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SpaceShipOne Completes Second Test Flight
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Apr 08, 2004 05:49 PM
from the making-reed-richards-proud dept.
from the making-reed-richards-proud dept.
waynegoode writes "According to an article at Space.com, Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne suborbital rocket plane made its second powered flight today. The piloted vehicle was powered by a hybrid rocket motor to over 105,000 feet. The engine burned for 40 seconds, zipping to Mach 2. SpaceShipOne is one of several projects competing for the $10 million X Prize. Slashdot mentioned yesterday that it received a license from the FAA, the first license for a suborbital rocket."
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Good luck to them! (Score:5, Insightful)
Just yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced it had issued the world's first license for a sub-orbital manned rocket flight.
The license was issued April 1 by the DOT's Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation to Scaled Composites. This federal paperwork green-lighted a sequence of sub-orbital flights by Scaled Composites for a one-year period.
The license to Scaled Composites is the first to authorize piloted flight on a sub-orbital trajectory, the DOT statement noted.
I hope we are able to witness this "...piloted flight on a sub-orbital trajector.."this year!
Happy Trails!
Erick
Re:Good luck to them! (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Good luck to them! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Good luck to them! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good luck to them! (Score:3, Insightful)
They indeed might not be doing it entirely for the money but that is hardly evidence. From the start I've considered the $10 million to be more of a publicity stunt, an incentive to speed the projects along a little bit, and some startup cash so some company doesn't win and go bankrupt before they start selling tickets. Who ever gets there first is going to get huge publicity an
Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there any other team that's anywhere close to keeping SpaceShipOne's pace, or are they now the presumed winner of the X-Prize unless they really stumble?
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com
Wow, that was a big possesive noun.
Parent
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)
They have however spent a lot of time dealing with engine issues. They've already had to go from a 90% peroxide monopropellent design to a 50% peroxide/methanol mixed-monoprop because FNC (one of the few companies that make 90% peroxide) wasn't willing to sell it to them. They've spent a lot more time dealing with designing the engines than they anticipated. Just goes to show, rocket engine design is not simple!
Other issues include how to get the thing back on the ground safely. They initally planned to use a big ass parachute to land it, but they found out that this really restricts them in terms of getting a launch license. Because there is a possiblity for such huge range drift with the parachute design (thus endangering public safety since it can land in a huge footprint) that they've now had to think about doing a powered landing using the engines. This of course, leaves much less room for error on landing. An alternative would be to have the pilot bail out and parachute down while the ship lands by itself, but again this adds complexity.
Although I'd love to see them win, the fact is, Rutan is way ahead of them in terms of testing and having a working prototype ship. Basically SS1 is the favorite by quite a bit as of now.
Parent
Re:No rocket engine design is not hard (Score:3, Funny)
If you need powered aluminum, I can get you plenty. All my neighbors drink pop from cans (I'm the strange one on the block who can't stand soda) and most throw them away. Cans are about as pure aluminum as you can get, so I'll just powder them, and then sell to you.
Okay, so I'll burn the paint off too, and if you like I will use electrolysis to get rid of the Al oxide.
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:4, Interesting)
The impression I got was that Americans teams needed FAA license, and probably foreign teams opperating in the US. I'd suppose that a Russian team opperating inside Russia would have their own licenses or permits from appropriate Russian agencies. I'm unsure if the X-prise rules specify where the opperation has to take place.
Parent
Re:Anybody else still in the running? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately US pilots have a tradition of experimental planes, and a regulation to place them under. Not everything needed to get into space, but you can work under those rules to do a lot of test flights before you have to get into untested regulatory waters.
Mind you would be a fool to start with an experimental plane classification and give no hints that you intend to reach farther. Regulators do not like it when you surprise them. However you can work with them in well understood areas, while makin
I 100% agree with this story (Score:3, Funny)
1/3 of the way there... (Score:5, Informative)
Bet this one only went 1/3 of the way because... (Score:5, Informative)
I bet this one only went a third of the way because that's about as far up as they can go while still controlling the craft's attitude with control surfaces.
Power for the rest of the altitude should be no problem, since their engine seems to be working just fine. But they'll need also need their attitude control and reentry heat shielding working to go extra-atmospheric - where they can't just glide down the whole way.
So first some tests where the limits of the aircraft mode are demonstrated and debugged, followed by tests where the additonal functions are also used.
