[AR] Re: APCP properties, was Re: Re: starship abort?

  • From: "Bruno Berger" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bruno.berger")
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 09:28:01 +0200

Yes,  Flugwerft Schleissheim is a nice museum. The main museum in Munich city has also some nice artifacts. The exhibition has been renovated lately, not to the good though in my opinion.

The two engines of Europa's first stage are indeed Atlas engines build in license by Rolls Royce (The outside ones, not the central sustainer). 

Bruno

Am 28.04.2023 um 07:53 schrieb Ben Brockert:
Photos below:
The “Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleißheim” outside Munich is mostly an aircraft museum, but has a few interesting rocket parts at the very end. One is an Ariane 5 motor casing that has been cross sectioned, it was the 7 segment version. I placed a 1 euro coin on it for scale, 23.25mm/0.915in in diameter. According to the plaque, the sections were held together by a “clevis-tang joint” with 180 pins, and that they were formed on a “counterroller flow-turning machine” from a 58mm thick blank.
 They also have a nearly complete Europa rocket, which you can practically climb inside of. Not a particularly successful program, but still interesting to see the hardware up close. You definitely get the feeling that the Blue Streak first stage builders got a real good look at an Atlas at some point. 
The museum is easily reached by a 20 minute train ride from Munich and a 1.5km walk that goes through the local palace grounds, no need to have a car.

On Friday, April 28, 2023, Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, 28 Apr 2023, John Dom wrote:
Ariane 5 APCP boosters have been unsegmented. Cast in one piece. Saw the vertical casting setup in France which proved big...

Sure you're not thinking of the P80 first stage for Vega?  The Ariane 5 boosters are segmented -- three segments, joined at the launch site (originally bolted together, although midway through the program I believe they switched to welding them together).  Vega's P80 is basically a single Ariane 5 segment, although with a composite casing instead of a steel one, and for quite a while it was the world's largest (operational) unsegmented solid motor.

I do not know about coming Ariane 6's fabrication details. Nor about their internal geometries.

The Ariane 6 solids are identical to the P120C enlarged first stage built for the Vega C upgrade of Vega (and since it flew last summer, it now holds the largest-unsegmented record).

The Shuttle  boosters were segmented for ship transportation (size!) I read at the time.

Not ship, rail -- an SRB segment is about the largest load that can be carried on the US rail network.  (Long ago I visited the Cape, and while going from one place to another nearby, happened to see a railroad siding full of the special railcars used to carry the SRB segments.  They looked like tank cars at first glance, until you noticed the NASA logos and the labels...)

Henry

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