Moment of ignition for the latest SpaceX Merlin 1D engine test in McGregor, Texas.
Here’s the video and photo sequence below. We had a great angle for the big bada boom.
11 responses to “Boom!”
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Awesome power. Nothing beat H2 LOx…….Well maybe H2 F2 , but who wants to deal with that nasty stuff.
But the water is for sonic shock control more than cooling, right? That motor would disintegrate subject to the sonic shock wave without the water to dampen it. Shuttle motors had the same system, but it also scrubbed the HCl plume from the solid motors.
What is the green in the ignition sequence. BKNO3 igniter? Maybe just a light in the plume?
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rocketmavericks, that’s probably the TEA-TEB igniter slug, hypergolic with oxygen.
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Explosions are just so satisfying to watch.
Perks of my job aswell, but ours are normally a little bigger and dustier, but not as cool looking or as controlled. -
This shouldn’t have been visible from my vantage point, 500m away and down the hill. It was meant to be a small trench shot, but, yeah, you can see it wasn’t.
To be honest, I have no idea what the go is here. I can’t see why the blast needed to be so big, but as it was another part of the job I wasn’t involved with, I could never find out what happened.
If you look closely, you can see fly rock that would have to weigh the better part of 100Kg a piece.Like I said, yours are normally controlled a little better 🙂
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The mother of all explosions……Henderson NV Ammonium Perchlorate plant goes up.
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