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H-II Transfer Vehicle Diagram
The H-II (H2) rocket was a Japanese satellite launch system, which flew seven times between 1994 and 1999, with five successes. It was developed by NASDA in order to give Japan a capability to launch larger satellites in the 1990s. It was the first two-stage liquid-fuelled rocket Japan made using only technologies developed domestically. It was superseded by the H-IIA rocket following reliability and cost issues. Background Prior to H-II, NASDA had to use components licensed by the United States in its rockets. In particular, crucial technologies of H-I and its predecessors were from the Delta rockets (the manufacturer of the Delta rockets, McDonnell Douglas, later Boeing and the United Launch Alliance, would later use the H-IIA's technologies (the rocket itself is the successor to the H-II) to create the Delta III, albeit short lived). Although the H-I did have some domestically produced components, such as LE-5 engine on the second stage and inertial guidance system, the mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medium-lift Launch Vehicle
A medium-lift launch vehicle (MLV) is a rocket launch vehicle that is capable of lifting between by NASA classification or between by Russian classification of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO).50t payloads" An MLV is between a small-lift launch vehicle and a heavy-lift launch vehicle. Medium-lift vehicles comprise the majority of orbital launches , with both the Soyuz and Falcon 9 having launched several hundred times. History Soviet Union and Russia The Soviet R-7 family was based on the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Sputnik was a small-lift derivative that carried the first satellite into orbit, and the R-7 design quickly grew in capacity, with Luna launching in 1958. The 1960s saw the R-7 series continue to develop, with Vostok 1 carrying the first human into space, Voskhod carrying multiple crew members, and the first Soyuz. , Soyuz variants are still operational and have launched over 1,100 times. The R-7 family has launched more times ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liquid-fuelled Rocket
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (''I''sp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low. Types Liquid rockets can be monopropellant rockets using a single type of propellant, or bipropellant rockets using two types of propellant. Tripropellant rockets using three types of propellant are rare. Liquid oxidizer propellants are also used in hybrid rockets, with some of the advantages of a solid rocket. Bipropellant liquid rockets use a liquid fuel such as liquid hydrogen or RP-1, and a liquid oxidizer such as liquid oxygen. The engine may be a cryogenic rocket engine, where the fuel and oxidizer, such as hydrogen and oxygen, are gases which have been liquefied at very low temperatures. Most designs of liquid r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hughes Aircraft Company
The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California, as a division of the Hughes Tool Company. The company produced the Hughes H-4 Hercules aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the ''Galileo'' spacecraft, and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile. Hughes Aircraft was founded to build Hughes' H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and later modified other aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated to Culver City, California, in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as a subcontractor. Hughes attempted to mold it into a major military aircraft manufacturer during World War II. However, its early military projects ended in failure, with millions of dollars in U.S. government funds expended for only a handful of prototypes, resulting in a highly publicized U.S. Senate investigation into alleged mismanage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plaza Accord
The Plaza Accord was a joint agreement signed on September 22, 1985, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, between France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to depreciate the U.S. dollar in relation to the French franc, the German Deutsche Mark, the Japanese yen and the British pound sterling by intervening in currency markets. The U.S. dollar depreciated significantly from the time of the agreement until it was replaced by the Louvre Accord in 1987. Some commentators believe the Plaza Accord contributed to the Japanese asset price bubble of the late 1980s. Background The tight monetary policy of the Federal Reserve's Chairman Paul Volcker and the expansionary fiscal policy of President Ronald Reagan's first term in 1981–84 pushed up long-term interest rates and attracted capital inflow, appreciating the dollar. The French government was strongly in favor of currency intervention to reduce it, but US administration officials, such as Treasu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariane (rocket)
Ariane is a series of European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne. France first proposed the Ariane project and it was officially agreed upon at the end of 1973 after discussions between France, Germany and the UK. The project was Western Europe's second attempt at developing its own launcher following the unsuccessful Europa project. The Ariane project was code-named L3S (the French abbreviation for third-generation substitution launcher). The European Space Agency (ESA) charged Aérospatiale (whose former assets now form Airbus) with the development of all Ariane launchers and of the testing facilities, while Arianespace handled production, operations and marketing after its creation in 1980. Arianespace launches Ariane rockets from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guiana. As a result of the merger in 2000 that founded Airbus, the new corporation's space branch and su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Systems Corporation
A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere. Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, or gravity. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Significant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solid-fuel Rocket
