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Rocket Lab - Reusability Plans for Electron Rocket via Helicopter Catching
- Robotbeat 7y agoGood on RocketLab for finally doing reuse. It's such an obvious path for improving flightrate and reducing cost for a high flightrate rocket that I'm super surprised that it has been mostly poo-pooed by the smallsat launcher startups (even though they all seem to be shooting for high flight rate). There are also a bunch of different recovery options available to smaller rockets that aren't available to large rockets. (And Rocketlab has shown an ability to execute and enter operational service that makes me fairly confident they'll succeed.) By the way, this is nearly identical (minus the helicopter) to the method that John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace (now Exos Aerospace https://exosaero.com/ https://exosaero.com/) used for recovering their Stig reusable sounding rocket back in 2011/2012. I'm a little sad that none of the media reports are mentioning that, as it's clearly a direct forerunner and Exos Aerospace is still doing flights. Here is the ballute: https://www.universetoday.com/93281/armadillo-launches-a-stig-a-rocket-captures-awesome-image-of-ballute/ https://www.universetoday.com/93281/armadillo-launches-a-sti... Here is the guided parachute return: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7zL07Tof8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7zL07Tof8 And here is an Exos Aerospace flight earlier this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk
- amayne 7y agoThe key difference is velocity. Exos/Armadillo have never launched an orbital class vehicle, which comes down a lot faster and hotter. I love Carmack and rooted for Armadillo. But ballutes are 50 year old tech (Gemini’s escape system had them.) Armadillo’s real innovations were in other areas and doing things faster and cheaper. Carmack would have been an interesting fit at SpaceX if he hadn’t gone to Oculus.
- Robotbeat 7y agoOf course it's harder and faster. But the recovery mode is the same, and that is notable. Recovery of rockets that have been to space, even just suborbitally, is not trivial.
- ohitsdom 7y ago> Good on RocketLab for finally doing reuse. "finally" seems a little harsh since their first commercial launch was less than a year ago. Seems like they've been working on it for some time and as mentioned in the presentation, RocketLab is usually pretty careful about what they announce. They seem really smart with the strategic moves they've been making so I'm excited to see this play out.
- Robotbeat 7y agoPeter Beck is kind of famous for poo-pooing reusability in launch. That's what I'm referring to. In part of the reuse presentation, he said, "this is a cap I'm about to eat because I've said publicly a few times the various things that rocket lab would never do so [i.e. reuse] unfortunately I find myself in the position of eating my hat." Here: https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=501 https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=501 Rocketlab has been able to execute very effectively, which is why I appreciate them. It had long bothered me that they didn't put their obviously impressive engineering prowess to bear on the reuse problem, and I'm very glad that they've come around.
- Taniwha 7y agoThey seem to prefer to quietly do stuff then announce it (their kick stage for example, the silly sparkly thing), given that I suspect they now have enough data to be really sure they can pull it off
- xchaotic 7y agoIs this really the most simple available method?
- Robotbeat 7y agoBasically, yeah. And it is pretty simple and it has been done before by Exos Aerospace (formerly Armadillo Aerospace of John Carmack): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk ... the helicopter recovery of stuff falling by parachute from space bit has also been done before with the Corona capsules: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YQqAnEN_0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YQqAnEN_0
- mLuby 7y ago1. Is this possible for Election and not for, say, Falcon 9 due to the difference in mass? 2. Is that a retro burn in the animation or reentry heating? 3. Are they gonna catch those discarded battery packs too? Should be easier than a whole first stage. 4. If they nail this, catching everything by helicopter shouldn't be that much harder.
- phire 7y agoI suspect they will modify the design to not drop battery packs anymore.
- DuskStar 7y agoI suspect the battery packs cost basically nothing in comparison to the rest of the stage. (I'm also not sure that the batteries are even reusable - if there's ever a time to sacrifice rechargeability for performance, it's here)
- Taniwha 7y ago(and I'm pretty sure it's the upper stage batteries that they drop)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Taniwha 7y ago1. yes - they don't have the mass for the fuel to get back 2. reentry heating 3. probably not (I think it's the 2nd stage that drops its batteries) 4. because they don't have the mass to do the return they don't have a lot of options
- swiftcoder 7y agoI spent a solid minute thinking this headline was about Electron the app shell and Rocket the rustlang web framework...
