[Scott Manley] How Did The Vulcan Rocket Survive This Booster Failure?
[Scott Manley] How Did The Vulcan Rocket Survive This Booster Failure?
Here's the requisite Manley analysis of the GEM 63XL SRB anomaly on today's Vulcan certification flight.
Ah, so that was the sound I heard outside today. Didn’t know it was an anomaly. Impressive control.
I wonder how much "engine out" capacity they would have on a normal flight. This is a pretty big architectural difference vs Falcon and Starship.
Given that Vulcan has only two BE-4s, I don't expect they would have much capability for engine-out unless it occurred very shortly before scheduled MECO. As for SRB-out capability, that feels like it would depend on the required orbit, SRB configuration, and the exact nature of the failure. They've now demonstrated a certain level of SRB-out capability for the VC2S configuration, but I think a certain amount of luck was involved, in that the rest of the rocket seemingly sustained minimal damage. For the 4- and 6-SRB variants, I think the chances of cascading failures would be higher.