Reusable Rocket Launchers

The U.S. military began experimenting with unmanned aircraft as early as World War I. By World War II, the unmanned craft could be controlled by radio signals, usually from another aircraft. Vehicles that could return from a mission and be recovered appeared in the late 1950s. Today, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) perform a wide range of missions and are used by all four branches of the military.  UAVs are used to satisfy requirements for military and commercial markets to include reconnaissance, surveying, wildlife management, Space missions, border control, commercial delivery, and many more missions.

Progress in recent technologies has enabled space drones to be considered as valuable platforms for planetary exploration. Thus, drones and especially Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have had extremely high progress to be applied for planetary science missions.  (Hassanalian, Rice, & Abdelkefi, 2018). There is also the chance of using UAVs and rockets for tourism to Mars. However, whether the mission is for tourism or research, space exploration is very expensive. One of the most expensive parts of launching a UAV into space is the launch vehicle. Most of the launch cost comes from building the rocket, which flies only once. Compare that to a commercial airliner – each new plane costs about the same as Falcon 9, but can fly multiple times per day, and conduct tens of thousands of flights over its lifetime. Following the commercial model, a rapidly reusable space launch vehicle could reduce the cost of traveling to space by a hundredfold. (Post, 2015).

SpaceX has the designed the Falcon 9 rocket and the reusable launcher called the Grasshopper, a 10-story Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) booster/launcher. While most rockets are designed to burn up on reentry, SpaceX rockets are designed not only to withstand reentry but also to return to the launch pad for a vertical landing.   The Grasshopper VTVL vehicle represents a critical step towards this goal. To date, a fully reusable vehicle has not been successfully developed.  As such, the Grasshopper testing program is incredibly challenging.  Below are videos of our most recent test in which Grasshopper rose 24 stores--or over 260 feet--hovered for approximately 34 seconds and landed safely back on the centermost part of the pad.  Spacex ’s rapidly reusable space launch vehicle could reduce the cost of reaching Earth orbit by a hundredfold(Shanklin, 2013).


SpaceX demonstrated the effectiveness of the reusable launcher by successfully launching an Unmanned Falcon 9 rocket into space. the Falcon 9’s Crewed Dragon capsule separated from the first stage booster which came back to Earth, using its engines to slow for a touchdown on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, ready for inspections and refurbishment before another mission This success has opened a new front in space exploration. The launch of the unmanned crewed rocket opens an opportunity for spaceX and Elon Musk to achieve the aim of sending humans to space on space tourism and setting up a space station on Mars. The US military is looking to incorporate this system of launch into its fleet of space UAVs after full testing.

References

Hassanalian, M., Rice, D., & Abdelkefi, A. (2018). Evolution of space drones for planetary exploration: A review. Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 97, 61-105. doi:10.1016/j.paerosci.2018.01.003

Post, H. (2015). Reusability: The key to making human life multi-planetary. Retrieved from https://www.spacex.com/news/2013/03/31/reusability-key-making-human-life-multi-planetary

Shanklin, E. (2013). Reusability. Retrieved from https://www.spacex.com/reusability-key-making-human-life-multi-planetary