ARCA develops orbital rockoon for lunar lander

[bad_astra]

http://www.arcaspace.ro/orbital/en/haas.htm
http://www.arcaspace.ro/orbital/images/Haas_Orbital_Rocket_Launcher.pdf

It's uh, interesting looking.


Stabilo is still being worked on, but looks like they have moved away from monoprop, finally, to hybrid.

[Nascent Ascent]

A few of those pics make it look like a huge nipple on a baby bottle.   

[bad_astra]

(holds his fingers back from the keyboard.. no.. must not type what I want to type..)

[Crispy]

(holds his fingers back from the keyboard.. no.. must not type what I want to type..)

I know what you're thinking O_O
This is a polite forum and there might be minors reading so I'll just stick to that O_O

ANYWAY

It's an interesting design, but it's so outlandish compared to anything that's flown before, I'm sure there are issues I couldn't intuit. I'll be interested to hear the opinion of the experts!

[Nascent Ascent]

The rocket from Flesh Gordon? 

[docmordrid]

Looks like something out of a French fantasy movie.  Did these guys have anything to do with "Immortel"?

[bad_astra]

On a more serious note, it doesn't seem to have any provision for gimbal that I can see.

[mlorrey]

meh with some umbilicals it makes me think of a hookah pipe. smoke a toke!

the rest of you are pervs.

it is an interesting experiment in a lot of the arguments made by other innovators

[sandrot]

Some out of the box thinking... I liked the .PDF.

[kevin-rf]

Kinda reminds of a cutaway of the N1 tank layout...

[JazzFan]

What ever happened to this project?  Is Super Haas still being developed?

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Apparently the Romanians have discontinued with dealing with balloons and switched to a ground based (SSTO!  ) version in summer of last year - and claims that their first orbital attempt will be in 2013 ( ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haas_(rocket)

Any updates on that?

[R7]

Any updates on that?

Still a joke realism challenged.

Apparently the Romanians have discontinued with dealing with balloons

They are supposed to do high altitude parachute drop tests for ESA Exomars. What can they realistically use for that except pretty much the only thing they have demonstrated working; the balloon. How high can Solar Montgolfier-style balloon go?

[Patchouli]

Still a joke realism challenged.

The Executor rocket engine seems legit enough.

It appears to have a similarity with Merlin-1A and some of Beal Aerospace's engines.

https://picasaweb.google.com/114503320666283130750/MotorulExecutorConstruit

 I'd like to see a hot fire test of it.

[R7]

The Executor rocket engine seems legit enough.

That's the peculiar aspect of ARCA; they create lots cool looking mock-ups. The Executor seems to have the basic parts of GG-engine. Look closer and the volutes appear composite/plastic and shiny metal is simple turned parts plus lots and lots of bolts. No sensors/wiring/thin piping anywhere. Humongous gimbal.

Remember Orizont? Certainly looked cool, swept swings and all. Would have used pretty much all techniques in the bag (and a new one too, flying back in reverse) during flight, but never went anywhere.

The IAR-111 mock-up looks very neat, but F-22 clone seaplane taking off while dragging underbelly rocket through water like a torpedo, puh-lease...

But it was the years of publicly believing in the pendulum fallacy that ruined these guys for me.

I'd like to see a hot fire test of it.

That would be a nice surprise but wouldn't hold my breath 

[bad_astra]

When they were an X-Prize team they seemed to have, if not even the slimmest of chances of a win, at least focus and a plan that might have worked if they'd had real funding. Since then, they seemed to have become movie prop makers for a film industry that isn't calling.

The fact that they could not get a solar balloon aloft, with their own navy's assitance, wasn't very reassuring.