Delta IV Heavy Pad Tour, (with CEO Tory Bruno) - Smarter Every Day 199
- Hey, it's me Destin, welcome back to Smarter Every Day. This is a really big day because I live in a hometown where there's a gigantic rocket plant owned by United Launch Alliance. They make a vehicle called the Delta IV Heavy right over there. It's about to throw the fastest man-made object in the history of all the objects into space to go touch the sun.
Which is difficult, because it's harder to go to the sun than it is to go to Pluto. You gotta be screamin', you gotta go fast. It has to do with Delta Vs and stuff like that; trust me it's hard. But they can do it because it's a really big rocket and it's a really little probe called the Parker Solar Probe. I got an email inviting me to the actual pad just before roll back. And if you don't know what that is, it's a big deal. Especially since the CEO of United Launch Alliance is gonna be on that tower with us. I'm excited and I'm gonna try to be very professional when we do it. But I'm stinkin' excited. Let's go.
(fun funky music)
How you doing Sir?
Good to meet ya.
Ya, you as well. Thanks for inviting me to your shot here.
Oh, we're happy to have you.
That's pretty cool.
I love your channel.
Thank you very much.
I am a subscriber.
I like your hard hat there. Is that actually a hard hat?
It is a hard hat.
(laughter)
That's pretty good. So you're actually gonna let us go up with you on roll back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a big-- that's a treat.
It is, we're gonna ride a 10 million pound building 30 stories high while it heads to the other end of that pad.
Really? What's the speed of that thing? It's gotta be pretty slow.
Well, it's you know, it's a blistering third of a mile per hour.
[Destin] You studied at Cal Poly right?
I did yeah.
[Destin] So aerospace engineering?
Mechanical.
[Destin] Mechanical. That's my undergrad too.
There we go. Three segments, the way I understand, the two on the side, they're 100% the whole time.
Yes.
[Destin] But the one in the center core you throttle that back.
Right.
[Destin] And that's just to conserve fuel so you can have a better performance, right?
We're gonna empty the ones on the outside first, then we're gonna shed those, and then without that weight, with that weight gone, we go to full throttle on the center core. And in a very short amount of burn, we'll almost double the velocity.
[Destin] Okay, so you get through Max Q with all three, all three cores. Is that the correct terminology? The cores?
Yeah, we call 'em cores or common cores.
[Destin] Okay.
So you can think of kind of like Kerbal Space here. So we're just bolting three rockets together.
[Destin] Once you ramp it back up you have a better Propellant Mass Fraction with what's left of---
Exactly.
[Destin] Right, okay, that makes perfect sense.
So on all of our rockets we use Cryo on the upper. Delta has Cryo on the lower and of course Atlas uses Kerosine.
[Destin] It's my understanding you have a kicker stage at the end there that's solid, right? Now that's abnormal.
That is, that's very unusual. And that's because Parker Solar Probe has to have so much energy and make so much velocity to get to the sun. Because of course as you know, you and I, we're in orbit right now around the sun, 67,000 miles an hour; you got to take that energy out to get any closer. It's actually really hard to go in. Much easier to go out.
Roll the rocket out here, so all three cores came out in a giant truck, flipped it up vertical into that building, then we finished it. And then when we're ready, the building rolls away.
- Man, yeah, I'm able to comprehend less and less about what you're saying as we walk closer.
(laughter)
For you, this is old hat. But I mean, imagine studying this stuff in school and like actually seeing it for the first time. It's pretty rad.
I'll let you in on a secret.
What's that?
I'm coming up on my 400th launch and it feels the same every time.
[Destin] Does it really? Ignition starts, you start thrust?
Then we release and then now the rocket is under Thrust Vector Control to keep it oriented in the right way.
[Destin] Right, and I've gotta imagine that TVC is way easier with a Heavy. Because you have a larger moment arm from the center.
That's right, that's right.
[Destin] Okay, awesome.
Yeah, very good.
We've got everybody in position for the tower roll. So when guys go up there, it's very important that you don't distract or talk or disrupt the guys who are gonna be on a headset. So they're gonna be focused on the job, so just do that. And the last thing, you guys are gonna be up on level 6 for your briefing. Be careful up there and stay safe.
[Destin] Yes Sir, thank you very much.
Alright, thank you.
[Destin] So these clamps open up pneumatically and then the whole thing pushes back.
You got it.
[Destin] And we're gonna be up there when it happens.
Yes we are, we're gonna ride it.
[Destin] That's awesome, let's do it.
(steam hissing)
(clunking shoes hitting metal)
- [Destin] Wow.
(high pitched humming)
(equipment noise drowns out speaker)
We're good.
Good to see you.
(high pitched humming)
We're gonna walk down here so we don't distract these guys.
[Destin] 'Cause they're in the middle of an operation.
Alright, so here you are. This is the top of one of those side cores.
[Destin] Right.
And you can see here, here's the center core so the second stage is gonna be basically inside there. And then up she goes.
Wow. So, you're saying you have to point with Cryo and you point the solid.
And we're gonna point the solid so when the Cryo burns out, we're gonna light the solid.
Because you don't have Thrust Vector Control on the solid.
This one does.
Oh, how does that work?
