Armadillo Aerospace Flight Paves Way For Science Payloads

Matt_dk writes "Armadillo Aerospace conducted two groundbreaking atmospheric test flights this weekend with their 'Mod' vertical-takeoff-vertical-landing rocket, a vehicle familiar to anyone who has followed NASA's Lunar Lander Challenge competitions. Flying from their test facility in Caddo Mills, Texas, Armadillo Aerospace first completed a milestone flight under a NASA contract, using methane fuel and liquid oxygen as propellant. Later that same afternoon, a second successful low-altitude flight was performed using a 'boosted hop' trajectory of the same type that will be used for suborbital flights to space."

Comments

Hm

[ChinggisK]

I didn't realize armadillo's could fly at all, much less suborbitally.

Re:Hm

[StikyPad]

The armadillo can jump 3-4 feet (91-120 cm) straight in the air if sufficiently frightened, making it a particular danger on roads.

I'd say that's definitely a sub-orbital flight.

Wow

[Dan667]

Know that there is a lot of folks involved with Armadillo Aerospace, but at first glance it looks like Carmack just has a gold touch.

Re:Wow

[PitaBred]

I'd trust hacks from Carmack more than I'd trust some of the engineering that came from my classmates. He understands the whole system... many engineers get the math fine, but completely forget how it applies to the whole. And that makes some of the designs sub optimal at best, and highly dangerous at worst.

Re:Wow

[GooberToo]

but mine always worked and I had several theory aces come back later and ask how I figured the assignment out.

That's because they were told what the solution should look like. You actually figured it a solution without regard for what it "should" look like. That's the difference between knowledge and intelligence.

Re:Wow

[barzok]

Failure is a much better teacher than success.

Re:Wow

[powerlord]

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

Re:D'oh!

[H0p313ss]

Blast! I had just escaped the apostrophe Nazis too.

Nobody escapes the apostrophe Nazis!

As my high school physics teacher said...

[Lead Butthead]

I didn't realize armadillo's could fly at all, much less suborbitally.

You put enough speed behind anything, and it'll fly. Now it might burn up due to friction with the atmosphere, but rest assure that it will fly (until there's nothing left of it.)

Re:D'oh!

[AndrewNeo]

No, he meant Nobody escapes the apostrophe Nazi\'s!

Story lacks all detail

[EsJay]

How high? How far? What is a "boosted hop"? What is "closed loop throttle control"?

Re:Story lacks all detail

[foolish]

From a post by Matthew Ross: http://spacefellowship.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?p=38466#p38466

"Both of those were "LLC-style" hops where the mod flies gently up to about 55 meters and then gently back down.
Since both of those went well, we decided to do a "boosted hop," where instead of gently flying up and down, it goes full throttle for about three seconds, coasts to apogee at low throttle, falls quickly back down and then throttles up before touching down"

A 5 second serch on Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_loop

"A closed-loop control system is one in which an input forcing function is determined in part by the system response. The measured response of a physical system is compared with a desired response. The difference between these two responses initiates actions that will result in the actual response of the system to approach the desired response."

So, engine generates thrust X, desired target of which is X+Y. Throttle is increased until measured response is X+Y. At which point the throttle is maintained or decreased, depending on what part of the flight profile the vehicle is in.

Light on the details

[sbeckstead]

There doesn't seem to be any type of accomplishment here except ~three or four paragraphs of an article about something that flies flying straight up and down then getting boosted by a hop while closing a control loop in microgravity?
There are details lacking to those that have no idea what Armadillo Aerospace builds and/or why?

Re:D'oh!

[Rei]

You cannot escape ze Apostrophe Nazis! Ve duped Apostrophe Neville Chamberlain and conquered Apostrophe Austria, and ve vill soon invade Apostrophe Poland!

(Personally, I much prefer the amusement of quote nazis)

How??

[greywire]

Can somebody explain to me how the hell they are going to pull this off?

I mean, its hard enough just to get enough fuel into a rocket to just barely get it and a small (relatively speaking) payload into space or orbit and then just fall back to earth without burning up.

And they want to do it and still have enough fuel left for a controlled, powered vertical landing?

While I think its an awesome idea that potentially avoids the dangerous re-entry issues of all previous and existing technologies (remember that the last space shuttle accident was because of a few damaged heat tiles!) and solves the re-usability problem, making for a possibly very economical vehicle, I just dont see how they are going to pack that much fuel into it.

Short of nuclear rockets, or things that make use of the air (either by flying up and/or using the atmosphere for the oxidizer instead of having it onboard), or some other new kind of amazing fuel, it doesnt seem possible.

Rockets and other vehicles meant to go into space face all sorts of structural issues and guidance problems and such, but ultimately the real problem is that of the energy required to get something up there in an efficient way. Thats why you have airplanes that fly up as high as they can before going into rocket mode, or space elevators, etc.

I am sure making a rocket go up and then come down without smashing itself or blowing up is incredibly hard, but that seems like a problem that doesnt need to be solved until we have some better fuel to put in it.

Am I missing something?

Re:How??

[samkass]

Single-Stage To Orbit requires a mass-to-weight ratio in the range of 10-25. That is more than any current air or spacecraft, but recent advances in propellant storage and materials science has made it possible. Some existing rockets have been calculated to have a 10+ mass-to-weight first stage, but no one's ever tried to design the whole rocket around it. But there are certain economies of scale when you eliminate the staging as well... the rockets themselves are already heat-shielded and can lower the re-entry speeds as well. You only need 1 set of nozzles and no staging hardware. And the whole craft can be seamless and aerodynamic, allowing some steering and gliding ability without the weight of parachutes or wings.

The craft that inspired the recent SSTO designs is the DC-X, a sub-orbital prototype that was supposed to be followed by an orbital DC-Y before funding was cancelled (and the craft crashed and burned on its last flight).

IMHO, even if you put one of these things on top of an expendable booster to get it into orbit, having a partially fueled vertical lander in LEO suddenly opens up the solar system to some exciting possibilities.

Video Link

[malloc]

From the Space Fellowship forum page: http://spacefellowship.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=396&start=1710

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_rqVBhwx6I

Also on the SF page, a bit of commentary from Matthew Ross, including that they've internally decided on a date for LLC 2.

-malloc