Uwe:
The limiting factor that led to segmented boosters was the maximum batch
size for solid propellant production which was around 100 tonnes through
the mid-1990’s.
As I recall—I was last at Kourou 20 years ago—the then plan was move to
continuous processing.
Bill
On Sun, Feb 4, 2018 at 2:12 AM Uwe Klein <uwe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Am 04.02.2018 um 01:38 schrieb Henry Spencer:
The whole thing quietly died after Challenger, partly because the USAF
(the folks with the heavy polar-orbit payloads) lost interest in using
the shuttle, and partly because the new emphasis on safety discouraged
unnecessary major changes to flight-critical fault-intolerant hardware
like the SRBs.
Any idea how ArianeSpace solved this issue on the ArianeV SRBs ?
A 3 segment assembly that seems to have changed over to e-beam welding
in 2005/6
( https://www.google.com/search?q=ariane+welded+booster+joints ;)
Uwe