Manned spaceship design unveiled.

[ar81]

The third picture down looks like orbiter.

Orbiter has the best planetary rendering I have ever seen in a simulator

 

[SiberianTiger]

Klipper seemed far more sensible than this, and a real advance toward a meaningful, reusable crew spaceplane. I wonder what lies behind the change in approach? What basic physics drives the choice of a VL rocket rather than something that can glide back with greater cross-range capability?

Okay, I wasn't going to be an advocate of something that Energia PR people themselves can hardly explain yet, but I think that they tried to meet the two primary requirements: (1) make a manned vehicle for 6 people and (2) make it able to fly beyond LEO. The "1" determined the size requirements, the "2" meant that it has to be able to reenter from the circumlunar trajectory and have a reliable heat protection, which ruled out wings, that were considered too heavy. Also, they might like to preserve the Soyuz's survivability in case of screwed up reentries, so this capsule design could be made with ballistic reentry in mind.

Speaking of the landing accuracy, this doesn't promise a great cross-range indeed, but they are speaking of 2.5 km off the point accuracy when getting down from LEO thanks to the controlled reentry ability and having no parachute (therefore, no or very little crosswind drift off the point).

 

[Urwumpe]

2.5 km is not much. Soyuz TMA already has a CEP of 2.5 km, when the guidance works well. Apollo managed to also land with around 2.5 km accuracy, according to the published data.

 

[Insane]

Always exciting to see a new spacecraft design, but this seems to be very early days for it, so I assume we are going to see a fair few changes in design?

I'm wondering what everyone thinks of this idea compared to Orion, they both seem quite similar, although NASA seems to be gearing their design towards a Mars mission, whereas this one seems focused on Lunar travel. I have to say, since I missed the originial lunar missions by, oh, around 20 years, I'm extremely excited to have plans in place to return there. Whats been worrying me though is an unenthusiastic response to the Ares/Orion design, so I'm beginning to think it might fade out of existence before it even got started. Is this a better bet to happen? I realise its still in very early stages with little info surrounding it, but I'd be interested to hear any opinions.

One thing I'm wondering about is the single capsule design. I was reading a summary of the Orion design and its birth, from a link someone posted here a few days ago, and it seems to regard a mission module/reentry capsule approach to design, ala Soyuz. So, how come the Russians have decided to design a single capsule? Are there more advantages to it than disadvantages? I'm assuming the primary one is reusability, it probably isn't very cost effective to dump most of the weight up in space and return to earth with the bare minimum, and that would be a driving force of the design. An interesting landing system though, although it looks worryingly easy for something to go very, very wrong.

 

[Kyle]

ESA wants to make Mustards CTV!? Copyrighters!

 

[Urwumpe]

ESA wants to make Mustards CTV!? Copyrighters!

The CTV trademark is at least older as 1994 (I have a report on the ESA CTV with that date here). I doubt mustard can claim prior art.

 

[eveningsky339]

I'm just curious as to why capsules are still being designed. With the success of the Shuttle program, I would think that spaceplanes would be of more practical use.

Then again, capsules are a whole lot cheaper than spaceplanes these days...

 

[spcefrk]

I'm just curious as to why capsules are still being designed. With the success of the Shuttle program, I would think that spaceplanes would be of more practical use.

Then again, capsules are a whole lot cheaper than spaceplanes these days...

That's it exactly. Capsules have about as high a structural efficiency as you can get. Vehicles like the shuttle are fully reusable but have lots of extra structure capsule don't have so their volumetric efficiency is a lot lower. They have a lot to offer though. The compromise is a lifting body that produces the same lift as a wing-body like the shuttle, but takes more development than even the shuttle. Any aerospace company worth half a bag of bricks can chug out a capsule design. It's sad, it's purposefully avoiding the cutting edge, but it's also the bottom line.

I'll be the first person to sing the many praises of a lifting body reusable manned vehicle, but until you can convince the people signing the checks to support the development of a lifting body, they won't leave the drawing board.

