NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
General Discussion => Q&A Section => Topic started by: ANTIcarrot on 08/27/2012 12:56 pm
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Broadly speaking, what conditions count as 'red weather' for rocket launch?
A quick search ("red weather") shows the term only being used 11 times on the forum, and the recent Atlas V scrub (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/08/nasa-rbsp-spacecraft-ride-ula-atlas-v/) news article doesn't define the term at all. Which is somewhat odd, given how much detail it went into over everything else.
I know that the atmosphere itself is inconvenient to rocket engineers for all sorts of reasons. And that thunder and lighting (very very frightening) earthquakes and tsunami are presumably right out - but what else is? And why?
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It depends a lot on the particular rocket and mission. For Shuttle, rain, anvil clouds, lightning, surface winds, upper level winds, temperature and so on all were part of the analysis. For Russia, well, they launch in all sorts of bad weather.
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Winds are pretty high on the list. I remember not too long ago an Atlas or Delta scrub due to high winds. I think the cumulous cloud/anvil cloud criteria also exist for the expendable rockets. I know that airliners can get struck by lightning and it's not a big deal but I imagine it's not good for a rocket (or the payload).