One Small Step

redcliffe writes "Armadillo Aerospace has completed their first successful manned flight. It's only a small hop but it looks very cool."

Comments

Very Cool.

[JabberWokky]

It was only a handful of feet off the ground, and it was in a frame cage with the rocket nozzles around them, but it had a person in the chair, and it went up, then down, and didn't go off "thataway". Good initial flight, and it took guts to do that.

I question if the work they are doing there will scale up to a full sized rocket, but that's an armchair question, and they are the ones doing the work, so I'll assume they know what they are doing until I have a rocket scientist say otherwise. :)

Congrats to the Armadillo team. Ad Astra Per Aspera.

--
Evan (no SF reference, kinda)

Re:Very Cool.

[WolfWithoutAClause]

This is just a small rocket to test out the control system and get experience building and controlling rocket engines; this launch vehicle uses only hydrogen peroxide.

The final system they are working on will achieve 100km altitudes (i.e. space) and return to earth with fare-paying passengers. The final launcher will also use a 'bipropellent' such as peroxide and kerosene; that gives almost twice the delta-v per kg of fuel. They've done tests with such motors, and they've achieved good results- good enough performance to achieve their goals I would think.

They're making good progress- though they thought they'd get to this point last year, but they had catalyst issues which I think are a bit better understood now; but they are ahead on other fronts.