The fairing jettisons. The ingot, still bolted in place, is now exposed to the vacuum of space. It heats up to 120°C on the sun-facing side and drops to -100°C on the dark side. It doesn’t care.
For decades, lead bricks and concrete rings sufficed for test flights. But as the industry pivoted to (think SpaceX’s Transporter missions or Rocket Lab’s dedicated smallsat flights), a new problem emerged: variable mass. launch ingot
But as on-orbit manufacturing and refueling become real, the ingot’s days are numbered. Future rockets will likely use or active mass shifters to balance the stack, turning the ballast into usable fuel. The fairing jettisons