Eclipse.....

[WARP TEN]

Originally Posted by Paul Workman

Just 89.2% here. Cleaned the lens on my arch welding helmet, folding chairs at the ready, counting down the minutes...a friggin thunder shower moved in - couldn't see a bit of the eclipse - just got a little darker is all... Rats. Well, it did clear off in time to see the last 1/4 of the eclipse disappear. Big let-down....

Ha Ha--I knew I wasn't the only guy using welding goggles! (photos courtesy of my wife who thought I was nuts). We had about the same coverage as Paul and some clouds, but the clouds thinned enough from time to time to allow a view of the eclipse. Quite a sight. As was I. --Bob

[Tripler]

Those goggles suit you Bob



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[Tripler]

[A1990]

Photo credit to Locobob


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[Paul Workman]

Originally Posted by A1990

Grand island NE


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Wow! Very nice, Dennis!!!

[Tripler]

Originally Posted by A1990

Photo credit to Locobob


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Will you guys stop it . This site is becoming comedy central and my sides can't take the pain of laughing anymore ...
[emoji6] [emoji6] [emoji6]

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[Paul Workman]

Originally Posted by WARP TEN

Ha Ha--I knew I wasn't the only guy using welding goggles! (photos courtesy of my wife who thought I was nuts). We had about the same coverage as Paul and some clouds, but the clouds thinned enough from time to time to allow a view of the eclipse. Quite a sight. As was I. --Bob

Very nice, Bob! I think I'll insert that picture on my phone, next to your name.

[ZR1North]

Totaled Eclipse - that is priceless!

[Hog]

With the welding helmets be sure to use a #16 or better filter, if you can see any light through the filter when are NOT looking at the Sun, its not enough.
All I had were #9s and #1-s so I doubled up on 9's.


We got 73% up here.


Someone mentioned the 2024 event its 100% for me then.













By the time that eclipse happens, we will have had 2 more Winter Olympics and 1 Summer Olympics(with the 2nd occurring months post eclipse).


The new Space L:aunch System should have flown 2 Lunar missions by then. One in 2019 unmanned and one in 2022 or 2023 with humans to the Moon and back. Simple circumlunar ,missions like Apollo-10, but near as close to the surface.




In 2018 there will be 4 RS25/Space Shuttle Main Engines mounted together on an SLS core stage and they will be "green run" (hot tested for the first time) as a quartet at 109% Rated Performance Level. During Shuttle missions, the RS25s were throttled at 100% as Shuttle came off the padm then went to 104.5% as it cleared the tower, then throttled back to 86-72% for maximum dynamic pressure(breaking sound barrier) then vback up to 104.5% for the rest of the nominal 8:30 burn, only throttling down again to stay within 3g acceleration limits for Shuttle structural and Astro comfort levels. 3 g throttling occurred with about a minute to go before MECO(main Engine Cut Off).
This green run at Stennis SPace Center will be the first time that the RS-25 will be fired in a group of 4. After the green run, it will be barged aboard the newly jumboized Pegasus barge to Kennedy Space Center for final stacking at the VAB(Vehicle Assembly Building).
Aside from the 4 liquid RS25 engines, SLS will use very similar Solid Rocket Boosters(SRBs) that Shuttle used, except that Shuttles were shorter 4 segment and SLS will use longer 5 segment SRBs that were designed to increase Shuttle payloads by 20,000lbs, or would have allowed Shuttle to reach polar orbits from KSC by using a dog leg trajectory to get out over the Atlantic and avoid land masses then, head South for a polar orbit. Vandenberg was to be a Polar Shuttle launch facility, but Challenger incident occurred and ended that idea after $4 billion had already be spent at SLS-6 in California. Discover was scheduled to launch to the South from California only months after Challenger launched.
These 5 segment SLS SRBs are the most powerful engines ever built by mankind. They will be disposable and not reusable like they were with STS(Space Transportation System). The 4 RS25 engines will also drop into the sea as they will not be reused. The 4 segment Shuttle thrust levels of 3.2 million pounds will be increased up to 3.8 million pounds per booster for approx. 7.2 million pounds of thrust from the solid engines alone.
Since the 4 RS25 liquid engines will be operated at 109% Rated Performance Level(RPL) instead of 104.5% like they were on nominal Shuttle missions with 107% available for Abort modes and 109% available for Contingency Aborts, the RS25 will output more power than has ever been asked of the engines.






Currently NASA has 16 RS25s in its arsenal. 14 with multiple flight experience during STS, one built in 2010 while STS was still alive(ME-2062), and they built another out of parts in 2014 ME-2063.
Here is a 2 minute video of the guys at Aerojet/Rocketdyne building ME-2063 in 2014.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtE_61ZR67Y






So this leaves 16 engines for SLS usage, enough for 4 launches. NASA has contracted AJ/Rocketdyne for more RS-25 engines, but they wont be the reusable RS25-Ds that shuttle used, they will be a RS-25-E or RS-25-F model designed for single use only. The original RS-25-Ds were designed for 50 starts, these new disposable versions SHOULD be less expensive.


