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Dornier Do 122 gliding sounding rocket
Hello All,
Rocket Lab’s https://www.rocketlabusa.com/ planned Electron first stage square parafoil recovery to a ship via helicopter mid-air retrieval (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enndCzvZpZk ) brings to mind another full-scale, glide-recovered rocket. (Its recovery system concept might, if adopted by Rocket Lab in the future [I have contacted them concerning this], provide an even lower-cost refinement to their current ballute/parafoil/helicopter Electron first stage recovery system. Since a recovery helicopter would not be required, this would save still more money.) Now: In the early 1960s, the West German company Dornier designed--but did not bring to flight status due to financial and organizational limitations within the pre-ESA European space effort at that time (although its recovery system *was* successfully flight-tested in Sardinia)--a reusable solid propellant sounding rocket, the Do 122 (which would make a very nice scale model rocket subject—see: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...oject-621.3743/ and https://www.google.com/search?q=dor...iw=1440&bih=789 ^and^ https://www.google.com/search?q=dor...iw=1440&bih=789 ). It had two opposing "conduits" running down its sides, and: At the 80-kilometer peak of the rocket's suborbital trajectory, these forward-hinged “conduits” would have swung outward, deploying--on each side of the rocket's cylindrical, four-finned body--half of a sail-like, triangular Rogallo wing. The Do 122’s four movable fins would have provided radio-controlled steering in gliding flight. (This could, of course, also be done with a flying scale Do 122 model rocket, using "stock" R/C equipment, although a F/F [Free-Flight] glide recovery mode would also be perfectly fine, and would be easier to implement in smaller-scale 18 mm, 13 mm, and 6 mm [MicroMaxx] motor-powered Do 122 models). Also: With Electron's finless, cylindrical first stage, it wouldn't matter, aerodynamically speaking, which end of the Electron first stage pointed forward during such a glide to a selected landing point, either on a vessel (which could match the gliding first stage's speed, for a gentle, vertical deck touchdown on the first stage's side) or on land (depending on the launch site, the ascent trajectory, and so on). In addition to adding a second launch pad (Pad B) at Launch Complex 1 at Mahia, New Zealand, their U.S. launch site--Launch Complex 2, at Wallops Island, Virginia--will commence operations quite soon this year [see: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/launch/launch-sites/ ], as they announced after their latest launch, three days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-PplDIkbc ). As well: Rogallo wings don’t require tail fins for steering; differential lift—generated by selectively reeling in or paying out their stay lines—or weight-shifting (as Rogallo hang glider pilots use) also work for steering them. The Rogallo wing halves' two opposite-side "stowage conduits" could simply be mounted on opposite sides of the Electron first stage--depending on which end would be the "nose" during the glide (the end with the nine Rutherford rocket engines and their thrust structure would likely be heavier, shifting the empty first stage's center of gravity toward that end)--at the proper fore-and-aft location to ensure a good glide CG (Center of Gravity). Plus: Such a glide recovery arrangement could also be incorporated into a flying scale Electron model. (The small, single [vacuum nozzle] Rutherford engine-equipped second stage--with contained Curie kick stage--and the nose cone, could be popped off by the rocket motor or motors' ejection charge(s) and descend under a streamer, rather like the Centuri Mach 10 kit's "target marker nose cone": https://www.oldrocketplans.com/cent...uri_Mach_10.pdf .) *BUT*: At least for now, such a scale model would have to be classed as a Concept Scale (also called Future/Fiction Scale) one, *if* one was inclined to enter it in scale competition. (I would feel no compulsion to do so, but more power to anyone who would!) I'd just enjoy building, flying, and displaying it. Who knows--seeing such "imagined future" Rogallo glider & streamer recovery Electron scale models flying, either "in person" or on video (especially if some model rocket kit manufacturer, either large or small [hint, hint...], produced a kit of it [it could use M. Dean Black's exhaust-utilizing finless stabilization methods: https://www.apogeerockets.com/educa...wsletter379.pdf ]), might get the Rocket Lab folks thinking, "Hmmm...maybe -we- can bring our vehicles' first stages back that way, too, without the added cost of the helicopter..." I hope this material will be useful.
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR |
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