[AR] Re: SpaceX Single Stage to Orbit -wings
- From: "JOHN HALPENNY" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "j.halpenny" for DMARC)
- To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2019 18:50:36 +0000 (UTC)
The Soyuz system is pretty simple. A (radioactive!!) altimeter fires solid
rockets at a given distance from the ground and the speed is reduced by a known
amount. The parachute descent speed is known and is fairly high so the capsule
doesn't blow around too much.
John On Monday, June 3, 2019, 12:57:09 p.m. GMT-4, Peter Fairbrother
<peter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 02/06/2019 05:57, Henry Spencer wrote:
[re F9 first stage:] Vertical landing under rocket power was
retrofitted into the system after early attempts made it clear that the
splashdown concept simply wouldn't work -- the stages broke up during
reentry.)
Do you mean the first stages broke up on splashdown? Not meaning to be
pernickety, but if it broke up on reentry, wouldn't the vertical landing
stages break up too?
Didn't they expect that? Tie the useful bits together with some wire and
a float ...
Though vertical landing under rocket power does seem to work for them, I
wonder about human landings - I know Soyuz uses last-minute braking
rockets, but perhaps that is a bit different somehow?
Or did the Russians get it right all that long time ago - on reflection
it doesn't seem that difficult, get radar height, differentiate to get
radar vertical velocity, consult precomputed table of height/velocity,
fire rockets according to table.
Peter Fairbrother
Other related posts:
