Electric Rocket Launcher Aircraft—Drone-Launched Short Range Rocket System

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the idea of a significant improvement of state-of-the-art short-range rockets by means of using rocket artillery systems. Such a system consists of a rocket launcher aircraft (RLA) and a drone-launched short range rocket (DLSRR). An RLA is a reusable first stage of a military rocket. A DLSRR is the expendable second stage, which flies to the target. RLA-DLSRR systems have not yet been built, but they have been described in previous works by the author. State-of-the-art rocket systems are completely expendable and, hence, extremely expensive. No rocket artillery system with a reusable first stage has been built so far. Civilian spaceships with reusable first stages have been successful since 2015. In an electrically pumped rocket engine, the fuel and oxidizer are pumped into a combustion chamber by an electric-motor-driven pump. The electric motor is powered by a battery bank. Electrically pumped rocket engines would further decrease the cost of RLA-DLSRR systems. These engines are less expensive and more reliable then conventional rocket engines. In the present paper, it is shown that commercially available lithium polymer battery banks, as well as high specific power electric motors, provide sufficient power for the rocket engines needed for RLA-DLSRR systems. In the example given, it is calculated that an ERLA–DLSRR system with a liftoff mass of 15 tons can deliver a 210 kg payload to a range of up to 567 km with an impact velocity of up to 2415 m/s.