So it has a vectorable nozzle, so it has its own actuators that can point the nozzle. When that's burned out, whatever about 44 or 45 minutes from lift-off, that's it; we separate the spacecraft and it will arrive in its first Perihelion out in November.
And then it will be seven years of doing that loop. So 24 passes on the sun and about every third pass it's gonna get close enough to Venus to affect its trajectory and pull it in closer and closer and closer.
You really, you really live and breathe this stuff, don't you?
That's what we do.
No, you do.
Oh yeah, sure. I love rockets. I've been doing rockets my whole life.
Really, that's awesome. What was your first rocket launch?
First professional launch or my first launch?
First launch.
Okay, I was---
[Destin] That counts the same to me.
Alright, I was nine years old. And I'm old enough to have seen the moon landing. So I was pretty stoked by that. And so I'm out in the back of my grandmother's barn and I find a case of 80-year-old moldy dynamite. And I figured there's only one thing to do with that, you know, so I'm gonna build rockets out of it.
[Destin] Wow.
So I took the sticks, you know, I cut them open with my pen knife; I made my own rockets, and I'm proud to tell you that even at nine years old, some of my rockets made it partly into the sky before they detonated.
(laughter)
[Destin] That's fantastic.
And I got all 10 fingers.
[Destin] Now that's the true measure right there. So I spoke of the scientists involved and they told me about Andy here. Do you know the backstory there?
So Andy's pretty special to this mission because it's so hard to get to the sun and do a mission like this. The original designs for this type of probe are just impractical. And this gentleman Andy, he came up with the innovative approach, the trajectory that we're gonna use, that really made this mission possible. Without him, we would not be standing here today talking about this.
So we just started roll back right?
Yes.
[Destin] So I can see that we're physically moving away from that. It's very slow. How many tons are moving right now?
This building weighs 10 million pounds.
[Destin] Okay, wow.
We're gonna move it about 300 feet.
Really. Okay, and so is it gonna go at this velocity the whole time?
It's actually gonna speed up a little bit in a few minutes.
[Destin] Really?
But it's not exactly blistering speed as you can imagine. It's a gentle trip. It'll take us about 45 minutes to make that 300-foot journey.
[Destin] What kinds of things are you looking at right now? Like, you kind of just understand this rocket at this point, right?
Yes, okay, so of course we have the big center core and the reason you see the Orbital ATK emblem on there is because Northrop Grumman was Orbital ATK fabricated that extra third kick station we don't normally use that Parker Solar Probe needs for that extra umph of velocity. You're seeing these big horizontal struts here; those are carrying the loads from these side cores mechanically and transmitting that into the center core.
[Destin] Is there a dampener there as well?
No, no. This is really a rigid structural frame that we're looking at. And that's actually the cleanest way we can do that dynamically and be able to steer and control the rocket. And each of these cores at full power, they're throttlable, but at full power they have the same engine, same propellants, and they can put out the same level of thrust. Together about 2.2 million pounds or something a little over 700,000 pounds each.
I'm having an optical illusion right now. I feel like the rocket's moving away from us.
(laughter)
I really do.
(mellow guitar music)
[Destin] Can you see that gap right there, so they've got inches of clearance over there. So I'm gonna level with you. That's a really, really cool rocket, okay? And it's gonna touch the sun, it's gonna be the fastest man-made object ever in the history of objects, right? But what's really, really cool to me is Tory Bruno's wife is also a rocket scientist and as they back away, she comes to the launchpad with him, they're having a discussion about how it works. Like I went and eavesdropped in there and they're talking about the different stages, how they work, why they're using solids over Cryos in certain--- like this is a very technical discussion. And I really like that, like a lot. It's kind of a moment.
You caught us--
I caught you having a rocket moment together. It was pretty good.
(laughter)
So I feel very honored to be where I'm at right now. This is a huge moment in the life of many of these people. I mean, it's a huge moment period, but like for some people, this is decades.
- Yes, yes, well of course for us, you know, we love our rocket and we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in it. But the rocket is only here for the payload. And so when we're launching a mission like this Parker Solar Probe, this is someone's life's work, and the people who worked on that spacecraft, same kind of thing. It's the pinnacle of their career. They've been at it for at least a dozen years, many of 'em, so that's a pretty big responsibility and it weighs heavy on our guys.
(beep)
Okay, I got a text from Felipe about two weeks after launch. That said the trajectory insertion of the Delta IV Heavy was so good that the Parker Solar Probe's first trajectory correction maneuver dropped to 10 meters per second. Which is astounding. That means they get to save a bunch of fuel and they just extended the life of the mission because ULA hit the bullseye and got the probe exactly where it needed to be. That's a big deal. I really like geeking out with rockets and this was a really cool opportunity to do that. Thanks to you ULA for making it happen.
[Destin] Tory, thank you.
Oh, you bet.
[Destin] I mean, this is an opportunity of a lifetime for me. Thank you very much.
It was my pleasure.
[Destin] I really appreciate that. So we'll get out of your hair and let you go shoot your rocket. If you want to see more of the interviews, I'll leave that over on the second channel. And feel free to subscribe 'cause we got some really cool stuff coming up from this place right here. I'm Destin, you're getting Smarter Every Day. Have a good one, bye.
(bells ringing)
You have a cool job, man.
Yes I do.
[Destin] You really do, I mean that is--