Russia lights rockets with giant matches

Simple is hard.  Simple is the best way to have the least amount of problems.  When you’re dealing with tons of highly flammable fuel, having fewer problems is a good thing.  Russia still ignites their rockets with engineering from the 1950’s… a bunch of giant matches.  From Popular Mechanics:

After the Soyuz is installed onto the launch pad, technicians working from an access bridge under the pad manually insert wooden sticks in a shape of a T-bar into each combustion chamber. Twenty big sticks go into the main chambers and 12 smaller ones go into the steering engines. At the top of each stick you’ll find a pair of pyro-charges, and between pyro-charges there is a spring-loaded brass wire that acts as an ignition sensor. Wires from pyrotechnics and from the sensor run down the stick to an outlet where they are plugged into the launch control network.

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