One step at a time wins the race. B-)
Parent
Re:Bet this one only went 1/3 of the way because.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bet this one only went 1/3 of the way because.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:turns out that they can glide down the whole wa (Score:5, Informative)
Right. Falling into the atmosphere from just above it at a moderate speed is much less heating than hitting it sideways at nearly orbital velocity.
But while you're still doing atmospheric flight you only have to deal with the friction from the airspeed you need to get your lift - and you have an atmosphere around you to dump it into continuously.
Once you "pop out" you have the additional energy of your fall back from your peak altitude to flight altitude to deal with. That's a LOT. Any excess of that over the kinetic energy of your flight speed shows up as heat in your skin, mostly in the very short time near the end of the transition from "air might as well not be there" to "thick enough to fly in". This is in ADDITION to the continuous heating of the skin by flight friction - which didn't get much chance to cool by conduction in the near-vacuum of the hump flight.
If you weren't firing your engines while up in the near-vacuum it's close to a wash - you converted flight kinetic energy to altitude, then back. So it's similar to just the air friction from cruising at the high altitude and speed. If you fired your engines in the near vacuum, the portion of that energy that went into accellerating you comes back as extra heat.
So it's not as big a problem as with a shuttle (which dumps most of its orbital energy as a couple thousand mile streak of purple ionized ceramic vapor). But it's not trivial either. (Especially since you'll be flying pretty darned fast just before you leave the effective atmosphere if you want to get very far above it.) Thus the recently added heat shielding.
Parent
Re:1/3 of the way there... (Score:3, Interesting)
A Little Questionable Article? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Little Questionable Article? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No mention of the feat at the web site?! (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot in space... (Score:3, Funny)
Woohoo.. interplanetary takeover. If 'News limited' can have their own satellites, so can we.
Slashdot, your official lunar news source.
Curses, foiled again! (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless something goes seriously wrong with Scaled's program, it looks they've got the thing pretty much sewn up. The only serious competitors to Scaled right now are Carmack's Armadillo and those craaazy Canucks on the Da Vinci project. Given that this is almost exactly 1/3 of the way to the X Prize and that they already have broken the red tape barrier, I have trouble seeing anyone catching up to Rutan and crew at this point.
Re:Curses, foiled again! (Score:4, Interesting)
However, sing as how no other team has even tested a full scale demonstrator yet, Rutan is firmly in the lead. Armadillo hasn't even figured out their entire landing proceedure yet. It's hard to figure out where Da Vinci is at since they're site is somewhat short on details. It took a while to even figure out that they had physical components ready. Unless something goes wrong, it's hard to see anyone passing Scaled at this point.
Parent
I hope they get there, but what next? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this 'cos they're good, or is it the case that the two tasks (suborbital flight, orbital flight) really don't bear any comparison? Five years from now, will Slashdot be covering the Y prize (orbital flight) or ultimately even the Z-prize (presumably an amateur moonshot)
Re:I hope they get there, but what next? (Score:5, Interesting)
A manned suborbital vehicle going to 100km altitude needs a reaction control system to orient itself in a vacuum. It needs to be pressurized. And it needs a (small) heat shield.
So it really is a space craft that just does not have enough delta-v to make orbit.
By increasing the available delta-v incrementally you can work out the bugs much easier than if you had to do it all in one big step like they did with the shuttle.
A suborbital craft is also very interesting as a reusable first stage for a microsattelite launch vehicle. For example with the payload of the spaceship one and an expendable upper stage it should be possible to get about 10kg into low earth orbit. This would be very interesting for universities and radio amateurs that can not affor d a large launch vehicle.
The DOD has also shown some interest in microsattelites. This is a nice way to make some money while developing a real reusable orbital space craft.
Parent
Re:I hope they get there, but what next? (Score:3, Informative)
So it really is a space craft that just does not have enough delta-v to make orbit.
...Has to be the understatement of the year. Yes, sub-orbital spaceflight addresses many of the technical challenges of orbital spaceflight, however it doesn't address the only hard one. Reaction control and the aerodynamics are really rather straight forward. This project does not address the thermal control issues of orbital flight, as the heat loads are no where near wh
Okay, you guys... (Score:5, Insightful)
Rutan and his company aren't doing this for the prize. They're doing it to make a point about certain types of aviation and engineering that have been long derided by NASA and other naysayers as being unrealistic, impossible, et cetera.
