This is probably a notion that deserves a thread in a particular topic area, but I'll be darned if I know which. So here it is.
I asked @JoeBarnard once if his TVC works in conjunction with fins, or if the combination leads to trouble*. He said yes, that works fine.
So, today, years later, I had a flash of an idea: use a TVC in a booster that gets a rocket up to speed then have a finned sustainer take over. You get all the beauty of a slow lift off without a rod or rail, and all the advantages of a rocket that remains stable after burnout.
Thoughts?
* On some systems, if an active control system were to detect a deviation from nominal then compute and apply a correction, but another mechanism were applying a correction at the same time, the active system would have overcompensated for the deviation, leading to an overshoot that requires a new correction, thus a new overcorrection, and such a system can, in some cases, experience growing oscillation that leads to failure. Fortunately, the BPS.space TVC is not subject to this failure mode, I've been told.
I asked @JoeBarnard once if his TVC works in conjunction with fins, or if the combination leads to trouble*. He said yes, that works fine.
So, today, years later, I had a flash of an idea: use a TVC in a booster that gets a rocket up to speed then have a finned sustainer take over. You get all the beauty of a slow lift off without a rod or rail, and all the advantages of a rocket that remains stable after burnout.
Thoughts?
* On some systems, if an active control system were to detect a deviation from nominal then compute and apply a correction, but another mechanism were applying a correction at the same time, the active system would have overcompensated for the deviation, leading to an overshoot that requires a new correction, thus a new overcorrection, and such a system can, in some cases, experience growing oscillation that leads to failure. Fortunately, the BPS.space TVC is not subject to this failure mode, I've been told.