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Copenhagen Suborbitals Discussion

JelloTickles

By JelloTickles
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Copenhagen_Suborbitals

Copenhagen_Suborbitals

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We WON !

The FAI awarded the prize with the following Justification:

"Copenhagen Suborbitals have achieved an outstanding performance and contribution to astronautics by designing, building and launching the world’s first amateur built full size rocket with full computer control and steering – based completely upon amateurs and donations.

The results has been achieved from nothing – and this has demanded the highest level of vision, patience, and creativity, organizational and technical skills in different areas from computer programming to economics and funding.

All designs from computer controls, space capsule, rocket, parachute, launching platform and rocket engines are designed, constructed and build by the volunteers in Copenhagen Suborbitals.

The designs, knowledge and constructions are all treated as public domain – and are free for space enthusiasts all over the world. This completely new approach to space technology has never been seen before and is a major contribution to the development of aeronautics and will have effect on the global space and astronautics community in the years to come.

This latest flight is a significant milestone achieved in astronautics and part of a space program with the vision to send a person into space and back again.

The way of thinking, working and the way of sharing information in aeronautics has never been seen before, and can change the way we interact with others and the way we travel in space"

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Copenhagen_Suborbitals

Copenhagen_Suborbitals

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A supporter of CS has started to translate Peters blogs into English in the commentary sections.

Come join us http://ing.dk/blogs/rumfart-pa-den-anden-made Its fine to put questions in english, or do use google translate, as Ben Brocket does.

By Peter Madsen, October 13, 2013.

Dear readers,

This Sunday morning we look back on a very active weekend in CS. We arranged two simultaneous exhibitions, one at Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education and the other at the Danish Society of Engineers, and we managed to place the very large steel beams on top of VCT3.

Image text: CS â€ÂIron Workers†Rune Henssel and Morten Bulskov are busy placing the â€Âiron cross†on top of the 140 metric ton concrete basement. Photo: Jev Olsen /CS

But the most important achievement was that the CS people worked as a team – which is always a thing of beauty to witness.

The exhibitions were a great success. We talked to a lot of people, existing CSS members as well as new ones. At the Ministry of Science we had the LES capsule and the original TM65 Tordenskjold engine on display, and at the Danish Society of Engineers we had HEAT 2X, it's engine and the front 2.5 meters of HEAT 1600 on display in addition to posters and screens showing videos. It really was a nice little booth and lots of visitors at both exhibitions.

On Saturday, the day after, we assembled VTC3.

The large test stand is not designed for HEAT 2X, but rather for handling our wildest dreams. Thus, it is more than capable to keep a TM260 safely within it's confines during a test.

The program for it use is clear.

First large test in VTC3 will be a full duration burn of HEAT 2X. It's scheduled for the last day of 2013. Although, there's still a lot to do on VTC3 before it's ready for the first test this looks likely to happen. Building the water cooling and flame deflector are huge tasks, nothing in CS is small scale in the CS “heavy rocket†infrastructure.

Image text: It requires physical strength to get the heavy concrete blocks in place. The ones on top of the steel frame weighs in at 22.5 metric ton. It almost seems unnecessary to bolt them to the rest of the structure. Photo: Jev Olsen /CS

When the flames from the test of HEAT 2X have been extinguished, we will disassemble it and install the first HEAT 1600 air frame with engine in the test stand. It's been assigned a serial number – SM001 and naturally we hope it'll survive to be flown later. SM001 is designated as the test frame for the the turbine edition of Tordenskjold. With this setup CS will learn how to get turbo pumps to work, no as isolated test subjects, but as integral parts of a running rocket engine and a system of tanks to deliver fuel at the highest rate yet to be seen.

Everything concerning the HEAT 1600 rocket is serious work. This rocket is potentially slightly more powerful than a V2 rocket but has a better mass to fuel ratio. This means that not only can it deliver the 800 kilogram CS capsule out of the Earth's atmosphere – and far into space – but potentially, it's the building stone for a lot of other projects. Adding a suitable upper stage it would be able to put a considerable amount of mass into orbit, and with a couple of upper stages it could send a small probe to the moon.

