Questions tagged [rockets]
Questions regarding the boosters or thrusters used to propel man-made objects. For rockets firing opposite the primaries, see [retrorockets]. See wiki for other related tags.
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A Maximum Full Flow Staged Combustion Cycle concept
Now, I have made a thought about a new engine cycle called; the Maximum full flow staged combustion cycle and I wanted to know if it raise the efficiency of propellant consumption.By all of the ...
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Why Aren't they Building Cosmodromes on Mountains? [duplicate]
Why Aren't they Building Cosmodromes on Mountains? Constructing a road leading 10000 feet or more up-hill should potentially save a lot of fuel.
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Where and how many RCS thrusters are installed on Starship?
Starship from SpaceX will soon launch. During the 10 km test it used RCS thrusters to flip itself in the right position. On the website it mentions how important it is to use air friction to slow down ...
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How close was the ISS to running out of supplies after the failure of CRS-7?
2014-2015 probably was a scary time to be aboard the ISS, though not for the usual reasons. They were worried about supplies running low, at least somewhat. There was quite the string of bad luck.
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What is the capacity of the various Falcon Heavy configurations to LEO?
As you probably already know, Falcon Heavy has many configurations, going from all boosters and core expended to all boosters and core landing on land. I am wondering what the payload capacity of each ...
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Are Falcon Heavy fairings reused?
I heard a lot about SpaceX reusing the fairings from the Falcon 9. Do they/ are they planning to do the same for Falcon Heavy?
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An expanding rocket engine nozzle [duplicate]
I know that the efficiency of a rocket engine depends on ambient pressure and nozzle exit pressure. What if there was an engine that had a contracting nozzle? Is that issue such a big problem that it ...
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Why did the maiden flight of H3 fail?
Recently, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) finally launched the ALOS-3 (Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3) after more than 2 years of delay. On then all seemed to be going well on the first ...
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Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal rockets to "powerslide" spacecraft out of the solar system?
Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal steam rockets to launch spacecraft out of the solar system?
Solar thermal steam rockets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_rocket have ...
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What happens if the range control fails?
Your rocket was launching. Something went wrong. It is outside of the safety corridor. The range control attempts to terminate the flight, but the Flight Termination System (FTS) fails. Now what ...
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Do full flow rocket engines still use injectors? If so, how? How exactly are the oxidizer and fuel sent into the combustion chamber?
I'm learning about rocket engines and full flow engines, and I'm a little confused about what goes on in the combustion chamber. It was my understanding that injectors were pretty much necessary to ...
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How can you make a rocket quieter?
Usually during a rocket launch on Earth, lots of water is poured to decrease the sound (deluge discussed in Wikipedia's Sound suppression system) and some other methods are used.
What I am looking for ...
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After SLS, what is the next rocket building project for NASA?
I know that ESA is working on a new reusable first stage booster.
Does NASA have similar plans?
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What caused the H3 rocket to squeal so loudly after its launch abort?
Immediately after the H3 rocket's first launch attempt was aborted, a loud squealing noise could be heard on the live stream. What was this?
The only thing I could find about it when searching the ...
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Why did only 31 engines ignite during Starship's static fire?
What could be the reasons behind only 31 engines of the planned 33 engines igniting during Starship's recent static fire, given that the spacecraft is designed to have 33 engines and how could this ...
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What's inside the white round elevated container next to the Falcon 9 starting base? [duplicate]
On images of the Falcon 9 start you see a kind of round elevated container (on the left hand side of the picture).
What does it contain and why is it elevated?
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Air-Augmentation on a VTO&L super heavy lift
I'm working on a basic design for an Air-Augmented first stage, which boosts the second, expendable, stage from a near-orbit, to allow for deorbit of the second stage.
Essentially it's an SSTO that ...
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Does the payload capacity of an interplanetary launch rocket increase with decreasing fuel mass or with increasing escape velocity?
Does the payload capacity of an interplanetary launch rocket increase with decreasing fuel mass or with increasing escape velocity? I was thinking that the escape velocity has nothing to do with it ...
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Do launching states need to seek permission for jettisoning rocket stages over waters not counted as international waters?
Rocket debris such as boosters and payload fairings are often discarded over bodies of water. If the debris is set to be discarded over waters outside the launching state's territory, do they need to ...
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What space applications could benefit from batteries with much higher power densities than the common Li-ion type?
This Australian company claims the development of the Graphene Aluminium-Ion Battery that is up to 70 times faster in charging and has up to 3 times more battery life than current Lithium-Ion ...
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How were inflatable fuel tanks for NASA supposed to work?
When the Washington State University researchers looked through the literature, they came across research that described the development of a bellows that took advantage of origami, the Japanese art ...
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What is a bimodal or multimodal space rocket engine? Especially a nuclear-powered one?
I can't seem to find a specific answer anywhere....
I wonder if it means using the radioactive fuel to power the electronic equipment, purely via natural decay, but also using the same fuel to power a ...
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How to account for burned fuel mass when calculating spacecraft acceleration?
I thought I could simply remove half of the burned fuel mass to account for the mass lost during the engine burn.
But I could not find a Newton's Second Law formula Calculator that would allow that, ...
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Thrust & acceleration produced by a rocket engine
For given propellants, with their mass flow decided by the rpm of the turbo pump, what decides the thrust and acceleration produced by a rocket engine? Can we control them independently?
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Has there ever been a fully-reusable big-dumb-booster design proposed?
I know of fully expendable Big Dumb Boosters, as well as "smart" reuse in systems like NEXUS (all versions) and their contemporaries, what I'm trying to figure out (after hours of sorting ...
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What is the simplest rocket design that can reach orbit
I am curious on what the simplest possible rocket design that have been proposed which could reach orbit.
