Rafale As Satellite Launcher

See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs...1-d423032078a9

wrote in message
...
See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs...1-d423032078a9

This one looks silly. If the two outer pods are solids connected by "fixed
arms" to the center pod, I'd think they're going to have one heck of a time
controlling it due to thrust imbalances which always exist between solids.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

Separation of that spread-out configuration could be exciting.

--Damon

On Oct 29, 11:30*am, Damon Hill wrote:
Separation of that spread-out configuration could be exciting.

--Damon

Way too complex. The right idea, from NOTSNIK to Pegasus to the
canceled AFRL F-15/F-22 concepts, has always been to carry a single
rocket body, however you arrange engines and other components within
it.
It would be interesting to see how things would have developed if the
1958 NOTSNIK had been a clear success rather than a near-complete
failure (the schedule was impossible and the technology not quite
there yet.) Would it have become commonplace to have airlaunched
minisats filling in gaps in big-satellite coverage?

Matt
Sci/Tech news and comment:
http:/mattbille.blogspot.com

wrote in message
...
See:



Why not an Airbus A340 as a satellite launcher? Or a Dassault Falcon? Is
this how the French are selling their (failed) jet fighters these days? You
could carry a much larger rocket strapped beneath a commercial airliner. Why
not use an old Lockeed L-1011? ISTR they did try something like that in the
seventies.

Why not use an old Lockeed L-1011?

This is exactly the plane OSC uses for their purely commercial Pegasus

True, but I'd imagine that Orbital Sciences Corp. needed to offer
customers versatility in size and weight of payloads, whereas
something tells me Dassault has a specific military requirement (or at
least a good strong signal about a potential requirement) in mind.

That requirement may also have involved launch from a plane they
already possess, and/or flexibility in quickly grabbing the payload
out of distributed caches and fitting it to any number of planes,
rather than being limited to one specific large plane. If only one
in ten Rafales were properly modified and had a pilot trained in
launching this thing, they'd still have at least five and maybe as
many as a couple dozen platforms. (I wonder if the combination can be
launched from, and recovered by, a carrier.)

This general concept actually goes 'way back, and the paper studies
and occasional trials (for a variety of roles, including air-launched
ballistic missiles, antiballistic missiles, and antisatellite weapons)
have sometimes involved fighters as the launch platform as well as the
large bombers and airliners/airlifters of the day -- the more you can
do a point design for a small payload, the better a fighter looks.
(Which is not to say it didn't cross their mind that a useful new
capability that only fits Rafale might goose sales.)

--Joe