Question about the Titan Launch Vehicles

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Thomas Koszuta - 15 Oct 2007 14:28 GMT

The pictures and drawings of the Titan Launch Vehicles (I'm interested
specifically in the IIIE, BTW) all have a "small" red tube attached to side
of the main engine near one of the SRB's. Curiosity about this is getting
to me. What is it? I thought that it might be a combustion chamber for the
turbine exhausts to produce usable thrust, but back pressure on the turbines
would probably make this problematic.

Anybody know what they are?

TIA.

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Tom Koszuta
Western New York Sailplane and Electric Flyers
Buffalo, NY

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Mike Kruger - 15 Oct 2007 20:27 GMT

I thought that I might have kinda maybe read somewhere that the were catalyst tanks. I may be way
off on this.

mike
cosmodrome rocketry

>The pictures and drawings of the Titan Launch Vehicles (I'm interested
>specifically in the IIIE, BTW) all have a "small" red tube attached to side
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
>TIA.

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David Schultz - 15 Oct 2007 20:45 GMT

The red tubes (there are two) you are interested in are not attached to
the main body but to the SRB's. The SRB's vector their thrust by
injecting liquid at several points into the exit nozzle and the fluid
must come from somewhere.

I couldn't locate a definitive source on the tanks but I did run across
something in a very interesting NASA report on the Viking mission:

"Nitrogen tetroxide injected into the SRM nozzle through the TVC valve
deflects the thrust vector to provide control. Pressurized tanks
attached to each solid rocket motor supply the thrust vector control fluid."

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19760021170_1976021170.pdf
page 16

> The pictures and drawings of the Titan Launch Vehicles (I'm interested
> specifically in the IIIE, BTW) all have a "small" red tube attached to side
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> TIA.

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David W. Schultz
http://home.earthlink.net/~david.schultz
------
"What you don't know should be a goad to make you try and find out, not
an excuse to bliss out and sit drooling into your filet mignon." -- PZ Myers

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Thomas Koszuta - 15 Oct 2007 21:47 GMT

Thanks Dave,

EXCELLENT DOCUMENT.

I've searched for a while to find this but since I did not know what they
were it was hard to search for it. Curious - what did you search for to
find that?

Signature

Tom Koszuta
Western New York Sailplane and Electric Flyers
Buffalo, NY

> The red tubes (there are two) you are interested in are not attached to
> the main body but to the SRB's. The SRB's vector their thrust by injecting
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>>
>> TIA.

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David Schultz - 16 Oct 2007 00:09 GMT

> Thanks Dave,
>
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> were it was hard to search for it. Curious - what did you search for to
> find that?

Since I can't tell from the context of your question if you are asking
how I found the Viking document or the information on the TVC...

I started with the advantage of knowing that the Titan variant SRB's
used a fluid injection thrust vector system. All except the IVB which
was redesigned to have a gimbaled nozzle.

Since I prefer to cite a reference other than my memory for something
like this, I searched. I used keywords like "titan" , "SRB", "iiie", and
then "TVC" once I ran across a reference for that acronym. At some point
the Viking document popped up. Although it didn't look relevant to the
search at hand, it appeared to have interesting data.

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Model Forum / General / Rockets / October 2007

Question about the Titan Launch Vehicles