Beginner with big dreams

[tsunamie]

Hi there,

I know what I am going to propose is a very big step, especially for a beginner, so I am going to start by posting a little bit about my self.

I am an engineer, I did a degree in electronic engineering and cybernetics.
I have started many random projects from knowing nothing and completed them so I am use to learning on the fly. (As per screenshot
)
I want to launch a rocket into lower orbit. I have attached a proposal that I spent about 2 hours today reading through a load of material on. I am going to continually update the proposal with my knowledge. Depending on if anyone wants to join me in building this dream, I might setup an open wiki site so we can all edit it in real time. I know what I am trying to achieve as a hobbiest is a big and complex thing. However I am still going to try and would appreciate anyone's advice or knowlege.

Thanks in advance!

If I posted this in the wrong place, please let me know how I should proceed. I will periodically put an updated document.

 

[Funkworks]

Hi and Welcome! I read your document. Sounds interesting, but also much more expensive than what I'm used to seeing on this forum. The only advice I can give at this point is to make sure your budget and goal are compatible. Cheers!

 

[PayLoad]

First rule of rockets, old cars & women - you can do anything if your budget is unlimited

 

[SCooke123]

Plus there may be some legalities mixed in there too.

 

[dcastle]

Your biggest obstacle will be the amount of energy needed to generate the orbital velocity of approximately 17,500 mph. That is not insignificant even for a 1 kg payload. Also, even for 1 orbit, you will be tracking the object around the entire 25,000 circumference of the globe with the goal of landing back where you started, approximately. Keep in mind that at your latitude in the UK, this will require a fairly high inclination orbit...which means that during the approximately 90 minutes that the satellite takes to go around the earth, your location will move some 800 miles or so to the east when it next passes overhead. This will make landing at the launch site more complicated.

All in all, even the fuel costs will easily exceed your budget I hate to tell you. It's an awesome goal but there's a reason it took some big minds and budgets to get those first satellites in orbit back in the late 1950s and they actually had better capabilities technically than a hobbyist has today, exception being access to GPS and to the internet.

 

[Funkworks]

To get an idea of the scale of the project, you could look into Japan’s SS-520. It’s currently the smallest rocket having reached an orbital altitude. The one that did weighed over 5000 lbs and was over 30 ft long.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/02/japanese-rocket-record-borbital-launch/

 

[dhbarr]

But! Launching to space is achievable by talented groups of amateurs. It's the orbital velocity that takes tremendous energy.

If you really really want to pursue it over years and/or decades, up-and-down an important milestone anyway.

 

[BABAR]

Hi there,

I know what I am going to propose is a very big step, especially for a beginner, so I am going to start by posting a little bit about my self.

I am an engineer, I did a degree in electronic engineering and cybernetics.
I have started many random projects from knowing nothing and completed them so I am use to learning on the fly. (As per screenshot
View attachment 434510)
I want to launch a rocket into lower orbit. I have attached a proposal that I spent about 2 hours today reading through a load of material on. I am going to continually update the proposal with my knowledge. Depending on if anyone wants to join me in building this dream, I might setup an open wiki site so we can all edit it in real time. I know what I am trying to achieve as a hobbiest is a big and complex thing. However I am still going to try and would appreciate anyone's advice or knowlege.

Thanks in advance!

If I posted this in the wrong place, please let me know how I should proceed. I will periodically put an updated document.

Reviewed your attachment. I recommend you drink lots of cider. It won’t get you into orbit, but you won’t care that you’re NOT in orbit.

 

[tsunamie]

Thanks for the many words of support, first trying to understand the math of all of this.

1 of the core ideas of the proposal is the use of weather balloons to life the rocket launch to a higher altitude. This is suppose to reduce the air resistance and the effects of gravity.

I can see from the reading SS-520 which was a good resource. Thanks again to Funkworks.
They use stage rockets, I know that these are used because it reduces the weight of the whole load as the rocket goes higher.

Any assistance on the math how to prove/test that the core principle actually has a positive effect would be good.

Going through resources this morning like.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/rocket/flteqs.html
As for the budget it can change, it was an arbitrary number. It can change, I just wanted to start from a point and make adjustments as I go along.

 

[PayLoad]

Add 4 zeros to the cost, don't re-invent the wheel, and turn on your spell checker.

 

[BABAR]

Just out of curiosity, who would be the waiver authority for an amateur orbital launch? I mean, the intent is to fly around the planet, so would definitely be crossing national boundaries.

