Buckets on Boosters
 

What are the buckets for on the outboard boosters?
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/...e8182e15_o.jpeg

The boosters are liquid.

I was wondering if it is some sort of low positive pressure purge system for the empty liquid fuel tanks on the boosters, but those ‘buckets’ do not seem large enough to handle the volume of pressurized air (nitrogen or helium, usually) to adequately do that. Plus, that hose out the bottom of each looks more like a ‘drain’ almost of some kind.

So, not really sure what they are.

Earl

F.O.D. collection possibly?

The buckets contain coiled up “starters” (interestingly, the Russians frown on the use of the term “igniters”, too). These are inserted while horizontal, to make sure they are fully seated. Then the plastic plugs are installed. To this day, much arguing ensues regarding connecting in parallel, or serially.

Great question! I have always wondered about those devices too!

What is your source, Lee? Or are you just having fun? To me, these are definitely a fluid reservoir of some sort, since the designers went out of their way to have all four buckets in the "tube UP" orientation during horizontal assembly and transport. A hydraulic accumulator would likely work in any orientation, so that probably isn't it.

Russian designers like to use a hypergolic "starter fuel" - one that reacts with LOX - to ignite their LOX/Kerosene engines. If that were the case, then one would also expect a "bucket" on the core too, but I don't see one there.

The central core stage doesn't have one, so I'm sure Lee is just yanking our chain. We know they use a single igniter on the core and use thermalite to air start the sparky strap-ons. Unlike our BATFE, they haven't outlawed thermalite and igniters yet. ;)

:cool: :chuckle: :chuckle:

Tim, you caught me ... It was an April Fools joke, which occurs later in Russia than the USA — on Aprilsky 7.

Back to the original question...

I do not know what those are.

But in aerospace, pretty much any individual part that is uniquely red, is a "remove before flight" item.

Below is a photo of a rollout, in French Guyana, which does not have the red "buckets". The nozzles are not red, they have red covers, for example (same for U.S. Saturn stages for transport, at least before stack assembly).



The "Soyuz" launch vehicle, is mostly the same booster, originally created in the mid 1950's as an ICBM, that launched Sputnik-1, many other satellites, Vostok, Voskhod, and of course Soyuz. The main upgrades were for upper stages.

Anyway, the first stage steering is interesting. The five "engines" have four main chambers each, which do not gimbal. The outer boosters have two small vernier engines that gimbal, and the center core had eight verniers that gimbal., for steering.

When I built my Soyuz I included those buckets on the finished model.
I didn't know what they were, I was just working from a photo similar to the one above.
I do remember thinking it was odd that they were all oriented in the same direction.
Didn't occur to me at the time that they might be removable components.
Guess I got that part wrong. :rolleyes: