[AR] Re: Pilot, ALASA, and cubesat launch (was Re: some interesting developments)

  • From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2016 14:22:00 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 7 Jan 2016, John Dom wrote:

In the fifties, there was the balloon launch project FARSIDE. Not mach 1 at start but no aircraft required. Two stages to 4000 miles...

Four stages, according to Ley. And not a very successful project -- one partial success out of six attempts.

No aircraft required, but a balloon required -- that's not necessarily a good trade. Big balloons are not simple to launch, and one major problem is the lack of control after launch, which makes safety and regulatory approval more difficult. (FARSIDE bypassed a lot of that by launching way out in the empty Pacific.)

Depending trajectory it might make it to orbit (?).

To (theoretically) reach 4000mi, it did have near-orbital performance, but not the control needed to achieve orbit.

PS: even Minutemen were ignited in mid-air after being ejected from inside aeroplanes (C130s?), once upon a time.

You're thinking of the experimental drop and firing of a Minuteman first stage (no live upper stages) from a C-5A, done as a proof of principle for air-launched ICBMs. It worked, but not a small project.

A decade ago, Air Launch was looking at a somewhat smaller liquid-fuel orbital launcher dropped from a C-17. Successful drop tests of dummies were done, but they never got as far as a live stage.

Henry

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