In rocketry, the
Armadillo Aerospace
Armadillo Aerospace was an aerospace startup company based in Mesquite, Texas. Its initial goal was to build a crewed suborbital spacecraft capable of space tourism, and it had also stated long-term ambitions of orbital spaceflight. The company ...
Quad vehicle called Pixel is a computer-controlled
VTVL
Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. The most widely known and commercially successful VTVL rocket is SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage.
VTVL technologies were deve ...
rocket that was used in 2006 to compete in the
Lunar Lander Challenge
The Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge (NG-LLC) was a competition funded by NASA's Centennial Challenges program. The competition offered a series of prizes for teams that launch a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket that achiev ...
.
General description
The quad vehicle design is a
pressure fed
The pressure-fed engine is a class of rocket engine designs. A separate gas supply, usually helium, pressurizes the propellant tanks to force fuel and oxidizer to the combustion chamber. To maintain adequate flow, the tank pressures must exceed th ...
in blow-down mode from an initial pressure of 320 psi for level 1 (400 psi level 2). The
cold gas vernier engines are cross-fed by gas drawn from
ullage
Ullage or headspace is the unfilled space in a container, particularly with a liquid.
Etymology
The word ''ullage'' comes from the Latin word ''oculus'', used by the Romans to refer to a barrel cork hole. This word was, in turn, taken in medieval ...
space of the opposite tank. The vehicle was able to transfer propellant through connecting pipes between opposite tanks by controlling ullage pressures with the thrusters; this helps it balance, minimizing gas use. The main engine had two-axis thrust vectoring. The vehicle was fully computer controlled; with guidance from GPS and
fiber optic gyros.
Specification
The specification for Pixel/Texel for level 1:
* Width: ~1.9 m (~75 inches)
* Height: ~1.9 m (~75 inches)
* Dry Weight: 650 pounds
* Gross Lift Off Weight (GLOW): ~1500 pounds (360 pounds
ethanol
Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...
, ~500
LOX
Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an appli ...
)
* Payload: 55 pounds
* Engines: 1 (+ 4 cold gas
attitude jet
A vernier thruster is a rocket engine used on a spacecraft for fine adjustments to the attitude or velocity of a spacecraft. Depending on the design of a craft's maneuvering and stability systems, it may simply be a smaller thruster complementi ...
s)
* Thrust (sl): ~3000 pounds
Engine (XPC-06):
* Thrust: ~3000 pounds (throttleable to 25%)
* Chamber Pressure: 300 psi
* Nozzle Area Ratio: 2:1
* Isp (sl): ~140-~200 seconds (low-high throttle)
* Length: 0.51 m (20 inches)
* Diameter: 0.2 m (8 inches)
* Chamber: carbon fiber reinforced graphite built by Cesaroni aerospace
* Burn Time: >100 seconds, expected >180 for level 2, with approximately double the propellant mass.
Purchase by NASA
On 8 March 2010, Matthew Ross of Armadillo Aerospace confirmed that Pixel had been converted to methane/LOX propellant and sold to
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
as part of the
Project M
''Project M'' is a mod of the 2008 fighting game ''Super Smash Bros. Brawl'' for the Wii, created by the community group known as the Project M Development Team (PMDT; previously known as the Project M Back Room). It is designed to retool ''Br ...
testbed for the
Autonomous Landing Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) LIDAR
Lidar (, also LIDAR, or LiDAR; sometimes LADAR) is a method for determining ranges (variable distance) by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light to return to the receiver. It can also be ...
range finding system under development by
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
See also
*
Reusable Vehicle Testing
The Reusable Vehicle Testing (RVT) project was conducted by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) from 1998 until 2003. The project involved a series of experimental vehicles to test repeated flights of a reusable rocket. Four complete vehicles were d ...
program of the Japanese Space Agency
JAXA
The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...
*
Project Morpheus
Project Morpheus was a NASA project that began in 2010 to develop a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) test vehicle called the Morpheus Lander. It is intended to demonstrate a new nontoxic spacecraft propellant system (methane and ox ...
NASA program to continue developing ALHAT and Quad landers
*
Blue Origin New Shepard
New Shepard is a fully reusable suborbital launch vehicle developed by Blue Origin for space tourism. The vehicle is named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut in space. The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and vertical land ...
*
Kankoh-maru
The is a proposed vertical takeoff and landing (VTVL), single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO), reusable launch system (rocket-powered spacecraft). According to a document from July 1997, it would have been manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and M ...
*
McDonnell Douglas DC-X
The DC-X, short for Delta Clipper or Delta Clipper Experimental, was an uncrewed prototype of a reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle built by McDonnell Douglas in conjunction with the United States Department of Defense's Strategic ...
*
Zarya
*
CORONA
Corona (from the Latin for 'crown') most commonly refers to:
* Stellar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun or another star
* Corona (beer), a Mexican beer
* Corona, informal term for the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes the COVID-19 di ...
*
Grasshopper
Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago.
Grasshopp ...
References
{{reflist
Reusable launch systems
Rockets and missiles
Pressure-fed rockets
VTVL rockets