New Moon Rocket Damaged in Test Flight, NASA Says

[Newsbot]

NASA has discovered a large dent on its brand-new moon rocket after the booster splashed into the Atlantic Ocean this week.

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[sylvie369]

It's Florida - some senior citizen probably backed into it while trying to park at Sam's Club, and never realized it.

 

[MysticalRockets]

Yeah, that's a big dent. About the size of a VW Bug. Could have been caused by the chute deflating. or maybe something weird like it tumbled on separation into the next stage. We won't know until the film is viewed what caused it.

 

[powderburner]

I haven't really studied the recording closely, but it looked to me like after booster burnout the upper part of the stack folded back on itself. I sort of expected to see the upper stages remain pointing "ahead" and for the booster to separate and kinda slowly drop away, even if the upper stages were unpowered. Instead, it looked like the upper stages bent back onto the booster. The NASA channel only showed it for a second and then the screen went blank. Hmmm.

Did anyone else see that, or are my old eyeballs playing tricks on me?

 

[powderburner]

It's Florida - some senior citizen probably backed into it while trying to park at Sam's Club, and never realized it.

good one-

 

[Brent]

I watched it on my computer at work. The video was choppy but I think it was our internet. Anyway the separation did not look normal to me. I would have thought after the separation charges the dummy stage would have had enough velocity to keep going and not fold over.

 

[Peartree]

Some diiscussion of this in the Ares thread as well, particularly see George Gassaway's post (#107).

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=6773&page=4

 

[chrisudy]

Maybe NASA should have replaced the standard Estes shock cord with a longer one... :neener:

 

[tibadoe]

.........it looked to me like after booster burnout the upper part of the stack folded back on itself........Did anyone else see that, or are my old eyeballs playing tricks on me?

That's exactly what I saw and it didn't look right to me either........