Aussie rocket foiled by premature fairing pop Australia's first homegrown rocket launch has been delayed after the vehicle's fairing unexpectedly deployed on the launchpad. The maiden launch of the Queensland-based Gilmour Space's Eris-1 rocket had already been scrubbed once last week, owing to "an issue in the ground support system," but it was all systems go for another …
Well OK as we all know rocket engineering (not science) is hard. So better it happened now rather than at T+3 seconds, which would not have ended well!
Lessons will be learnt, yes I know it's become a cliche for backside covering but I do think that in the aerospace industry it is literally true.*
* Boeing notwithstanding!
"Well, I suppose that prematurely popping its load, may be a very Aussie thing to happen…"
I think you should ask the sexually promiscuous Aussie TikToker Annie Knight, who seems to be following in the wake of both Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips in terms of their rapid increase in body counts.
The Redstone incident is a good example of needing a Devil's Advocate department. Not only is a flight termination (explosive) system a good thing, so it something less explodey. Having a way to let the Lox boil off would only leave alcohol, which isn't a huge problem if it isn't leaking all over the place and sat in a depressurized tank.
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