NASA has started testing a new RS25 controller and since the new SLS rocket has more head pressure from its larger liquid Oxygen and Liquid Hydrogen tanks, new fuel feeding strategies were needed and these new parts required testing. For the last few years RS25 testing on the old Development Engines DE-0525 and DE-0528 have been regularly firing at Stennis to test all thee new components.
With the new 5 segment SRBs and the RS25's now thrusting at 109%RPL(producing around 500,000lbs of thrust off the pad-each for roughly 2million pounds of thrust, the SLS rocket will be the most powerful rocket ever to be launched. With approx. just over 9 million pounds of thrust off the pad. Just for comparison, the 5 Rocketdyne F-1 liquid engines that burned Liquid Oxygen and RP-1(high grade highly refined Kerosene). Each F-1 engine made 1,522,000 pounds of thrust off the pad, which made the Saturn V have an off the pad thrust level of 7,610,000lbs of thrust.
The F-1s are an excellent booster engine which do their best off the pad for the first minute of 2 of launch, then they are jettisoned for something that has a better Specific Impulse (ISP). Specific Impulse is the measure of efficiency of jet or rocket engines. It measures how much thrust per unit of propellant is attained.
Because the F-1 engine uses massive amounts of energy dense Kerosene it can produce massive amounts of thrust, but it has an ISP of 263 off the pad and 304 in vacuum. Once the heavy lifting is done, the 1st stage is jettisoned and the 4 J-2 engines which use cryogenic Oxygen and Hydrogen with an ISP of 200 secs at Sea level and 421seconds in a vacuum.
Then we have the RS-25 which was known as the SPace Shuttle Main Engine(SSME). When used on the Shuttle it made 418,000lbs of thrust off the pad and 512,000lbs in a vacuum. Not nearly as powerful as the Saturn Vs F-1 of which each engine made 5 times the RS25's power. This is why STS used the 2 large Solid Rocket Boosters for the first 122 seconds of flight, then were discarded. Due to the fact that the RS25 was firing from liftoff(on the pad/sea level) until orbital velocity was reached (17,500mph) some 8:30 later it had to have some very special qualities. It is known as a sustainer engine. It works with the boosters during launch and then SUSTAINS that thrust through its large Specific impulse for the next 5 minutes of acceleration. The RS25 has to be effectoive at sealevel AND at orbital velocity. This required a special engine bell/cooling system/closed cycle system(all products are combusted where open cycles engines simply dump them overboard-losing efficiency.
The RS25 has an ISP of 266seconds off the pad and 452 seconds in a vacuum. It is a very efficient sustainer engine. As the fuel burned out of the external tank as the RS25s were thrusting at 104.5%, the throttles had to be cut to keep the Orbiter from destroying itself as those 3 engines were pushing so hard. In the SLS system, 4 of them will be used, instead of 3 and instead of the STS 104.5%, the quartet will be firing at 109% the whole way.
The RS25 engine has over 2 million seconds of hot fire experience on it as a system. That's over 23 days straight of RS25 firing if it was all added up. There was only a single RS25 incident during STS-93, the center engine went out as a sensor improperly shut it down. The mission was a success, though this was the only time an Abort To Orbit abort mode was used in all of the STS launches. Out of 135 launches using 405 engines, that's a 99.8% reliability rating. And in reality, the engine itself was just fine, a faulty sensor did shut it down.




Here is a picture comparing the Saturn V, STS, Ares 1 and Ares V(the cancelled Constellation program rockets) alongside SLS Block 1 and SLS Block 2 rockets.







Since the new SLS rocket will be using those longer 5 segment SRB's which are freaking heavy and because the Mobil Launch Platform(MLP- the actual pad that is transported from the VAB to the launch complex) has had a very large and heavy framework of Access Towers. One of the duo of Crawler Transporters has been rebuilt with stronger bearings and drive components to increase it lifting capacity from 12,000,000 pounds up to 18,000,000 pounds for SLS.


One of the Crawler Transporters without a Mobile Launcher Platform on top.















Here is an MLP with the Saturn V's Launch Umbilical Tower installed. The good thing about liquid engines is that they can be fueled at the pad. STS and SLS uses the solid rocket boosters which cannot be fueled at the pad. That means that the entire mass of the SRBs must be lifted and hauled from the VAB to LC-39B. Which is why one of the Crawler Transporters had to be upgraded from a 12 million pound capacity Crawler, to a 18 million pound capacity "Super Crawler".

















As you can see the MLP with its SLS access strongback installed and the Super Crawler parked to its immediate right.











And here is Pegasus after her jumboisation. She was used to transport Shuttle External Tanks, but was deemed too small for her new duties of transporting the core stage of SLS(that tells you just how big SLS is) She is now a full 50 feet longer(260ft to 310ft) so that the core stage and 4 RS25 engines of SLS will fit inside her.

















Lots and lots of exciting things to happen before that 2024 eclipse. Not tomention, another iteration of the RPO code "ZR1". Yeeehaw!!!!

[SAB]

And hopefully I will be retired by 2024.