RCgothic

I'm sure there's nothing wrong with the mobile launcher. /S

Really? Meh. AFAIC the orbiter is part of the payload.

Happened within a month (but not same month) with Energia and STS in '88. Buran/Energia launched November 15th, and Atlantis/STS launched December 2nd.

It was really weird to me that the second stage didn't light immediately after staging! Perigee raise manoeuvre in a bit, followed by TLI.

Potentially the 4th most thrusty rocket ever fired then after N1, Saturn V and Energia. At least for the next few hours... Now do thrust * exhaust velocity!

That doesn't seem right? 14x2.3MN = 32.2MN, not over 40?

Needs ~3400t of propellant adding for an additional 19 engines at full throttle so that the force in the clamps we saw this time isn't exceeded in that case. ~1750t if the extra engines are fired at 40% throttle.

I'd hope either of the next two firings is with 33 engines. Wouldn't really want to go into a launch attempt without having fired them all at once! I've heard that a full LOX tank is sufficient mass to hold down a full 33 engine firing though, so maybe the autogenous pressurisation test has a decent chance of going full send and firing all 33.

It's 20 for N1 I believe. 16 for SLS? Fewer if you count power as thrust * exhaust velocity. I believe the pad needs some sort of flame diverter upgrade though. Apparently there was concrete debris raining down everywhere after the test.

In this instance that's primarily accomplished by the high launch pad. Reflected energy goes with the inverse of the distance to the reflector to the fourth power. It drops off *really* rapidly.

Its designation is FIREX & DETONATION SUPPRESSION SYSTEM. So its primary purpose is dispersing vented gasses to prevent explosions and extinguishing any minor fires. If it performs sound suppression as well that's a bonus, but the primary functions are as described. I believe the system being installed at Kennedy may have a greater role in sound suppression.

So all the towers around the rocket registered violations, but not at the pad? Colour me skeptical.

Wind speeds at various altitudes. Definite limit violations.

However if you did replace the two SRBs with 4xF9s, the boosters would be much lighter, cheaper, and the thrust would come at a higher ISP so they'd burn a similar length of time whilst still having a propellant reserve for landing for full reuse. The performance of SLS would be enormously improved. But you'd need to redesign everything such that it basically wasn't SLS anymore, and the rebuild of GSE would cost more than 20x falcon heavies, so...

Well it would seem sensible to have a mobile service and hurricane shelter structure at the pad, but it was going to fly so infrequently that they wanted a clean pad for multi-user operation. Of course that fell through, so now there's just no ability to service or shelter at the pad at all. And just as well nobody else wanted to use the pad with SLS hogging it for months on end! Also going to mention that part of the reason transporting it is so difficult is because the SRBs are so heavy, so that's another self-inflicted design choice.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/nasas-artemis-i-rocket-just-endured-hours-of-hurricane-like-wind-gusts/

I wouldn't want to be the engineer trying to justify that decision to an accident board.

Which is why you don't take chances with hurricanes. Better to be left looking stupid for being over-cautious than for the other way around.

Surely they don't just go "that was fine, fly this thing" after exceeding rated maximums? Surely there's a rollback for inspection after this? Edit:

Hurricane strength potentially on Wednesday, although may be within what the vehicle can tolerate. Could cause launch criteria violations all that week for the opportunities on 14th/16th/19th though.

The 30t of propellant is needed for landing. Putting it in the nose for stability is a two birds one stone situation. Getting rid of the landing propellant results in a crater regardless of the aerodynamic stability. Two-axis hinges are heavy, mechanically complex, difficult to defend against plasma penetration, and unnecessary because single-axis is sufficient.

Reports are the stage broke into 2 early in the re-entry and that's why it came down quite far short of the predicted centre.

Ouch: ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

A steady state faster spinning earth wouldn't be too different. Apparent gravity at the equator would be lower, earth would be more oblate, and coriolis effects on wind and weather would be higher, and the natural cycles of lifeforms would be different. Possibly magnetic field would be stronger. An *accelerating* earth however would likely come with a lot of very not-fun mantle effects that could range from increased volcanic activity through total destruction of the crust.