Rockoon? Purdue Orbital Plans a Rocket Launch from a Balloon
Vložit
- čas přidán 23. 05. 2017
- EDIT: The students have formed a company to launch microsatellites: www.leoaerospace.com
Amateur rocketry is (pardon the pun) exploding in popularity. But there's a barrier in launching rockets all the way into space: the air. If you could launch from above the atmosphere, you could make the rockets smaller and more efficient.
That's the idea behind Purdue Orbital, a student-led design team who are planning to send up a "rockoon" -- a rocket launched from a weather balloon, lifted up to 15km (50,000 feet), where there is 98% less atmosphere. Of course, there are many challenges to overcome: controlling the launch platform, communicating with the rocket from the ground, recovering the vehicles, and tackling the FAA paperwork. But with the "rockoon" system, Purdue Orbital aims to become the first university to successfully launch a small payload into Earth orbit.
Purdue Orbital: purdueorbital.com
Mechanical Engineering: purdue.edu/ME
Aeronautics and Astronautics: purdue.edu/AAE
I had this idea at my current age of 15. I so badly want to do this.
Zero2Infinity has already accomplished this. However, more research is always better.
Planned not done. No one has yet.
If by accomplished you mean create some slick CGI promotions, then yes. But nobody has yet launched a real orbital launch vehicle from a balloon.
why not use multiple balloons to lift a stable platform? at what height does these balloon usually pop? and why do they explode? i wonder what amount of weight can 4 football field size of these balloons lift? hmmmm
Things iwant I was thinking the same thing. I’m no engineer, but have been doing research on LTA vehicles. This would be feasible if the platform had stabilizer motors or if the rocket had a gimbal. There is no known limit to how high balloons can go. The Japanese reached over 170,000 feet about 12 years ago. However, the average commercial weather balloon generally tops out at about 120,000 feet. A balloon reaching 70,000 feet would be sufficient for launch considering that there is only 1% of earths gas molecule atmosphere at this height.
The atmospheric pressure will drop outside the balloon hence the gas in the balloon will expand, it expands to such a point that the balloon can't hold it and boom - it pops. If you partially fill the ballons then it won't pop.
Physics student here, hope I can help.
I think the platform isn't used because lift is based on buoyancy. The max height that the balloons will reach is the point of neutral buoyancy. Balloons will then sit at neutral buoyancy until they pop or start to leak and deflate (if they even reach neutral buoyancy, because as Thinkal VB explained, they can pop sooner due to expansion). Neutral buoyancy is the point at which the masses of the total volume of the object are equal to the medium that it is in (ex: concrete canoes are possible and relatively common university projects that are possible because the sides of the canoe stop air from coming in. The "empty" space in the canoe is made of air which weighs considerably less than the water, so this space can contribute to buoyancy).
Adding a platform would add weight and lower the point of neutral buoyancy of the balloon, thus lowering max altitude. It is much more efficient to simply use clever engineering to aim the rocket using other forms of stabilization.
I'd like to see the balloon as the first stage then use the gas from the balloon to fuel the second stage and then have a third stage for the final push
I
nstead of using rockets to get into space use hydrogen filled rockoons. As the spacecraft rises compress the hydrogen inside space plane to use as fuel and on board power.
0:58 "there have been small scale tests but no one has done it".... Zero2Infinity already has a commercial product using this idea. Plus Van Allen literally used this technology in the 50s to discover the van allen belts
He meant that no one has yet used a rockoon to launch a satellite (this was planned before the 1957 -1958 IGY, but was dropped when better conventional launch vehicles became available). The Project Farside rockoon project could have reached the Moon with an added fifth stage, but in 1957 its 1-pound lunar payload capability couldn't have included anything useful.
70+ year old concept. Yea... this did not age well considering that the site is DEAD.
I have a better balloon design hoi hoi, also regulations are not fun