SuzukiSavage.com - Space Shuttle Main Engine Test

Sonny

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Space Shuttle Main Engine Test
08/13/15 at 23:12:11

I love this kind of power. NASA tested an updated controller on one of the remaining RS-25 SSME's today at Stennis. Man, those things just go and go.

Video: http://www.space.com/30254-nasa-tests-new-brain-for-old-rs-25-rocket-engine-v...

Digger could confirm this, but I don't think the Space Shuttle ever had a main engine failure. Amazing when you consider the forces and pressures involved.

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Dave YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline SuzukiSavage.com Rocks! Posts: 18098 Camp Springs, Kentucky Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #1 - 08/14/15 at 03:42:45 Pretty cool....... Does the EPA make them use that crappy E10 fuel?
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Sonny

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Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test
Reply #2 - 08/14/15 at 04:04:51

Dave wrote on 08/14/15 at 03:42:45:

Pretty cool.......

Does the EPA make them use that crappy E10 fuel? Huh

No way, daddy-o, that's liquid hydrogen and LOX burning there... nothing coming out of that nozzle but heat and water vapor. And for all the cleanliness of the fuel, incredible energy density. The only drawback is, it's expensive to produce and hard to handle. Otherwise, we'd be running our scooters on it... Cool

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Dave

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Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test
Reply #3 - 08/14/15 at 04:49:48

Yea....I know the shuttle is LOX and Hydrogen - I just hated to miss an opportunity to take a shot a the EPA and their ethanol mandate.

Looking at the vapor trail from that engine, it is obvious the end result of the combustion process is just water vapor.....and there is no need for an EPA mandated catalytic converter (another shot a the EPA).

I wonder how far from the nozzle the exhaust temperature drops below scorching hot? With water vapor being the only exhaust product....it would seem the exhaust would cool pretty quickly.

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verslagen1 YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Posts: 28884 L.A. California Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #4 - 08/14/15 at 07:40:26 Pretty sure they're burning hydrazine.
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LANCER Serious Thumper Alliance Member Offline Savage Beast Performance Parts Posts: 10661 Oklahoma Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #5 - 08/14/15 at 08:23:32 Do you think I could stuff this into my '96 Savage frame ? ? Light up my life baby !!!!
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Dave YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline SuzukiSavage.com Rocks! Posts: 18098 Camp Springs, Kentucky Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #6 - 08/14/15 at 08:44:35 verslagen1 wrote on 08/14/15 at 07:40:26: Pretty sure they're burning hydrazine. Is that liquid Hydrogen with 10% ethanol added so that NASA is "green"?
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verslagen1 YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Posts: 28884 L.A. California Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #7 - 08/14/15 at 09:18:59 Dave wrote on 08/14/15 at 08:44:35: verslagen1 wrote on 08/14/15 at 07:40:26: Pretty sure they're burning hydrazine. Is that liquid Hydrogen with 10% ethanol added so that NASA is "green"? WWII rocket fuel, definitely not green. LH would be green, but not as powerful. I wonder if there's a LENR fuel.
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verslagen1 YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Posts: 28884 L.A. California Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #8 - 08/14/15 at 09:20:54 LANCER wrote on 08/14/15 at 08:23:32: Do you think I could stuff this into my '96 Savage frame ? ? Light up my life baby !!!! There's been a couple of pulse jets strapped to bicycles.
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Kris01 Serious Thumper Offline Eat, sleep, RIDE! Posts: 3767 Tennessee Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #9 - 08/14/15 at 10:51:23 I've often wondered how these things don't end up as a puddle on the floor. The heat must be intense!
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verslagen1 YaBB Moderator ModSquad Offline Where there's a will, I want to be in it. Posts: 28884 L.A. California Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #10 - 08/14/15 at 11:49:54 Kris01 wrote on 08/14/15 at 10:51:23: I've often wondered how these things don't end up as a puddle on the floor. The heat must be intense! They spray a lot of water into the flame trail.
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Sonny

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Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test
Reply #11 - 08/14/15 at 11:57:51

I've often wondered how these things don't end up as a puddle on the floor. The heat must be intense!

The nozzle is cooled by letting some pressure off the liquid oxygen, which has already been supercooled to get it into a dense liquid state, and circulating it through tubing wrapped around the nozzle before it goes to the combustion chamber, cooling it, same as the way your AC works -- Bernoulli's Principle. Compression makes heat, reducing pressure cools. You can see the tubing there on the outside of the nozzle. The system is designed so the rate of cooling is ferocious.

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Kris01 Serious Thumper Offline Eat, sleep, RIDE! Posts: 3767 Tennessee Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #12 - 08/14/15 at 12:26:12 One small LOX leak and the whole thing becomes a Roman candle!
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Sonny Full Member Offline DeSoto, TX Posts: 224 Gender:	Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test Reply #13 - 08/14/15 at 12:31:20 verslagen1 wrote on 08/14/15 at 07:40:26: Pretty sure they're burning hydrazine. No, Vers, hydrazine is a monopropellant (doesn't require mixing w/ a separate oxidizer) used in thrusters and also was used to run the APUs on the Shuttle. It is nasty, toxic stuff.
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dontwannapickle

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Re: Space Shuttle Main Engine Test
Reply #14 - 08/16/15 at 08:13:43

Yep, SSME fuel is hydrogen and oxygen. In addition to providing ground support acquiring data for every Shuttle flight since the second one, I was fortunate to be able to digitize the flight data from the Shuttle's on-board recorder for the whole time the Shuttle flew. One of the things my customers were concerned about was the health of the turbo-pumps that supplied the fuel to the engines in order to decide if the engines were suitable for reflight or needed rebuilding. There are vibration sensors around the perimeter of the pumps and if there was a noise spike in the sound spectrum they could tell which bearing was going bad by the frequency of the noise. (Sorta like how some of y'all can tell the state of your cam-chain tensioner by feeling the vibes coming from the engine cover with your heel.)

I recall that there were a couple times that an engine was shutdown early, but it happened late enough in the powered portion of the flight that the Shuttle was able to still make it to orbit with the remaining engines. Of course, there were many times the engines failed or indicated failure and thus launches were aborted due to engine problems. There were never any catastrophic SSME failures, though.

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