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SuperDraco (rocket Engine)
SuperDraco is a hypergolic propellant rocket engine designed and built by SpaceX. It is part of the SpaceX Draco family of rocket engines. A redundant array of eight SuperDraco engines provides fault-tolerant propulsion for use as a launch escape system for the SpaceX Dragon 2, a passenger-carrying space capsule. SuperDraco rocket engines utilize a storable (non-cryogenic) hypergolic propellant which allows the engines to be fired many months after fueling and launch. They combine the functions of both a reaction control system and a main propulsive engine. Hypergolic fuels do not require an external source of ignition, providing increased reliability for the spacecraft. The engines are used on crew transport flights to low Earth orbit, and were also projected to be used for entry, descent and landing control of the now-canceled ''Red Dragon'' to Mars. SuperDracos are used on the SpaceX Dragon 2 crew-transporting space capsule and were used on the ''DragonFly'', a prototype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceX Hawthorne Facility
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. The company manufactures the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles, several rocket engines, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon spacecraft, and Starlink communications satellites. SpaceX is developing a satellite internet constellation named Starlink to provide commercial internet service. In January 2020, the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation ever launched, and as of December 2022 comprises over 3,300 small satellites in orbit. The company is also developing Starship, a privately funded, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. It is intended to become SpaceX's primary orbit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storable Propellant
A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or other motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the engine that expels the propellant is called a reaction engine. Although technically a propellant is the reaction mass used to create thrust, the term "propellant" is often used to describe a substance which is contains both the reaction mass and the fuel that holds the energy used to accelerate the reaction mass. For example, the term "propellant" is often used in chemical rocket design to describe a combined fuel/propellant, although the propellants should not be confused with the fuel that is used by an engine to produce the energy that expels the propellant. Even though the byproducts of substances used as fuel are also often used as a reaction mass to create the thrust, such as with a chemical rocket engine, propellant and fuel are two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commercial Crew Development
Development of the Commercial Crew Program began in the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, which was rescoped from a technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the spacecraft to be used in the Commercial Crew Program to provide crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS). To implement the program NASA awarded a series of competitive fixed-price contracts to private vendors starting in 2011. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing. Each company performed an uncrewed orbital test flight in 2019, and operational flights started in November 2020. SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-1 2019 flight of Dragon 2 arrived at the International Space Station in March 2019 and returned via splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. After completion of its test series, a Crew Dragon spacecraft made its first operational Commercial Cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LAS (Launch Abort System)
A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule that can be used to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiring the abort of the launch, such as an impending explosion. The LES is typically controlled by a combination of automatic rocket failure detection, and a manual activation for the crew commander's use. The LES may be used while the launch vehicle is still on the launch pad, or during its ascent. Such systems are usually of two types: *A solid-fueled rocket, mounted above the capsule on a tower, which delivers a relatively large thrust for a brief period of time to send the capsule a safe distance away from the launch vehicle, at which point the capsule's parachute recovery system can be used for a safe landing on ground or water. The tower and rocket are jettisoned from the space vehicle in a normal flight at the point where it is either no longer needed, or cannot be e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Draco (rocket Engine Family)
The SpaceX Draco is a hypergolic liquid rocket engine designed and built by SpaceX for use in their space capsules. Two engine types have been built to date: Draco and SuperDraco. The original Draco thruster is a small rocket engine for use on the Dragon spacecraft. SuperDraco uses the same storable (non-cryogenic) hypergolic propellant as the small Draco thrusters, but is much larger and delivers over 100 times the thrust. SuperDraco engines are being used on the Crew Dragon spacecraft to provide launch-escape capability in case of a failure in the launch vehicle. Draco and SuperDraco combine the functions of a reaction control system and main propulsive engine. Draco Draco thrusters generate 400 newtons (90 pounds-force) of thrust using a storable propellant mixture of monomethyl hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. The Draco thrust is comparable to the Marquardt R-4D engine developed for the Apollo Service and Lunar Modules in the 1960s and used for apogee/pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hypergolic Propellant
A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The main advantages of hypergolic propellants are that they can be stored as liquids at room temperature and that engines which are powered by them are easy to ignite reliably and repeatedly. Common hypergolic propellants are difficult to handle due to their extreme toxicity and/or corrosiveness. In contemporary usage, the terms "hypergol" and "hypergolic propellant" usually mean the most common such propellant combination: dinitrogen tetroxide plus hydrazine and/or its relatives monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH). History In 1935, Hellmuth Walter discovered that hydrazine hydrate was hypergolic with high-test peroxide of 80-83%. He was probably the first to discover this phenomenon, and set to work d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Engine Throttling
A rocket engine uses stored rocket propellants as the reaction mass for forming a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid, usually high-temperature gas. Rocket engines are reaction engines, producing thrust by ejecting mass rearward, in accordance with Newton's third law. Most rocket engines use the combustion of reactive chemicals to supply the necessary energy, but non-combusting forms such as cold gas thrusters and nuclear thermal rockets also exist. Vehicles propelled by rocket engines are commonly called rockets. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidiser, unlike most combustion engines, so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum to propel spacecraft and ballistic missiles. Compared to other types of jet engine, rocket engines are the lightest and have the highest thrust, but are the least propellant-efficient (they have the lowest specific impulse). The ideal exhaust is hydrogen, the lightest of all elements, but chemical rockets produce a mix of heavier species, reducing the ex ... [...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] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos (moon), Phobos and Deimos (moon), Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and List of tallest mountains in the Solar System, highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The North Polar Basin (Mars), Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceX Red Dragon
The SpaceX ''Red Dragon'' was a 2011–2017 concept for using an uncrewed modified SpaceX SpaceX Dragon 2, Dragon 2 for low-cost Mars lander missions to be launched using Falcon Heavy rockets. The primary objective of the initial ''Red Dragon'' mission was to test techniques and technology to Atmospheric entry, enter the Martian atmosphere with equipment that a human crew could conceivably use. The series of Mars missions were to be technology pathfinders for the much larger Interplanetary Transport System#SpaceX tentative calendar for Mars missions, SpaceX Mars colonization architecture that was announced in September 2016. An additional suggested use for a mission called for a sample return Mars rover to be delivered to the Martian surface. The program was conceived in 2011 as a potential Discovery Program, NASA Discovery mission launching as early as 2022, and evolved over several years once it did not receive NASA funding from the 2013–2015 Discovery Mission program cycle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an orbit around Earth with a period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, with an altitude never more than about one-third of the radius of Earth. The term ''LEO region'' is also used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. All crewed space stations to date have been within LEO. From 1968 to 1972, the Apollo program's lunar missions sent humans beyond LEO. Since the end of the Apollo program, no human spaceflights have been beyond LEO. Defining characteristics A wide variety of sources define LEO in terms of altitude. The altitude of an object in an elliptic orbit can vary significantly along the orbit. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Spaceflight
Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts (American or other), ''cosmonauts'' (Russian), or ''taikonauts'' (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or ''spacefarers''. The first human in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who launched as part of the Soviet Union's Vostok program on 12 April 1961 at the beginning of the Space Race. On 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, as part of Project Mercury. Humans traveled to the Moon nine times between 1968 and 1972 as part of the United States' Apollo program, and have had a continuous presence in space for on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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