Research on an Advanced Solid Rocket Launcher in Japan

Abstract

The research on an advanced solid propellant rocket started as a successor to the M-V launch vehicle, which is the world’s best performance solid propellant rocket that can be utilized for both inter-planetary and solar-synchronous missions. As a next generation launch system, the advanced solid propellant rocket has several special features. The level of user friendliness is increased including: more accurate orbit insertion precision by employing a tiny liquid propellant upper stage and lower acoustic environment by introducing a special ground facility and refined numerical analysis. As for the rocket system, it is optimized from the point of view of both cost and performance, thus leading to significant cost reduction while the payload ratio remains the same as the high-performance M-V. Far beyond these efforts, the research should be most appreciated in the aspect of evolution of the launch system. The advanced solid rocket launcher is loaded with novel design concepts to reform the current launch system into responsive launch, involving an onboard autonomous and intelligent self-check system as well as ultimately compact and efficient ground support facilities. The associated time and labor needed for assembly and checkout are dramatically reduced and the operational performance can be considered the best in the world at the highest standard of the next-generation. The paper describes the general idea of the advanced solid rocket launcher of Japan.