Title: | Space Exploration |
Notice: | Shuttle launch schedules, see Note 6 |
Moderator: | PRAGMA::GRIFFIN |
Created: | Mon Feb 17 1986 |
Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
Number of topics: | 974 |
Total number of notes: | 18843 |
AW&ST of November 1 has an interesting article that Morton-Thiokol has succeeded in reproducing an SRB joint leak which is identical (as far as they can determine) to the one in the RH SRB which was responsible for the Challenger disaster. I believe they subjected the joint to 25 degree (Farenheit) temperatures and created some "blow holes" in the joint putty in order to simulate the conditions believed to exist before the STS-51L SRBs ignited. The test was done using a "short stack" with segments which are shorter than the operational ones, but with the same joint set-up (and same physical joint dimensions).
T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
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229.1 | Hurray for reproducing bugs | SKYLAB::FISHER | Burns Fisher 381-1466, ZKO1-1/D42 | Fri Nov 07 1986 12:39 | 10 |
Yes, that is great news. I, for one, don't feel comfortable saying that a bug is fixed until I can reproduce it on the original system, and not reproduce it on the fixed system. It is a bit spooky seeing the black smoke coming out of the joint in the picture, though. BTW, they only used a few hundred pounds of propellant, so I imagine the joint did not have time to actually burn through. I assume that it was enough to see that the o-rings leaked and burned. Burns |