Relativity Space (future launch provider)

[RCgothic]

Yeah, Terran R with full reusability was the only vehicle I'd rated in the same category as starship.

But it looks like it's probably going to be another Falcon clone with similar LEO payload and worse mass fractions.

Nobody took 1st stage reuse seriously, and now they're over half a decade behind the curve on that. Now nobody's taking full reuse seriously and it's hard to see how they can catch up unless they do.

[tater]

4 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Yeah, Terran R with full reusability was the only vehicle I'd rated in the same category as starship.

But it looks like it's probably going to be another Falcon clone with similar LEO payload and worse mass fractions.

Nobody took 1st stage reuse seriously, and now they're over half a decade behind the curve on that. Now nobody's taking full reuse seriously and it's hard to see how they can catch up unless they do.

Maybe they can mess with Stage 2 a while with the idea of evolving to reuse. Only one right playing the whole game now is stoke.

[StrandedonEarth]

Another company learning that  recovering a second stage  (generally from orbit) is stupidly hard. 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[Spaceception]

I hope they still have some path to full reusability with Terran R. Even if they decided it's not quite doable now, they could still extend the tanks and squeeze out performance in the engines like the Falcon 9 until they have the margins to allow full reuse with a 20+ tonne payload. How large is the Aeon Vac? Could they add a couple more engines (like 3 engines total, 2 Vac, 1 SL)?

But 33.5 tonnes isn't bad at all, could allow some more ambitious deep space missions with that margin, and it should have decent faring volume overall.

[tater]

 

[AckSed]

Always a fan of big engine tests.

[tater]

YT version

 

[darthgently]

16 hours ago, tater said:

 

It is easy to miss the throttle down

[tater]

 

[Spaceception]

That's several billion in contracts lined up at this point, right?  That's a lot of money to help fund Terran R development.

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8j_LIL3Ne8

stupid forum embeds this as a preview, then tells me it can't post because it contains an emoji?

[darthgently]

A little ambiance for the family room big screen

https://youtu.be/a4sZPWLD

 

 

Edited December 20, 2023 by darthgently

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[AckSed]

Excellent "Vwoomph" at the end.

For the force, 268,000lb is about 1,192.12 kN or 121.56 metric tons, which is more powerful than Rocket Lab's Archimedes.

[GuessingEveryDay]

5 hours ago, AckSed said:

Excellent "Vwoomph" at the end.

For the force, 268,000lb is about 1,192.12 kN or 121.56 metric tons, which is more powerful than Rocket Lab's Archimedes.

What's the ISP though? Archimedes has 329s at SL and 365 in vacuum, but only 165,000 lbf (890 kN) at sea level.

The Merlin 1-D has 195,000 (845 kN), and ISP of 282s at sea level and 311s at sea level.

Aeon R on the right, Merlin 1-C on the other image. Archimedes down here.

[AckSed]

Relativity aren't dead, just been testing:

Bonus points for explaining what the parts of a rocket engine do and the terms used.

They have gone through 14 design-print-test iterations of the injector, and can do these from clean-sheet in 3 months because of 3D printing.

Aeon R is methalox gas-generator, and cooled with the fuel, which injects as a gas.

The Terran R: first stage will have 13 of these producing 258000×13 = 3,354,000lbs, or 1,521,374kg of thrust. (Though that's lower than the thrust number stated above. Under-running?)

Working on the Thrust Chamber Assembly and Injector in parallel with the turbomachinery.

[tater]

The fairing pictured above is in fact an Ariane 6 fairing...

"But the similarities to Ariane do not stop there. Originally, the Terran R had a diameter of 18 feet, but this has since shrunk to 17 feet, 9 inches (5.4 meters), which is exactly the same diameter as the Ariane rocket. That's because of both the new payload fairing and the pressure domes inside the rocket that store its liquid oxygen and methane propellants.

According to internal documents reviewed by Ars, Relativity had difficulty printing pressure domes for the Terran R rocket. One of the documents references a "large buckling event" with a printed dome. As a result, Relativity seems likely to purchase these pressure domes from a European aerospace company."

[AckSed]

A small oof, but a necessary one.