Armadillo Aerospace Update Thread

[neilh]

Woo!!
Phil Eaton, on the ARocket mailing list:

I hate to scoop John, but I can't help myself!

Armadillo just completed a boosted hop to 2000 feet with an engine shutdown
and extended freefall under a small drogue.

Everything went well and the mod executed a Masten-esque maneuver to return
to the pad.

Matt will have video sometime in the next day or 2 I am sure...  It was
REALLY cool!

Phil

Wow, I look forward to that video. This friendly competitiveness between Armadillo and Masten is great to see.

[jongoff]

Woo!!
Phil Eaton, on the ARocket mailing list:

I hate to scoop John, but I can't help myself!

Armadillo just completed a boosted hop to 2000 feet with an engine shutdown
and extended freefall under a small drogue.

Everything went well and the mod executed a Masten-esque maneuver to return
to the pad.

Matt will have video sometime in the next day or 2 I am sure...  It was
REALLY cool!

Phil

Wow, I look forward to that video. This friendly competitiveness between Armadillo and Masten is great to see.

John Carmack on aRocket:

2000', engine relight under drogue.

> From: Matt Ross <[email protected]>
> Date: June 5, 2010 5:29:14 PM CDT
>
> Here's the view from the tripod camera. I should be able to get to editing up the other angles within the next day or so.
>
> http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2010_06_05/2010_06_05_Mod_free_flight-engine_restart.wmv

[jongoff]

2000', engine relight under drogue.

> http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2010_06_05/2010_06_05_Mod_free_flight-engine_restart.wmv

I have to say, I wasn't a fan of drogue chutes before this, and am even less of a fan now.  But the vehicle recovered very well.  Man, that was impressive/scary/impressive!

~Jon

[Lee Jay]

Why aren't you a fan of chutes?  My attitude is, rockets are the worst devices at producing delta-V.  Practically everything else is better (rotors, props, jets, wings, chutes, buoyancy, etc.).  Therefore, if another device can be used, it should be used.  Rockets should be used where there's no practical alternative to solve the needed problem.

[Robotbeat]

Why aren't you a fan of chutes?  My attitude is, rockets are the worst devices at producing delta-V.  Practically everything else is better (rotors, props, jets, wings, chutes, buoyancy, etc.).  Therefore, if another device can be used, it should be used.  Rockets should be used where there's no practical alternative to solve the needed problem.

He's a fan of (more solid) aerodynamic surfaces which aren't chutes. Chutes are less predictable. There's substantial (and difficult to model... though not impossible... I did a summer's research under a professor who was partly responsible for modeling MSL's parachutes) fluid-structure interaction that is something that's far easier to engineer with certainty with a solid surface.

Of course, I should just let Jon speak for himself.

[Harlan]

I have to say, I wasn't a fan of drogue chutes before this, and am even less of a fan now.  But the vehicle recovered very well.  Man, that was impressive/scary/impressive!

Holy crap! I might have gone with "scary/impressive/scary"! If that was my expensive, hand-constructed vehicle swinging through those angles, I'd have had a heart attack! Was a little hard to tell from the ground video, but it looked to me like they popped the chute a bit early, before the vehicle had enough negative velocity to be very stable under it...

[savuporo]

Scary. Use streamers to stabilize, rather than drogue chutes ?

[jongoff]

Why aren't you a fan of chutes?  My attitude is, rockets are the worst devices at producing delta-V.  Practically everything else is better (rotors, props, jets, wings, chutes, buoyancy, etc.).  Therefore, if another device can be used, it should be used.  Rockets should be used where there's no practical alternative to solve the needed problem.

He's a fan of (more solid) aerodynamic surfaces which aren't chutes. Chutes are less predictable. There's substantial (and difficult to model... though not impossible... I did a summer's research under a professor who was partly responsible for modeling MSL's parachutes) fluid-structure interaction that is something that's far easier to engineer with certainty with a solid surface.

Of course, I should just let Jon speak for himself.

You did a good enough job of speaking for me.  :-)

~Jon

[neilh]

2000', engine relight under drogue.

> http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2010_06_05/2010_06_05_Mod_free_flight-engine_restart.wmv

I have to say, I wasn't a fan of drogue chutes before this, and am even less of a fan now.  But the vehicle recovered very well.  Man, that was impressive/scary/impressive!

I wonder if the chutes were also there to make the impact somewhat survivable for the lander if the engine failed to restart.

[zaitcev]

I am very impressed that the control system was able to stabilize the mod although you can see it took it some oscillatons (which it dampened properly).

[kkattula]

2000', engine relight under drogue.

> http://media.armadilloaerospace.com/2010_06_05/2010_06_05_Mod_free_flight-engine_restart.wmv

I have to say, I wasn't a fan of drogue chutes before this, and am even less of a fan now.  But the vehicle recovered very well.  Man, that was impressive/scary/impressive!

I wonder if the chutes were also there to make the impact somewhat survivable for the lander if the engine failed to restart.

Nope. John Carmack said terminal velocity under the drogue was 50 m/s. Not survivable.

[hop]

I am very impressed that the control system was able to stabilize the mod although you can see it took it some oscillatons (which it dampened properly).

Agreed, looks like the rocket tug-a-war paid off

[corrodedNut]

Check out the new videos:


http://www.youtube.com/v/9u0qlIoSSkQ

http://www.youtube.com/v/x8_e2kiLzUk

Man, what a weekend this has been...

[spacedive]

That was awesome.

John Carmack is fantastic!

[Crispy]

That's some very nice stabilization coming out of the drogue separation. I get the feeling you could fling one of those things into the air randomly and it'd land on its feet like a cat

[neilh]

Slashdot story on Masten and Armadillo submitted by yours truly.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/07/2216258/Masten-and-Armadillo-Perform-First-VTVL-Restarts

[savuporo]

Heh, the article submission sort of points at Armadillo playing the second violin again ..

[DanielW]

Apparently John just picked Masten's pocket.

http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/?itemid=21313

[Solo]

Wow, what a week, between SpaceX, Armadillo and Masten!
I guess I'm biased toward Armadillo because I learned about their work first, and I've been keeping up with them much longer.  So way to go John Carmack!  It's really cool to think that they've gone from garage-level to verging on suborbital attempts in a few years.  It just goes to show what an ambitious, talented person can do in the world today.  I can't wait to see what happens next! 

[savuporo]

It's really cool to think that they've gone from garage-level to verging on suborbital attempts in a few years.

Not knocking AA, i've been a fan of theirs since they started.
Its just an observation that they aways seem to be around a year or a bit more away from actual suborbital flights. If you remember, they were planning to win the original X-Prize ..