Interorbital Systems Flights

[QuantumG]

Pressure fed according to website.
http://www.fireflyspace.com/vehicles/firefly-a

No idea who I'm thinking about then

[Katana]

How could pressure fed rockets have performance come close to pump fed rockets?

It's easier to see it for small scales - imagine a turbopump that is lighter than the pressure vessel, it's not easy to do. Rocketlab and Firefly think they've cracked it, but both of those rockets are pretty big. The very big scale is harder for a different reason - just making turbopumps that big is hard.

By the way, the Millirons were on The Space Show today. I didn't listen live - I was asleep - and the mp3 hasn't been posted yet, but it should go up today.

Both built with modern carbon composites, much lighter and expensive than stainless steel Seadragon or OTRAG.

Anyway, none of fully pressure fed rockets have gone to orbit yet. Why Von Brawn choose to invent the first turbopump if pressure fed rockets with WWII material show premise to orbit? V2 have a VERY heavy pump.

In Russia, Pressure fed Scud A (R-11) enter service but replaced by pump fed Scud B (R-17).
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets/Diverse/Scud/index.htm

For small turbopump, Russian Isayev S2.711 / V-750V for SAM-2 missile has 30.4kN thrust and T/W ratio of 72.09
http://www.astronautix.com/engines/isav750v.htm
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets/Diverse/KB-Isayev_engines/index.htm

Simple design like AK47,  thousands launched in the Vietnam war, tens of thousands produced. Should be dirt cheap compared to NK-33. May any private company get some retired ones from Russia and fly them again?

[R7]

How could pressure fed rockets have performance come close to pump fed rockets?

All current pump fed LVs are microscopic compared to Sea Dragon. Payload fraction tends to grow with LV size, regardless of pump cycle. Need to compare vehicles of equal size.

Why Von Brawn choose to invent the first turbopump if pressure fed rockets with WWII material show premise to orbit? V2 have a VERY heavy pump.

WW2 materials being suitable to pressure fed orbital LV is your own claim. Wartime Germany had to deal with shortage of precious resources so minimum drymass designs were preferred. Helium wasn't available as a light weight pressurant.

May any private company get some retired ones from Russia and fly them again?

Better, you can buy new Serbian clones.

http://www.edepro.com/?page_id=112

[TrevorMonty]

Listen to Inter orbital owners Space show. Launch price to orbit ( 300km?) for 30kg is expected to be $1M. This is 5 core LV.
-
NB Electron is $4.9M for 120kg to SSO 500km.  4 times payload to higher energy orbit.

[QuantumG]

Link to the show: http://thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=2494

[R7]

In the latest show Ron went on about spending the last year testing guidance hardware.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000623160615/http://www.interorbital.com/iosneptune1.htm

The Neptune launcher program is in its final design stage. Engine and guidance system tests are underway.

That was fourteen(14!) years ago.

[QuantumG]

Indeed. It's pretty obvious that they've only recently entered reality and discovered just how much work is ahead of them.

[R7]

they've only recently entered reality

That, or they just reset the cycle to cook up new batch of space snake oil. For the sake of the egyptian who prepaid $21k for 28 grams of lunar regolith from them I hope for the former.

edit: OK I got to the part with Randa annoucing corporate lunar base in 2021, so betting for the latter.

Hadn't heard that Charles Pooley has passed away. RIP 

[QuantumG]

That, or they just reset the cycle to cook up new batch of space snake oil.

The only reason they're doing anything is they've got Synergy Moon giving them upfront cash.

Hadn't heard that Charles Pooley has passed away. RIP 

Yeah Paul Breed is working on a suitable tribute to his legacy.

[Kryten]

It will be interesting to see if they can actually get to orbit with their massive number of cores.

I didn't really understand the slide entitled "N36 Medium-Lift Rocket", though.  The subtitle is "Manned Orbital and Lunar Missions", and below that they detail the 36 common cores and so on.  And on the same slide it says Neptune 36 can take 1 metric ton to orbit.  Are they suggesting a manned orbital mission with a spacecraft that is only 1 ton, including passenger?

In the Space Show interview (at about the 35 minute mark) they mention that they intend to produce a two person one metric ton capsule, with about half a day of endurance.

[ChrisWilson68]

It will be interesting to see if they can actually get to orbit with their massive number of cores.

I didn't really understand the slide entitled "N36 Medium-Lift Rocket", though.  The subtitle is "Manned Orbital and Lunar Missions", and below that they detail the 36 common cores and so on.  And on the same slide it says Neptune 36 can take 1 metric ton to orbit.  Are they suggesting a manned orbital mission with a spacecraft that is only 1 ton, including passenger?

In the Space Show interview (at about the 35 minute mark) they mention that they intend to produce a two person one metric ton capsule, with about half a day of endurance.

Right, because those Mercury capsules were just so spacious, lets shrink it in size by a third and then stuff a second person in there!  What could possibly go wrong.

Maybe they're thinking of the children's market.  You must be under 36 inches to enter this ride.

[QuantumG]

Pretty much true, but I wonder how much of Mercury was full of equipment that could be done much more compactly these days. In any case, Interorbital won't be doing anything like that.

[R7]

IOS capsule will be very safe because there's negligible risk of it actually going into outer space.

[TrevorMonty]

Cool!! a few hours to enjoy floating around in zeroG in a capsule as roomy as a phone booth.

[QuantumG]

A constricting cockpit is probably more enjoyable anyway. The important thing to remember is that everything we know about recreational spaceflight is that we know nothing.

[savuporo]

IOS Randa Milliron at SPSRA conference, answering questions about their near term suborbital high apogee and orbital flight schedules and plans.

Short, they are talking about next few months, Black Rock site, December flights for orbital launch .. kind of confusing of what comes when exactly. Feb/March high apogee



The presentation here :
https://www.sprsa.org/sites/default/files/conference-presentation/Interorbital%20NEPTUNE.SPRSA_.6.11.14CalTech-Milliron_PR.ppt

[TrevorMonty]

Interorbital to deliver an Prize contestant to Moon.

http://lunar.xprize.org/teams/synergy-moon/blog/team-synergy-moon-interorbital-announce-20162017-launch-plans

[jamesh9000]

Interorbital to deliver an Prize contestant to Moon.

http://lunar.xprize.org/teams/synergy-moon/blog/team-synergy-moon-interorbital-announce-20162017-launch-plans

30,000ft in 2016, the Moon in 2017. Sure.

[Phil Stooke]

Don't be so hard on them - it's only a few orders of magnitude different.  I'll count them - oops, I don't have enough fingers.

[TrevorMonty]

I wish them all the best but I wouldn't put any money them.