DailyDirt: 3, 2, 1… Liftoff
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Re-usable spacecraft sound like a good idea — if they actually saved any costs and refurbishing them was economical. There are only a few examples of re-usable space vehicles so far, and NASA retired its space shuttle program in 2011, narrowing the field a bit. SpaceX seems to be getting closer to demonstrating a re-usable rocket system, but it still needs to re-launch one of its rockets (and it currently only has one rocket for such an attempt).
- India has an incredibly frugal space program which has just launched a mini reusable shuttle called the Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV-TD). This shuttle was developed for about $14 million and looks like a smaller X-37B, but it has a lot more testing to undergo before performing the same kind of tricks. [url]
- SpaceX’s latest rocket to successfully land may not be able to be re-used because it sustained “max damage” from its re-entry path. Still, this rocket stage will provide plenty of data to benchmark future re-usable rocket stages — or perhaps inspire modifications that could make the journey less damaging. [url]
- NASA is working on high altitude balloons to study the upper atmosphere. Okay, this isn’t exactly space, but NASA could also get a telescope to fly above a lot of atmosphere for a few months (or longer?) — and that would be a lot cheaper than a satellite. [url]
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Filed Under: balloons, re-usable rockets, rockets, spacecraft, suborbital, x-37b
Companies: boeing, nasa, spacex
Comments on “DailyDirt: 3, 2, 1… Liftoff”
For The ESA, It Is “3, 2, 1 ... Ignition”
Time T (as in “T minus time”) is defined differently by NASA versus the ESA: the former defines it as the moment of liftoff, the latter as the moment of engine ignition. So liftoff happens at T plus a few seconds.
Re: For The ESA, It Is “3, 2, 1 ... Ignition”
I wonder how the ESA would have handled the Space Shuttle.
First the Shuttle main engines ignite, get up to speed, and get checked out. Only then do the solids ignite. (And THAT’s when liftoff happens, ready or not.)