APOD: Discovery s Dawn (2010 Apr 09)

[APOD Robot]

Discovery s Dawn

Explanation: On April 5, visitors to Kennedy Space Center saw these colorful clouds, twisting and drifting through dawn skies. Of course, the clouds were rocket engine plumes from the predawn launch of the space shuttle Discovery on the STS-131 mission to the International Space Station. Their layered colors are created as they reflect the reddened light from the still rising Sun. Fittingly, denizens of the space center's rocket garden are lit in the foreground. At the far left is a 1960s vintage multistage Atlas-Agena rocket. Together on the right, are Mercury-Redstone and Mercury-Atlas rockets.

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[owlice]

The clouds look (nearly) like tragedy and comedy masks.

Cool shot!

[biddie67]

The clouds look (nearly) like tragedy and comedy masks.

They do!! I didn't see that on my first look - I just saw all the colors so I went back to look again - good imagining!

But I did notice something else - are those antenas on top of the 2 rockets on the right? If so, what are they used for?

[bystander]

my favorite is here.

[Chris Peterson]

But I did notice something else - are those antenas on top of the 2 rockets on the right? If so, what are they used for?

Those are separate rockets attached above the manned capsules atop these rockets. They were intended to be used as part of a jettisoning system to separate the capsule from the primary rocket in the event of a launch failure. Fortunately, they never had to be used- most analyses suggest that the system probably would not have been able to save the astronauts.

[Chris Peterson]

This is a closer view of the escape tower and Mercury capsule. You can see the three thrust nozzles on the solid fuel rocket.

escape.jpg (19.51 KiB) Viewed 1402 times

I remember when I was a little kid, building plastic models of all these early rockets and capsules. Those little escape towers, made from cheap styrene, were really fragile!

[biddie67]

Thanks for the info. I'm assuming that the little red solid fuel rocket was susposed to pull the manned capsule away from the primary rocket ?? I'm surprised that the forces involved in the launch didn't twist, torque, bend and/or snap that framework off ..... or even cause some kind of guidance problems.

Was that part jettisoned after the manned capsule was safely away from the primary rocket? I don't ever remember seeing it in any of the pictures of the recovery after the manned capsule returned to earth.

[Chris Peterson]

Thanks for the info. I'm assuming that the little red solid fuel rocket was susposed to pull the manned capsule away from the primary rocket ?? I'm surprised that the forces involved in the launch didn't twist, torque, bend and/or snap that framework off ..... or even cause some kind of guidance problems.

Was that part jettisoned after the manned capsule was safely away from the primary rocket? I don't ever remember seeing it in any of the pictures of the recovery after the manned capsule returned to earth.

IIRC the escape tower was meant to be used before launch, or very shortly thereafter. It was jettisoned quite quickly after takeoff.

[Guest]

the plumes seem more like T-38 contrails than rocket exhaust as the caption states.