My first thoughts would be earlier rockets like the Atlas LV-3B, but then I consider the ...
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Can propellant tanks in a pressure-feed rocket be pressurized by burning the propellant inside those same tanks? Recipe for Ka-BOOM?
Pressure-fed liquid fuel rocket engines use pressurized tanks to deliver propellant to the combustion chamber, rather than pumps. This eliminates the mass, cost and complexity of the gas generator and ...
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Inclination vs payload capacity of a rocket
I am learning about Space exploration and I have the following question:
When you are launching a rocket into space with maximal inclination, is the payload capacity then the highest?
Thanks!
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What is the most promising fusion technology for rocket propulsion?
Given current fusion technology (barely above q=1 as of the 12/12/22), is a fusion plasma torch rocket engine viable?
I'm asking in terms of basic science, not engineering, as I know this would ...
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Weird 2010s concept for a helicopter/rocket hybrid
I remember reading in the 2010s about a company that was building a traffic cone shaped rocket that would first ascend to the upper atmosphere with helicopter blades attached on the tip, then retract ...
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Why do rockets have to be pressurised? [duplicate]
I understand why an engine like the AJ10 needs pressurisation to feed it fuel, but why does a stage like the S-IVB/ J-2 need it if it has turbomachinery?
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Rocket maximum distance [closed]
let's say I have a liquid rocket
what would maximize the distance traveled by the rocket thus consume less fuel
constant velocity or acceleration or why?
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Powered Explicit Guidance - Why wouldn't it be used?
I keep reading that the Powered Explicit Guidance equations (PEG) (detailed in the Technical note linked below) is (an approximation of) the most efficient way to get to space. That being said, I know ...
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Could a Robert Goddard style motor mount be used for powered landing of SLS solid boosters?
The thought of pairing SLS solid boosters on just about anything one wants into orbit led to the thought of recovering them on barges at sea.
We all remember Robert Goddard's top mounted rocket engine ...
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The costs of a single SLS solid fuel rocket booster
Why didn’t Nasa cluster four solid fuel shuttle boosters around an Atlas V booster. The thrust would be substantially more than that of the SLS, with no fueling problem on the launch pad. It would be ...
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Could Spin Solve Needs for a Hot Water / Steam Rocket?
Instead of the old concept of nuclear thermal steam rocket, could we use spin in a pill shaped rocket to provide structural integrity, flight stability, energy storage, artificial gravity, and ...
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Calculating propellant mass from total impulse
I have a simple question about how to calculate the total propellant mass used by a satellite in space.
From Simulink, I have a graph of thrust VS time, so I could integrate this to calculate the ...
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What is the difference between a spin up test and a spin prime test?
What is the difference between a spin up test and a spin prime test? And if there is no difference, why not just use the first of those two terms, it being more descriptive?
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How did Space Shuttles get off the NASA Crawler?
The crawler is what transports Shuttles and rockets from the rocket assembly building to launch pad.
When the crawler reaches the launch pad, how is the Shuttle transferred from the crawler to the pad?...
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Can the Virgin Galactic's feathered rentry system be used for first stage recovery?
The stage seperation for Falcon 9's heaviest launch on 28 August 2022 was at approx 75km altitude and at a speed of 8000km/h.
Virgin Galactic's Spaceship two has a max speed of 4000km/h and a max ...
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Why don't we know exactly where the Chinese rocket will fall?
China has launched another Long March 5B rocket that seems liable to fall anywhere
Although the overall risk of harm to people is low—there is only a 0.5 percent chance of injury or death to a human, ...
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Comparing Newtons 2nd law and Tsiolkovskys
I've been attempting to simulate a rocket launch, using:
ΣF= ma + md/dt*v
If ΣF is simplified to only include F_m, being the rocket's thrust, the equation, if solved for a, is:
a = (F_m - md/dt*v)/...
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How fast can a rocket with constant thrust but changing mass travel a linear distance with limited delta V?
Background
I am developing a game / simulation that has spacecraft with advanced albeit at least not physically impossible drives travelling in the solar system. As operation time should be far more ...
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What is the propellant tank weight or weight ratio on dry weight of liquid propellant rocket engine?
I need propellant tank ( or oxidizer tank)'s dry weight- without propellant and engine mass. For example ARES-V's dry mass at earth departure stage is 21,795 kg, What percent of this is tanks' dry ...
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Why was the Saturn V several times as expensive as falcon heavy despite only having twice its payload?
Saturn V could lift 140 tons to low earth orbit, Falcon Heavy can lift 64 (expendable configuration). But Saturn V cost several times more per launch. Why?
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Preventing backfire in rocket engines [duplicate]
In a rocket engine - specifically the SOLID FUEL ones, the "combustion chamber" burns the propellant, creates hot exhaust gases, which pass through the diverging nozzle and create thrust. In ...
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Why do we launch similar payloads on different models of rocket?
Why don’t we just use one launch vehicle to carry different payloads? For example, to launch payloads in the size range of supplies for a Martian base or something made to destroy a Dimorphos size ...
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Orange lines coming from rocket engine nozzle?
This image of a test-fire of the RS-88 ethanol/LOX engine from Wikipedia. It is apparent that there are these orange lines extending from inside the nozzle into the plume. What is it, and why is this ...
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Have there been any rockets whose payload fairings consisted of more than two parts?
Most cargo rockets, such as Falcon 9, Delta IV, and many others, incorporate payload fairings to protect payloads from aero forces and heating during ascent. All of these rockets' fairings split in ...
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How do different stages attach to each other?
I started learning about rockets recently, and while searching for information, I found some ways that different stages separate, but I wandered if it was possible that they could reattach to a ...
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