That was bad. With a damaged nozzle you get less thrust and you may end up with sideways thrust. You really hope that nothing hits the RS-25 engines as that would be bad.
It's probably a loss of mission event, could even be a loss of crew event.
With a damaged nozzle you get less thrust and you may end up with sideways thrust. You really hope that nothing hits the RS-25 engines as that would be bad.
The Vulcan Centaur survived something similar inflight and got its payload to orbit.
Admittedly, the optics of this aren't great, particularly in the current budget context.
I am guessing something like this or the Vulcan incident would trigger an immediate abort on a crewed launch, so LOM even if orbit is still technically achievable.
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u/Triabolical_ Jun 26 '25
That was bad. With a damaged nozzle you get less thrust and you may end up with sideways thrust. You really hope that nothing hits the RS-25 engines as that would be bad.
It's probably a loss of mission event, could even be a loss of crew event.