04-04-2016, 12:47 AM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jerry Irvine
I have zero smoke solids. I have retro landing soft landing after parachute landings. So there is a solid alternative now. So, now which is lower cost?
A liquid requires a team of 20-60 employees to operate. A solid requires 2-10. The 6-10th are partying.
Soyuz uses retros to land.
Tech Jerry
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But does NASA have this hardware in their sounding rocket inventory? Also, can sounding rockets be flown safely in spaces as small as the valley where New Shepard flies (its launch complex and landing pad are within sight and walking distance of each other)? Smokeless solid motors are a well-proven technology (the upper stage of the Nike-Iroquois [NIRO] was developed for that purpose), and so are rocket-cushioned parachute landing systems, but they are more operationally cumbersome (they're ordnance, and require EOD personnel to handle them, and they involve dropping unretarded spent stages onto the ground). New Shepard's engine can be cut off if it goes awry (I imagine it also has a Flight Termination System), and if its braking/landing maneuver fails, it just falls on or near its landing pad (which happened on a previous flight, while the capsule landed safely). |