Rocket Stages Research Articles

Simultaneous determination of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine and products of its oxidative transformations by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

A liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry method is proposed for the simultaneous determination of 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, methylhydrazine, N,N-dimethylformamide, 1-methyl-1H-1,2,4-triazole, dimethylguanidine, N-nitrosodimethylamine and 1,1,4,4-tetramethyltetrazene, important rocket fuel pollutants of soils. Chromatographic separation was conducted according to previously published results in an isocratic mode on an analytical column with a Nucleosil-100–5SA sulfo-cation-exchanger. The mobile phase composition was optimised in order to achieve effective separation of all analytes and provide high sensitivity of mass spectrometric detection – an ammonium acetate buffer solution (50 mM, pH 5.4) containing methanol (25%) was used. Detection was performed in the positive electrospray ionisation mode with multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The parameters of ion source, ion optics, the inlet potentials of the quadrupoles and the collision energy for the detection of the found product ions were optimised. Calibration dependences for all compounds are linear in wide concentration ranges, covering 3–4 orders of magnitude. The detection limits vary from 40 pg mL−1 for dimethylguanidine to 18 ng mL−1 for methylhydrazine. No significant matrix effects were observed in the analysis of acid peaty soil extracts. The method was validated and successfully used to analyse a real soil sample collected at the place of impact of the first stage of a carrier rocket.

Russian

Traditionally, on the initial design stage of rocket and artillery systems are used simplified analytical techniques for the aerodynamic calculations with the adjustment of the drag- function standard for form factor or the calculation with using algebraic formulas proposed by Dorodnitsin, Krasnov and etc. However, these techniques, adapted for ranges of transonic and supersonic speeds, are give unreasonably low accuracy for the subsonic range. We have studied the possibility of using existing software packages for example, ANSYS CFX to the modeling of aerodynamics differential equations in partial derivatives in finite difference form. On the test case - the American standard form ARROW shown that the calculations in ANSYS CFX were generally in line with those ARROW using the theory of turbulence k-e. The discrepancy at M < 0.4 is extremely small and does not exceed one percent. In the range of M = 0.4...1.0 discrepancy increases, but also does not exceed 5...10%, due to the need to select other add-ons ANSYS to calculate the wave resistance. For comparison, the function cx (M) is calculated on the existing analytical dependencies. Error calculation increases of M and reaches several hundred percent! Probably, this effect is associated with problems of application for the low-velocity of Dorodnitsin's formula for calculating resistance.

Statistical Impact Prediction of Decaying Objects

This paper describes a method for statistically predicting the impact time and location of an orbital object under 200 km altitude. It also investigates the influence of the chief parameter uncertainties on the statistical dispersion. Unlike the main methods used nowadays, which derive drag parameters from historical state data, a shape model is used to acquire aerodynamic coefficients in the various flow regimes. As a test object, the Delta-K rocket stage is chosen, due to the high data availability for validating the tool. Using a Monte Carlo sequence, multiple six-degrees-of-freedom simulations are executed, in which the initial state and the density output of the atmosphere model are varied within their uncertainty windows. By kernel density estimation, the resulting data are used to derive a probability density function of the impact time and infer a ground track expressing impact probability. In a comparative study with the Tracking and Impact Predictions published by the United States Space Surveillance Network, the method’s performance is tested. In this comparison, a decrease in impact window size is observed, while maintaining the reliability. Moreover, by a variance-based sensitivity analysis, the uncertainty in the density model is identified as the prime contributor to footprint dispersion and it is shown that knowledge of the rotational state can be critical in decreasing impact windows.

Palliation of Space Debris--A Need to Clean Environment

Space Debris is the waste or junk which have been left behind by human in space that no longer serves a useful purpose. It could be form of defunct satellites, discarded equipments, and rocket stages. It destroys satellite because due to its very high speed in orbit even relatively small pieces can damage or destroy satellites in a collision. For several decades, orbital debris has been identified as a serious concern. This debris is very dangerous in space especially for the future space mission. As there is the risk of high energy collisions with valuable space crafts. It have been understood that the current space debris environment poses a risk to space craft in earth orbit. As the population of debris continues to grow, the probability of collisions that could lead to potential damage will consequently increase. In addition, there is also the risk of damage on the ground if debris survives Earth‘s atmospheric re-entry. The prompt implementation if appropriate debris mitigation measures are therefore considered a prudent and necessary step towards preserving the outer space environment for future

Selecting the conditions of nanosatellite separation from the upper stage of the arrier-rocket "Soyuz" in undirected flight

The paper presents a stochastic investigation that made it possible to develop a methodology for selecting the control parameters of nanosatellite separation (velocity and time of the separation) excluding the possibility of a collision in subsequent motion. Numerical results are given for the case of launching a nanosatellite from the upper stage of Soyuz carrier rocket.

