The RX rocket family (''Roket Eksperimental'', ) is a series of

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 incepti ...

s developed by the

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

National Institute of Aeronautics and Space The National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (, LAPAN) was the Indonesian government's space agency. It was established on 27 November 1963, by former Indonesian president Sukarno, after one year's existence of a previous, informal space ...

(LAPAN). They are simply named by their diameter in millimeters; for example, the RX-250 has a diameter of . The propellant used is

HTPB Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) is an oligomer of butadiene terminated at each end with a hydroxyl functional group. It reacts with isocyanates to form polyurethane polymers. HTPB is a translucent liquid with a color similar to wax paper ...

-based

composite propellant Ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) is a solid rocket propellant. It differs from many traditional solid rocket propellants such as black powder or zinc-sulfur, not only in chemical composition and overall performance but also by b ...

Individual boosters

This family is composed of: ''Note: Characteristics in italics are design values, they have not been measured yet.'' RX-250 was launched eight times from 1987 to 2007. RX-320 was launched twice in 2008 and once again in 2014. RX-420 flew just once in 2009; it is superseded by RX-450 which was launched on 13 May 2015. , the next booster version RX-550 is under construction; the larger ones are only on the drawing board. In 2017 successful launches of RX 450 and RX 1220 were carried out from the Space and Atmospheric Observation & Technology Testing Center at

Garut Garut is a district and town in West Java of Indonesia, and the former capital of Garut Regency. It is located about 75 km to the southeast of the major city of Bandung. History The modern history of Garut started on 2 March 1811 when the B ...

West Java West Java (, ) is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten and the country's capital region of Jakarta to t ...

. The RX 1220 is a based on the R-HAN122 B. Two RX-1220 rockets were launched at the Karang Papak Air Force Base on December 23, 2018. File:Rx320 lapan testfire.png, RX-320 File:RX420 Rocket.jpg, RX-420 File:RX550 Rocket.jpg, RX-550

Multi-stage rockets

Once the solid boosters are fully qualified,

LAPAN The National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (, LAPAN) was the Indonesian government's space agency. It was established on 27 November 1963, by former Indonesian president Sukarno, after one year's existence of a previous, informal space a ...

plans to assemble several of them into multi-stage rockets called ''Roket Pengorbit Satelit'' or ''RPS''. Four staging configurations have been retained so far: * RPS-01 Variant 1 (ex- RPS-420) :* First stage: 3 x RX-420 :* Second stage: 1 x RX-420 :* Third stage: 1 x RX-420 (shorter) :* Fourth stage: 1 x RX-320 :* Total height: * RPS-01 Variant 2b :* First stage: 1 x RX-550 + 2 x RX-420 :* Second stage: 1 x RX-550 :* Third stage: 1 x RX-320 :* Total height: * RPS-01 Variant 3a :* First stage: 1 x RX-450 :* Second stage: 1 x RX-450 :* Total height: * RPS-01 Variant 3b :* First stage: 1 x RX-450 + 2 x RX-320 :* Second stage: 1 x RX-450 :* Third stage: 1 x RX-320 :* Total height: Earlier plans for the Pengorbitan-1 and -2

orbital 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 multistag ...

s ( RPS-420s) were based on the RX-420 engine which was superseded by the RX-450. , integration work is proceeding on variants 3a and 3b, whose engines have all been successfully flight-qualified. Since 2019,

's rocket division PUSTEKROKET has collaborated with AASPT and CGWIC of China in designing newer multiple stage sounding rockets. The new rockets will be called RX-452 which combined of first stage, and of second stage. The design is based on TK-32 sounding rocket as well as RX-450. It is expected the newer design to be able to reach above , simulation showed the rocket is able to reach . * RX-452 :* First stage: 1 x RX-400 :* Second stage: 1 x RX-450 :* Total height:

References

{{Expendable launch systems, state=collapsed Space launch vehicles of Indonesia