On 11/05/16 06:46, Lloyd Droppers wrote:
If you are ever at Wallops, that water tower sticks out like a sore thumb and at least for me it messes up my sense of scale. Normal water towers, at least in the midwest, are about 150 ft tall, that tower is nearer 300 ft.Running a $500 pump for a few hours to fill a lump of concrete is a bunch more reliable and probably cheaper than building a pump to move that same amount of water in 50 seconds ;->
I have heard the tower height was so they don't have to pump the water but could just use the pressure head for the water deluge. I think that might be a sign wallops is more familiar with solid rockets than anything with a pump on it.
I hope the test goes well, and they are able to fly soon. I always like to see more rockets flying.
Lloyd
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 5:18 AM, William Claybaugh <wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:wclaybaugh2@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
The big water tank next to the pad will support up to 50 seconds
of firing.
Bill
On Tuesday, May 10, 2016, Paul Mueller <paul.mueller.iii@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:paul.mueller.iii@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Arocket has been kind of quiet lately so I thought I'd ask the
question: the latest version of the Antares rocket will be
doing a 30-second static firing test at Wallops in preparation
for its next launch.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/09/key-return-to-flight-milestone-looms-for-antares-rocket/
Seems like a long burn duration--presumably they've done the
analysis to show that the pad can handle that. Any thoughts?