Soyuz landing and recovery options

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
[...]
And therein lies the rub: we will never progress to the point where
we can
"do" wings unless we build more vehicles *with* wings.

Well, we can do that with X-43-like programs -- send up some 6 meter
models, and UAV them back to the ground, and count how many pieces you
get. Meantime, capsules can be used for transport and to help evolve
the internal systems (e.g., LSS, RCS, exo-atmospheric guidance
software, Bose-Einstein Consendate Gyros, ...).

I will be interested in seeing what Mr Rutan comes up with. Ray
Schmitt and Kim Keller have indicated that some recent progress in TPS
might make a small winged vehicle easier. We'll see. You can be sure
that the sexiness of winged vehicles will keep people trying to do it
until it can be done well, even if it isn't a continuous development
line.

/dps

On 2005-04-27, Jorge R. Frank wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote in
:

Actually, this is easier to do than you think. The ET is very nearly
in orbit when the shuttle releases it. If you redesign the system so
that the ET and orbiter are one vehicle, then you get a *far* less
dense vehicle for reentry, which reduces heating loads *considerably*.
This also eliminates the shedding foam problem.

It does introduce other problems, of course. With stubby wings and a
fuselage mostly consisting of empty tanks, such a vehicle would be much
more difficult to land in any kind of crosswind. That in turn greatly
restricts landing opportunities. That was considered a much more serious
problem in the 70s due to lack of maturity of fly-by-wire control, but even
today it's not a clear tradeoff.

The Shuttle is also small enough to be shipped by air; anything which
was significantly larger would pose greater problems as far as shipping
from alternate landing sites to the launch site goes. Not really a
killer, but a logistical headache if you want to keep up a good flight
rate.

A rough guess says a week or two shipment time for an orbiter too large
to be flown. Of course, such a beast would be more likely to have been
designed to have flight capacity under its own power, which renders this
a bit moot...

--
-Andrew Gray

(Dmitri Katchalov) wrote
http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/news.shtml
quotes ITAR-TASS quoting gen-maj Vladimir Popov, head of federal air
and space search and rescue: (quick and dirty translation)
"A unique method of evacuation was used for TMA-5 landing ...

I found itar-tass article on the web but it is for paying subscribers
only, only the very beginning is available for free. I guess Popov
was simply misquoted. He was probably talking about some contigency
plans that they had considered or a training excersize they had before
the actual landing. You can see the choppers landed next to the capsule
he
http://roscosmos.ru/PictFiles/DSC00070.jpg

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
"Jeff Findley" wrote in
:

Actually, this is easier to do than you think. The ET is very nearly
in orbit when the shuttle releases it. If you redesign the system so
that the ET and orbiter are one vehicle, then you get a *far* less
dense vehicle for reentry, which reduces heating loads *considerably*.
This also eliminates the shedding foam problem.

It does introduce other problems, of course. With stubby wings and a
fuselage mostly consisting of empty tanks, such a vehicle would be much
more difficult to land in any kind of crosswind. That in turn greatly
restricts landing opportunities. That was considered a much more serious
problem in the 70s due to lack of maturity of fly-by-wire control, but
even
today it's not a clear tradeoff.

True, it does introduce problems in crosswinds, if you assume you're
restricted to winged vehicles.

Personally, given the success with all but one of the DC-X landings (which
failed due to a ground processing error on a prototype vehicle which lacked
redundancy), I'd consider using a powered vertical landing. With a
vertically landing vehicle, you can deal with crosswinds in a fundamentally
different way. Note that large helicopters deal with crosswinds in a
different way than large fixed wing aircraft.

The shuttle runway at KSC is 15,000 feet long by 300 feet wide (not counting
the asphalt overruns and shoulders). If you made this circular (for a VTVL
vehicle), you'd have a circular landing pad with a diameter of about 2400
feet. That seems like a pretty big landing area for a vertical lander.

In an emergency, you can put down a vertical lander on just about any firm,
flat surface and not have it tip over. Landing an empty VTVL vehicle on
water in an emergency, where you accept the fact that is going to tip over
and possibly damage the vehicle, may be survivable for the crew. It's got
to be more survivable than landing a shuttle orbiter on water with something
heavy in the payload bay (like an MPLM).

Jeff
--
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"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..
The Shuttle is also small enough to be shipped by air; anything which
was significantly larger would pose greater problems as far as shipping
from alternate landing sites to the launch site goes. Not really a
killer, but a logistical headache if you want to keep up a good flight
rate.

A rough guess says a week or two shipment time for an orbiter too large
to be flown. Of course, such a beast would be more likely to have been
designed to have flight capacity under its own power, which renders this
a bit moot...

