Armadillo Aerospace Update Thread

[savuporo]

Parachutes apparently don't work from orbit or near-orbit, while VTVL seems complicated, expensive to engineer, and overkill for suborbital trips. Sounds to me like Carmack woke up to economic realities, and Musk woke up to physical ones. =)

One of the stated goals of building a suborbital VTVL was to achieve massively quick turnaround - gas and go, and thus inherently very high flight rate. Flight rate dominates the economics of any launch vehicle ( or aircraft, for that matter )

I am a big fan of parachutes for individual backup, being a skydiver myself. Parachutes as primary vehicle recovery mechanism .. its fine for a prototype or two, but for operational vehicles , just say no.

[Robotbeat]

Apparently, Stig-A III actually made it nearly to the Karman Line! They estimate real peak altitude at somewhere between 75-95km (EDIT:That's what Carmack said on ARocket.... the SpacePortAmerica press release says ~82km).
http://www.spaceportamerica.com/news/press-releases/420-armadillo-aerospace-launches-their-third-stig-a-rocket-from-spaceport-america.html


Amazing pictures from nearly the Karman Line: http://www.spaceportamerica.com/press-access.html Haven't had the chance to see the footage.

(the bright orange ballute can also be seen... the enormous amounts of UV up there must make the fluorescent material glow like crazy!)

[QuantumG]

(the bright orange ballute can also be seen... the enormous amounts of UV up there must make the fluorescent material glow like crazy!)

Rave... in... space!!

[tigerade]

Amazing pictures from nearly the Karman Line: http://www.spaceportamerica.com/press-access.html Haven't had the chance to see the footage.

Fantastic pictures.    Good work Armadillo.

[Moe Grills]

Apparently, Stig-A III actually made it nearly to the Karman Line! They estimate real peak altitude at somewhere between 75-95km (EDIT:That's what Carmack said on ARocket.... the SpacePortAmerica press release says ~82km).

   

82 Km (51+ miles)? Hey! I'm not complaining! They used to give
X-15 test-pilots their astronaut-wings for matching and passing that altitude.

Definition of space is still arbitrary. Ask most people, you'll get different answers.  If you have a good vacuum-pump and bell jar at home, the best vacuum you can obtain is far inferior to the hard vacuum at 80km.

A few more launches like these, with steady improvements continuing,
then John Carmack can put up an "OPEN FOR BUSINESS" sign in a year or two.

[kkattula]

...A few more launches like these, with steady improvements continuing,
then John Carmack can put up an "OPEN FOR BUSINESS" sign in a year or two.

They've already done paid work for NASA and DoD, not to mention all the Rocket Racing League stuff. 

[kkattula]

Yeah, it's like someone switched the brains of Musk and Carmack about a year or two ago. (Carmack abandoned vertical landing and is taking up parachutes... Musk abandoned parachutes and is taking up vertical landing.)

The stated purpose of Stig was to let them initially explore high altitude and high velocity flight without trying to do VTVL at the same time.

It's a reasonable enough approach; first learn how to do VTVL RLV, next learn how to go high & fast, lastly put them together.

[simonbp]

And, it should be said, Stig doesn't use conventional parachutes either, but rather a ballute (with which they have have limited success).

[Robotbeat]

And, it should be said, Stig doesn't use conventional parachutes either, but rather a ballute (with which they have have limited success).

Stig also uses a regular parachute (well, I believe it's a steerable ram-air parachute... it was for the first flight).

[Owen]

Update on the latest flight
http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=378

Video, with the impact at the end.

[Robotbeat]

Update on the latest flight
http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News?news_id=378

Video, with the impact at the end.

Ouch... "Shovel recovery"... but they forgot the shovel!

Interesting that this second flight of Stiga used much of the same hardware (most?) as flew on the previous flight.

[baldusi]

Next up for Armadillo is a larger diameter tube rocket, meant to carry significant payload to 125km.

So, Stig-B will have a wider body. I guess it will also have a more powerful engine?

[Robotbeat]

Next up for Armadillo is a larger diameter tube rocket, meant to carry significant payload to 125km.

So, Stig-B will have a wider body. I guess it will also have a more powerful engine?

Not necessarily... Did you see how fast Stiga shot off the rocket pad? I suspect that because of Armadillo's VTVL experience, they could make a rocket with quite a low T/W at lift-off and still get it to work. Stiga had much higher T/W than Stig.

That said, it's not necessarily that hard for them to make another rocket engine. They've made countless different liquid rocket engines.

[savuporo]

The GPS was just being finicky, it didn't have anything physically wrong with it. It remains an item that has been less reliable at the spaceport than at home base;

..

Telemetry was lost above 19.4km, which was unsurprising as the telemetry had not worked at full range during an aircraft-based test.

... this is just all question marks to me. Why would one fly with known issues like the GPS ? Why would you fly without full telemetry for the full flight ?

[Robotbeat]

The GPS was just being finicky, it didn't have anything physically wrong with it. It remains an item that has been less reliable at the spaceport than at home base;

..

Telemetry was lost above 19.4km, which was unsurprising as the telemetry had not worked at full range during an aircraft-based test.

... this is just all question marks to me. Why would one fly with known issues like the GPS ? Why would you fly without full telemetry for the full flight ?

GPS didn't have any effect on the outcome of the flight, and they knew that.

A perfect vehicle in perfect conditions costs an infinite amount of money and has an infinitely long schedule.

[QuantumG]

Good answer Robobeat.. and without the selective editing:

The GPS was just being finicky, it didn't have anything physically wrong with it. It remains an item that has been less reliable at the spaceport than at home base; for the next rocket we will be switching back to an independent GPS unit rather than the current integrated IMU/GPS.

It's called learning.

[savuporo]

It's called learning.

No question. I bet the learning would be more effective with full instrumentation and data stream back intact though.

[QuantumG]

No question. I bet the learning would be more effective with full instrumentation and data stream back intact though.

They're still learning how to do that. (I thought that was clear).

[dcporter]

No question. I bet the learning would be more effective with full instrumentation and data stream back intact though.

They are presently learning how to get full instrumentation and to stream data back intact.

Edit: What QG said.

[Moe Grills]

  They're edging up.
   First, 82; now 95 Km altitude.

  But I'm interested in the microgravity time interval.
 I suspect that this rocket obtained close to 200 seconds of microgravity.

  Microgravity is a valuable commodity; just ask scientists and researchers who are willing to shell out bucks to obtain it.

Now that AA is virtually in competition, or soon will be, with UP Aerospace, how much will they charge for payloads to be sent up?

  Suppose AA charges 10 dollars per kilogram per-second of microgravity; to send up a 10 kilogram payload, for 200 seconds of microgravity,  the
estimated scale would result in a customer being required to pay
$20,000 to AA.
   Am I close to the correct estimate?