A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses Rocket propellant#Solid chemical propellants, solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The inception of gunpowder rockets in warfare can be credited to the ancient Chinese, and in the 13th century, the Mongols played a pivotal role in facilitating their westward adoption. All rockets used some form of solid or powdered propellant until the 20th century, when liquid-propellant rockets offered more efficient and controllable alternatives. Because of their simplicity and reliability, solid rockets are still used today in military armaments worldwide, model rockets, solid rocket boosters and on larger applications. Since solid-fuel rockets can remain in storage for an extended period without much propellant degradation, and since they almost always launch reliably, they have been frequently used in military applications such as missiles. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liquid Rocket
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid rocket propellant, liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or Solid-propellant rocket , solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high Specific impulse, specific impulse (''I''sp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low. Types Liquid rockets can be monopropellant rockets using a single type of propellant, or bipropellant rockets using two types of propellant. Tripropellant rockets using three types of propellant are rare. Liquid oxidizer propellants are also used in hybrid rockets, with some of the advantages of a solid rocket. Bipropellant liquid rockets use a liquid fuel such as liquid hydrogen or RP-1, and a liquid oxidizer such as liquid oxygen. The engine may be a cryogenic rocket engine, where the fuel and oxidizer, such as hydrogen and oxygen, are gases which hav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inertial Guidance System
An inertial navigation system (INS; also inertial guidance system, inertial instrument) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors (accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity (direction and speed of movement) of a moving object without the need for external references. Often the inertial sensors are supplemented by a barometric altimeter and sometimes by magnetic sensors ( magnetometers) and/or speed measuring devices. INSs are used on mobile robots and on vehicles such as ships, aircraft, submarines, guided missiles, and spacecraft. Older INS systems generally used an inertial platform as their mounting point to the vehicle and the terms are sometimes considered synonymous. Design Inertial navigation is a self-contained navigation technique in which measurements provided by accelerometers and gyroscopes are used to track the position and orientation of an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LE-5
The LE-5 liquid rocket engine and its derivative models were developed in Japan to meet the need for an upper stage propulsion system for the H-I and H-II series of launch vehicles. It is a bipropellant design, using LH and LOX. Primary design and production work was carried out by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In terms of liquid rockets, it is a fairly small engine, both in size and thrust output, being in the 89 kN (20,000 lbf) and the more recent models the 130 kN (30,000 lbf) thrust class. The motor is capable of multiple restarts, due to a spark ignition system as opposed to the single use pyrotechnic or hypergolic igniters commonly used on some contemporary engines. Though rated for up to 16 starts and 40+ minutes of firing time, on the H-II the engine is considered expendable, being used for one flight and jettisoned. It is sometimes started only once for a nine-minute burn, but in missions to GTO the engine is often fired a second time to inject the pay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Delta III
Delta III was an expendable launch vehicle made by McDonnell Douglas (later acquired by Boeing). Development was canceled before the vehicle became operational. The vehicle is the third generation of the Delta rocket family, developed from the highly successful Delta II to help meet the launch demand of larger satellites. While the Delta III never had a successful launch, some of the technologies developed were used in its successor, the Delta IV. The Delta III was the first to use the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage, which was designed by the National Space Development Agency of Japan based on the second stage it developed for the H-IIA rocket and built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Contraves built the fairing and payload adapters based on designs it used on the Ariane 4. The first Delta III launch was on August 26, 1998. Of its three flights, the first two were failures, and the third, though declared successful, reached the low end of its targeted orbit range and carried o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Launch Alliance
United Launch Alliance, LLC (ULA) is an American launch service provider formed in December 2006 as a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The company designs, assembles, sells and launches rockets, but the company subcontracts out the production of rocket engines and solid rocket boosters. When founded, the company inherited the Atlas rocket family from Lockheed Martin and the Delta rocket family from Boeing. As of 2024, the Delta family has been retired and the Atlas V is in the process of being retired. ULA began development of the Vulcan Centaur in 2014 as replacement for both the Atlas and Delta rocket families. The Vulcan Centaur completed its maiden flight in January 2024. The primary customers of ULA are the Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA, but it also serves commercial clients. Company history Formation Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced on 2 May 2005 that they would establish a 50/50 joint venture, United L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
