3 ms·
I think cooling it allows you to increase the density to the point that the air can be used as oxidizer for the rocket engines. But I am still confused though
by matheweis 9y ago
I think cooling it allows you to increase the density to the point that the air can be used as oxidizer for the rocket engines.
But I am still confused though - part of the article talks about how the breakthrough is that it doesn't need to carry oxidizer because of the precompression / cooling system, but then it talks about how it could operate in orbit for 14 days, where no about of compression will get you enough oxygen...
- wcoenen 9y agoThey mean it needs to carry less oxidizer. The engines switch from air-breathing to on-board liquid oxygen at some point.
- valuearb 9y agoThey have to switch to onboard LOX when intake air gets too hot to cool sufficiently. That occurs at Mach 5.5. You need to achieve Mach 30 to reach orbit, so all this fancy engineering can only going to be used for a small fraction of the journey to space.
- vilhelm_s 9y agoIt's a small fraction of the velocity, but a significant fraction of the mass. E.g. I think for the reusable missions, the Falcon 9 first stage cuts out around Mach 6, but the mass of the first stage (which is mostly liquid oxygen) is about 80% of the mass of the rocket.