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Big Dumb Booster
Big Dumb Booster (BDB) is a general class of launch vehicle based on the premise that it is cheaper to operate large rockets of simple design than it is to operate smaller, more complex ones regardless of the lower payload efficiency.Schnitt, Arthur (1998''Minimum Cost Design for Space Operations''./ref> As referred to by the Office of Technology Assessment: Even though the large minimum-cost design (MCD) booster is less efficient for all around operation, its total cost of operation is cheaper because it is easier to build, operate and maintain, with the benefit of high reliability because of reduced parts counts. History Concept work was led by proponents at Aerospace Corporation, TRW, and Aerojet General, beginning in the late 1950s. The typical approach included maraging steel ( HY-140) for structure, pressure-fed engines using / UDMH, later LOX /RP-1, with pintle injectors scaled up from TRW's Lunar Module Descent Engine (LMDE). The Sea Dragon was an extremely l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Launch Vehicle
A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage rocket, but the term is more general and also encompasses vehicles like the Space Shuttle. Most launch vehicles operate from a launch pad, supported by a missile launch control center, launch control center and systems such as vehicle assembly and fueling. Launch vehicles are engineered with advanced aerodynamics and technologies, which contribute to high operating costs. An orbital spaceflight, orbital launch vehicle must lift its payload at least to the boundary of space, approximately and accelerate it to a horizontal velocity of at least . Suborbital spaceflight, Suborbital vehicles launch their payloads to lower velocity or are launched at elevation angles greater than horizontal. Practical orbital launch vehicles use chemical prope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RP-1
RP-1 (Rocket Propellant-1 or Refined Petroleum-1) and similar fuels like RG-1 and T-1 are highly refined kerosene formulations used as rocket fuel. Liquid-fueled rockets that use RP-1 as fuel are known as kerolox rockets. In their engines, RP-1 is Spray nozzle, atomized, mixed with liquid oxygen (LOX), and ignited to produce thrust. Developed in the 1950s, RP-1 is outwardly similar to other kerosene-based fuels like Jet A and JP-8 used in turbine engines but is manufactured to stricter standards. While RP-1 is widely used globally, the primary rocket kerosene formulations in Russia and other former Soviet countries are RG-1 and T-1, which have slightly higher densities. Compared to other rocket fuels, RP-1 provides several advantages with a few tradeoffs. Compared to liquid hydrogen, it offers a lower specific impulse, but can be stored at ambient temperatures, has a lower explosion risk, and although its specific energy is lower, its higher density results in greater energy de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TR-106
The TR-106 or low-cost pintle engine (LCPE) was a developmental rocket engine designed by TRW Inc., TRW under the Space Launch Initiative to reduce the cost of Launch service provider, launch services and space flight. Operating on LOX/LH2 the engine had a thrust of 2892 kN, or 650,000 pounds, making it one of the most powerful engines ever constructed. Overview The goal of the development was to produce a large, low-cost, easy-to-manufacture booster engine. The design used a single element coaxial pintle injector, a robust type of injector. It also used ablative cooling of the combustion chamber and nozzle instead of the more costly to manufacture regenerative cooling. The use of the pintle injector allows the engine thrust to be widely Throttleable rocket engine, throttleable, as was the case for the lunar module descent engine. Status Tom Mueller was a lead engineer for development of the LCPE, a 650,000 lbf thrust LOX/LH2 engine. In the summer of 2000, this LCPE wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northrop Grumman
Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and Arms industry, defense company. With 97,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $40 billion, it is one of the world's largest Arms industry, weapons manufacturers and military technology providers. Formed in 1994 through Northrop Corporation's purchase of Grumman Aerospace, Northrop Grumman ranked as the List of defense contractors, third-largest defense contractor in the world as of 2022. The firm ranked on the 2022 Fortune 500, ''Fortune'' 500 list of America's largest corporations. Northrop Grumman and its industry partners have won the Collier Trophy nine times, most recently for the development and production of the James Webb Space Telescope, an Space telescope, orbiting observatory launched in 2021. Northrop Grumman leads the development of the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, B-21 Raider, a long-range, stealth aircraft, stealth strategic bomber that can drop conv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Truax
Captain Robert C. Truax ( USN) (September 3, 1917 – September 17, 2010) was an American rocket engineer in the United States Navy, and companies such as Aerojet and Truax Engineering, which he founded. Truax was a proponent of low-cost rocket engine and vehicle designs. Life As a teenager, Truax was inspired by Robert Goddard articles in ''Popular Mechanics'' magazine to build his own rockets while residing in Alameda, California. From 1936 to 1939, midshipman Truax tested liquid-fuel rocket motors and published a February 1939 report in Astronautics. In 1938, he showed a thrust chamber that he had constructed to the British Interplanetary Society and wrote technical reports published by the American Rocket Society. Following two years' sea duty, first on and then a destroyer, then-Lieutenant Commander Truax worked at the Engineering Experiment Station at Annapolis in the Bureau of Aeronautics Ship Installations Division under Commander C. A. Bolster. Truax headed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Dragon (rocket)
