Posted by Davin Flateau on 13 Jul 2005 at 1:04 pm.
Filed under Astronomy.
Spaceflightnow posted this update about exactly what the misbehaving sensor on Disocvery does.
The problem involves the engine cutoff sensors that serve as fuel guages in the external tank.
“We really don’t want the engine to be running at high speed and suddenly run out of fuel. That can lead to a devastating breakdown of the engine, even uncontained failure of the engine if that should happen. Therefore, we have four sensors on the vehicle and it requires two of those to detect a low-level fuel in order to cut off the engines early before they would run out. This only comes into play in special conditions on the ascent, not a nominal ascent, so it’s essentially a backup for a backup situation,” astronaut Dave Wolf said.
“Even though the odds of needing this sensor are low, very low, in the proper spirit of safety to any really feasible or projectable failure we want a full system, certainly at the point of launch.”
