by the avionics. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VELYTzUrjc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VELYTzUrjc [Edit: I must apologise to the commenter below for just repeating him 10 minutes later - accidental]
- ANH 14y agoTechnically, it was the orbiter's engines that could be shut down. "Space shuttle" is used to refer to the whole assemblage of orbiter, solid rocket boosters (which cannot be shut down), and external fuel tank.
- ballooney 14y agoQuite right, I should have said Space Shuttle Main Engines, as that is what they were actually called. Apologies for the ambiguity.