It's OK to snicker. Alternatively, use a pocket calculator to figure out what happens if you apply the rocket equation to a multi stage rocket where almost 92% of the starting mass is fuel, where the ISP for the first stage is 220 s and for the next stages 250 – 270 s. This provides a lot of delta V. It's all about applying the math – here the rocket equation – which builds upon the laws of Sir Isac Newton. That is, if we can get it to work, which is exactly the purpose of the 160 metric ton steel and concrete we've built at Refshaleøen. Rockets designed to orbit satellites at 7.8 km/s, i.e. LEO, would typically need a delta V around 9 km/s. The remaining 1200 m/s are spent lifting the construction to 200 km above the surface of the earth as well as the wind resistance encountered on the way up there.

The best and absolutely necessary aspect of this is that we can split the project into smaller parts.

First test of the HEAT 1600 SM001 will be a power pack test where the two turbine pumps are brought up to speed to pump water – just like the initial little test where the water cooling tanks of VTC1 was employed to act as the rocket's system of tanks.

When we've repeated the tests on the turbine pump sufficiently to debug the system we'll perform a shot hot test using real fuel. I have chosen to limit the fuel capacity of VTC3 to 1200 kg, which is the amount used for 2X. This provides for 60 seconds burns for HEAT 1600 and the small TM65 engine, and 25 seconds burns for the bigger TM260 engine.

During the tests the skyline of Refshaleøen will be adorned by the slim white and black airframe of SM001. The whole stack comprising flame deflector, steel frame and air frame will stand 20 meters high and I can't wait to see it illuminated some time in 2014 on count down night.

In CS I've often experienced the most amazing intrinsic feature that if I take one step backwards, ten people step up. What I mean is, that if I for some reason need to take a breather then others will step in, take over and ensure the continued progress of the project. One might fear that CS is a machine managed from the top where everybody are dependent upon a single person, but it's not like at all. CS people dig in and create good stuff, even when I'm not around acting like a project manager.

Image text: Pulling the strings is a minor role. The best part is to be involved yourself. Photo: Jev Olsen /CS

It's really is about making sure that I'm to be there to enjoy it all – otherwise they'll just carry on without me.

This is a sign of a healthy organisation. Last week I was moaning about plates for the HEAT 1600, which were cut out wrong. I quickly send a mail to our internal mailing list to the effect that you're not allowed to touch anything without me being present. These things must not happen. But even before I had pressed “send†the problem had been solved by Andreas and Carsten. They had assembled the rear dome for HEAT 1600 using the plates I thought Ditte had cut out wrong so that it couldn't be assembled.

These kind of things happens frequently and I bit my tongue when I don't have the courage to trust people. Thank god they are so self-propelled that they are indifferent to the Madsen control freak.

Each year CS launches one rocket only. It may not seem much but because they're all different development models it's a rather tall task. Imagine ESA launching a new type of rocket every year. Not a new version of Ariane 5, but a Ariane 3 one year, then an Ariane 4 next year, an Ariane 5 the next and Ariane 6 the year after... It would likely require a lot of overtime.

This mode of working for CS ends with HEAT 1600. This is our work horse and it's so well proportioned that it'd take serious interruption before the format becomes insufficient. e.g. HEAT 2X is too small for pumps, but this will never be an issue for HEAT 1600. We might therefore see the rate of launches increase in the future.

Image text: CS Heavy Goods have finalized this stage of VTC3. Photo: Jev Olsen /CS

A true Danish space program. Well, we are working towards it; developing and simplifying the technology to suit the Danish conditions.

To do this as amateurs is special. It takes a heavy toll on our full time people, but they like it. It's a curious fact that there a place in Denmark exists, which you can go to if you need to play with space suits or parachutes, submarines, construction equipment, cranes and violent rocket engines – or dabble in ultra high end radio or boil something seriously highly concentrated inorganic chemistry. But we have such a place in this country.

It's called Copenhagen Suborbitals.

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