3 ms·
> "How lucky we were," Hale said. "Instead of being 200 or more fps short at MECO, possibly leading to an abort landing or requiring two tons of OMS propellant
by loeg 2y ago
> "How lucky we were," Hale said. "Instead of being 200 or more fps short at MECO, possibly leading to an abort landing or requiring two tons of OMS propellant to make up, we wound up being only 15 fps short, well within the capability of the OMS budget."
Is that feet per second?
- LorenDB 2y agoYes.
- tomjakubowski 2y agoYeah, it's delta-V, which in this case represents the remaining potential energy in the spacecraft's dwindling fuel supplies: in terms of how much it can change its velocity by burning it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v
- loeg 2y agoYes, the confusing part was that it wasn't in meters. I've never seen anyone use feet per second as a unit before.
- Dalewyn 2y agoFeet per second is used when describing rate of climb/descent in aviation, though it's usually converted to feet per minute for better handling. eg: Climbing 1500 feet per minute.
- Terr_ 2y agoAttempted TLDR: "The shuttle wasn't going fast enough when the big rocket ran out of fuel, but luckily it was close enough that we could fix it by running some of the rockets for moving in space, which use their own small fuel supply." ________ > "How lucky we were," Hale said. "Instead of being 200 or more [ft/s] short at [the time of Main Engine Cut-Off], possibly leading to an abort landing or requiring two tons of [Orbital Maneuvering System] propellant to make up, we wound up being only 15 [ft/s] short, well within the capability of the [Orbital Maneuvering System] budget."
- loeg 2y agoRight, the only part that confused me was "fps."