 

[Insane]

I'm assuming its because of weight, wings are useless once in space until you need to return again into the atmosphere. Of course, for a ship that isn't going beyond LEO, it doesn't matter so much, but if you want to get to the moon, it doesn't make sense to be lugging a big pair of dead weights all that way.

Ideally, I'd think there'd be a variet of specialised vehicles in use, not just one to use for everything. A spaceplane for ferrying crew to and from an in-orbit space station, at which there is a ship to take you to lunar orbit, where you can either board a lander, or use the transfer ship to land. Basically, like 2001, or the TTM24 addon

That would take a while to achieve though, so I guess the focus is just on capsules for now.

One thing I read on the site given previously detailing the ACTS program, it says a capsule design was decided upon rather than a lifting body, so as to get it flying more quickly, within the next 10 years. I suppose its about getting there as soon as possible right now, and getting an infrastructure in place, before developing more advanced modes of transportation.

 

[Hartmann]

The first spacecraft to use "rocket engines to soften landing" is plain wrong. All Russian manned spacecraft since Voskhod use them.

the first european spacecraft to use rocket engines :lol:

perhaps it means that they don´t use parachutes in the moon ... but yes in the earth landings. a parachute system is easy, cheap an reliable.

 

[tblaxland]

I am as serious as Energia designers who presented this design at Farnborough. They are going to position the crew (4 or 6 persons) in the camomile petals pattern, legs to center, heads outwards. It's clear that areas behind each of the cosmonauts will be structurally weakened to enable the ejection seat breaking the hull through.

It would be quite a show when (if) that goes off!

The legs are there for reusability's sake.

So that means the heat shield will be reusable also. I though they might have gone for an ablative solution that could be re-applied for the next mission.

 

[GregBurch]

I'll be the first person to sing the many praises of a lifting body reusable manned vehicle, but until you can convince the people signing the checks to support the development of a lifting body, they won't leave the drawing board.

Ahh, but those checks were signed (and cashed) -- thirty to forty years ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-011-DFRC.html

 

[pattersoncr]

The main jet cushion system will kick in at 100 metres altitude and quickly decelarate the spacecraft to stop at the ground. SRM's are there to provide additional robustness, also they are believed to be safer than Peroxide liquid engines proposed two decades ago for the similar Zarya capsule design.

What's the point of having ejection seats?
If your braking rockets fire at 100m, by the time you realize that they don't work, you'll be too low for a parachute to open.

 

[spcefrk]

Ahh, but those checks were signed (and cashed) -- thirty to forty years ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-011-DFRC.html

Which in conjunction with the X-15 program significantly influenced the design of the space shuttle, X-33, and X-38. The Dryden Lifting body program (using that term loosely) was a first stab in the dark at subsonic lifting body flight. It was a bitter uphill fight to get any money for lifting body research. What little public domain information we have on lifting bodies dries up pretty quickly after that program. Most of the X-33 aero work remains proprietary property of Lockheed Martin with the exception of a few shallow technical papers.

 

[Andy44]

What's the point of having ejection seats?
If your braking rockets fire at 100m, by the time you realize that they don't work, you'll be too low for a parachute to open.

Zero-zero ejection seats might do it, if the descent speed is reasonable.

I'm just wondering how you eject 5 or 6 people from a capsule. Someone mentioned that they would lay backs to the heatshield, heads pointing outboard. Neat. So now you need 6 blow-off hatches, and when the ejection seats fire each seat is blowing rocket exhaust up the opposite astronaut's ass.

And BTW, the whole idea behind using a capsule is that you don't need ejection seats, or so I thought.

 

[SiberianTiger]

So that means the heat shield will be reusable also. I though they might have gone for an ablative solution that could be re-applied for the next mission.

Not necessary. It seems logical to apply here the solution already in use in Soyuz: the ablative heat shield covers the entire bottom of the capsule, leaving no gaps and gets jettisoned after decelerating below M3 or so, thus opening the thruster exhaust ports.

