The megarocket Nasa is developing to take man to Mars is so loud it could damage nearby buildings and even astronaut’s hearing when it takes off, the space agency has admitted.
Towering a staggering 384 feet tall, the Space Launch System (SLS) will provide 9.2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff and weigh 6.5 million pounds.
Nasa has been testing small scale versions of the rocket amid fears it could be too loud.
A 5-percent scale model, including solid rocket motors, of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) is ignited to test how low- and high-frequency sound waves will affect the rocket on the launch pad,’ the agency said. ‘The data collected from the tests will be used to help direct and verify the design of the rocket’s sound suppression system.’
Previous tests have shown that most of the acoustic energy being emitted from a rocket engines is concentrated in the low to mid frequency ranges.
‘This may have the potential to damage structures or harm personnel in the immediate vicinity of the test stand.’ a Nasa report warned.
The SLS is set to become the largest rocket ever built, dwarfing the rockets that took man to the moon and paving the way for manned missions to Mars.
Nasa today said it is about to start testing the engines for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket – on the same stand that were used to perfect the Apollo rockets. Four engines, a modified version of the space shuttle main engine that powered missions into space from 1981 to 2011, will be used on the mega-rocket.
‘This test series is a major milestone because it will be our first opportunity to operate the engine with a new controller and to test propellant inlet conditions for SLS that are different than the space shuttle,’ said Steve Wofford, SLS Liquid Engines Element manager.
Earlier this year Nasa signed a $2.8 billion contract with Boeing to build the giant rocket it is hoped will take us into deep space.
‘Our teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring that the Space Launch System (SLS) – the largest ever – will be built safely, affordably and on time,’ said Virginia Barnes, Boeing SLS vice president and program manager.
‘We are passionate about NASA’s mission to explore deep space.
‘It’s a very personal mission, as well as a national mandate.’
This milestone marks NASA’s first CDR on a deep-space human exploration launch vehicle since 1961, when the Saturn V rocket underwent a similar design review as the United States sought to land an astronaut on the moon.
Scheduled for its initial test flight in 2017, the SLS is designed to be flexible and evolvable to meet a variety of crew and cargo mission needs.
The initial flight-test configuration will provide a 77-ton capacity, and the final evolved two-stage configuration will provide a lift capability of more than 143 tons. The rocket will be used to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and to help us explore the outer reaches of the solar system.
‘The potential use of SLS for science will further enhance the synergy between scientific exploration and human exploration,’ said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. ‘SLS has the promise of enabling transformational science in our exploration of the solar system and cosmos.’
Currently under construction, NASA’s Space Launch System will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle.Designed to enable human exploration missions to deep space destinations, including an asteroid and Mars, SLS is working toward a first launch in 2017. For that first flight test, the rocket will be able to launch 70 metric tons (77 tons) of payload into low-Earth orbit, almost three times what the space shuttle could carry.
From there, SLS will be evolved to a configuration that will be able to carry 130 metric tons (143 tons), more weight than any rocket ever has been able to carry.
‘While many people think of the Space Launch System in terms of human exploration, SLS could have a wide application in a lot of other areas, including space science,” said Steve Creech, assistant program manager for strategy and partnerships for SLS.
‘For missions to the outer planets, for example, SLS could make it possible to do things that are currently impossible, such as sending larger scientific spacecraft with more instruments to far off destinations with reduced transit times.’
Agency scientific and engineering teams have been evaluating whether there would be potential benefits from launching deep space robotic spacecraft, such as the Europa Clipper, a proposed mission to one of Jupiter’s icy moons, on the SLS rocket, and determined the rocket would enable the spacecraft to fly direct trajectories to our solar system’s outer planets, rather than using planetary gravities to gain speed, reducing transit time compared to current launch vehicles. In the case of the Europa Clipper, for example, the transit time would be reduced to less than half of what it would be using other launch vehicles.
‘For as long as people have been launching rockets into space, mission designers have had to work within certain limitations – a spacecraft can only be so heavy and it has to fit within a certain width,” Creech said. ‘Depending on how large you make it, it can only go so fast, which in some cases limits where you can go.
‘Today, if you want to send a mission to the outer planets, you have to be able to make it fit within that box. With SLS, we’re about to make that box much larger.
‘With the space shuttle, for example, we were able to launch missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope that were about the size of a school bus. ‘With SLS, you can design a spacecraft even larger than the space shuttle that carried Hubble. ‘It’s going to open up an entirely new way of thinking about how we plan and design planetary science missions.’
‘The Space Launch System could be really game-changing for space science,” said ACO manager Reggie Alexander.
‘For some missions, it makes it much easier and quicker to carry them out. ‘A Mars sample return mission, for example, could be flown using only one rocket instead of three.’But for other destinations, SLS lets you do things we could only dream of before – like collecting samples from the geysers of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.’
[Original article by Mark Prigg here]
Image Credit: NASA