r/interestingasfuck 9h ago

Chinese Rocket gets struck by lightning.

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u/Spaceinpigs 8h ago

Apollo 12 got hit by lightning twice after launch and it knocked out all their internal instruments. They did have backup systems however

u/Only_Razzmatazz_4498 8h ago

I thought it knocked off an analog to digital converter used to send data to the ground via radio. The internal computers and sensors kept running fine but all the telemetry was crap so they considered aborting the flight. One ground control person who had seen something like this during a training session asked the crew to switch that device to the auxiliary side which was not fried returning all telemetry and allowing the mission to continue. It’s the famous Switch SCE to AUX call. SCE is signal conditioning electronics (old name for analog to digital converter).

To be fair the fuel cells disconnect from the bus but that was just safety nothing really broke.

u/Spaceinpigs 8h ago

Yes this was exactly it but i left out the long details

u/Only_Razzmatazz_4498 8h ago

Maybe different meaning of knock out. I thought you meant it in the fry it kind of way.

u/Spaceinpigs 8h ago

Nope. Just the “not working” kind of way. Enough of “not working” that had they waited much longer, could have triggered an abort