Category Archives: Suborbital

Iso-Haisu Launched Today Thursday, Still Missing

Posted on Thu, 2010-02-11 by gravityloss

A Finnish largish amateur hybrid rocket project, Iso-Haisu (Large Stinky or Big Skunk, the successor of the smaller Haisunäätä, Skunk, the first Finnish hybrid) was flown today at a military artillery range. Reports say it disappeared into the clouds but … Continue reading →

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Ground Ops Costs

Posted on Wed, 2010-01-06 by gravityloss

Clark Lindsey comments on how Arianespace just raised prices instead of lessening costs. I’m reminded of Rob Coppinger’s recent visit to Kourou, their launch site. It just costs a lot to keep a city going in the middle of jungle, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, industry, NASA, RLV:s, Suborbital | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Hovering Vehicle Tilt Control, Part Zero

Posted on Wed, 2009-11-25 by gravityloss

Someone was asking on ARocket about where to start with building a differentially throttled hovering vehicle. Lots of advice were given by various people. I’ll show some stuff I quickly sketched back in 2007 with Simulink. It’s such an easy … Continue reading →

Posted in Homebuilt, Models, Motivation, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lunar Lander Challenge 2009

Posted on Wed, 2009-09-16 by gravityloss

Armadillo finally won L2 already. Masten and Unreasonable are still flying for second place I think (I’m not 100% clear on the rules) today! Spacetransportnews is the place to watch all this. (Or it has the links collected.) It’s historical … Continue reading →

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Airline vs Spaceline Safety

Posted on Wed, 2009-08-19 by gravityloss

62 mile club has a writeup of a beta “customer qualification program” for XCOR’s Lynx suborbital craft. This highlights the differences and current state of play. Rocketships will not be as safe as airliners in the near future, and they … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, engines, Homebuilt, industry, RLV:s, Suborbital, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Hydrocarbon Scramjet Already Flown

Posted on Tue, 2009-08-11 by gravityloss

By ATK in 2005. Shows how little I know. EDIT: Spaceref had the details, Mach 5.5. (Scramjets are still not a space application.)

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Augustine Panel First Hearing

Posted on Wed, 2009-06-17 by gravityloss

Ongoing. Norm Augustine You can stream NASA TV with VLC, just paste this link into it: http://www.nasa.gov/55644main_NASATV_Windows.asx

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What NASA Should Do

Posted on Tue, 2009-04-21 by gravityloss

And partly what this blog is about (I realized in the middle that I’m typing like in a slide show, so I changed it into bullet points, as it’s an overview and not a deep text). I present my vision … Continue reading →

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A Secret Finnish Rocketry Project – or Two!

Posted on Wed, 2009-04-01 by gravityloss

You read it first here! In the sixties, with the cold war at its tightest and the threat of Soviet Union the greatest, Urho Kekkonen, then president of Finland, with inside info about the coming world politics problems, ordered a … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, Humor, Motivation, Suborbital, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Optimum Rocket Cruise

Posted on Fri, 2009-03-20 by gravityloss

With some caveats. 🙂 Let’s assume a rocket is launched, and accelerates to constant speed v_c. Then it stays cruising at this speed and at a constant altitude. Landing is disregarded. The cruise We must modify the rocket equation slightly … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, Humor, Motivation, RLV:s, Science Links, Spacecraft, Suborbital, Transportation, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments