Russian Space Program: News & Discussion #3

I doubt they will actually use this thing when wings and parachutes exist and are far lighter and more reliable than this.

Most likely this is some PR moron's idea of what a reusable first stage looks like.

With a parachute landing the rocket could be damaged (sliding over the ground).

With a winged landing the rocket needs a landing gear = more weight.

Hole wrote:With a winged landing the rocket needs a landing gear = more weight.

Thats the usual response of the Muskian groupies, nonsense about wings not being "scalable", but its BS. Solid boosters of the sort that were used on US shuttle are heavy and very inefficient with an appallingy low ISP, but it doesn't matter. Their job is simply to get the stack to a height above the thickest part of the atmosphere where the more efficient propulsion can be engaged (or more accurately, its thurst ramped up to max). If they carry extra weight you compensate with more fuel.

The advantage of winged boosters over vertical blow-torches is one of refurbisment costs. A vertical lander must fly thru its own rocket wash and the propulsion section and lower structure must be thermally protected against the greatly increased temperatures. You think the scorching of Falcon returned cores is good for the metallurgy? Refurbishment to flight standard is far more expensive than Musk is prepared to admit, and his costs savings are hugely exagerated (his operation relies on cunningly hidden subsidies from the US gov).

Winged boosters will directly benefit from recent advances in UAV technology. Flying the boosters back to a strip will present no technical or operational difficulties, cross-range performance will be greatly increased, and the cost of refurb will be minimal compared to Musks heat affected returnees. Additionally, the number of boosters can be tailored to the payload weight so you only need to fly the mass you need, rather than the Falcon where you must launch the entire stack, even for a light-weight satellite.

Musk is no genius. He's just a clever con man who knows how to play the dumb Murikan herd.

Yes, on top of that you need to carry the fuel needed for the return, which is not little because you need to counter the massive potential energy the booster has when it initiates the return. If you have the wing to help with that it is possible that there is an advantage. I am not sure, I have not seen comparative figures, but I think it could be better.

Talking about Trampoline Man's Musk-wannabe Twitter fantasies makes as much sense as talking about Klipper spaceship

Waste of bandwidth

PapaDragon wrote:
Talking about Trampoline Man's Musk-wannabe Twitter fantasies makes as much sense as talking about Klipper spaceship

Waste of bandwidth

Thanks for your daily 2-minutes of Rogozin-Hate. Where would we all be without it...

Big_Gazza wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
Talking about Trampoline Man's Musk-wannabe Twitter fantasies makes as much sense as talking about Klipper spaceship

Waste of bandwidth

Thanks for your daily 2-minutes of Rogozin-Hate. Where would we all be without it..

Believing Trampoline Man's bullshit without a second thought

You are welcome

Big_Gazza wrote: He's just a clever con man who knows how to play the dumb Murikan herd.

Not even that. A clever conman would have revived more plausible projects that are actually interesting and most likely also be consulting with competent experts rather than deluding themselves into trying to "invent" some scifi bullshit.

Big_Gazza wrote:

Hole wrote:With a winged landing the rocket needs a landing gear = more weight.

Thats the usual response of the Muskian groupies, nonsense about wings not being "scalable", but its BS.  Solid boosters of the sort that were used on US shuttle are heavy and very inefficient with an appallingy low ISP, but it doesn't matter. Their job is simply to get the stack to a height above the thickest part of the atmosphere where the more efficient propulsion can be engaged (or more accurately, its thurst ramped up to max). If they carry extra weight you compensate with more fuel.  

The advantage of winged boosters over vertical blow-torches is one of refurbisment costs. A vertical lander must fly thru its own rocket wash and the propulsion section and lower structure must be thermally protected against the greatly increased temperatures.  You think the scorching of Falcon returned cores is good for the metallurgy? Refurbishment to flight standard is far more expensive than Musk is prepared to admit, and his costs savings are hugely exagerated (his operation relies on cunningly hidden subsidies from the US gov).

Winged boosters will directly benefit from recent advances in UAV technology.  Flying the boosters back to a strip will present no technical or operational difficulties, cross-range performance will be greatly increased, and the cost of refurb will be minimal compared to Musks heat affected returnees. Additionally, the number of boosters can be tailored to the payload weight so you only need to fly the mass you need, rather than the Falcon where you must launch the entire stack, even for a light-weight satellite.

Musk is no genius.  He's just a clever con man who knows how to play the dumb Murikan herd.

This is exactly it. Instead of carrying fuel for a photo-op landing tailored to the ignorant masses, a winged return uses the atmosphere
to do the heavy lifting, literally. There is enough lift in the lower stratosphere and troposphere that even the central cores of
rockets could return and not just some small boosters.

