An arming plug is a small plug that is fitted into flight hardware to enable functions that, for instrument or personnel safety, should not be activated before flight. In the case of a missile or bomb, the (lack of the) arming plug prevents explosion before flight; in the case of a spacecraft or scientific sounding rocket, it might prevent premature firing of a hydrazine thruster system (hydrazine is extremely toxic) or block cryogenic or photographic film systems from operating before launch.
| This space- or spaceflight-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Famous quotes containing the word arming:
“Our culture, therefore, must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in season, that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self- collected, and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity, dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech, and the rectitude of his behaviour.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)