Vulcan Rocket Success!
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- čas přidán 7. 01. 2024
- The Vulcan Rocket with BE-4 Engines is on its Way to the Moon and Beyond! Congratulations to the United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin, on their successful flight of a brand new rocket system that will finally give SpaceX the competition needed to keep them on their toes.
In this lesson we have...
The launch of the Vulcan Rocket System
Details on The Peregrine Moon Lander
The future of the company who built Peregrine, Astrobotics
Details on the memorial flight into deep space, with the ashes of Star Trek pioneers
And finally an Ode to Nichelle Nichols, Rest in Eternity Lt. Uhura.
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As a child, many, many years ago, I would make paper models of rockets held together by scotch tape. This Vulcan rocket reminds me very much of one I built. To think we would live to see such marvels become real and carry our dreams into the heavens. As Astra.
It is indeed an amazing time to love space and rocket science.
My ex had a vibe that kinda reminded me of when starliner launched…🤔
But seriously, folks, I couldn’t be happier to be alive when we are! I mean child me fully expected to be living in post scarcity by now but we appear to be on the way and will be there eventually…🤷🏾♂️
BO finally got something beyond LEO 🎉👍
Yes!!
It is just the Engine, 2 of them.......Now they need to send their own Rocket with the engine out into space, or orbit and bring it back in one piece, AND land.....That is when I will be impressed.....
Technically, someone else did it.
@@1flash3571
I am hoping it’s a start of a positive trend for BO, SpaceX need a Viable competitor to avoid monopoly problems, like M$ had with Apple.
Hats off to ULA, they are on point.
Indeed!
@@terranspaceacademy This aged well....ULA did succeed in sending it into orbit, but the Moon Lander seems to be in trouble. It certainly isn't ULA's fault though but we don't know why it is now having problems. It could be the vibration problem, or it could be just a defective part in the moon lander, or could be just software problem...We don't know yet..
I think I understand now why I love your channel so much: we are on the same level about our connection to Star Trek! I truly love the idea of the "Enterprise Flight" and that many of our childhood heroes are now forever in the stars! And that it launched on a rocket called Vulcan brought me to tears!
Indeed. Could not have been more appropriate.
Saw her at Toronto Star Trek 1976. Met the late great Hal Clement there, he was a courtesy uncle to our kids.
That is awesome! An original Trekkie!
@@terranspaceacademy
Hell yeah. Watched it in Black and White on a tv that required monthly tube checks to keep running. Now the only folks who know what I mean by tubes are musicians.
I am so relieved; in truth I expected that there would be at least a scrub (caused by hardware issues and not range intrusion or weather or anything), or possibly worse. So happy to see Vulcan launch successfully.
I thought so too.
At least the Vulcan was a total success. I hope the IM-1 mission with the Nova-C lander built and owned by Intuitive Machines to be launched in February 2024 by SpaceX will recover some of the lost of technical prestige if successful. Of course there is the Japanese moon lander SLIM that will make that nation's first-ever moon landing on Jan. 19, 2024 to look forward to.
Moon landers are tough apparently. Even for the Russians after the loss of Soviet tech skills.
@@terranspaceacademy As a retired mechanical engineer, I admit I don't know much about spacecraft design, and I certainly don't have a copy of Astrobotic's Peregrine drawings. That said, for terrestrial engineering, designing a system with such an obvious single point failure seems a bit unusual. To me a second in-line backup valve and a tank pressure relief system would at a minimum been installed. Clearly weight limitations need to be considered. However, valves fail to seat all the time and critical functions ought to have redundancy.
in cpu market 2023
ULA like Intel ...REFRESH...with proven reability
SpaceX like Amd ...NEW... with experimental reablity
❤❤ love competition
:-)
Excellent video as always. I have an idea for a lesson. Maybe we could analyze different mars routes. Like earth -> mars direct, earth -> space station(or orbital refueling) both same ship and orbital shuttle to onterplanetary shuttle, earth -> orbit -> moon, earth -> space station -> moon -> mars . Maybe rate each on fuel burned, time taken, potential issues e.g. moon might be on the wrong side of earth relative to mars. Maybe do a matrix with a score normalized to 0-1 so we have a visual way to compare relative methods.
I think we did that somewhere... Covering the Venus assist. I'll look for it.
Great launch just sad to hear about the lander.
We were too.
Peregrine looks to be in trouble..I do hope not.
i saw that... hoping they get it worked out.
They got the solar panels reoriented however the root issue is with the RCS propulsion units and loss of propellants. As robotic indicated that a landing is no longer plausible so they said it will become a science gathering mission. 😢
Moon landers lately haven't been very successful. @@salty_berserker_channel
@@salty_berserker_channel DOH! Whoever made that engine on the moon lander needs to get it right next time.....
This is not a particularly big rocket but it's as powerful and capable as the former Delta Heavy. This rocket has a ridiculously large payload bay compared to the rest of the rocket. There are no less than 10 configurations and blocks planned for this big little rocket.
ULA is counting on it.
Watched it live, thrilling. Too bad failure in Astrobotics Peregrine Lander is likely due to getting damaged during a staging operation. Payloads are monitored up to the moment of launch for health. It had to have been healthy at that point. Most likely cause is getting rough handled during staging - booster to 2nd stage or 2nd stage to deployment. Something happened to lander that was not intended.
That was so sad. Broke my heart.
@@terranspaceacademy Astrobotics appears to have taken full blame for failure, stating that a valve didn't cycle properly in the Helium pressurization system, thus overfilling oxidizer tank with pressure leading to rupturing of said tank. Like I said though, they had to have tested this stuff on the ground - many times - before launch. Probably due to rough handling / ride into orbit, and then not being able to cycle properly after all the stress. The stuff must be tested under those conditions to prove it will handle the stress of launch and staging.