The Sea Dragon was a 1962 conceptualized design study for a two-stage-to-orbit, two-stage sea-launched orbital super heavy-lift launch vehicle. The project was led by Robert Truax while working at Aerojet, one of a number of designs he created that were to be launched by floating the rocket in the ocean. Although there was some interest at both NASA and Vigor Shipyards, Todd Shipyards, the project was not implemented. With dimensions of long and in diameter, Sea Dragon would have been the largest rocket ever built. , among rockets that have been fully conceived but not built, it is by far the largest ever and, in terms of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO), equaled only by the Interplanetary Transport System concept (the predecessor to SpaceX Starship) in the latter's expendable configuration with both designed for 550 tonnes. Design Truax's basic idea was to produce a low-cost heavy launcher, a concept now called "big dumb booster." To lower the cost of operation, the rocket it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pintle Injector
The pintle injector is a type of propellant injector for a bipropellant rocket engine. Like any other injector, its purpose is to ensure appropriate flow rate and intermixing of the propellants as they are forcibly injected under high pressure into the Rocket engine#Combustion chamber, combustion chamber, so that an efficient and controlled combustion process can happen. A pintle-based rocket engine can have a greater throttling range than one based on regular injectors, and will very rarely present acoustic combustion instabilities, because a pintle injector tends to create a self-stabilizing flow pattern. Therefore, pintle-based engines are specially suitable for applications that require deep, fast, and safe throttling, such as Lander (spacecraft), landers. Pintle injectors began as early laboratory experimental apparatuses, used by Caltech's JPL, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the mid-1950s, to study the mixing and combustion reaction times of hypergolic propellant, hypergolic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UDMH
Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (abbreviated as UDMH; also known as 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, heptyl or Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is primarily used as a rocket propellant. At room temperature, UDMH is a colorless liquid, with a sharp, fishy, ammonia-like smell typical of organic amines. Samples turn yellowish on exposure to air and absorb oxygen and carbon dioxide. It is miscible with water, ethanol, and kerosene. At concentrations between 2.5% and 95% in air, its vapors are flammable. It is not sensitive to shock. Symmetrical dimethylhydrazine (1,2-dimethylhydrazine) also exists, but it is not as useful. UDMH can be oxidized in air to form many different substances, including toxic ones. Synthesis In 1875, UDMH was first prepared by Emil Fischer, who discovered and named the class of hydrazines, by reducing N-Nitrosodimethylamine with zinc in boiling acetic acid. Fischer's student Edward Renouf later studied UDMH more extensively as part ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Office Of Technology Assessment
The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) was an office of the United States Congress that operated from 1974 to 1995. OTA's purpose was to provide congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the late 20th century, i.e. technology assessment. It was a leader in practicing and encouraging delivery of public services in innovative and inexpensive ways, including early involvement in the distribution of government documents through electronic publishing. Its model was widely copied around the world. The OTA was authorized in 1972 and received its first funding in fiscal year 1974. It was defunded at the end of 1995, following the 1994 mid-term elections which led to Republican control of the Senate and the House. House Republican legislators characterized the OTA as wasteful and hostile to GOP interests. Princeton University hosts The OTA Legacy site, which holds "the complete collection of OTA publi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pressure-fed Cycle (rocket)
The pressure-fed engine is a class of rocket engine designs. A separate gas supply, usually helium, pressurizes the propellant tanks to force fuel and oxidizer to the combustion chamber. To maintain adequate flow, the tank pressures must exceed the combustion chamber pressure. Pressure fed engines have simple plumbing and have no need for complex and occasionally unreliable turbopumps. A typical startup procedure begins with opening a valve, often a one-shot pyrotechnic device, to allow the pressurizing gas to flow through check valves into the propellant tanks. Then the propellant valves in the engine itself are opened. If the fuel and oxidizer are hypergolic, they burn on contact; non-hypergolic fuels require an igniter. Multiple burns can be conducted by merely opening and closing the propellant valves as needed. If the pressurization system also has activating valves, they can be operated electrically, or by gas pressure controlled by smaller electrically operated valves. Care ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HY-80
HY-80 is a high-tensile, high yield strength, low alloy steel. It was developed for use in naval applications, specifically the development of pressure hulls for the US nuclear submarine program and is still currently used in many naval applications. It is valued for its strength to weight ratio. The "HY" steels are designed to possess a high yield strength (strength in resisting permanent plastic deformation). HY-80 is accompanied by HY-100 and HY-130 with each of the 80, 100 and 130 referring to their yield strength in ksi (80,000 psi, 100,000 psi and 130,000 psi). HY-80 and HY-100 are both weldable grades, whereas the HY-130 is generally considered unweldable. Modern steel manufacturing methods that can precisely control time/temperature during processing of HY steels has made the cost to manufacture more economical. HY-80 is considered to have good corrosion resistance and has good formability to supplement being weldable. Using HY-80 steel requires careful consideration ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