Analysis of the influence of low-orbit nanosatellite uncontrolled motion on the possibility of solving navigation and communication problems after its separation from the «Soyuz» carrier rocket upper-stage

The paper analyses a nanosatellites uncontrolled motion relative to its mass center after separation from the upper stage of Soyuz carrier rocket. Stochastic models of the initial conditions of the nanosatelite attitude motion are formulated. The possibility of successful solutions of navigation and communication problems using satellite navigation systems and low-altitude communications networks for LEO nanosatellites is shown.

Dynamics of large space debris removal using tethered space tug

At present, thousands of space debris are located in Earth's orbits. It has a different size ranging from a few millimeters to tens of meters. Tethered systems are promising technology to de-orbit the space debris. The tethers have been proposed for reduction of space debris either through momentum transfer or use of electrodynamic effects. Another possible way to remove the large space debris from the critical areas of near-Earth orbit is using a tethered space tug attached to the space debris. Large space debris can strongly affect the motion of the space tug and the tether during the transportation process, which can lead to the loss of control of the tethered system. The problem of removal of a large space debris from the orbit to the Earth's surface is studied. The space transportation system is composed of two bodies connected by the tether. The first body is a space debris (upper rocket stage or a large nonfunctional satellite) and the second body is a space tug. The spatial motion of the system is studied in the gravity field of the Earth under the action of the space tug thruster, aerodynamic drag and the gravitational torque. Osculating elements of the orbit are used to describe the motion of the center of mass of the system. Particular attention is given to investigate the spatial motion of the space debris relative to the tether and to the space tug. The influence of the initial conditions and the properties of the system on the motion of the system are studied.

An Experiment on Radio Location of Objects in the Near-Earth Space with VLBI in 2012

AbstractAn experiment on radar location of space debris objects using of the method of VLBI was carried out in April, 2012. The radar VLBI experiment consisted in irradiation of some space debris objects (4 rocket stages and 5 inactive satellites) with a signal of the transmitter with RT-70 in Evpatoria, Ukraine. Reflected signals were received by a complex of radio telescopes in the VLBI mode. The following VLBI stations took part in the observations: Ventspils (RT-32), Urumqi (RT-25), Medicina (RT-32) and Simeiz (RT-22). The experiment included measurements of the Doppler frequency shift and the delay for orbit refining, and measurements of the rotation period and sizes of objects by the amplitudes of output interferometer signals. The cross-correlation of VLBI-data is performed at a correlator NIRFI-4 of Radiophysical Research Institute (Nizhny Novgorod). Preliminary data processing resulted in the series of Doppler frequency shifts, which comprised the information on radial velocities of the objects. Some results of the experiment are presented.

After dramatic landing, Mars Curiosity rover will soon search for signs of habitability

It was a beautiful day to begin a search for evidence of habitability on another planet. With an earlier nearby dust storm having dissipated, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft, carrying the Curiosity rover (also known as the MSL rover), completed a complex, daring, and perfectly executed descent through the Martian atmosphere to the planet's surface on 5 August. During the final 7‐minute descent period, with a time delay in receiving signals on Earth, the spacecraft's computer executed risky maneuvers, including guided entry and parachute deployment. Twenty meters above the surface, the instrument‐laden, 899‐kilogram Mars Curiosity rover was lowered flawlessly on nylon tethers from an innovative “sky crane” on the descent stage rocket.

An Overview of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)

The Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), an accompanying payload to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission (Vondrak et al. 2010), was launched with LRO on 18 June 2009. The principle goal of the LCROSS mission was to shed light on the nature of the materials contained within permanently shadowed lunar craters. These Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) are of considerable interest due to the very low temperatures, <120 K, found within the shadowed regions (Paige et al. 2010a, 2010b) and the possibility of accumulated, cold-trapped volatiles contained therein. Two previous lunar missions, Clementine and Lunar Prospector, have made measurements that indicate the possibility of water ice associated with these PSRs. LCROSS used the spent LRO Earth-lunar transfer rocket stage, an Atlas V Centaur upper stage, as a kinetic impactor, impacting a PSR on 9 October 2009 and throwing ejecta up into sunlight where it was observed. This impactor was guided to its target by a Shepherding Spacecraft (SSC) which also contained a number of instruments that observed the lunar impact. A campaign of terrestrial ground, Earth orbital and lunar orbital assets were also coordinated to observe the impact and subsequent crater and ejecta blanket. After observing the Centaur impact, the SSC became an impactor itself. The principal measurement goals of the LCROSS mission were to establish the form and concentration of the hydrogen-bearing material observed by Lunar Prospector, characterization of regolith within a PSR (including composition and physical properties), and the characterization of the perturbation to the lunar exosphere caused by the impact itself.

