Armadillo Aerospace Update Thread

[Owen]

Tube Rocket and SuperMod Launch Report
http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=375

[Jason1701]

Very sad reading. I wonder what's next for Armadillo; the update didn't say.

[Gregori]

Not that sad reading. What would be sad is if there had been people on a vehicle like this before they knew about all it problems!!

Being able to weed out problems on launch vehicles through constant testing is going to lead to being able to produce highly reliable systems!! Its good that they know now rather than later.

[baldusi]

If they keep going, they will learn a lot. It's obvious that they have been applying a system of testing in actual flights, instead of thorough component testing. I still remember that Carmack blogged that he had to write down a checklist, after the first test of their lander. I would have expected them to have developed a checklist much earlier in their program. So I guess they are taking a strategy of erring on the side of lack of testing. And learning from errors. Similar to the original Russian approach. Incidentally, it's a technique that usually works very well with software.

[Danderman]

Any launch is a learning experience, especially the bad ones.

[Robotbeat]

Any launch is a learning experience, especially the bad ones.

When you have a reusable rocket (like both Supermod and Tube Rocket), much, much better to have a successful test flight than an unsuccessful one! Probably lost about $100,000 for each of the failures, maybe more. With an expendable rocket, you're going to blow that wad of cash on the test flight either way.

Sucks. Hopefully they do much better on their next launch.

[kkattula]

I'm looking forward to seeing this fly free. I just hope AA is more open with its activities than it was with the likely destruction of Stig.

How much more open do you want?  Flight reports and onboard video from both, with detailed fault analysis.

I greatly appreciate their willingness to share information with us.

[kkattula]

Any launch is a learning experience, especially the bad ones.

When you have a reusable rocket (like both Supermod and Tube Rocket), much, much better to have a successful test flight than an unsuccessful one! Probably lost about $100,000 for each of the failures, maybe more. With an expendable rocket, you're going to blow that wad of cash on the test flight either way.

Sucks. Hopefully they do much better on their next launch.

OTGH, Armadillo have always said they expect to crash occasionally.

There was a lot of new stuff in both these tests, and most of it worked pretty well. so I'm still pretty impressed.

[Robotbeat]

I'm looking forward to seeing this fly free. I just hope AA is more open with its activities than it was with the likely destruction of Stig.

How much more open do you want?  Flight reports and onboard video from both, with detailed fault analysis.

I greatly appreciate their willingness to share information with us.

Seriously, this is incredibly detailed. Couldn't ask for more, with on-board video showing exactly the moment (in slow-motion, no less) of hardware failure (at least for the Mod). It is just not immediate enough for some people, I guess.

[savuporo]

A lot of completely new hardware on the first real high altitude high speed flights. im a bit puzzled.

roll vane in stig nose, airdrop parafoils ..

[simonbp]

Wow. Two launches, two brushfires.

The analysis is really goos and through, though, and shows that AA are less and less amateurs and more real rocketeers...

The day before the launch is not the ideal day to complete engineering of any system on the rocket, unless absolutely necessary.

[jongoff]

Any launch is a learning experience, especially the bad ones.

When you have a reusable rocket (like both Supermod and Tube Rocket), much, much better to have a successful test flight than an unsuccessful one! Probably lost about $100,000 for each of the failures, maybe more. With an expendable rocket, you're going to blow that wad of cash on the test flight either way.

Sucks. Hopefully they do much better on their next launch.

Quite a bit more than $100k.  John said that Stig was around the price of a new Ferrari.  When you count in fully-burdened labor costs for 8 people, the labor quickly starts dominating.

~Jon

[zaitcev]

I wish it were more of fly a little, test a little, and not as much of all-out effort.

As far as openness is concerned, they could've at least twittered something about a crash. They are under no obligation to provide us entertainment, so nobody can expect them release any reports or whatnot, except to customers. This means, by the way, if there is no immediate PR, we're not likely to know if a flight has even taken place.

[Robotbeat]

I wish it were more of fly a little, test a little, and not as much of all-out effort.

As far as openness is concerned, they could've at least twittered something about a crash. They are under no obligation to provide us entertainment, so nobody can expect them release any reports or whatnot, except to customers. This means, by the way, if there is no immediate PR, we're not likely to know if a flight has even taken place.

Are you on the ARocket mailing list? That is the best place for news from folks like Armadillo, etc. You can ask them questions, and they may well answer.

[mr. mark]

My biggest problem with Armadillo is their lack of marketing a complete vehicle and sticking with the design. To the outside public both them and Masten seem to be mainly a research platform. Compare that to Spacex,Orbital and Virgin Galactic/Scaled that out of the chute choose to research and fly their vehicles completed Falcon1&9, Taurus 2 and SS2.

[hop]

My biggest problem with Armadillo is their lack of marketing a complete vehicle and sticking with the design.

You mean other than a complete turnkey propulsion system for the Rocket Racing league ? Or a turnkey quad for project Morpheus ?

Although I too am sometimes bemused by Armadillos switching between different vehicle designs, a fair bit of this has actually been driven by customers and other outside forces like the LLC.

Compare that to Spacex,Orbital and Virgin Galactic/Scaled that out of the chute choose to research and fly their vehicles completed Falcon1&9, Taurus 2 and SS2.

Completely different companies with different goals. Also, SpaceX went through quite a few configuration changes...

[Robotbeat]

Agreed. Also, Armadillo and Masten are going through a lot of revisions because they are trying to develop a totally reusable orbital system while finding business along the way. They don't have enough resources to do an all-up spacecraft development program, like Orbital, SpaceX, and Virgin. They also don't have a short-term end-goal like Virgin does.


BTW, Armadillo Aerospace has built an incredible number of unique liquid rocket engines. Just read their past news posts.

[NotGncDude]

Any launch is a learning experience, especially the bad ones.

When you have a reusable rocket (like both Supermod and Tube Rocket), much, much better to have a successful test flight than an unsuccessful one! Probably lost about $100,000 for each of the failures, maybe more. With an expendable rocket, you're going to blow that wad of cash on the test flight either way.

Sucks. Hopefully they do much better on their next launch.

Indeed.

[kkattula]

Don't forget they did a lot of tie down and hover tests on both these vehicles. Much more like flights than traditional static tests.  So these two tests were more like envelope expansion, than all up first flights.

Still sucks though. 

Better luck next time!

[A_M_Swallow]

Armadillo is testing its latest engine.

Armadillo CH4K LOX/Methane rocket engine test for Nasa Project Morpheus


"A liquid oxygen/liquid methane engine under development for Nasa's Project Morpheus. This 4000lb-force engine was designed, built, and tested by Armadillo Aerospace. It's a pressure-fed engine with a pintle injector of particularly low pressure drop, with replaceable injector elements for tuning mixing behavior.

This firing was on 21 September 2011.
"
The engine is air restartable.