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Transportation Space

BU Students Working On a Cheaper, Gentler Suborbital Rocket 43

Posted by timothy from the ma'am-this-won't-hurt-a-bit dept.
Zothecula writes The International Space Station may get all the glory, but suborbital rocket flights still play a vital part in space research. The problem is that even though such flights only go to the edge of space, they are expensive, few in number, and put massive stresses on experiments. Partly funded by a Kickstarter campaign, students at Boston University are developing an inexpensive suborbital rocket for educational purposes that uses new engine designs to create a cheaper, reusable suborbital rocket that's easier on the payload.
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BU Students Working On a Cheaper, Gentler Suborbital Rocket More

BU Students Working On a Cheaper, Gentler Suborbital Rocket

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  • Airship one headed in the right direction (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Cheaper way would be a large high altitude jet to carry the rocket to the edge of space. Use the oxygen in the air as long as possible and not carry the oxygen aboard. A maglev launcher like the Navy is experimenting with,(only bigger) have as much horsepower on the ground as possible.
    Get the whole thing up to 500mph and then 500 ft up. The jet engine takes over and goes up to 60000+ ft. 700 mph, not quite mach 1.
    Then the rocket can kick in and go to the station.

    • Cheaper way would be a large high altitude jet to carry the rocket to the edge of space. Use the oxygen in the air as long as possible and not carry the oxygen aboard. [...]
      Get the whole thing up to 500mph and then 500 ft up. The jet engine takes over and goes up to 60000+ ft. 700 mph, not quite mach 1.
      Then the rocket can kick in and go to the station.

      The great irony of the space age is that is precisely what the U.S. was working on [wikipedia.org] in parallel to Sputnik. Before Sputnik ever went up, clearer-thinking p

      • Not intending to bust on you here, but this idea comes up occasionally -- that NASA screwed up by "abandoning" air-launched space planes for ICBM based capsules. Often it is from someone who "had an uncle working on it in 1958" or similar. Seems promising but the physics just don't work that well for air launches and it turns out that putting the rest of your vehicle on a big first stage to get it out of the atmosphere and on a good start for speed is very efficient. There is a huge difference in getting

    • Cheaper way would be a large high altitude jet to carry the rocket to the edge of space.

      The problem is - it's not really cheaper. Fuel is cheap, large high altitude jets aren't - and it takes a very, very, large number of flights to amortize the cost of the latter below the cost of the former. Further, the size of the jet places significant size constraints on the booster. On top of that, your booster is now heavier because the structure must now be strengthened to take the loads of being carried horiz

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dougmc ( 70836 )

        Cheaper way would be a large high altitude jet to carry the rocket to the edge of space.

        The problem is - it's not really cheaper. Fuel is cheap, large high altitude jets aren't

        More to the point, the high altitude jet doesn't help much.

        Let's suppose we need to send something to the ISS. The ISS averages around 260 miles above sea level and orbits at about 17,000 mph.

        So, our plane takes off at the equator and flies at 700 mph up to 11 miles (60,000 feet) above the ground. We launch rockets near the equator and to the East if possible to take advantage of the 1000 mph rotational velocity and our plane should do so as well -- so that means we need 16,000 mph more speed.

        So, our high

    • What's wrong with using a balloon, to lift your rocket until the balloon explodes, THEN kick in the engines?

      • Simple: you have to perform your launch from a balloon. You have to cram any support gear that would normally go on a pad into the balloon, and hopefully work out some way to get it back. You can't do any test fires or pad aborts, you're committed to either a successful launch or loss of vehicle and payload once the balloon leaves the ground. You can only launch when the weather's good enough to inflate and fly the carrier balloon, which is far more sensitive to bad weather than rockets. Even gigantic ballo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      A first stage rocket to toss something up to 60,000 feet and well over 700 mph is a lot cheaper than an aircraft to do the same thing, and the engineering to make it carry a rocket as payload. Particularly if it's a solid rocket. The advantage of the aircraft is that it's reusable, but as NASA discovered, you have to do a LOT of flights before that makes much difference, and failure from the extra complexity often bites you in the ass before you get to that point anyway.

      Airplane launched might make sense

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious ( 953874 )

      Sounds like you're almost describing my KSP launch-platform.

      Jet-based initial stage, that gently carries the thing up to the edge of where the jets can breathe.
      Separate, 'chutes to carry the jets back down for salvage, and separatrons for getting some speed-diff.
      Rocket engines kick in when the two are a bit away from each-other, goes to space!

      KSP is fun :)

  • Usually the term "Rocket", and its derivatives, are reserved for describing objects/situations that are powerful, destructive, reckless, etc.; none of which I consider even relatively gentile. What next, gentile dvda?

  • I have some guesses about how they're doing their research.

    http://xkcd.com/1244/ [xkcd.com]

    YesIKnowIt'sSuborbitalGoAway.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheCarp ( 96830 )

      rotfl I was thinking the same thing. I live far too close to BU and have played far too much kerbal myself to be comfortable with this project. Does anybody know these kids steam user IDs? A couple of well timed gifts of full versions just might be enough to derail their project before they put a lower stage through my roof.

      • RTFA

        This year, BURPG has been carrying on an extensive test program on a series of engines and rockets in Sudbury, Massachusetts

        Additionally, there are no radioactive mind control CIA spiders in your basement. Seek professional help.

  • Now with lubrication.

  • Wouldn't another name for these "Rockets" be "ICBMs"?

    Seriously... if an amateur rocket has sub-orbital capabilities?
    Imagine a payload of drones with open wifi and internet access dropped over Beijing...
    Some university kids might think that was a great idea until China shot back.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by itzly ( 3699663 )
      Suborbital doesn't mean they have the capability to reach another continent.

      • Suborbital doesn't mean they have the capability to reach another continent.

        I guess you're right. These are more comparable to a Scud Missile with an operational range of 500 to 1000km. But you could hit Russia from Alaska! :-p

  • this could be seen as an escalation.

  • Reusable != cheap. (Score:3)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2014 @12:30PM (#48696571) Journal
    A solid rocket is basically a tube of propellants (oxidizer and fuel). The only precision component in there is the rocket nozzle, even that is not very expensive for solid boosters. They need vectored thrust only for a the first few seconds before the rocket attains enough air speed to make the fins produce aerodynamic forces. That thrust vectoring is easily achieved by asymmetrical blocking of the jet flow or by bleeding the jet off the compressor to feed the vernier nozzles. The economics are such that it is never economical to make them reusable. As long as we use chemicals to produce the thrust, nothing is going to be cheaper than solid rocket boosters.

    Using rocket boosted ramjets and scramjets might save you the need to carry oxidizer in the lower atmosphere. That is where drag is highest. Air resistance goes as the square of the air speed. So "lazy" launch speed works only in that region of the atmosphere. These ram and scramjets are also very very simple. Reusability requirements would raise the cost of materials and engineering. If you want to save money, they should concentrate on cost and probably sacrifice reusability.

    • Actually, their thrust vectoring is a new system I've never seen before, which creates shock waves in the exhaust inside the nozzle which deflects the exhaust. They claim it's lighter than other control methods. You can see it working in the video in TFA.

      I'm not sure how well their method will work, but it's always interesting to see a new idea.

  • When someone says "BU", I'm sometimes not sure if they're referring to Boston or Binghamton.

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