Suborbital and low-thermospheric experiments using sounding rockets in Taiwan

The suborbital flight is a kind of flight, which reaches the space and then comes back to ground without completing one orbital revolution. The atmospheric thermosphere extends from 85 km to 600 km in altitude. Therefore, the suborbital and low-thermospheric experiments to be performed at altitude below 300 km can be combined using the sounding rocket. These experiments include rocket staging, fairing separation, ultrasonic flight, reentry, aerobrake and recovery test, ultraviolet and ionization observations, ozone measurement, etc. The advent of Taiwan's sub-orbital and thermospheric experiments project can be traced back to 1997. This is the year Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) was assigned to be responsible for procuring the sounding rocket for applications in science experiments and space technology research effort. From 1997 to 2010, 8 launches have been completed including one experimental hybrid rocket. All onboard instruments and sensors for sub-orbital and low-thermospheric experiments are developed and integrated by the domestic universities. More launches have been planned in the future. Opportunities for international cooperation in developing new instruments and payloads for future experiments will be possible.

Beginnings of rocket development in the czech lands (Czechoslovakia)

Although the first references are from the 15th Century when both Hussites and crusaders are said to have used rockets during the Hussite Wars (also known as the Bohemian Wars) there is no strong evidence that rockets were actually used at that time. It is worth noting that Konrad Kyeser, who described several rockets in his Bellifortis manuscript written 1402–1405, served as advisor to Bohemian King Wenceslas IV. Rockets were in fact used as fireworks from the 16th century in noble circles. Some of these were built by Vavřinec Křička z Bitýšky, who also published a book on fireworks, in which he described how to build rockets for firework displays. Czech soldiers were also involved in the creation of a rocket regiment in the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) army in the first half of the 19th century. The pioneering era of modern rocket development began in the Czech lands during the 1920s. The first rockets were succesfully launched by Ludvík Očenášek in 1930 with one of them possibly reaching an altitude of 2000 metres. Vladimír Mandl, lawyer and author of the first book on the subject of space law, patented his project for a stage rocket (vysokostoupající raketa) in 1932, but this project never came to fruition. There were several factories during the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939–1945, when the Czech lands were occupied by Nazi Germany, where parts for German Mark A-4/V-2 rockets were produced, but none of the Czech technicians or constructors were able to build an entire rocket. The main goal of the Czech aircraft industry after WW2 was to revive the stagnant aircraft industry. There was no place to create a rocket industry. Concerns about a rocket industry appeared at the end of the 1950s. The Political Board of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party started to study the possibilities of creating a rocket industry after the first flight into space and particularly after US nuclear weapons were based in Italy and West Germany in 1957 and 1959. The first project involved the meteorological rockets Sokol I and Sokol II in 1960, which were never completed, as the rocket industry came under the exclusive sphere of interest of the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia only a Rocket Research and Test Institute was created by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defence in 1963. The first Czechoslovak rockets to find practical use were launched in 1965. This study has been created as a part of the scientific project: Výzkumný záměr MSM 0021620827 České země uprostřed Evropy v minulosti a dnes, blok V/d: Česká vysokoškolská vzdělanost.

Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters

The Lunar CRater Observations and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission impacted a spent Centaur rocket stage into a permanently shadowed region near the lunar south pole. The Sheperding Spacecraft (SSC) separated \sim9 hours before impact and performed a small braking maneuver in order to observe the Centaur impact plume, looking for evidence of water and other volatiles, before impacting itself. This paper describes the registration of imagery of the LCROSS impact region from the mid- and near-infrared cameras onboard the SSC, as well as from the Goldstone radar. We compare the Centaur impact features, positively identified in the first two, and with a consistent feature in the third, which are interpreted as a 20 m diameter crater surrounded by a 160 m diameter ejecta region. The images are registered to Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) topographical data which allows determination of the impact location. This location is compared with the impact location derived from ground-based tracking and propagation of the spacecraft's trajectory and with locations derived from two hybrid imagery/trajectory methods. The four methods give a weighted average Centaur impact location of -84.6796\circ, -48.7093\circ, with a 1{\sigma} un- certainty of 115 m along latitude, and 44 m along longitude, just 146 m from the target impact site. Meanwhile, the trajectory-derived SSC impact location is -84.719\circ, -49.61\circ, with a 1{\sigma} uncertainty of 3 m along the Earth vector and 75 m orthogonal to that, 766 m from the target location and 2.803 km south-west of the Centaur impact. We also detail the Centaur impact angle and SSC instrument pointing errors. Six high-level LCROSS mission requirements are shown to be met by wide margins. We hope that these results facilitate further analyses of the LCROSS experiment data and follow-up observations of the impact region.