 

[Michael L]

Add 4 zeros to the cost, don't re-invent the wheel, and turn on your spell checker.

Start in the Restrictions section but the errors are peppered all throughout the document. Details matter.

I'm new to HP rocketry and the one thing that I figured out pretty quickly is that attention to detail is a must. I watched three HP launch preflights a few weeks ago and each person took longer to preflight their rocket than I do when I preflight a Cessna 172 for a flight and I take longer than most people do.

 

[neil_w]

As for the budget it can change, it was an arbitrary number. It can change, I just wanted to start from a point and make adjustments as I go along.

Nonetheless, your arbitrary starting number is off by so many orders of magnitude that it suggests that you have little idea of the scale of project you are proposing.

 

[Richard Dierking]

Just out of curiosity, who would be the waiver authority for an amateur orbital launch? I mean, the intent is to fly around the planet, so would definitely be crossing national boundaries.

I don't think there's one body that handles this. If there was, it would probably be through the UN. I think it's by treaties between individual countries. For the US, you would need to check with the State Department. And, some don't have treaties as we know historically. They just fly in orbit over a country because they can and either fly undetected or just not get shot down.
And of course it's really important where you launch and and in what direction for orbital and even sub-orbital trajectories. I think SpaceX first flight was from the Marshall Islands which are controlled by the US military.
So, like others have said in this thread and previous ones that are similar, it's not just the rocket, it's all the other stuff.
The talent is there and maybe the possibility of funding, but it would be a major team-building endeavor. All that talent comes with a lot of ego. People just don't get up in the morning and realize that their life's work is making someone else's dream a reality. How to motivate a bunch of knowledgeable and capable people to do something like this without paying them is a really good question. And, there's going to be at least one person you really need and they are going to bail-out on you. Then, the project will drag and begin to fall apart. Look at what has happened to some large amateur rocket projects.

I've said this before, and pardon if some have heard it previously, but I think the next logical step for amateur rocketry in space is a long-range sub-orbital flight. There would be some legal hurdles, maybe more like fiery hoops, but I think this would be possible, and also a lot safer.
Launch from the east coast and head over the Atlantic Ocean. Tsunamie, you could do this too, but don't expect any help from the Earth.
Create a rocket that requires very little ground support. So, no launch pad; retractable legs for the booster. And, there are other things that would be good to have, and I'm actually working on, but I'm not going on here.
Hey, Rocksim Pro is going to be back after being upgraded. I'm saving to get a copy myself.

 

[Michael L]

Ham operators have been launching high altitude balloons that circumnavigate the earth for a few years (maybe more), sometimes more than one loop. They use GPS and an APRS transmitter for position reporting. There's even an organization for it now.

ARHAB is the study and use of high altitude balloons to explore near space. Near space is the region of atmosphere between 60,000 feet and the accepted boundary of space at 328,000 feet altitude. These altitudes make near space far more like Earth orbit than the surface of the Earth. Air pressure in near space reaches 99% of a vacuum of better and temperatures drop to a low of -60F or colder. Cosmic radiation is over 100 times greater than at sea level.

Note the difference between near space and space...

ARHAB

 

[Antares JS]

To get an idea of the scale of the project, you could look into Japan’s SS-520. It’s currently the smallest rocket having reached an orbital altitude. The one that did weighed over 5000 lbs and was over 30 ft long.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/02/japanese-rocket-record-borbital-launch/

Gotta pick a nit here because it's something that really bugs me - achieving "orbital altitude" and "orbit" are two very different things. The SS-520's payload achieved orbit.

As for the OP, I'm going to suggest setting your sights a little lower before trying to achieve orbit with an amateur rocket. Try building something that can cross the Karman line and recover safely before thinking you're going anywhere near orbit.

 

[Funkworks]

I don't think "orbital altitude" is actually a thing. I just used the words loosely to mean: "The SS-520 reached an altitude allowing its payload to be set in orbit, which is what the OP (and probably most people on this forum) would enjoy doing.

 

[PayLoad]

Look - I want to fly myself to Mars - especially today (I lost a container with 4 cars in the China sea) But if this post was not a simple troll, or by a 12 year old, you start small to learn the basics, CG, CP, Propellant, flight characteristics. Discussing it further is silly at best.

 

[Antares JS]

I don't think "orbital altitude" is actually a thing. I just used the words loosely to mean: "The SS-520 reached an altitude allowing its payload to be set in orbit, which is what the OP (and probably most people on this forum) would enjoy doing.

