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| Name | Apollo's Ascent Engine: The Unsung hero |
| Video Uploader | Video From SPACE EVENTS |
| Upload Date | This Video Uploaded At 25-04-2020 09:50:56 |
| Video Discription | Apollo's Ascent Engine: The Unsung hero Imagine yourself walking on the surface of the moon, doing all the most important work, and surely having some fun, walking around, jumping around driving around too, falling around. and then going back to the lunar module to fire the ascent engine which will get u off the moon surface and put u in orbit where the command module will take back to the earth(home sweet home), and at that time the most important countdown of your life begins....the countdown which will turn on the ascent engine and if it works u live else u die.... most ppl think that Neil Armstrong's setting a foot on the moon was historical and important moment but actually when they lifted off from moon was the most imp moment Even President Nixon had a note ready if in case the astronauts cannot come back. so how would u design an engine which has to fire with absolute reliability, I mean every engine was ultra-critical and had to fire for the right time with right thrust. all the engines needed to work perfectly but if other engines would fail there would always be a contingency/backup/fallback plan in place. However with the ascent engine, if it fails to fire there will be no contingency plan, the mission will be doomed and the astronauts will be stranded. The question is how would you design an engine which has to fire every time it is operated. You can not use motors, pumps or ignitor, etc as they are a complex piece of equipment which needs many things to work perfectly for them to work. So if any of the things stop working that will lead to the failure of the whole equipment. whatever you design it has to be in its simplest form possible as it had to be failproof. Moreover, the surface of the moon is very hot the temperature is 127 degrees c at day and -173 degrees c at night thus it was important that the design be as simple as it can to avoid any failures due to the moon dust or the temperature and pressure difference on the moon. The engine needed to work with absolute reliability. Even astronauts on moon would not be able to fix anything if anything is broken as in case of today's ISS missions because To get the weight of the ascent stage as low as possible before liftoff the crew tossed their PLSS (Portable Life Support System) backpacks through the open hatch and onto the lunar surface. Without these backpacks, they had no way to perform any further EVAs. It wouldn’t matter, because the ascent engine was inaccessible while the LM was on the moon, so there wasn’t much they could have done anyway. so scientists came up with the simple but effective formula of hypergolic propellants. they used a rocket fuel and an oxidizer which would ignite instantly as soon as they came in contact with each other. The propellant valves enabled the two propellants to mix in the engine’s combustion chamber. the propellants were forced into the engine with pressurized helium and would ignite instantly. The fuel was so corrosive that at the end of the test each engine had to be rebuilt. it meant a final assembly of the engine cud never be tested. The first time they will fire would be fired on moon. The sheer thought of sending an untested engine to the surface moon give the NASA engineers sleepless nights. and that also in one of the main engine which doesnt have any fallback plan. As if this was not enough.....when apollo 11 was just going to take off from moon, Aldrin accidentally damaged the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for liftoff from the Moon. There was a concern this would prevent firing the engine, stranding them on the Moon. A felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch; had this not worked, the LM circuitry could have been reconfigured to allow firing the ascent engine. So a tip of the pen was used to activate switch. As it turned out all the engines fired and worked flawlessly every time with no problem. And was responsible to get 12 astronauts back home from the moon. Music: https://www.purple-planet.com |
| Category | Science & Technology |
| Tags | Apollo | Apollo11 | Ascent Engine | Lunar Module | Lunar | Moon | Hypergolic |