S042043 上段ロケットエンジン用SiC/SiC複合材料燃焼器の開発([S04204]セラミックスおよびセラミックス系複合材料(4))

S042043 上段ロケットエンジン用SiC/SiC複合材料燃焼器の開発([S04204]セラミックスおよびセラミックス系複合材料(4))

The LCROSS Cratering Experiment

As its detached upper-stage launch vehicle collided with the surface, instruments on the trailing Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Shepherding Spacecraft monitored the impact and ejecta. The faint impact flash in visible wavelengths and thermal signature imaged in the mid-infrared together indicate a low-density surface layer. The evolving spectra reveal not only OH within sunlit ejecta but also other volatile species. As the Shepherding Spacecraft approached the surface, it imaged a 25- to-30-meter-diameter crater and evidence of a high-angle ballistic ejecta plume still in the process of returning to the surface--an evolution attributed to the nature of the impactor.

Watering the Moon

About a year ago, a spent upper stage of an Atlas rocket was deliberately crashed into a crater at the south pole of the Moon, ejecting a plume of debris, dust, and vapor. The goal of this event, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) experiment, was to search for water and

Diviner Lunar Radiometer Observations of Cold Traps in the Moon’s South Polar Region

Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment surface-temperature maps reveal the existence of widespread surface and near-surface cryogenic regions that extend beyond the boundaries of persistent shadow. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) struck one of the coldest of these regions, where subsurface temperatures are estimated to be 38 kelvin. Large areas of the lunar polar regions are currently cold enough to cold-trap water ice as well as a range of both more volatile and less volatile species. The diverse mixture of water and high-volatility compounds detected in the LCROSS ejecta plume is strong evidence for the impact delivery and cold-trapping of volatiles derived from primitive outer solar system bodies.

Diviner Lunar Radiometer Observations of the LCROSS Impact

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Diviner instrument detected a thermal emission signature 90 seconds after the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Centaur impact and on two subsequent orbits. The impact heated a region of 30 to 200 square meters to at least 950 kelvin, providing a sustained heat source for the sublimation of up to ~300 kilograms of water ice during the 4 minutes of LCROSS post-impact observations. Diviner visible observations constrain the mass of the sunlit ejecta column to be ~10(-6) to 10(-5) kilograms per square meter, which is consistent with LCROSS estimates used to derive the relative abundance of the ice within the regolith.

LRO-LAMP Observations of the LCROSS Impact Plume

On 9 October 2009, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) sent a kinetic impactor to strike Cabeus crater, on a mission to search for water ice and other volatiles expected to be trapped in lunar polar soils. The Lyman Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) ultraviolet spectrograph onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) observed the plume generated by the LCROSS impact as far-ultraviolet emissions from the fluorescence of sunlight by molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide, plus resonantly scattered sunlight from atomic mercury, with contributions from calcium and magnesium. The observed light curve is well simulated by the expansion of a vapor cloud at a temperature of ~1000 kelvin, containing ~570 kilograms (kg) of carbon monoxide, ~140 kg of molecular hydrogen, ~160 kg of calcium, ~120 kg of mercury, and ~40 kg of magnesium.

Detection of Water in the LCROSS Ejecta Plume

Several remote observations have indicated that water ice may be presented in permanently shadowed craters of the Moon. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission was designed to provide direct evidence. On 9 October 2009, a spent Centaur rocket struck the persistently shadowed region within the lunar south pole crater Cabeus, ejecting debris, dust, and vapor. This material was observed by a second "shepherding" spacecraft, which carried nine instruments, including cameras, spectrometers, and a radiometer. Near-infrared absorbance attributed to water vapor and ice and ultraviolet emissions attributable to hydroxyl radicals support the presence of water in the debris. The maximum total water vapor and water ice within the instrument field of view was 155 ± 12 kilograms. Given the estimated total excavated mass of regolith that reached sunlight, and hence was observable, the concentration of water ice in the regolith at the LCROSS impact site is estimated to be 5.6 ± 2.9% by mass. In addition to water, spectral bands of a number of other volatile compounds were observed, including light hydrocarbons, sulfur-bearing species, and carbon dioxide.