Talk:RS-25/GA1

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

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Reviewer: Titoxd (talk · contribs) 00:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will be reviewing this article. Note that since the article is rather long, this review will take a bit of time to finish; I also will be not be able to reply between March 2 and March 4 due to IRL committments. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 00:47, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:
Detailed comments:
Lede
The engine produces a specific impulse (Isp) of 453 seconds in a vacuum … — This entire paragraph provides a plethora of performance specs, but it doesn't give context. The lay reader doesn't know whether 453 s of I_SP is a good or bad figure for bi-propellant engines. Give a comparison to other engines in the RS-25's class.

While we are on the topic of I_SP, PWR gives the specific impulse of the SSME as 452 s. The SSME article's infobox and Comparison of orbital rocket engines both give 452.3 s. 452.3 ≠ 453; please fix this, and do a quick check of all the other performance statistics listed in the article.

The engine is capable of throttling between 67% and 111% of its rated power level in one percent increments and operates at extreme temperatures, with the liquid hydrogen fuel being stored at −250 °C (−418 °F) while the temperature in the combustion chamber reaches 3,315 °C (5,999 °F), higher than the boiling point of iron. — run-on sentence, please split; the thermal extrema info can be easily put into a standalone sentence. Also, hyphenate "one percent", and link to combustion chamber.

Also on the last sentence: I am surprised we have thermocouples that are able of measuring how the temperature in the combustion chamber reaches exactly 5999 ˚F, and never reaches 6000 ˚F. :) Use the |disp=flip and |sigfig= arguments of {{convert}} to avoid these precision issues.

On the Space Shuttle, the RS-25 was used in clusters of three engines mounted in the aft structure of the Orbiter, with fuel being drawn from the External Tank. — you tend to use "orbiter" as a common noun everywhere except in the lede, so don't capitalize it here. Same with the external tank (but curiously, the ET is linked 4 out of the 5 times it is used in the article, so you also need to fix that overlinking.)

The engines were used for propulsion during the entirety of the spacecraft's ascent, with additional thrust being provided by two solid rocket boosters and sometimes the Orbiter's Orbital Maneuvering System. Do you need "sometimes" there?

On the Space Launch System (SLS), expendable versions of the engines will be used in clusters of up to five, drawing their propellant from the rocket's core stage. — awkward phrasing around "up to five": consider replacing it with On the Space Launch System (SLS), expendable versions of the RS-25 will be installed in the rocket's core stage, with different versions of the vehicle using three- or five-engine clusters. or something similar. Also, watch your tenses in this entire paragraph, since you switch from future tense to present tense in the middle.

with additional thrust coming from two solid or liquid-fuelled boosters — since we don't know what kind of boosters the later versions of the SLS will have yet, why not simply say with additional thrust coming from two auxiliary boosters?
Components
Fuel (liquid hydrogen, or LH2) and oxidizer (liquid oxygen, or LOX) from the Space Shuttle external tank entered the orbiter at the umbilical disconnect valves — you only use LH₂ and LOX twice each in the article, and all of those inclusions are in the same paragraph. I'd remove the abbreviation, since it simply isn't needed. A link to oxidizing agent would be useful here, although I'm not sure a link to fuel would be.

The entire first paragraph of the section lede needs a {{citation needed}} for the SLS information. The paragraph uses a 1998 STS press kit for its info, and there is no way it could have any SLS data inside of it.

Second paragraph needs extensive linking. To name a few, you need to link to heat exchanger and pogo oscillation. More importantly, this paragraph doesn't tell you why the oxidizer is split into four different pathways. There is plenty of information in staged combustion cycle that you could put here that would help the non-specialist reader make any sense of what is going on.

Third paragraph: This paragraph explains why the fuel has to go different pathways, which is good. Link the first instance of "nozzle", not the third.

B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

Thanks for the review! :-) I made some improvements, more to follow. With reference to the specific impulse, P&W quotes 452.3 seconds here. SalopianJames (talk) 14:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What's the status of this review? Nothing's happened in a month. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:53, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The reviewer hasn't responded to the March 1 corrections: the only two edits by the reviewer on Wikipedia since writing the material on this page were on two templates for discussion on March 6. Nothing since, which is over a month. The nominator had modest activity in March after the first, and has no edits yet this month. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:48, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still here! Was waiting for responses, then my medical finals got in the way - I'm going to be abroad for the next three months too, so probably will have a tiny edit count, I'm afraid. SalopianJames (talk) 08:22, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In that case I'll put it back in the queue for another reviewer to wrap up. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 13:50, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.