"Orbital altitude" just means an altitude at which orbit is achievable, like you said. However, reaching that altitude is no indicator that you can make it into orbit. Going high is easy compared to going horizontally fast enough to remain in orbit, and if you can't go that fast, you fall back down no matter how high you made it.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

 

[heada]

Going 100km up is "hard" but possible as an amateur like us. Going 100km up and 7.9km/s sideways so you don't come right back down is "really dang hard"

As an individual, set your first goal as a successful flight to 12km up (~100,000 ft) If you can do that, you'll get an idea of the requirements to go 100km up and 7.9km/s sideways.

 

[KilroySmith]

OK, engineer to engineer....
I'd first start by figuring out what is needed to get to orbital altitude. Let's assume that Sputnik's altitude of roughly 200 km is a target. Carrying the rocket up on a balloon is an interesting idea; you can get perhaps 30km of altitude (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_balloon) that way, reducing the amount of motor thrust you'll need. So you'll need a first stage that gets you 170km of altitude.

Download OpenRocket, and build a rocket that'll get that high. Start with one of the example (perhaps the "High power airstart), and upsize it until it'll take the largest rocket motor in the database (mine shows a Cesaroni O8000). Modify it until it flies as high as you can make it. This will take a few hours, but you'll learn an awful lot. I'd start by making the body tube of the rocket "minimum diameter", meaning that the inner diameter of the tube is slightly larger (say, 1mm) than the OD of the motor. Make the rocket long enough to be stable, make the fins as small as possible to make it stable, and see what altitudes you get. Perhaps a skinnier, longer motor like a 98mm N5800 would be better because you could use a skinnier rocket body which would have reduced aerodynamic drag.

You'll probably have to define a custom motor to get you there. This thread: https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/how-to-add-a-motor-to-openrocket.123622/ might be helpful. I don't have the skills to tell you how to reasonably guess at parameters for the engine you need (i.e. how heavy it'll be for a given impulse and thrust), but Burnsim looks like a good tool to use. Here's a good chart of rocket motor sizes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_rocket_motor_classification. The critical thing you'll need is to figure out how heavy the rocket is going to be sitting on the launch pad (or in your case, in the sling below the balloon).

Once you can reach orbital altitude, you'll need to accelerate the rocket to 17,500 mph (7800 m/sec) horizontal velocity. The problem, of course, is that the weight of the propellant necessary to do this is additional weight that the first stage motor has to lift, so don't forget about that. This is the main reason for two-stage rockets - the spent first stage motor casing, body tubes, and fins are heavy and if you get rid of them you can use a smaller second stage motor. For kicks and giggles, let's assume that what's left at this point is 2 kg of body and payload, and an average of 10 kg of rocket motor. We're in space at this point, so we can ignore aerodynamic drag effects; it becomes a first-year physics problem. For a WAG approximation (https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/20807/what-is-total-impulse), Total Impulse = mass*DeltaVelocity, = 12kg*7800 = 93600 N-s, which is in the range of a Q sized motor, which, of course, probably weighs a heck of a lot more than 10kg. For example, the Cesaroni O8000 mentioned before weighs about 32kg (https://pro38.com/products/pro150/motor/MotorData.php?prodid=40960O8000-P), and you'll need at least twice the propellant (and probably a lot more than that), so this second stage motor is going to weigh a lot more than 2*32kg.

Hopefully, there's a little more information to get you started here than some of the wet blankets above. There's a lot of study that you'd need to do to figure this out - modelling the rise of the rocket through the atmosphere where drag is important, choosing a good time to rotate the rocket from vertical to horizontal (no real rockets go straight up, rotate 90 degrees, then fire horizontally), building the control systems to keep the rocket on course during thrust, etc. It's unlikely that you'd be able to build such a thing in your garage (although SpaceX did with the Falcon-1; but they had a multi-millionaire funding it).

Here's a link to a smaller-scale effort that you might find interesting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Space_eXploration_Team

 

[Bat-mite]

Absolutely get in contact with the federal government (I'd start with the FAA and see where they direct you) before spending a lot of time on this.

 

[heada]

There are some companies that are setting up orbital launch services in the highlands of Scotland. You may want to contact one of them to see what regulatory steps they had to take.

 

[Richard Dierking]

I am trying to achieve as a hobbiest is a big and complex thing. However I am still going to try and would appreciate anyone's advice or knowlege.

