We apologize for the lack of timely updates. We should have one soon since ISDC is just around the corner. To tie you over here are some recent hold down test pictures:
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We apologize for the lack of timely updates. We should have one soon since ISDC is just around the corner. To tie you over here are some recent hold down test pictures:
Nice valves, Nice patina.
Does Airgas know what you are doing with their tanks?
Steve
Nice pics! Looks more complicated than I expected!
What is all the wiring? The red wires go all around the long way.
You also have the Lox enter the engine fixed tubing at the nozzle end of the engine where it goes to the top just via a tube? Is there no space for a flex hose on top of the engine?
Very interesting design decisions.
Mz,
Yeah, it’s ended up being a rather complicated vehicle in practice. We still have nothing on some of the stainless steel spaghetti you see on the big boys’ boosters. The wiring is Pierce’s baby, but I can say a little. Most of what you’re seeing on the front is high power lines going to the valve actuators, and low power signal lines coming back from the sensors mounted on the valve. The wires on the engine head itself are all the head end sensors. There are also some wires going out to the various solenoids and the hinge actuator. We’ve been somewhat constrained by the fact that we don’t have the time or money to completely redo some of the subsystems that are already good enough, so we have to route things in a way to deal with them as they are. When we go to do our next rev, we’ll probably be able to clean a lot of that up quite a bit.
As for the LOX tube, yeah there really isn’t a better way at this exact moment, due to how we did the trunion. Once again it falls under the category of something we generally know how to fix, but that we can’t do anything about until we do our next major engine rev (which will probably be when we do the 2-axis gimballed engine).
~Jon