 

[SiberianTiger]

What's the point of having ejection seats?
If your braking rockets fire at 100m, by the time you realize that they don't work, you'll be too low for a parachute to open.

I agree with Andy44 on his point here, however I have to add that what we are talking about is little more than an idea yet, so the numbers may vary in the final design: they might decide to ingite the landing thrusters at 300 metres instead of 100 or add a small braking chute to keep the descent rate sane, who knows.

 

[SiberianTiger]

For your consideration, here are the slides of the presentation made by Energia at the recent scientific conference in Korolev (May, 2008). These series illustrate the decision making among several possible designs of the perspective manned spaceship (taking the existing Soyuz capsule as a base for comparison, and contamplating Clipper with wings, lifting body Clipper, Transformer Clipper and the Cone shaped capsule). It seems like the author of the presentation favoured the Transformer most:

meaning of rows:

• The spacecraft's exterior
• G-load during reentry (nominal / during touchdown / during LV failure)
• Maximum cross range, km (lateral / axial)
• Landing accuracy, km
• Reusability coefficient
• Number of orbits per day which allow to land in Russia

meaning of rows:

• The spacecraft's exterior with emergency recovery devices attached
• Mass, kg (space ship \ orbit insertion/escape block \ escape tower)
• Initial orbit apo/per, km (reclined trajectory launch)
• Orbit after final insertion, km
• Free space in cabin per person

Market requirements

• Crew of 6 persons, payload 500 kg (1000 kg with crew of 2)
• Autonomous flight time 14 days, able to stay docked to a space station for up to 1 year
• Crew saving capability at all flight stages from before launch to landing
• Landing system reliability no less than 0.999
• Shortened crew training time and less strict requirements for the candidates
• Lowering maximum G-load down to 14g (escape tower's operation)
• Providing for launch and landing within continental Russia
• Minimum cost for R&D and minimum running costs
• Putting into operation no later than 2018
• 30 to 40 years of effective operation of the spacecraft's class

Project requirements for the new generation manned spacecraft:

(1) Functional

• Safety and reliability (one system failure allows for mission accomplishement; two system failires allow for crew saving)
• Crew saving capability at all flight stages from before launch to landing
• Crew up to 6 persons
• Improved landing accuracy (in 15 km raduis circle or on a runway)

(2) Technological

• Increased crew comfort (free space per person no less than 2 cubic metres)
• Lowering maximum G-load during descent (nominal < 5g, off-nominal < 12g)
• Using environment friendly components
• Avoiding leaving space garbage

(3) Operational

• Minimum cost for R&D and minimum running costs
• 30 to 40 years of effective operation of the spacecraft's class
• Adaptivity and modularity

 

[GregBurch]

Which in conjunction with the X-15 program significantly influenced the design of the space shuttle, X-33, and X-38. The Dryden Lifting body program (using that term loosely) was a first stab in the dark at subsonic lifting body flight. It was a bitter uphill fight to get any money for lifting body research. What little public domain information we have on lifting bodies dries up pretty quickly after that program. Most of the X-33 aero work remains proprietary property of Lockheed Martin with the exception of a few shallow technical papers.

I don't disagree. But, in hindsight, I think you can put yourself back at the end of the X-24 program and realize that the gap from there to a manned, orbital X-plane testbed is pretty short, considering that, by that point, the STS TPS was already developed.

Build it small and light -- for just one man -- and slap it on top of the already man-rated Titan. It could have flown before 1982. Fly 5 or 6 R&D flights. By 1990, you could have had an X-38 equivalent on top of a man-rated Titan 3C, even at NASA's increasingly glacial speed in those days.

 

[ar81]

Russians, Europeans or Americans can't match my futuristic spacecraft design and space technology.
These designs are top secret, ready to be patented, but here they go anyway... :rofl:

Hab module with greenhouse with coffee plants and lander vessel with landing gear extended.
Cabin of lander is filled with a special liquid fluid that is saturated with O2 that allows human breathing.

Waste recycling system

Orbital hab module capsule (time travel capable)

Capsule with tehter attachment system for easy storage

Interior of hab module