So, simple to complex, perhaps launch, track, and recovery of a high-altitude balloon may provide some valuable experience without costing a bunch of money. Balloons are high-altitude and can be long distance machines. Being an EE, your training would be very useful tracking and recovering the payload. And just saying, you could get some great video and data from a flight. I'm thinking you could do something like this for around $1000.
If you are interested in high-altitude balloons, I suggest contacting High Altitude Science.
https://www.highaltitudescience.com
However, it might be a challenge obtaining the necessary helium. I've assisted in high-alt balloon launches and learned a lot. It's a complicated and difficult task and there are not many recovery successes. Doing this would be an accomplishment, and provide credibility for continued project objectives and your goal.

 

[Alan15578]

There are some companies that are setting up orbital launch services in the highlands of Scotland. You may want to contact one of them to see what regulatory steps they had to take.

Or you could find a rouge nation that dose not give a flying **** about regulations.

 

[BABAR]

Model rocket staging is very inefficient compared to NASA and SpaceX because they use gimbal motor stabilization rather than fins. So not only is it expensive just to get the energy to both physically lift to altitude and horizontally accelerate, you also have to deal with a heck of a lot more drag.

Using a balloon may help you get up there in altitude and above much of that draggy atmosphere, but then even if you CAN launch from a balloon you are gonna need a looooooong rail because the air is so thin you'll need to get the rocket to reeeeeeally high speed for any size fins to be effective. You kind of steal from Peter to pay Paul. The higher you go the less drag you encounter, but with less drag stabilization is harder to initially achieve.

 

[Richard Dierking]

Spin stabilization would be possible. There are students from Stanford that are doing this.

https://news.stanford.edu/2015/02/01/launching-rocket-high-altitude-balloon/
One school is trying to deploy a balloon from the southern coast, drift East, and launch over the Gulf of Mexico.

So, what do you do if you deploy your balloon and have a glitch and have to abort the launch of the rocket? Just, pop the balloon? No recovery of anything and recycling after that. What happens if you loose communication? Are you going to put destruct pyrotechnics on a balloon?
OMG. Launching rockets (any rocket) from a balloon has so many failure modes.

Anyway, launching a large helium balloon is a no-go because you would need a lot of high-grade compressed helium that is not currently available for things like this. The helium supply is currently limited and going to medical and laboratory uses first. University teams can get some for rocket applications, but not nearly what you would need for a large balloon.
Yes, you could use hydrogen and it's not difficult to get, but there are some very important safety protocols for filling and launching hydrogen filled high-alt balloons. More failure modes. Pretty obvious I guess, but just saying.

There is file video showing sounding rocket balloon launches from the 60's. Keep in mind these are sounding rockets. You can see that it took a lot of resources to launch these. The ones using towers were remarkable and wild to see them deployed. And, you would need a place like White Sands Missile Test Range to do it. And, the timing for the necessary environmental conditions was difficult. Many days were scrubbed.

It's difficult filling and launching a balloon with a payload of a couple hundred grams. Many times the balloon is filled in a hanger and walked outside to launch.

The old videos would be good to watch.

 

[prfesser]

Using the SS-520 as a rough guide, a small orbit-capable vehicle:

• must be roughly a half-metre in diameter and ten metres long.
• will have about 1500 kg of (solid) propellant in the first stage. How do you plan to mix a ton and a half of propellant? How will you get that mixture into the rocket? How will you test the motor? (Trial-and-error testing is extremely expensive...) What infrastructure will be needed?---at a minimum, one or more very large mixers; a giant vacuum pump capable of removing air entrained during mixing; a crane or other device for lifting propellant and rocket stages; a means for forming the core.
• if liquid-fueled, must have a source of liquid oxygen and the means of handling cryogenic liquids; or source and handling of highly toxic and corrosive N2O4.
• must be programmed to slowly transition from vertical flight to horizontal flight, while accelerating the entire time.
• must attain a horizontal speed of nearly 30,000 km/hr, 8 km/second.
• will require government permission. In the US the cost of jumping through all the regulatory hoops has been estimated at about US$1 million. That is outside of the material costs for the rocket.

Dreaming about such a project can be lots of fun. I suspect that many who read this have drawn plans for their own personal spaceship, back in our early teen years. Fun...but completely impractical.

 

[Joshua F Thomas]

> I want to launch a rocket into lower orbit.

As far as I know, no amateur group has actually done this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You have a team of experienced rocket builders and a million-dollar budget or more, right?

 

[PayLoad]

Million dollar budget? Not nearly enough. I'm embarrassed to say how much I've spent on the "Moon Shot III Heavy" project, and she only will go up & down