Category Archives: Spacecraft

SpaceX Did It – What It Should Do Next

Posted on Wed, 2015-12-23 by gravityloss

Congratulations to SpaceX who landed the first stage intact. Assuming cost is roughly related to stage mass and engine count, reusing the first stage saves 9/10 of the whole rocket cost. If they can run the stage ten times, that … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Depot, Design, engines, industry, Launchers, Lunar, RLV:s, Spacecraft, SpaceX, Transportation | Leave a comment

Various re-entry vehicle shapes in a low speed wind tunnel

Posted on Sun, 2010-11-07 by gravityloss

Or another excuse for testing video embedding again… It seems tumbling is quite common, which is not a nice thig.

Posted in airplane, NASA, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Airbags, parachutes, Rogallo wings and all that

Posted on Sun, 2010-10-17 by gravityloss

NASA of the sixties reminds me of the Armadillo Aerospace of today. Drop tests, I think an F-111 model and various parachute, parawing and Rogallo wing things. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDyGMPHFteE] Airbags, landing rockets, landing gears (Dyna-Soar like rig) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ia5iWRg4wE&feature=related] Thank you NASA … Continue reading →

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Parawings and Rogallo wings, again

Posted on Thu, 2010-10-07 by gravityloss

Inspired by Michel Van (not Scott Lowther as mentioned earlier) at Secret Projects, who ran into the Gemini inflatable Rogallo wing test videos that are now available (not embeddable so linked only). There are parafoil systems for airdropping stuff, though … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Design, industry, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital | 2 Comments

Gravity Assist Competition

Posted on Wed, 2010-10-06 by gravityloss

Or The Space Game, by ESA. This is a nice javascript webpage where a probe is shot from Earth to Jupiter with gravity assists at Venus (twice), Earth and Mars. You try to achieve the lowest propulsive delta vee. You … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Astronomy, Depot, Design, Energy, ESA, Homebuilt, industry, Launchers, Lunar, Models, Motivation, Science Links, Spacecraft | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On Pressure Fed Rockets and Scaling

Posted on Sat, 2010-09-18 by gravityloss

Well, scaling seems to be my pet issue. I recently wrote something not entirely well reasoned in a comment at Paul Breed’s. (For some reason Chrome complains about blogrolling.com malware there so continue if you’re sure you’re safe.) So let’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Design, engines, Launchers, RLV:s, Spacecraft, Suborbital, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Humans Fast, Machines Slow

Posted on Thu, 2010-09-09 by gravityloss

Detach a small capsule with the humans that goes directly to the surface (with only days of life support) and leave the untended craft to do multi-pass aerobraking Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Colonization, Depot, engines, ESA, Global, industry, ISRU, JAXA, Lunar, Models, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Science Links, Spacecraft, Transportation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Proposed US On-Orbit Propellant Transfer System

Posted on Tue, 2010-04-13 by gravityloss

For the ISS. The shuttle would transfer unused hypergolics to the ISS propulsion module. ATV as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_Propulsion_Module It was canceled and instead Progress and ATV are used directly for most boosting. Nevertheless the technology could be useful in developing … Continue reading →

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NASA's Rejuvenation

Posted on Wed, 2010-02-10 by gravityloss

I do appreciate that the model is so different from Apollo that it takes time and thought to understand what it is about; I did not see it at first myself — but once I got past my preconceptions, I … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, engines, industry, Motivation, NASA, RLV:s, Science Links, Spacecraft | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

NASA Fails to Renew

Posted on Thu, 2010-01-28 by gravityloss

NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way. Sayeth Orlando Sentinel. Haven’t followed NASA’s latest movements. The Augustine … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Demotivation, industry, Lunar, NASA, RLV:s, Spacecraft | Tagged , , | Leave a comment