The corndog has ED issues. And that Oct 27 date may have been a bit "premature," to use a word in the same context.
The technology demonstrator, known as Ares 1-X, as we all know, is a bit of a limp stick. When sitting on the old Saturn crawler with a fundamental frequency below 0.1HZ, it wiggles like a petunia on the patio. Should the crawler have to stop suddenly... ooops.
We think you get the picture.
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8 comments:
Ah.
Okay, there is a big difference between the vibrations of the Crawler and the accoustic and harmonic vibrations in flight. However, this news does not give one confidence that the team behind Ares-I-X have completely closed the design. After all, if it is fragile enough to wiggle on the ground from the Crawler, what is it going to do if its TVC imposes a violent off-axis moment on the structure?
~
Ben the Space Brit
History will shortly know how many times the launch of Ares 1-X and Falcon 9 were respectively delayed, and in fact executed.
Hardware's built, kind of sad to find out it won't stand now.
Well gee - I don't know - I remember touring the Kearny Mesa facility and seeing the Atlas upper stage tanks that had to be kept in tension lest they collapse on themselves on the ground. I guess that if they were so fragile, they couldn't possibly be a closed design:)
@ Anonymous (09/29/2009 12:35PM)
There is a slight difference between Ares-I-X and an old Atlas. The Atlas in the state you mentioned was before it was loaded with its propellent (the pressure of which held the tanks rigid). Ares-I-X is a solid and doesn't have any liquid fuel tanks at all. It should already be rigid!
Kearny commenter: Well, they are designed to do that. Big difference.
Really - so you could go out and start banging on the Atlas with no adverse effects? Have we really gotten any "not hearsay" information to assure us that what the potshot-ers here say about misalignment is true? Remember - spaceflight is tough and most systems are on the edge.
Roll out is turning into quite the drama. No leashes are required at the dog park. Adults are being called in to curb the dog if things get out of hand. Could be some great video for the NASA blog.
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