The dream of a winged spaceplane taking off from a runway and leaving for the stars is a long term challenge. But applying the
situation in reverse is achievable with current technology and uses gravity instead of fighting it. As noted already here are
the advantages:

1) empty tanks with no extra fuel and weight for return

2) no need for more weight to install heat shielding

3) no high risk balancing a pencil on its tip landings

4) can actually return orbiting platforms back to Earth for servicing with the right
wing layout

So the only real cost is adding wings which adds weight. But there is no free lunch, if you want to have reusable systems, then
you will have to pay for it. But the price is sane as opposed to insane with a glider return instead of vertical lander.

The-thing-next-door wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote: He's just a clever con man who knows how to play the dumb Murikan herd.

Not even that. A clever conman would have revived more plausible projects that are actually interesting and most likely also be consulting with competent experts rather than deluding themselves into trying to "invent" some scifi bullshit.

His Mars farm cistern "rockets" are so absurd it makes one cringe. But not one peep from the resident Balkan loser who was
horribly injured psychologically by Rogozin's trampoline comment. Must have hit just the right sore spot. The truth hurts.

kvs wrote:... But not one peep from the resident Balkan loser who was
horribly injured psychologically by Rogozin's trampoline comment. Must have hit just the right sore spot. The truth hurts.

If it hurts so much you should put some ointment on it and be ready for more because Trampoline Man will not be getting any less retarded in this lifetime

I understand that Flat Earther lard ass like him must be having a time of his life running an actual (leftovers of a) space program and I don't entirely blame him for squeezing it for all it's worth but I have zero sympathy for moron fanboys who drool over him

I got a bit carried away with touting the benefits of a winged return. Any return from high enough up will require ceramic tiles
as with the US and Soviet space shuttles. It may be worthwhile to take a another look at the space shuttle approach but
dial down the size and make it into a winged "cylinder" instead of a delta-wing aircraft. Then it would be more like a rocket
with tiles and the wings would have to swing in and out in a way similar to the Tu-160 but closer to the body. Reducing
the descent in the upper atmosphere would require some lifting body shaping and not just a simple cylinder. Making it
too fancy will defeat the whole effort since launch economics are bad to start with.

kvs wrote:I got a bit carried away with touting the benefits of a winged return.   Any return from high enough up will require ceramic tiles
as with the US and Soviet space shuttles.   It may be worthwhile to take a another look at the space shuttle approach but
dial down the size and make it into a winged "cylinder" instead of a delta-wing aircraft.   Then it would be more like a rocket
with tiles and the wings would have to swing in and out in a way similar to the Tu-160 but closer to the body.   Reducing
the descent in the upper atmosphere would require some lifting body shaping and not just a simple cylinder.   Making it
too fancy will defeat the whole effort since launch economics are bad to start with.

You just re-invented the original Kliper concept of a reuseable lifting-body to replace Soyuz. It later morphed into a winged vehicle, but its original incarnation was as you describe.

Recovery of a launchers 2nd stage would likely require such a config, ie a reuseable stage that returns from near orbit with >90% of orbital velocity that sheds its energy through re-entry heating. Not sure however that the economics will make much sense given (a) the smaller size (and value) of the 2nd stage, and (b) the significantly greater technical challenges in its recovery.

This suggest that the first stage (including any boosters) should be tuned to have less acceleration and burn out below 60 km.
The second stage is then fully expendable. The Saturn V had the 1st stage burning out at 61 km and now that I have looked it up
my guess about 60 km is right. Falling from 60 km to the middle stratosphere should not involve the sort of heating that requires
ceramic tiles since the maximum speed reached is much smaller than descending from orbit.

The 1st stage has most of the engine resources and thus expense so even focusing on this part alone is justified.

kvs wrote:

Big_Gazza wrote:

Hole wrote:With a winged landing the rocket needs a landing gear = more weight.

Thats the usual response of the Muskian groupies, nonsense about wings not being "scalable", but its BS.  Solid boosters of the sort that were used on US shuttle are heavy and very inefficient with an appallingy low ISP, but it doesn't matter. Their job is simply to get the stack to a height above the thickest part of the atmosphere where the more efficient propulsion can be engaged (or more accurately, its thurst ramped up to max). If they carry extra weight you compensate with more fuel.  

The advantage of winged boosters over vertical blow-torches is one of refurbisment costs. A vertical lander must fly thru its own rocket wash and the propulsion section and lower structure must be thermally protected against the greatly increased temperatures.  You think the scorching of Falcon returned cores is good for the metallurgy? Refurbishment to flight standard is far more expensive than Musk is prepared to admit, and his costs savings are hugely exagerated (his operation relies on cunningly hidden subsidies from the US gov).