Reusable VTVL vehicles could be designed to have a self ferry capability.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message
...
"snidely" wrote in
oups.com:

But note that the problems with capsules are due to
*details* of the design, and many critics of the Shuttle claim that
some important problems it has are due to the *fundamanetals* of the
design (wings, complicated SSMEs, big solids).

I would argue that Soyuz 1 was not a "detail"; parachutes are pretty
fundamental to almost all capsule designs.

Also the Soyuz where the OM didn't detach properly.

And I believe there was a separate incident where it began its reentry nose
down, exposing the least protected face to the heat of re-entry.



--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

"snidely" wrote:


Derek Lyons wrote:
[...]
Two out of six (?) Soyuz-TMA flights have now had significant
problems. There have been no calls for investigations, no musings on
the problems the Soviets may be having with training, software
developments, or QA. Prima facie evidence that the all-singing
mentality is deeply ingrained.

Well, I call for Soyuz investigations just as often as I call for
Shuttle investigations, so I'm entirely consistent.

Not in these groups you don't. (Not unless you are JimO or rk posting
under another name.)

Also, there is a self-selection process in these news groups, in that
the majority of readers are from the US, with a large population of
other "western" countries (including Australia). This means that we
don't have a large population of Hallerski's and Doeski's to provide
the negative voice.

Utter bull****. That the majority of the posters are 'western' does
nothing to prevent a proper and open eyed examination of the history
of Soyuz. It's equally bull**** that bBo and Doe provide anything
other than noise.

We do, however, have Jim Oberg's insights, and we have spent a lot of
time discussing the problems with programs that used capsules (usually
in s.s.h).

We've spent a lot of time discussing the details of the problems.
We've spent zero time discussing the implications of those problems.

I lean to a capsule these days not because I think capsules are
perfect, or because I am deluded they have a flawless record. I don't
think they are as beautiful as the Shuttle, and they certainly don't do
much (in any design I can refer to) for handling downmass. My vote
switched because wings make reentry a hard problem. Once we have
progressed to where we can do wings and still have a good reentry
solution, then I expect the new designs to reflect that, and for us to
be able to do more than we can now.

And how exactly do we progress to 'doing wings and having a reentry
solution' unless we *do wings in the first place*?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Jeff Findley" wrote:

I lean to a capsule these days not because I think capsules are
perfect, or because I am deluded they have a flawless record. I don't
think they are as beautiful as the Shuttle, and they certainly don't do
much (in any design I can refer to) for handling downmass. My vote
switched because wings make reentry a hard problem. Once we have
progressed to where we can do wings and still have a good reentry
solution, then I expect the new designs to reflect that, and for us to
be able to do more than we can now.

Actually, this is easier to do than you think. The ET is very nearly in
orbit when the shuttle releases it. If you redesign the system so that the
ET and orbiter are one vehicle, then you get a *far* less dense vehicle for
reentry, which reduces heating loads *considerably*.

You also get a vehicle with much higher parasitic loads due to the
large amounts of structure required. You also have problems caused by
the fact that the acreage of TPS is far greater, even if it can be
less robust.

NASA dropped the all in one for some very good reasons.

This also eliminates the shedding foam problem.

As does moving the insulation internal to the tank.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Jeff Findley" wrote:
Personally, given the success with all but one of the DC-X landings (which
failed due to a ground processing error on a prototype vehicle which lacked
redundancy), I'd consider using a powered vertical landing. With a
vertically landing vehicle, you can deal with crosswinds in a fundamentally
different way. Note that large helicopters deal with crosswinds in a
different way than large fixed wing aircraft.

Ask any architect who has worked on skyscrapers on the problems wind
causes. It's not an easy problem.

In an emergency, you can put down a vertical lander on just about any firm,
flat surface and not have it tip over.

ROTFLMAO. So long as it's firm, flat, and heavily reinforced.
Otherwise, it cracks under the weight.

Landing an empty VTVL vehicle on
water in an emergency, where you accept the fact that is going to tip over
and possibly damage the vehicle, may be survivable for the crew. It's got
to be more survivable than landing a shuttle orbiter on water with something
heavy in the payload bay (like an MPLM).

'Got to be more survivable'? Try figuring the loads the cabin will
take after falling 200 feet. Try figuring the weight that will be
required to brace against this.

(Of course all my criticisms are based on the likely size of a vehicle
with a useful payload.)

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Jeff Findley" wrote:
This also eliminates the shedding foam problem.

As does moving the insulation internal to the tank.

Which results in an increased mass for the ET because the aluminum alloy
used (like most metals) gets stronger as you lower the temperature. Also,
you'd better make sure that you don't have internal shedding of insulation,
since your SSME turbopumps surely wouldn't fare well if they started
ingesting chunks of foam.

Jeff
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