STS-125 Atlantis Shuttle Canada Arm Earth Fuel Tank Orbit Decaying

[PhantomDrums917]

Very cool choice of music.

[Goodywagon]

Space cock!

[CodeGreen47]

does it totally get ripped apart so nothing lefts of it, or it falls back to the ground with damage?

[hatanka]

Is there any video of tank burning???

[ricjuk]

why can't they keep the camera inside the ET rolling until burn up? that would be some amazing footage and i'm surprised in the 30 year history of the space shuttle program it's never been done!

[onefugowie]

IS THERE ANY FOOTAGE OUT THERE OF THE TANK BREAKING UP ON THE WAY DOWN

ANY BODY???

[ApolloWasReal]

@onefugowie There is footage taken from the ground of an ET breaking and burning up on re-entry.

[xXFullmedal57Xx]

FLYING TURD.......anybody? anybody? no? guess its just me then.

[kurnellampdwarf]

@xXFullmedal57Xx LOL

[Oilfix]

My idea to cap the Gulf leak: use one of the external fuel tanks that are used to launch the space shuttle, Cut the bottom of the fuel tank off. This would be the part to sit down over top of the leak on the ocean floor. The top could be adapted and serve as a funnel which would have a pipe welded to it and ran to the ships above. The large pipe would slow the velocity of the oil coming out making it more manageable and better insure that the pipe would stay connected to the make-shift cap.

[rmt3786]

are there any videos of it ACTUALLY breaking up?

[SSN760]

The reason why it burns up on the way down and not during the trip up is part due to the speed involved, and the aerodynamic forces involved.

With downward acceleration due to gravity being about 9.8 meters per second, the speed keeps getting higher as the tank falls to Earth.

With the tank tumbling, it presents a larger surface area for the heat to attack, due to friction between the air and the tank.

It would be neat to see how big of a structure could be made, if the old ETs were kept...

[pianofinger64]

it really pisses me off that NASA has to black out all the surfaces that are around the earth, because we HUMANS might see the real truth of

whats out/up there along side the ISS

[karlrob76]

EPIC FAIL, trolltard

[oldnotweak]

@pianofinger64 they didnt black anything out in this video the earth is just too bright to see the stars

[abbasean]

@SSN760 Is it possible that fuel talk hits the metro area and killing several people?

[ApolloWasReal]

@SSN760 All launchers, not just the shuttle, fly a trajectory that takes them above most of the atmosphere before they build up most of their orbital velocity. That's why they don't burn up on ascent. Even so, some heating and charring of the leading edges still occurs; you can see it on the leading tip of the ET (not to be confused with the marks on the side due to the SRB separation rockets) and also on the leading tips of air-lit SRBs on Delta II.

[alexanderthewraith]

Looks like a giant dildo falling from heaven! LOL!

It would suck if it landed on my head!

Good thing they got the self-destruct mechanism rigged up to it!

[um4kemyd4y]

@alexanderthewraith ahahahahahahahah

[stevo7470]

I always assumed it burned up!

[jonesy97]

We need a way to get that thing to land in Ahghanistan. Entertain the troops for a change.

[skateboy159]

why dont it burn up goin into space?

[deefstes]

That's pretty cool. Would've loved to see the ultimate demise of the ET.

Now for a questions that's probably got a very straight forward answer but can someone tell me why the ET is NOT reused while all other components (including SRB's) are reused?

[MountThor]

It's likely that the main reason that it's not reusable is that it attains an altitude of sufficient distance from the earth as to leave the atmosphere but not enough to obtain an orbit thus it must renter the atmosphere. In order to reenter the earths atmosphere unscathed and intact enough for refurbishing it would need to have heat shields made of metal or of ceramic tiles, both of which would add critical mass upsetting the balance of the shuttle design. Thus it's throw away.

[MountThor]

"The ET is jettisoned just over 10 seconds after MECO (Main Engine Cut Off), where the SSMEs are shut down, and re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. Unlike the Solid Rocket Boosters, external tanks are not reusable. They break up before impact in the Indian Ocean (or Pacific Ocean in the case of direct-insertion launch trajectories, which are currently utilized) away from known shipping lanes."

