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RocketMotorTwo
RocketMotorTwo (RM2) is a family of hybrid rocket engines developed for the Scaled Composites SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane. The first-generation engine was developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC),Leonard David"Virgin Galactic Pushes Private Spaceship Envelope in Test Flights" Space.com. 10 June 2011. Retrieved 19 May 2013. from the late 2000s to May 2014. It was first ignited in flight during a SpaceShipTwo test launch in April 2013. This engine design was subsequently flown in only two additional flight tests during 2013 and January 2014. SNC was a subcontractor to Scaled Composites through May 2014 when their involvement in the program ended after Virgin Galactic elected to replace SNC's version of RocketMotorTwo powered by HTPB rubber fuel, with its own internally developed hybrid motor for SpaceShipTwo. The second-generation RocketMotorTwo engine is a variant of the earlier SNC basic design. It experimented with using a polyamide plastic fuel and nitrous oxide oxid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceShipTwo
The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is carried to its launch altitude by a Scaled Composites White Knight Two, before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere powered by its rocket engine. It then glides back to Earth and performs a conventional runway landing. The spaceship was officially unveiled to the public on 7 December 2009 at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. On 29 April 2013, after nearly three years of unpowered testing, the first one constructed successfully performed its first powered test flight. Virgin Galactic plans to operate a fleet of five SpaceShipTwo spaceplanes in a private passenger-carrying service and has been taking bookings for some time, with a suborbital flight carrying an updated ticket price of US$250,000. The spaceplane could a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is an American, privately held aerospace and national security contractor specializing in aircraft modification and integration, space components and systems, and related technology products for cybersecurity and health. The company contracts with the United States Armed Forces, NASA, and private spaceflight companies. SNC is headquartered in Sparks, Nevada and has 33 locations in 19 U.S. states, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey. The company was involved in over 400 successful space missions and built the cargo Dream Chaser, which will resupply the International Space Station with both pressurized and unpressurized cargo. As of July 2020, SNC has taken part in 14 different missions to Mars. History The company was founded in 1963 by John Chisholm with a few employees working out of an airplane hangar in the Reno Stead Airport. It was acquired in 1994 by husband and wife Fatih Ozmen and Eren Ozmen. Fatih Ozmen was one of the original employ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Chaser Rocket Engine
Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane being developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Systems. Originally intended as a crewed vehicle, the Dream Chaser Space System is set to be produced after the cargo variant, Dream Chaser Cargo System, is operational. The crewed variant is planned to carry up to seven people and cargo to and from low Earth orbit. The cargo Dream Chaser is designed to resupply the International Space Station with both pressurized and unpressurized cargo. It is intended to launch vertically on the Vulcan Centaur rocket and autonomously land horizontally on conventional runways. A proposed version to be operated by ESA would launch on an Arianespace vehicle. Spacecraft The Dream Chaser design is derived from NASA's HL-20 Personnel Launch System spaceplane concept, which in turn is descended from a series of test vehicles, including the X-20 Dyna-Soar, Northrop M2-F2, Northrop M2-F3, Northrop HL-10, Martin X-24A and X-24B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company is developing commercial spacecraft and aims to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists. Virgin Galactic's suborbital spacecraft are air launched from beneath a carrier airplane known as White Knight Two. Virgin Galactic‘s maiden spaceflight occurred in 2018 with its VSS ''Unity'' spaceship. Branson had originally hoped to see a maiden spaceflight by 2010, but the date was delayed for several years, primarily due to the October 2014 crash of VSS ''Enterprise''. The company did the early work on the satellite launch development of LauncherOne before this was hived off to a separate company, Virgin Orbit, in 2017. The company also has aspirations for suborbital transport and in 2017, Branson has said that Virgin Galactic was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hybrid Rocket
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with a rocket motor that uses rocket propellants in two different phases: one solid and the other either gas or liquid. The hybrid rocket concept can be traced back to the early 1930s. Hybrid rockets avoid some of the disadvantages of solid rockets like the dangers of propellant handling, while also avoiding some disadvantages of liquid rockets like their mechanical complexity. Because it is difficult for the fuel and oxidizer to be mixed intimately (being different states of matter), hybrid rockets tend to fail more benignly than liquids or solids. Like liquid rocket engines, hybrid rocket motors can be shut down easily and the thrust is throttleable. The theoretical specific impulse (I_) performance of hybrids is generally higher than solid motors and lower than liquid engines. I_ as high as 400 s has been measured in a hybrid rocket using metalized fuels. Hybrid systems are more complex than solid ones, but they avoid significant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supersonic
Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound ( Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times the speed of sound (Mach 5) are often referred to as hypersonic. Flights during which only some parts of the air surrounding an object, such as the ends of rotor blades, reach supersonic speeds are called transonic. This occurs typically somewhere between Mach 0.8 and Mach 1.2. Sounds are traveling vibrations in the form of pressure waves in an elastic medium. Objects move at supersonic speed when the objects move faster than the speed at which sound propagates through the medium. In gases, sound travels longitudinally at different speeds, mostly depending on the molecular mass and temperature of the gas, and pressure has little effect. Since air temperature and composition varies significantly with altitude, the speed of s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States. The publication has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by the Times Mirror Company. The newspaper’s coverage emphasizes California and especially Southern California stories. In the 19th century, the paper developed a reputation for civic boosterism and opposition to labor unions, the latter of which led to the bombing of its headquarters in 1910. The paper's profile grew substantially in the 1960s under publisher Otis Chandler, who adopted a more national focus. In recent decades the paper's readership has declined, and it has been beset by a series of ownership changes, staff reductions, and other controversies. In January 2018, the paper's staff voted to unionize and final ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spacedev
SpaceDev, a part of the "Space Systems Business" of Sierra Nevada Corporation, is prominent for its spaceflight and microsatellite work. It designed and built components for the hybrid rocket motors for Paul Allen's Tier One suborbital SpaceShipOne space program operated by Scaled Composites. It is also developing micro- and nano-satellites, a small expendable launch vehicle, the SpaceDev Streaker, and has designed a piloted suborbital and orbital spaceship of its own, the SpaceDev Dream Chaser, in collaboration with NASA. SpaceDev is based near San Diego in Poway, California. Its objective is to make routine commercial spaceflight possible and to help open space for all of humanity. Previously a publicly traded company (OTCBB:SPDV), on 20 October 2008 SpaceDev officials announced that the company would be acquired by Sierra Nevada Corporation, a privately owned company. The announced acquisition price was 38 million dollars. The role of SpaceDev will be melded into anoth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flight Test
Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing aircraft behaviour and systems. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. Data is sampled during the flight of an aircraft, or Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric testing of launch vehicles and Reusable launch vehicle, reusable spacecraft. This data is validated for accuracy and analyzed before being passed to specialist engineering groups for further analysis to Verification and validation, validate the design of the vehicle. The flight test phase accomplishes two major tasks: 1) finding and fixing any Aeronautics, design problems and then 2) verification and validation, verifying and documenting the vehicle capabilities for government certification or customer acceptance. The flight test phase can range from the test of a single new system for an existing vehicle to the complete development and certification of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VSS Enterprise
VSS ''Enterprise'' ( tail number: N339SS) was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin Galactic. It was also the first ship of the Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo class, based on upscaling the design of record-breaking SpaceShipOne. The VSS ''Enterprises name was an acknowledgement of the USS ''Enterprise'' from the ''Star Trek'' television series. The spaceplane also shared its name with NASA's prototype Space Shuttle orbiter, as well as the aircraft carrier USS ''Enterprise''. It was rolled out on 7 December 2009. SpaceShipTwo made its first powered flight in April 2013. Richard Branson said it "couldn't have gone more smoothly". ''Enterprise'' was destroyed during a powered test flight on 31 October 2014, killing one pilot, Michael Alsbury, and seriously injuring another, Peter Siebold. This was the firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermoplastic
A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling. Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associate by intermolecular forces, which weaken rapidly with increased temperature, yielding a viscous liquid. In this state, thermoplastics may be reshaped and are typically used to produce parts by various polymer processing techniques such as injection molding, compression molding, calendering, and extrusion. Thermoplastics differ from thermosetting polymers (or "thermosets"), which form irreversible chemical bonds during the curing process. Thermosets do not melt when heated, but typically decompose and do not reform upon cooling. Above its glass transition temperature and below its melting point, the physical properties of a thermoplastic change drastically without an associated phase change. Some thermoplastics do not fully crystallize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