Look at Rutan's track record, which includes the development of composites--an absolute breakthrough that the FAA is just now getting around to accepting--and the Long-EZ craft. Look at everything the guy has done, and the company he has, and tell me he doesn't have one hell of a chance at making this thing work.
Re:Okay, you guys... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay, you guys... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do I need cheap access to space? If you gave me a cable that worked for a space elevator, but the only material that would work resulted in a cable that required something with twice the power of the Saturn V, I'd jump at it despite having to hire rocket scientists to design and build the thing. (Assume that the plan of dropping a small cable to pull the big one up turns out not to work for whatever reason).
Once I get a cable in place, all launches are cheap. I can undercut anyone with a conventio
how long now? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is very exciting to watch. I wish these guys all the luck and safety in the world.
Re:how long now? (Score:4, Insightful)
After that, there will probably be a series of flights progressively going higher and faster to test out the high speed handling of the craft. Rutan is known for being very methodical about testing new designs.
After that, they'll probably start doing a few flights to 300K+ feet to make sure that everything works correctly. After that, they'll load on the two extra passengers and prepare to make the two flights in one week necessary to get the prize. (just hitting the altitude doesn't get you the prize) Knowing Rutan, he'll probably throw in a couple more flights in that first week just to show off.
Parent
Re:how long now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Pressure suits are a real pain, and they restrict the pilot's vision, hearing, and motion so much that it's really good if you can avoid them. SpaceShip One is no walk in the park to fly, the pilot really needs all the help he can get to fly it.
Godspeed, Burt.
thad
Parent
sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Informative)
Re:sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Interesting)
And there is a commercial rocket in production [spacex.com] that is small compared to its competitors and has a reusable first stage. It will be used to launch satellites for the DOD, among others.
There are already plans to scale this vehicle up to a much larger size. And the first stage will still be reusable.
Parent
Re:sub-orbital != orbital (Score:5, Informative)
Boeing has managed to capitalize on reducing the launch technician side of things along with using cheaper Ukranian parts to get launch costs down to about $5000/kg to LEO with Sea Launch. That's half the cost of their own Delta launchers. The DC-X several years ago had real promise of beinga practical SSTO, massively cutting launch costs. Unfortunately, NASA axed it, seeing it as a competitor. The hope is that the rise of private companies that aren't tied to NASA politics will be able to eventually replicate the work done on the DC-X and actually get some real progress on cheap orbital launches rather than the technology of the month approach NASA's been dumping money down the last 20 years.
Parent
IS This Design A Dead End? (Score:5, Interesting)
Remembering that achieving orbit is a matter of velocity, not altitude, is the Rutan design a dead end? I.e., could this design achieve orbit with the addition of a more powerful engine? (I know the easy answer is "Yes", but I'm asking if this particular design is capable of orbital flight.) If so, would the Rutan's rather unusual reentry approach work in a return from orbit?
Re:IS This Design A Dead End? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IS This Design A Dead End? (Score:5, Insightful)
The overall concept which rutan is using is staging at high altitude and low speed with a more or less conventional aircraft as a first stage.
This is most definitely not a dead end. There are existing launchers such as pegasus that do it that way, and there are also some very serious proposals for orbital two stage space transports with a large, rocket assisted transport aircraft as a first stage.
Give rutan a price of 100 million $ and he will come up with a concept for an orbital two stage space transport. It will probably look completely different (no two rutan aircraft look alike), but I would bet that it will use subsonic staging at high altitude.
Parent
First FAA license (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Um (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Um (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could look at it this way: sub-orbital flight can potentially yield returns far beyond the investment. And I don't mean just the ability to fly at sub-orbital altitudes; getting this far proves you've got the brains and cojones to achieve this feat, which attracts other investors, which can fund bigger projects.
But if you can't bear the investment, the X-Prize may soften that blow to the point that a company may give it a try. Think of it as a carrot that will feed you long enough to get to the BIG carrot farther on.
Parent
Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic taxi (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic t (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the wrights spent most of the rest of their career suing other people over patents. Everyone else continued innovating despite them. But I am sure you are referring to the good part where they were building aircraft out of their bicycle shop. :)
Parent
Re:Lindbergh wasn't trying to be a transatlantic t (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:wait (Score:3, Informative)
I believe you are thinking of the X-43A [nasa.gov] Scramjet test vehicle.
Re:Can't wait (Score:3, Interesting)