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Cloud Aerospace Is in the Sky!

Tristonwilson12

By Tristonwilson12
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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

Posted
Posted
Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Sadly not. Only news is that we're looking into hiring mission controllers.

*Begin half-serious question*

Do minors from Iowa who can't really travel count? :D

*End half-serious question*

 

On a 100%-serious note, I look forward to any progress and advancements that you guys make in the future!

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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

*Begin half-serious question*

Do minors from Iowa who can't really travel count? :D

*End half-serious question*

 

On a 100%-serious note, I look forward to any progress and advancements that you guys make in the future!

Wish we could :) .

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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
Posted
24 minutes ago, Joseph Kerman said:

I make and ship the fuel for use for Cloud Aerospace rockets. So far, you use solid fuel and not liquid fuel, for reasons.

Maybe. That'd be a challenge as it would conflict with ITAR but it's ultimately up to @Tristonwilson12. 

We use solids over liquids as it's cheaper and easier to reuse than liquid boosters.

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NSEP

NSEP

Posted
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8 minutes ago, Tristonwilson12 said:

19m tall 1.08m diam

Nice. My expectations where right!

also thanks for using Metric but im not wanting to spark a discussion on that so ignore this thanks.

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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Joseph Kerman said:

tbh, this thread is dying. Also, I am looking forward to the launch of CloudOne.

Not dying, just dormant. The space industry may be exciting, but it can be slow at times, especially when the booster static test (if it is a static test, iirc it is) keeps getting delayed (speaking of which, what's the current date for the test, if there is one. In the space industry, especially for a small, newer company like Cloud Aerospace (or just Cloud), no official word for 8 days is perfectly normal.

 

 

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I got bored and decided to try and design something which could launch on CloudOne.

 

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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Joseph Kerman said:

tbh, this thread is dying. Also, I am looking forward to the launch of CloudOne.

Thankfully (and as @Ultimate Steve pointed out) a company does not live on it's thread. We will post updates when we can and when there is little development, there's little to say.

What I will say is currently we are expanding and completing the teams needed for April 2018's flight. 

11 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Not dying, just dormant. The space industry may be exciting, but it can be slow at times, especially when the booster static test (if it is a static test, iirc it is) keeps getting delayed (speaking of which, what's the current date for the test, if there is one. In the space industry, especially for a small, newer company like Cloud Aerospace (or just Cloud), no official word for 8 days is perfectly normal.

 

 

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I got bored and decided to try and design something which could launch on CloudOne.

 

The date for the test fire is slated for November of this year. 

Oh? Maybe you'd care to share this idea? :) 

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Ultimate Steve

Ultimate Steve

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12 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Oh? Maybe you'd care to share this idea? :) 

It's a lunar impact probe that could fit on CloudOne.

It's nowhere near finalized yet, I'll be writing up on it further when I finish design. Tonight was about the initial calculations to make sure that it was possible. Those calculations are mostly finished now.

So, the main obstacle is the number fifty, as in fifty kilograms to orbit.

Initially, I thought to myself "Hmm, I wonder if there are hypergolic propellants out there that won't kill me if I look at them funny" (Mostly talking about hydrazine) and began searching. Turns out, all practical hypergols are pretty dangerous, so I moved on to monopropellants. A lot of them are toxic as well, but eventually I came across hydrogen peroxide (which I didn't know could be used as a monopropellant until today). It is common (albeit in diluted form) and is significantly less dangerous than hydrazine (still, I wouldn't swallow it if I were you). However, it only has a specific impulse of 161 newton seconds, which is fairly abysmal. I went on to calculate that the proposed probe would need to be 47kg fuel and 3kg tanks, guidance, engines, etc. Fairly impractical. After a few failed attempts to get the fuel tank mass under 1.5kg (hooray for 1mm thick walls) I was having a conversation with someone who accidentally gave me the idea to try and use solid fuel for a first stage.

After some number crunching, here is the new plan: 44kg solid rocket first stage with 35kg of some mixture of Ammonium Perchlorate Composite Propellant, 8kg for the tanks (2.5mm titanium) and 1kg for other stuff (nozzle, decouplers, ignition equipment, etc.). The upper stage will use the remaining 6kg, with 2kg being some hydrogen peroxide (which hopefully won't freeze on the way to the moon), 1kg for the hydrogen peroxide tanks (3mm aluminum), and 3kg for "everything else." Everything else includes the monopropellant engine (fairly simple, you just need a valve to let the hydrogen peroxide through a silver mesh), a tank for pressurization (using either helium or nitrogen), a basic RCS system (probably just pressurized gas, maybe using the aforementioned helium/nitrogen), a stripped-down GoPro (might as well), and the electronics and power systems. Since cubesats already do power and computing with a 1kg mass budget, I'm pretty sure that the computing/power part will be mostly straightforward.

Some numbers:

S1+S2 total mass: 50kg

Mass after S1 burn: 15kg

S1 specific impulse: 260 (baseline number, APCP mixtures can get up to nearly 300)

Delta-V expended by S1: ~2990m/s

Mass of wet S2: 6kg

Mass after S2 burn: 4kg

S2 specific impulse: 161 (probably closer to 150, no engine is perfect)

Delta-V expended by S2: ~630m/s (You don't have to use it all at once, the engine should be restartable just fine. However, if you don't use all of it right away, it could freeze as the fuel freezes just below 0 degrees Celsius.)

 

Total Delta-V on spacecraft: ~3600m/s

Delta-V from LEO to TLI: ~3100-3500m/s

 

So, it's certainly possible and I'll have an interesting time designing it! :D Good luck with the November test, best of wishes to the entire team!

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