The U.S. Air Force awarded the Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering a $545,000 contract to study additive manufacturing techniques to make cooling chambers for liquid rocket engines, according to a Nov. 4 press release from the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.
“Using technologies we’ve developed over the past 10-15 years, we can do this cheaper than the Russians do it today,” says Steve Cook, director of corporate development for Dynetics and a former manager of the Ares Projects Office, the last major NASA initiative to develop new rocket engine technology.
This work reports a thesis research done in the field of air launch at TU Delft’s faculty of Aerospace Engineering. During the entire era of space flight air launch is seen as a very promising concept. Despite its claimed advantages, air launch is up till now only a marginal success with the Pegasus launch vehicle from Orbital Sciences. In this study is investigated for which conditions expendable air launched vehicles can achieve a performance gain compared with expendable ground launched vehicles. The scope of this study is limited to near-term feasible concepts. Therefore, only existing carrier aircraft that require minimum modifications are evaluated. Solid propelled rockets are more promising for air launch than liquid rockets, therefore, only solid propelled rockets are considered during this study. Potential markets for launch vehicles with a 10 kg and 2,000 kg payload capability to low earth orbit are identified. The influences of different launch parameters and the presence of a wing on the potential performance gain of air launch are investigated.
A Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is deemed the most suitable approach for the comparison between air launch and ground launch. In earlier thesis work performed at the TU Delft an MDO tool in the Tudat framework is developed by Jan Vandamme. This tool is used as a starting point for this work but is heavily modified and expanded. For the typical disciplines of launch vehicle design models are developed and validated. The Multidisciplinary Design Analysis (MDA) and MDO validation tested the ability of the tool to model the design and the trajectory of launch vehicles. During the MDA validation it is shown that the tool is capable to do this for the design as well as for the trajectory. From the MDO validation it can be concluded that the optimized designs have realistic configurations and a lower cost per flight than the designs for the MDA validation.
The work presented here addresses the use of multidisciplinary optimization methods to the design of solid rocket propelled launch vehicles, thereby taking into account both air- and ground-launch as well as the addition of lifting devices (use of wings). The method combines both vehicle and trajectory design in a a sequential approach
Born from Armadillo Aerospace a group of the core team members are back at it with an improved vehicle ready to reach for space again.
EXOS Aerospace Systems & Technologies, Inc. would like you to join with them and the former core employees of Armadillo Aerospace to embark on a renewed adventure- building commercial sub-orbital rockets that will carry pretty much anything you can think of (that fits into the current or optional “expanded” cargo bay) to space and back in just a few minutes.
NASA’s latest innovation with 3D printing comes with their recent breakthrough; 3D printing full-scaled copper rocket engine parts. In trying to save both time and money, the organization has begun using selective laser melting 3D printers to create a combustion chamber liner that is able to function at extremely high and low temperatures.
Rocket Lab's idea for making a lighter, simpler liquid rocket is its Rutherford engine. Named after New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford, it's an electric turbopump engine that burns a mixture of liquid oxygen and RP-1 rocket fuel, which is a highly refined type of kerosene. Unlike conventional engines, in the Rutherford, the gas-powered turbine to run the pump is replaced with a brushless DC motor and lithium polymer batteries, and provides enough fuel for the Rutherford to generate 4,600 lbf (20,462 N) of thrust and a specific impulse of 327 seconds.
[Note: This report seems to indicate increased interest and a finding to put more effort into development of small launch vehicles at NASA.]
In FY14, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Game Changing Development (GCD) Program investigated two technology areas in the ALTIA activity. The first would enable new markets in dedicated nanolaunchers; that is, launchers whose payload is very small and devoted solely to delivering CubeSat-sized payloads that would otherwise be restricted to secondary accommodation on missions that use a much larger class of launch vehicle (the state of the art).
Finding #2 – Pursue focused nanolauncher technologies and design approaches, such as integrated avionics and a three-stage nanolauncher. These two examples enable simpler infrastructures, shorter production times, and greater flight rate capability. Of the technologies the team had time to pursue, advanced avionics can reduce recurring cost by ~20%, as well as improve launch rates. However, advances in avionics that do not reduce the number of procured and installed avionics components do not realize significant cost and productivity benefits. A wider technology portfolio would be more effective in improving life cycle characteristics. A three-stage NL001 configuration (perhaps one with solids on the lower stages topped with a very small liquid upper stage) should achieve similar reductions,
Beck said Rocket Lab's Electron Launch Vehicle project aims to lower the cost of launching a satellite from $132 million to about $5m.
An inexpensive new process can increase the strength of metals such as steel by as much as 10 times, and make them much more resistant to corrosion. If the modified metals pass field testing, the new process could go on to make bridges and other infrastructure last far longer; it could also make cars lighter and therefore more fuel-efficient.
Rocket Moonlighting has "open sourced" the design of their PR56 igniter. Included is a drawing and a document describing operation.
The aim of TGALS is the same as that of ALASA: to create a space launch system for small satellites that replaces the first stage booster rocket with a conventional aircraft. In its current form, ALASA uses a F-15 fighter jet, which provides a lot of speed, altitude, and vertical thrust.
Project Earendel is an effort to make space available to everyone through open source hardware. The first step is a project to build, fly, and release drawings for a liquid powered suborbital rocket. To this effect so far we have build and tested an igniter and released the documentation necessary to build and test it. We are currently working on a Kickstarter to fund our building of the suborbital rocket.
A conceptual design was performed for a 6-U cubesat for a technology demonstration to be launched on the NASA Space Launch System (SLS) test launch EM-1, to be launched into a free-return translunar trajectory. The mission purpose was to demonstrate use of electric propulsion systems on a small satellite platform. The candidate objective chosen was a mission to visit a Near-Earth asteroid. Both asteroid fly-by and asteroid rendezvous missions were analyzed. Propulsion systems analyzed included cold-gas thruster systems, Hall and ion thrusters, incorporating either Xenon or Iodine propellant, and an electrospray thruster. The mission takes advantage of the ability of the SLS launch to place it into an initial trajectory of C3=0.
ABSTRACT: Although steel has been the workhorse of the automotive industry since the 1920s, the share by weight of steel and iron in an average light vehicle is now gradually decreasing, from 68.1 per cent in 1995 to 60.1 per cent in 2011 (refs 1, 2). This has been driven by the low strength-to-weight ratio (specific strength) of iron and steel, and the desire to improve such mechanical properties with other materials. Recently, high-aluminium low-density steels have been actively studied as a means of increasing the specific strength of an alloy by reducing its density3, 4, 5. But with increasing aluminium content a problem is encountered: brittle intermetallic compounds can form in the resulting alloys, leading to poor ductility. Here we show that an FeAl-type brittle but hard intermetallic compound (B2) can be effectively used as a strengthening second phase in high-aluminium low-density steel, while alleviating its harmful effect on ductility by controlling its morphology and dispersion. The specific tensile strength and ductility of the developed steel improve on those of the lightest and strongest metallic materials known, titanium alloys. We found that alloying of nickel catalyses the precipitation of nanometre-sized B2 particles in the face-centred cubic matrix of high-aluminium low-density steel during heat treatment of cold-rolled sheet steel. Our results demonstrate how intermetallic compounds can be harnessed in the alloy design of lightweight steels for structural applications and others.
The market has boomed in the last couple of years, according to technology experts from Deloitte, who say that before November 2013, only 75 nanosats had ever been launched, with another 94 put in to orbit in the three months to January 2014. By the end of this year, Deloitte predicts there will be more than 500 hovering over the earth.
Imaginary travel posters for exoplanet vacations done in a retro style.