Winged boosters will directly benefit from recent advances in UAV technology.  Flying the boosters back to a strip will present no technical or operational difficulties, cross-range performance will be greatly increased, and the cost of refurb will be minimal compared to Musks heat affected returnees. Additionally, the number of boosters can be tailored to the payload weight so you only need to fly the mass you need, rather than the Falcon where you must launch the entire stack, even for a light-weight satellite.

Musk is no genius.  He's just a clever con man who knows how to play the dumb Murikan herd.

This is exactly it.   Instead of carrying fuel for a photo-op landing tailored to the ignorant masses, a winged return uses the atmosphere
to do the heavy lifting, literally.    There is enough lift in the lower stratosphere and troposphere that even the central cores of
rockets could return and not just some small boosters.  

The dream of a winged spaceplane taking off from a runway and leaving for the stars is a long term challenge.   But applying the
situation in reverse is achievable with current technology and uses gravity instead of fighting it.   As noted already here are
the advantages:

1) empty tanks with no extra fuel and weight for return

2) no need for more weight to install heat shielding

3) no high risk balancing a pencil on its tip landings

4) can actually return orbiting platforms back to Earth for servicing with the right
wing layout

So the only real cost is adding wings which adds weight.   But there is no free lunch, if you want to have reusable systems, then
you will have to pay for it.   But the price is sane as opposed to insane with a glider return instead of vertical lander.

You also need a landing gear.

Yes, you do. But a vertical landing would require more weight in terms of fuel. Over 90% of the mass of the rocket
is not the payload. Even empty of fuel it has substantial mass. To land this following the reverse procedure of a launch
is stupid. Using the air and gravity instead is clearly the better approach.

Kerosene weighs 810 kg/m3. And you will need many cubic meters of it to land vertically. In fact, you will need
to use a comparable amount of fuel to land as you used to launch. Not less than 10%.

Yes, the winged landing is much safer, but all current methods have a weight penalty (compared to a simple one-time rocket). If you want to safe money you should make most of the used material recyclable. Salvage the parts that fall back to earth so you can use some of the stuff in your next launch vehicle.

Is Roscosmos still leaving the used stages lying around in the taiga or steppes until some private folks salvage them?

The US space shuttle was supposed to be a ground breakingly cheap way to get into space because it was all reusable which meant you only built it once and used it repeatedly so over time you saved more and more money.

The problem of course was that the cost of recovering the main central fuel tank and also inspecting the shuttles inside and out to look for hairline cracks or damage meant they actually turned out to be much more expensive than any single use disposable product.

Making the booster section reusable makes sense but burning fuel to bring it back down would require a hell of a lot of fuel and sophisticated controls to land it on its end... in comparison some folding wings and some simple undercarriage would be cheap and light and rather simple... even the most basic drone can land on a runway using a very simple autopilot...

In fact over time you could develop an aircraft to replace this booster... if it used turbofans for take off and scramjets to accelerate and climb to altitude you could use it very effectively to launch even rather large payloads into space... flying at mach 10 at 30km altitude is faster than many normal rockets will be going... if they can develop scramjets to go faster and higher with these payloads from platforms that are reusable and could be used for international air travel then all the better.

Hydrogen/oxygen powered scramjet powered aircraft could accelerate to enormous speeds using fuel created with an electric current and water...

Ironically the high altitude burning of such fuels would reduce the greenhouse effect by reflecting a small amount of sunlight back out into space and reducing temperatures instead of increasing them...

Hole wrote:

You also need a landing gear.

If something is goin to land it is goin to need landing gear regardless of how it lands, unless of course you have no intention of ever re using it.

Anyone has confirmation on the December launch schedule of the Angara 5?

Hi Daniel, it is a forum rule that new members need to introduce themselves in the forum rules and introduction section.

While you are there please take the time to read the rules and the introductions of other members so you have an idea of who is who, but also see what is expected in your introduction.

I am in the process of working out a suitable place to put the rules that is more obvious...

Daniel_Admassu wrote:Anyone has confirmation on the December launch schedule of the Angara 5?

I've read that the date has now slipped to Dec 11, but confirming that is as hard as finding "Putins Stolen Billions"...

I am fairly certain that Putin is not maintaining a secret stash of billions but was awaiting for the second launch of the Angara from plesetsk when this news of a soyuz launch came. Those defense ministry guys certainly don't talk much about what they do, do they?