[MountThor]

"The solid rocket boosters simply lift the external tank with the shuttle in the lower part of the atmosphere. Much of the thrust is simply lifting the propellant and structure (SRB's and ET). The ET separates from Shuttle about 30 sec after Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) at an altitude of ~120 km. ... About 125 seconds after launch and at an altitude of about 150,000 feet, the SRB's burn out and are jettisoned from the ET. "

[MountThor]

"The SRB's continue to ascend in a slow, tumbling motion for about 75 seconds after SRB separation, to a maximum altitude of about 220,000 feet. The SRB's then begin to quickly fall toward the Atlantic Ocean."

[MountThor]

"The Main External Tank cannot be returned to Earth for reuse on later launches because it cannot be returned without burning up in Earth's atmosphere, unlike the Boosters which detach themselves early before high speeds are attained. ... "

[MountThor]

"This wasteful procedure will eventually change. The questions are "when?" and "by who?" NASA has offered to deliver its tank to orbit for free to any entity capable of handling it properly.

The external tank represents a potential payload which weighs more than the maximum launch capacity in the Space Shuttle's cargo bay. "

[MountThor]

"NASA has stated what is needed to utilize the tanks, e.g., a system to collect the tanks and control them so that they don't become a hazard, a way to pump the residual fuel out of the tanks, a way to outfit the tanks with the desired contents (by teleoperated robots or human extravehicular activity), and various infrastructure. NASA is not willing to launch the material to be moved inside the tank, but is willing only to give an empty tank which anyone can dock with later, on their own."

[MountThor]

NASA is not willing to devote much shuttle astronaut time or resources on behalf of the tank client, and any client requests to the manufacturer of the tank to redesign the tank must not entail any risk to the mission at all, i.e., probably no significant redesigns of the tank will be acceptable. "

[MountThor]

deefstes that was a great question as I learned something about their potential plans to reuse the ET rather than just toss it away! Very cool....

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

Since "reduce" isn't much of an option (although they've done that by lowering the ET mass) it's "reuse" and "recycle" that could be the play of the day for the ET and other "discarded" fuel tanks and rocket stages in the future.

[MountThor]

Thanks to "permanent [period] com [back slash] ext-tank [period] h t m" for a number of the above quotes.

Remove the spaces and type the characters for the stuff in square brackets. Darn you tube doesn't provide links in comments. Sigh.

[danschaoticmind]

Another interesting thing, and I just felt it would be an interesting factoid, the external fuel tank has minor explosive charges rigged to it so that if the trajectory brings it over populous or shipping lanes, it can be blown up so that the tank disintegrates in the atmosphere. I found this out during a number of surveys (for sig analysis) for job opportunities in Nasa. Neat stuff huh?

[MountThor]

Ka boom! A great big Ka Boom!!!

[ApolloWasReal]

@danschaoticmind The ET used to have a destruct system, but it was completely removed starting with STS-88.

[danschaoticmind]

@ApolloWasReal Yeah. There's no mention of the Charges anymore as of the 2005 Flight director handbook revisions.

[ApolloWasReal]

The ET here is not in a "decaying orbit" as it never enters orbit to begin with. Both it and the orbiter are in a long suborbital arc at separation. Then the orbiter performs a burn with its OMS engines to give it the small extra velocity needed to enter orbit while the tank continues on to re-enter and burn up over the Indian or Pacific oceans. That's why there's no footage of a re-entering tank from the orbiter; it's too far away by the time that happens.

[danschaoticmind]

@ApolloWasReal Tracking. Spiffy tidbits of information.

[deefstes]

Awesome stuff, thanks for all the detailed answers.

[saggenbendavis]

Neat stuff. What was the name of the audio again?

[MountThor]

Sorry I forgot and youtube doesn't remember that for us. Sigh.

[MountThor]

Hey, thanks....

[TallSky]

Awesome!