New Mars Forums

Lars_J

Banned

Registered: 2004-02-11

Posts: 82

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

Their latest success:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/200 … tedHop.mpg
(source: http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/A … ws_id=263)

Earlier attempts with a test-bed two weeks ago:
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/200 … yHover.mpg
http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/200 … tedHop.mpg

Is that cool or what?

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

Yes, it is great to see stuff like that.

Skunkworks approach at its best!

(Compare that with the Japanese RVT tests, they have reason to be proud!

Lars_J

Banned

Registered: 2004-02-11

Posts: 82

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

I'm just amazed that they manage to land on such a (relatively) tiny base - and only using one engine!
My first intuition would have been to put wide moonlander-ish legs on that thing...

Here's a look at the base of the rocket: http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/200 … Covers.jpg

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

For the people not really following ArmadilloAerospace's adventure...

The unassuming thing you see in the last link, is in fact a sub-sub scale testing vehicule, they do have a bigger one, but it is cheaper and faster to do test on a smaller scale for certain stuff, so...

Actually, they're going to do the same test with their much bigger 'boilerplate' vehicule next week!

It *does* contain their silver-catalyzed monopropellant (Hydrogen-peroxide) engine, complete with computer-controlled actuators (hence the perfectly controlled flight)

And no, you do not see flames, during launches, H2O2 "burns" invisible for the human eye...

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

For the people really interested: John Carmack (who wrote the 'Doom' and 'Quake' games (iD software) wich made his initial fortune...)
Has his own thread on the Ansari X-Prize messageboards, where he answers questions personally! Here's your chance to get chummy with a real rocketbuilder-boss... And his co-workers, who chime in sometimes, too.

http://www.xprize.com/messageboard/view … .php?t=396

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

From The Man himself on Slashdot:

"For those of you that are underwhelmed by the 310 pound vehicle, do note that the big vehicle (1500 lbs) that can actually carry people is also flying. Look back in the Armadillo updates around April 19 for testing video. We have since reworked the propulsion system to follow what has worked so well on the subscale vehicle, and should be testing it this weekend. If it works well, we will be repeating the boosted hop with the big vehicle next week.

The flight time is currently limited by federal law to 15 seconds of rocket burn time. We have a waiver coming to extend that to 120 seconds, but beyond that we will need a full launch license.

The significance of all this is that the vehicles are intended to fly up, come back down and land right where they took off from, all without ablating, expending, or seperating anything. It should be possible to have turn around times under one hour even for quite large vehicles.

BTW, Doom beta testing is going very well.

John Carmack"

Josh Cryer

Moderator

Registered: 2001-09-29

Posts: 3,830

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

Ahah, Rxke, when I started reading this thread I was going to mention his Slashdot post regarding the bigger vechile.

If you go watch the April 19th vehicle video, it seems pretty dang small. So, is it just the engine or the whole thing?

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Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

PurduesUSAFguy

Banned

From: Purdue University

Registered: 2004-04-04

Posts: 237

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

I really like the Armadillo approach, I think that their hydrogen peroxide engine is a much more elegant option then the hybrid engine that Scaled is using, much more controlable as well, plus simpler to opperate as it's a monopropellant.

In a way this test really reminds me of the DC-X program, another venture that was done all the right way.

It's too bad that I don't think they have a shot at winning....if scaled and Armadillo formed a post X-prize alliance, Armadillo providing the engines, scaled with the air frame, I think that would be a very interesting vehicle.

Maybe scale it up, and put a White Knight carrier plane at London and New York and start offering trans-atlantic flights to fill the niche left by the Concorde.

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

Some comparison pictures from the Japanese RVT project:

http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/dtc/saisiyo/pho … oto-1.html

Gennaro

Member

From: Eta Cassiopeiae (no, Sweden re

Registered: 2003-03-25

Posts: 591

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

Three cheers for the Armadillo team! Always thought vertical powered take-off and descent is the way to go. Now, if only ESA could get into this...

Rxke, do you happen to know about any European based space discussion boards? Made a search once and stumbled upon ESA's own forums that were regrettably discontinued for the unforeseeable future.
Worse, they had been discussing a European space shuttle. Ugh!

GCNRevenger

Member

From: Earth

Registered: 2003-10-14

Posts: 6,056

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

What nitche left by the Concord would that be? It sure wouldn't be a profitable one for a rocket plane.

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[i]"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism by those that do not have it." - George Bernard Shaw[/i]

[i]The glass is at 50% of capacity[/i]

Rxke

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2003-11-03

Posts: 3,669

Re: Armadillo VTOVL hop - In the spirit of DC-X

European-based?

Frankly, I never really 'contemplate' the errr... 'physical whereabouts' of a forum...

Took me awhile, for instance, to realise that the SpaceMessageBoards (currently offline) were Australian, and i consider this board in essence 'global'... (Because of the international 'chapters')

OTOH, EverythingScience's 'Pete's place,' a virtual bar, is run by a fellow Belgian, THAT i figured out almost instantaneously!

Errr... I sometimes read comments here about "the Europeans" being 'jealous' of NASA achievements etc., but i don't think any real space-nut is... It's an inherent international 'movement,' IMO... And everyone is rooting for any craft beyond the 100km mark (or the ones that try to get there, heh...)
...So they automatically go to 'American' boards, some smaller boards in Italian, German, Dutch... do exist, but well... There's only so much people interested in space speak the language, and those places tend to be fairly low-traffic...

Only thing i feel as a non-American, is the sometimes frustrating tendency of some people to off-handedly deriding anything non-NASA, like the Chinese achievements being years behind, the Russians scraping by etc... WE KNOW! Everybody knows! (Rantrantrant, but it does sometimes gets in the way of a discussion...)

(Now where did i get off topic, time for my coffee, i guess  :;): )