An innovative technology designed
to launch future passenger-carrying rockets via a carrier aircraft has been
tested over the desert landscape of Mojave, California.
Transformational Space
Corporation (t/Space) of Reston,
Virginia and Scaled Composites of
Mojave wrapped up three weeks of flight tests yesterday, drop-testing prototype
boosters at altitude. The tests are part of t/Space work on a proposed
CXV people-carrying capsule and its QuickReach II booster concept.
The dummy
boosters released by aircraft used a technique that caused them to rotate
towards vertical without requiring wings. According to a company press
statement, this concept allows an aft-crossing trajectory in which the
air-launched hardware crosses behind the aircraft.
That's a
different approach than other air-launched rockets, such as the Pegasus
booster, the X-15 rocket plane, as well as SpaceShipOne after release from its
carrier plane, the White Knight. These craft use wings to turn themselves from
horizontal flight to the vertical position, then head skyward on suborbital or
orbital trajectories.
The t/Space
technique greatly enhances safety, according to officials working on the
project.
Look: no wings
The new air
launch method is called Trapeze-Lanyard Air Drop (t/LAD) launch. The test drops
utilized the Proteus aircraft built by Scaled Composites. That company, led by
aerospace designer, Burt Rutan, also built and flew SpaceShipOne.
According
to t/Space, in addition to greatly enhancing safety, eliminating the wings increases
the payload a rocket can take to orbit. The innovation developed by t/Space is
a device that remains attached to the nose of the deployed booster - all of a
half-second after the center of the rocket is released.
That slight
tug on the booster's nose starts the hardware rotating as it drops. A small
parachute on the rocket's nozzle ensures this rotation does not happen quickly.
The Mojave
tests involved three sub-scale dummy booster drop tests: May 24, June 7, and
June 14. The mock boosters were comprised of two steel tanks welded together
with a Fiberglas nose and nozzle. They were 23 percent of the size of the
actual rockets to be developed for sending a four-person capsule into orbit,
noted a t/Space statement.
Since the
dummy hardware had no engines, each booster crashed onto the dry Cuddeback Lake,
about 35 miles northeast of Mojave, California.
The wreckage was collected and removed.
Rapid prototyping
Transformational Space Corporation LLC is developing vehicles for NASA's Vision
for Space Exploration. As one of eight companies funded by NASA, t/Space is developing
concepts for the agency's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), a sought after way to
take over non-cargo duties from an eventually to be retired space shuttle
fleet.
NASA agreed
to let t/Space use some of its $3 million study money to build and test
hardware in addition to conducting analytical studies. The successful drop test
program, t/Space pointed out, demonstrates that small companies using rapid
prototyping can develop new hardware very rapidly.
"We went
from brainstorm to booster drop in just 135 days," said David Gump, president
of t/Space in a company press statement.
Contractors
on the t/Space team include: Scaled Composites Inc., the company that last year
flew privately-sponsored suborbital flights with its SpaceShipOne, as well as AirLaunch
LLC, a firm under contract with the Defense Department to develop a low-cost
responsive launch vehicle.
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