At 01:42 PM 10/2/2004, Robert Rolf wrote:

>Dave VanHorn wrote:
>>>Space Shuttle:  
>>>What's the purpose of the spark shower around the main engines during launch?
>>>Is this to prevent gas build up or does this actually light the thing off?
>>Both, I think.  You wouldn't want a pool of H2/O2 mixture to suddenly ignite.
>>The scary failure is one SRB failing to light. 
>
>Fortunately they do a have safety mechanism for that.
>The on board flight control computers (majority vote)
>can blow off the top of the active booster and it
>then sits on the pad as a roman candle, having no effective
>thrust. I imagine that the gantry doesn't melt because
>most of the energy is then expended upwards.

Cool!

I've seen this sort of failure in HPR motors, but we don't usually take that well, since the top of the motor is inside the airframe..  Bottom closure failures usually kick out the propellant core, and sometimes it even goes out!  

We use the same propellant as the shuttle.

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