Adopting low-tech components for rocketplane with global range
- Paper number
IAC-06-D2.P.2.05
- Author
Mr. Cyrus Foster, McGill University, Canada
- Year
2006
- Abstract
Typical launch vehicles are expensive to develop due to the fact that they invoke unreliable technologies. They are furthermore costly to run because of the infrastructure required to fuel and launch them. To develop space tourism and open up the new frontier to human colonization, there is a need for lower launch costs. This report will look into a concept vehicle designated RX. Following a trend set by Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, the RX will feature off-the-shelf low technology components. While sacrificing performance, this approach will lower costs, decrease development time and increase reliability due to its simplicity. The winged RX will take off like a conventional aircraft, climb to a maximum altitude and achieve a high subsonic speed using only jet engines. It will then fire its jet fuel-liquid oxygen rocket engine and achieve hypersonic speeds on a suborbital flight path. The RX’s gliding-optimized profile will allow it to coast over large distances until its jet engines are restarted and the rocketplane is able to land at an airport. A design analysis has identified that a craft weighing 60 tons when fuelled is able to achieve Mach 14. It will utilize NASA’s low-cost Fastrac rocket engine and a pair of Pratt and Whitney’s reliable JT8D turbofans. A plastic-composite construction will allow the RX to glide over transoceanic-scale distances with payloads of over 3 tons. Further performance specifications will be discussed. The simplicity and low-tech approach to the RX concept vehicle broadens its applications. A suborbital flight path allows space tourists to experience weightlessness and the splendor of Earth from above. Its gliding capability allows it to transport passengers and packages over large distances in a short amount of time. The RX can serve as a test bed for emerging propulsion technologies such as combined-cycle engines, paving the way for an evolved RX with true orbital launch capability.
- Abstract document