Suborbital Spaceflight Update

HobbySpacer writes "Burt Rutan's group has fixed a problem with the SpaceShipOne and recently carried out a successful drop test. Ground studies involved tests with CFD - "creative Ford driving" using a Ford-250 pickup truck. Other suborbital news includes the announcement of plans to follow the X PRIZE competition with an annual X PRIZE Cup event in which rocket teams will compete in an air show type format. In Japan the RVT (Reusable Vehicle Test) just completed its third short hop (in Japanese) within a week. (English reports on the first and second flights.) The liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen powered vehicle seeks to develop robust, reusable technologies for vertical takeoff and landing rockets. It and subsequent vehicles will gradually expand the flight envelope to high altitudes."

Comments

Re:CFD, for the curious

[tlovie]

The 'Fluid' is slightly misleading.

Not to nitpick here, but 'Fluid' is not misleading at all. The common definition of a fluid is a substance that will take the shape of its container. Both liquids and gasses will do this.

Re:who tends to fund these projects?

[LWATCDR]

How does Rutan get funding? He is Burt Rutan. He has a proven track record. There are THOUSANDS of his Airplanes flying. If you look at all the VariEzes, Long Ezes, Quickies, Q2s, and even Nat Puffer pays him a royalty on his designs. Add in all the work he has done for NASA, and the DOD and he has one heck of a track record.
As far as the Aerospce circles you run in not looking at Rutan's seriously what freaking circle is that. The man has done work for NASA, Northrop, and Boeing!!!
Has your group built anything that flys yet? Carries a useful load?
Rutan built a plane that carried two people around the world on one tank of gas. In most Aerospace circles his is the Man!!.

Re:Suborbital

[Thagg]

It takes about 8 times as much energy to get into orbit as it does to achieve the X-Prize parameters. You can't go that far wrong.

Still, you do have to worry about re-entry heating, even at "only" Mach 3.5. Rutan's ship will have an ablative coating that sublimates away, carrying heat, for the hottest parts of the trip -- Rutan's ship needs this as it is made of composites that cannot tolerate even moderately high temperatures. This ablative coating would be applied every flight. The X-15 used a similar coating for its highest speed flights. As others note, the X-15 flight profile is very similar the profile for Rutan's SpaceShip 1.

The Armadillo aerospace vehicle uses aluminum, and is massive enough that there is enough of a heat sink that it won't get too hot for the short time there is significant aerodynamic heating.

thad