Or just one of those things... metal sticks at 4K.
Does someone else registered on the i need more moon engraving?
I want to! (Too late now :-) My name is going to Europa though!
Hi 👋🏼 world 🌎 😊
:-)
For stats +1 :-)
Thank you!
Jeff Bezos :The empire strikes back, Muahahaha...
Indeed! Cackling madly and rubbing his hands!
@@terranspaceacademy Actually it is a healthy thing as now the space industry has a new competitor. Congratulations to Jeff Bezos. Now he can finally put something up in the orbit, like what Elon Musk did. In the rest of the world, only countries has enough resource to accomplish such feat. America is amazing.
How is the Vulcan either "historic" or "about the future".
Is mediocre and short sighted and already obsolete not better adjectives? Or if you are a capitalist, uncompetitive by design.
It is historic since the development lasted for so long.
@@gottfriedheumesser1994lol and true
America regressed in our space skills and are now moving forward again. Which is both historic and relevant to the future :-)
@@terranspaceacademy America regressed as Russia regressed even more due to economic problems and did not see how China advanced steadily.
Let us see what will happen in the future as I expect severe economic troubles mostly in China, but also in the whole world.
….aaaaaand the lander failed😒
I know!!! Terrible!
Vulcan is a DOWNGRADE from the Atlas... they traded a proven 267bar engine for an unproven 170 bar engine with lower thrust-to-weight ratio. And, because it is CH4-LOX fueled they needed a fatter, heavier, tank. Whatever the BE-4's advantages in terms of re-usability due to the lack of coking, it is irrelevant to ULA because they are throwing away every single one.
I would have to agree...
I disagree. The BE-4 engines are also more efficient and this helps makes the Vulcan a more capable rocket in terms of mass to orbit. It can transport an extra 8 thousand kilos to LEO and an extra 6 thousand kilos to geostationary transfer orbit. There are more factors at work than thrust to weight ratio and engine pressure.
@@williamcrawford7621 Actually, that's NOT TRUE. The RD-180 is 311(SL)/338(vac) sec IpSec. A 170 bar CH4LOX engine like BE-4 should be around 320/340. That's barely any better nevermind that that the two BE-4s are heavier than the single pump assembly dual bell RD-180. Why the lack of performance improvement? Because the BE-4 operates at 63.7% the pressure of the RD-180.
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This is compounded by the fact that CH4-LOX is a significantly bulkier fuel, requiring a much bigger tank -- 5.4m vs 3.7 m -- on the Vulcan. This adds a lot of weight. All else being equal, CH4-LOX's slight specific impulse advantage already has a hard time cancelling out it's fuel bulk (hence structural weight) disadvantage. With the huge discrepancy in operating chamber pressure between the RD-180 and the BE-4 we can be quite sure this does not actually happen. The lack of performance advantage and the preference for more compact (easier to transport) rockets is the reason RP1-LOX has been traditionally been favored over CH4-LOX, until the advent of reusable hydrocarbon rockets.
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I can tell you that ALL of the Vulcan's performance gain over the Atlas V can be attributed to three things -- none of which is the pair of BE-4 engines. Firstly, there are (up to) 6 SRBs instead of 5. Secondly, the GEM63XL SRBs are BIGGER. Finally, the Centaur V is a bigger upper stage. Basically, the increase in solids allows for more fuel to be lifted off which allows the core and upper stages to burn longer. You could achieved the same (or better) with the RD-180 by stretching the Atlas V putting more SRBs and bigger SRBs on it -- like what Ariane 6 did over the Ariane 5.
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Summary: The BE-4 engines are a DOWNGRADE over the RD-180 because they have lower operating pressures, inferior thrust to weight ratio, negated CH4's IpSec advantage while forcing bigger tanks with no benefit on the Vulcan.
@@dwightlooi Fair enough. To be fair, I haven't seen any official stats on the specific impulse, but I assumed the BE-4 would before efficient given that it is liquefied natural gas engine whereas the RD-180 uses RP-1.
I would still say that the Vulcan Rocket is an overall upgrade since it is more capable than its predecessor, but I will concede that the BE-4's are startlingly unimpressive engines considering that they are supposed to be state of the art.
@@williamcrawford7621 The theoretical maximum specific impulse of RP-1/LOX is about 360 sec in vacuum. It is about 380 sec for CH4-LOX. That is assuming the a 300 bar operating pressure and a perfectly expanded nozzle. So, yes, CH4-LOX is a more energetic propellant than RP1-LOX.The problem here is two fold.
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Firstly, the BE-4 is a 170 bar engine whereas the RD-180 is 267 bar. Hence, the advantage of the fuel type is lost on the BE-4 due to its INFERIOR operating pressure (for reference the Raptor 2 was tested to 350 bar and is currently flown at about 300 bar with a IpSec of 382 sec).
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Secondly, even with Methane's impulse advantage it does not actually have better payload performance due to it's low density. This is because CH4-LOX is only about 0.84kg/L whereas RP1-LOX is about 1.03kg/L, hence a Methane rocket needs 23% bigger tanks to carry the same mass of fuel. That 23% bigger tank equals more dead weight. Traditionally, it cancels out the impulse advantage of the fuel so the smaller rocket is preferred.
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It is not until the desire to re-use engines that Methane becomes attractive -- because it burns with zero soot and does not coke the engine internals at all. That and because it can (theoretically) be made on Mars from Water and CO2, whereas Kerosene cannot. However, none of these matter to ULA and the Vulcan since they are throwing away the BE-4s and they are not operating the Vulcan from Mars.