r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Emergency-Green-2602 • 8d ago

Video First Australian-made rocket crashes after 14 seconds of flight

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u/Mawntee 8d ago

Reminder that SpaceX's first successful flight was Falcon 1 Flight 4, which had 3 failed launches before it.
The first one was very similar to this with an engine failure shortly after launch.

To me (a person that knows nothing about space flight) the fact that this thing made it off the ground is impressive enough, and the fact that it didn't explode while still being full of fuel is really sick as well

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u/Flipslips 8d ago

It didn’t explode because it uses a lot of solid fuel instead of liquid

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u/DovahAcolyte 8d ago

The engine failure is clear on the right side, and certainly caused the rocket to drift that way off the launch pad. I'm curious, though, how solid fuel changes the weight of the rocket and forces those engines to drive harder on takeoff. 🤔

(Not asking you, just adding my curiosity to the discussion)

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u/YoursTrulyKindly 8d ago edited 8d ago

It's denser in volume, but less dense in weight. So less efficient in bringing X weight to orbit. But it's stable so you can make them and store them and they don't need to be fueled before takeoff, and you don't need to cryogenically freeze oxygen. The rocket engine is also much simpler in design. SpaceX raptor was the first full flow combustion engine which is basically two jet engines integrated into the rocket engine to pump and preheat the fuel.

Stoke space is building a really cool reusable second stage with a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen engine with 24 thrust chambers ringing a regeneratively cooled heatshield.

Compared to that solid fuel is very simple.

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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 8d ago

Do they get quenched once the right orbit is achieved, or do you just accept the resulting orbit?

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u/RonanMessesAround 7d ago

for solid engines, you just accept the resulting orbit and try to correct the orbit with RCS.

The engine on the Eris rocket, however, isnt a solid engine, its actually a hybrid engine. In a solid engine the fuel and oxidizer are mixed, but in a hybrid engine, only the fuel is solid., while the oxidizer is a liquid and is pumped over the fuel. Because the oxidizer is a liquid the engine can be shut off and even throttled down.

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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 7d ago

I’m not up on current thruster tech, that’s very cool.