The U.S. Air Force has released the first-ever photos of the Super Strypi launch vehicle, a souped-up version of a Cold War-era sounding rocket about to be shot into orbit on a unique demonstration flight with 13 small satellites.
‘Super Strypi’ rocket disintegrates 1 minute after launch
https://www.rt.com/usa/320716-super-strypi-rocket-hawaii/
“This sounding rocket approach keeps the system as simple as possible and eliminates the significant amount of engineering hours required on guided rockets to develop control algorithms and testing,” military officials said in a statement.
The Super Strypi test launch is managed by the Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space division headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. Known as the ORS-4 mission, the launch launch form Hawaii is the latest in a series of experiments run by the ORS office, which was set up in 2007 to investigate ways to reduce the cost of military space missions.
> 3 stages
That’s a good start.
> 17-meter-long rocket with a diameter of 79 centimeters
Darnit, can’t find my list of low-powered rockets. Is this very like a modernised version the Redstone from 1952? A standard length of 20 to 25 metres applies for small launchers the world over. In my calculations, the rocket length is crucial to determining maximum altitude reached, but the rocket diameter is almost insignificant.
Compare a few:
Redstone (USA) length 21 m, diameter 180 cm.
Falcon 1 (USA) length 21.3 m, diameter 170 cm.
Long March 2 (China) length 31.17 m, diameter 335 cm.
Vega (Europe) length 30 m, diameter 300 cm.
SLV (India) length 22 m, diameter 100 cm.
Safir (Iran) length 22 m, diameter 125 cm.
Shavit (Israel) length 26.4 m, diameter 135 cm.
Epsilon (Japan) length 24.4 m, diameter 250 cm.
Start-1 (USSR) length 22.7 m, diameter 161 cm.
Rockot (USSR) length 29 m, diameter 250 cm.
Strela (USSR) length 28.3 m, diameter 250 cm.
OK, so the new Super Strypi is short and narrow. Excellent, that keeps costs down.
Let’s compare with a few sounding rockets.
Black Brant 1 (Canada) length, diameter 7.41 m, diameter 26 cm.
Aerobee (USA) length 7.8 m, diameter 38 cm.
So it’s much bigger than a sounding rocket.
its launched from an old scout rocket launch rail so I saw
also solid fuel
I read the fins spin it to give it gyroscopic stability – I don’t like that idea – the spinning component of the motion destroyed it
they would have been better off keeping the fins fixed and using some small servo controlled vanes set in the body
just reading up on arduino
something I didn’t know
if you write straight C code into the arduino it takes a fifth of the memory space but of course you need to know exactly what you are doing – arduino C takes more memory but its more user friendly
> also solid fuel
Good for first stage, OK for second stage, poor for third stage.
> I read the fins spin it to give it gyroscopic stability – I don’t like that idea
Has advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is that a spinning craft (if and only if spinning really fast) tends to keep going in a straight line. But that’s a disadvantage too, because the rocket has to turn 90 degrees to get into orbit. Then there’s the disadvantage that introducing spin increases air drag which robs the rocket of altitude.
PS. Ever thought of putting golf-ball-like dimples on a rocket to help it to fly straight?
> just reading up on Arduino. If you write straight C code into the arduino it takes a fifth of the memory space but of course you need to know exactly what you are doing – arduino C takes more memory but it’s more user friendly.
Can you give us an example? Arduino code vs straight C code doing the same thing?
I can’t help wondering. Consider the same rocket performing two tasks. Task 1 getting to Low Earth Orbit. Task 2 flying straight up to apogee. In LEO there is still a substantial velocity, which gives a significant extra kinetic energy. If that kinetic energy were converted to potential energy how high would the straight up apogee be?
Answer v 2 = g x h
In LEO, v is 7800 m/s. g is 9.8 m/s 2
so h = 6210 km.
So even though LEO is only about 190 km up, a rocket powerful enough to reach LEO has to have enough power to go 6400 km straight up. Compare that with some of the Black Brant sounding rockets.
Black Brant (original) 260 km.
Terrier MK70 + Black Brant + Nihka (aka Black Brant X) 1250 km.
Talos + Terrier MK70 + Black Brant + Nihka (aka Black Brant XII) 1700 km.
Now I understand why nobody has suggested using a sounding rocket for LEO launches.
The Black Brant X has a diameter of 46 cm and length ~13.4 metres.
The Black Brant XII has a maximum diameter of 76 cm and length ~17.2 metres.
That means that the Black Brant XII has very similar dimensions to the Super Strypi (17-meter-long rocket with a diameter of 79 centimeters)