Nels:
The Russian’s use solid landing retrorockets on the Soyuz, thus using them
on a next generation vehicle is following their heritage.
In addition, using hypergolic propellants for landing requires
decontamination of the area before the crew can get out, a problem if the
vehicle is landing far from the needed equipment.
Bill
On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 11:45 AM Charlie Garcia <dragonrider.hhcc@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Joe Barnard is awesome. He's self taught, starting in 2016 inspired by
SpaceX. I think he was a wedding videographer before that.
On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 12:36 PM Nels Anderson <nels.anderson@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
Makes me think of one of the Russian proposals several years ago for
replacing the Soyuz spacecraft. Return to Earth was to have concluded
with a soft landing under solid-rocket power, with opposing pairs of
motors being gimballed for control of the magnitude of the thrust
vector. The stated reason for using solids was to allow a one-year
mission in orbit, though I'd have thought it easier to develop a liquid
propulsion system qualified for a year plus. Maybe another reason would
be to avoid having to deal with toxic hypergols at the landing site. Or
maybe there is a political imperative at Roskosmos to use solids on the
way down, just as there is at NASA on the way up!
On 5/10/19 12:03 PM, David McMillan wrote:
Anyone familiar with BPS Space? This video series he's been doing on
trying to achieve SpaceX-style VTVL (on hobby-rocket motors!) is
extremely interesting. Basically starting from "No idea how to do
this" and try-failing towards success, sticking with hardware he can
*afford* to do this with. He's no Armadillo or Masten, but what he's
been able to achieve so far is still impressive.
https://youtu.be/yx5zLykjKy8