- SiempreViernes 7y agoYeah, I was honestly surprised this was about a real rocket, and not some sort of effort to get electron more efficient.
- kevinsundar 7y agoDirect link to an animation of catching a rocket with a helicopter: https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=858 https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=858
- inflatableDodo 7y agoThe failure modes on that look fun. I wonder how much they are planning on paying the pilot.
- gibolt 7y agoShould be falling relatively slowly at that point. Helicopter can be pretty distant until the rocket has slowed and stabilized, and then always remain above it. The chance of two things that small in 3D space hitting is pretty small.
- londons_explore 7y agoCatching things in the air is hard... But it's been done[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery...
- andrewwharton 7y agoLike he says in the video, catching is actually the easy bit. Having the booster survive the re-entry heating and aerodynamic loads while only using passive methods to slow it is the hard bit.
- twic 7y agoMore like these, given that the rocket will be falling rather than tethered: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_retrieval https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-air_retrieval
- apendleton 7y agoAlso https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)#Recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)#Recovery
- amayne 7y agoThis is great. I was hoping for a little more information in the presentation on the specifics, but still wonderful news. Best part was reading a Reddit forum before the announcement where someone was making a passionate argument that the presentation absolutely wouldn't be about reusability.
- Taniwha 7y agoIt's worth watching the animation video to the standup at the end where they explain a lot more about the issues
- Taniwha 7y agoThere's also a much longer version here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joONWIGtcdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joONWIGtcdY
- amayne 7y agoI watched the whole presentation. I was expecting Beck would go into the specifics about the problems and how they specifically are planning to solve them, kind of like Musk does. I’m sure we’ll get more details. I was just curious.
- twic 7y agoGo big or go home: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3741/1 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3741/1
- duckymcduckface 7y agoI look forward to the video of Peter Beck eating his hat.
- greguu 7y agoThe helicopter in the animation looks like a EC225 or AS332 "Super Puma"
- baybal2 7y agoHe wants to do it with Super Puma. Ahem, its maximum takeoff weight is 9 tons... There is a limited supply of Mi-26s in the world, and I bet nobody these days will be eager to even lease theirs. Why none out of those "new age" launch companies uses the simplest solution? Parachutes and solid fuel rockets for soft landing.
- Taniwha 7y agoa) because they launch out over the ocean b) because you can't turn a solid rocket off once you've landed c) and because of the rocket equation any added mass costs so much more, if they could afford the mass for solids for landing they could just add more liquid fuel and do the spacex thing, that would likely use less mass
- baybal2 7y agoa) rocket should have huge positive buoyancy b) you just have to size them right for the rocket mass and terminal velocity with a parachute c) definitely, but propulsive landing also does not come with fuel as the only mass penalty. You also have to add mass of heavy hydraulics and sensors into consideration.
- pjc50 7y agoThe SpaceX reason for doing barge landings rather than just fishing the rockets out of the sea is that salt water is very damaging to the rocket. Landing on the barge requires active directional control. Most of the Soyuz deceleration is done with parachutes, I'm not sure how that scales to a whole first stage.
- Taniwha 7y agoyes, exactly, salt water is VERY VERY bad Your main engines are gimballed for guidance, that mass cost is already paid
- 7y ago
- indolering 7y ago> The first phase will see Rocket Lab attempt to recover a full Electron first stage from the ocean downrange of Launch Complex 1 and have it shipped back to Rocket Lab’s Production Complex for refurbishment Has anyone been able to economically refurbish engines fished out of salt water? I know that NASA and SpaceX both failed at this, why would the Electron be better suited for saltwater recovery?
- deepsun 7y agoMaybe because they don't have the most vulnerable part of a rocket engine -- turbine?