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Successful First Launch of Aerospike Engine
ScottKin writes "CSULB announced that on September 21st they achieved a milestone in aerospace engineering when they successfully launched their 'Prospector 2' rocket powered by an 'Aerospike' engine. What makes this remarkable is that even NASA had trouble with testing their incarnation of an Aerospike engine - but the Linear Aerospike Engine is quite a different beast. More info on this definitely-newsworthy even can be found at the California Space Authority website."
It doesn't help much that NASA keeps getting its funding cut every year. The reason we end up only sending space probes is because its all we can afford to send. Private companies have the money and ability to explore because visionaries see profit in the long term. If we went nuts and actually gave NASA the funding they needed I bet we could get a man on mars within 20 years, its just that the politicians see no reason to perform long term budgeting when there's more than enough porkbarrel projects just itching for them to sign so that they can stay in office and sign more porkbarrel projects. Doesn't help that the public generally doesn't give a crap about space exploration anymore either.
The motor worked except that, well actually it went badly wrong very soon after launch. Combustion gases went the wrong way and caused the engine to malfunction.
Result: crash. Destruction of payload.
I guess the definition of success came from the people who defined "interception" of Scuds by Patriots in Gulf war 1 as meaning more or less that both missiles were in the air at the same time.
Meanwhile, relatively primitive Russian rockets continue very reliable and Ariane just put up another two comms satellites last night, plus the European moon mission which is aiming for some sort of record as the slowest trip to the Moon ever. Far from being an endorsement of private research versus NASA, it suggests that caution and extensive testing remains the norm in anything to do with rocketry. Even if the next flight is successful, I guess a huge amount of further work would be needed before anyone would risk a real commercial payload on a rocket using this nozzle technology.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
As noted, linear aerospikes work (at least in ground tests). The problem with X-33 (well, one of) is the general shape that invited the use of a linear (vs round) aerospike in the first place.
That deltoid shape (coupled with the central cargo bay, etc) pushed them to a V- or Y-shaped fuel tank, on which they were pushing material limits. Basically they couldn't make a pressurized, lightweight tank that shape that was also leakproof. (The original 70s StarClipper design that the X-33 was loosely based on used two external tanks joined in a V configuration around the lifting body.)
X-33 had other problems, of course. The whole vertical takeoff, horizontal landing profile is a mistake -- it means you need to engineer the vehicle for two orthogonal primary load paths, and it makes an intact launch abort virtually impossible (vs say VTVL). That latter in turn means you have more failure modes and have to engineer in more redundancy, do more intensive between-flight overhauls and inspections, and that generally you've just reinvented everything wrong with the current Shuttle system.
-- Alastair