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news:
Rocket aims to
reduce costs, reuse
By Nathalie Brun
Summer Forty-Niner
Ever since man
discovered the usefulness of placing objects into space for
orbit around the earth, scientists have been challenged with
finding a way to launch them in the most reliable, accurate
and safe way possible.
To that effect,
various launch vehicles have been designed. NASA has developed
the space shuttle. France has developed the Arian rocket.
And now Cal State Long Beach has developed Prospector 1.
Prospector 1 will
not be used to send payload into space, however. The
purpose of this experimental rocket, designed and successfully
launched by CSULB engineering students June 3, is to advance
research for what science and industry hope will be a new
generation of low-cost, reusable launch vehicles, or RLVs
that will revolutionize the way we send things into orbit.
"RLVs probably
present the best potential for trying to dramatically change
the launch service industry, in the sense that by reusing
your hardware, if you can do that in an appropriate fashion,
the goal is to reduce your operating costs, maybe by a magnitude
or more," says John Garvey, president and CEO of Garvey
Spacecraft Corporation.
Garvey Spacecraft
is a small aerospace company in Huntington Beach that specializes
in RLV technology. They have joined forces with CSULB's aerospace
engineering and mechanical departments for the Prospector
program.
Reducing the cost
of a launch vehicle is a relatively new concept in the aerospace
world. Historically, earlier efforts geared toward space
exploration and its subsequent application in defense and
commerce focused more on getting the job done than lowering
costs. According to Garvey, the average price today of a launch
vehicle, such as the Boeing-built Delta rocket, is $50 to
$80 million per unit--which he says is a hefty price tag for
something that is used only once and then thrown away. The
Space Shuttle is reusable but very expensive to maintain because
of its specific performance and safety requirements.
Recognizing the
need to prepare CSULB engineering students for work in this
rapidly emerging field is what prompted Dr. Hamid Hefazi,
chair of the CSULB aerospace engineering department, and Dr.
Eric Besnard, faculty lead for the Prospector 1 project, to
develop this pilot program. Its runaway success has astounded
all those involved.
According to Dr.
Bernard, it took only six months to build Prospector 1 from
start to finish, which time-wise is an exceptional feat. Students
not only designed and built their own rocket engine and recovery
system from scratch, they also assembled, launched and recovered
the rocket.
"We are among
the very elite group of universities that have achieved this
goal. It isn't a kit or something [the students] just put
together and just flew. Frankly, the accomplishments of our
students...have surpassed my expectations," Hefazi says.
The CSULB engineering
students have accomplished a modest first in the history of
aerospace by flying a rocket whose fuel tanks are made from
composite materials, a promising technology NASA spent 1.3
billion dollars for in its now defunct and unsuccessful "X-33"
RLV program.
"Of course
what flew on this rocket is on a smaller scale, but we have
proven that it can be done. We have plans to use this test
case as a benchmark, and based on that we plan to propose
to other funding agencies, that we are capable of looking
further into this kind of technology," says Hefazi.
According to Besnard,
research on a smaller scale like what is being done at CSULB
is conducive to this type of success.
"The advantage
of being in a university is that students can afford to fail.
Big companies such as Boeing or Lockheed have got to make
it work the first time. Their costs run in the millions of
dollars, and a failure jeopardizes future business opportunities
for several years," Besnard said.
The program, now
mostly funded by a $110,645 California Launch Vehicle Initiative
(CALVEIN) grant from the California Space Authority, will
move ahead with the construction of two more rockets in the
2001-02 school year.
Prospector 2 and
3 will be equipped with further cutting edge innovations such
as an airspike engine. Should CSULB be the first to successfully
fly such an engine, "that would be quite an accomplishment,"
Hefazi says.
There are other
untried experimental innovations in the works, such as engine
components made of composite materials or other low-cost replacement
materials, and improved recovery and tracking systems. The
latter is particularly important if the launch vehicle is
to be reusable.
According to Hefazi,
the long-term goal of the program is two-fold: to educate
students in the latest developments of RLV design, which provides
them with practical knowledge; and to further research and
development, that would introduce new technologies into the
marketplace.
Katayoun Borojerdi,
a CSULB mechanical engineering student, is pleased her experience
will give her an edge in the job world.
"The kind
of hands-on training that we got is something that students
at a lot of big universities don't have the opportunity to.
People at work I've spoken to were amazed at the size of the
rocket that we built, the engine, how far it went, its parameters,"
she said.
"It's a win-win
situation, for the students, the department, and for Garvey,"
said Besnard.
Hefazi said Prospector
1 will probably be flown once more this fall, then retired
once and for all "in the basement" to become an
educational aid for training future CSULB rocket scientists.
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