Since the earliest days of astronautics, more than a century ago, low cost space launchers persevered to be a long desire for the space flight thinkers. Once space flight became a daily business along the late `50-s, first by consuming large financial resources, the interest for cheap space launchers became even more laud. Today’s growing interest in small satellites have bolstered a large series of space technology companies including Virgin Galactic Corp., Garvey Spacecraft Corp., Quantum Research International, Ventions LLC, Sierra Nevada Corp., Generation Orbit Launch Services and even the giant Boeing to work on the development of various types of such vehicles, some of them of actually small size. They have announced recent progresses in their efforts to develop and test small-satellite launchers and rocket engines. Romanian space launcher effort includes the NERVA project, with the ORVEAL compound engine for the upper stage, securing the orbital injection, project developed by the team of professors and researchers from ADDA Ltd, Bucharest. This project is based on a series of innovative concepts, including the optimal ascent program first proposed by the ADDA team by means of the new discontinuous variational optimization, which is here described in detail.
Conceived as simple, cheap and highly efficient alternative to solid rocket motors, the compound rocket engines include a liquid feed line system, within which at least the minimal components are involved, like the liquid tank, the dislocation augmenter, the main release valve, the in-line check valve (ICV) and the injector head. Simplicity and reliability are the main requirements in designing and manufacturing the components and, in order to accomplish these requirements, the dynamics and transient behavior of the devices become the key features of the entire design. The transient of the ICV required primary attention as it needs to cut the reversed flow of the liquid in a definitely short amount of time, determined from the condition of a given liquid return delay stop into the internal feed duct (IFD) of the engine. This delay was also set to cover the condition of partial vaporization of the liquid within the ICV and the IFD of the system. Numerical simulations were performed under rational assumptions regarding the mechanical behavior of ICV parts, limited to a number of minimal elements that secure a smooth work of the device and a fast response to upwind and downwind liquid pressure variations. The basic parameters considered are the size of the parts, their densities, closely connected to the manufacturing materials involved, sealing and surface finishing technology used that outputs the viscous and friction properties of the device parts considered for simulation. The ORVEAL research is granted by Romanian UEFISCDI.
One of the most challenging problems in developing the astrionics of the recoverable orbital ADDAHORSE microcapsule is represented by the power and size constraints which require an extreme degree of miniaturization. The size, mass and power requirements of the electronic and computing (astrionics) on-board control and command equipment can be conveniently reduced by designing an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) which integrates sensors, autopilot logic, drivers, RF communication and interface subsystems in a single, combined SoC (System-on-Chip). The feasibility of such a device is discussed here within the bounds of the ADDAHORSE project which was proposed for structural funding in Romania in 2014. This study was conducted by the Center for Innovation and Development in the Exploration of Space (CIDES) in the emerging Făgăraș facility of the future Făgăraș Space Center in Romania.
As a part of the ORVEAL project, the brand new series of compound rocket engines MEC-80 is subjected to a line of restrictions imposed by the experiment plan, which add an extra weight to the definitely expensive phase of the experimental development of the new types of rocket engine. The direct way to reduce the development time and cost of the new powering systems was found in tediously defining the experimental plan, the variables involved, the nature of the pay-off polynomials and the technological solutions. For the specific case the technological and reliability related constraints are explored, that led to the definition of a reversed-vertical configuration of the thrust frame of the test stand and of the scale and support system of the thrust frame, with position-defined sensors for acquiring the thrust tensor value. Simplicity and reliability were the main requirements in designing and manufacturing the components of the test stand in the new environment of the recently enhanced CEZAR proving grounds of ADDA Ltd. in Fagaras, Transylvania. The ORVEAL research is granted by Romanian UEFISCDI financing authority.
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