Engineering:VTVL

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Short description: Method of takeoff and landing used by rockets; vertical takeoff, vertical landing
This article is about rockets. For aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing see VTOL.
A Falcon 9 first stage performing a vertical landing
DC-XA landing in 1996

Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. The most successful VTVL rocket is SpaceX's Falcon 9 first stage.

VTVL technologies were developed substantially with small rockets after 2000, in part due to incentive prize competitions like the Lunar Lander Challenge. Successful small VTVL rockets were developed by Masten Space Systems, Armadillo Aerospace, and others.

Starting in the mid-2010s, VTVL was under intense development as a technology for reusable rockets large enough to transport people. In 2013, SpaceX demonstrated vertical landing on a Falcon 9 prototype after climbing 744 meters in the air.[1] Later, Blue Origin (New Shepard) and SpaceX (Falcon 9), both demonstrated recovery of launch vehicles after return to the launch site (RTLS) operations, with Blue Origin's New Shepard booster rocket making the first successful vertical landing on November 23, 2015, following a flight that reached outer space, and SpaceX's Falcon 9 flight 20 marking the first landing of a commercial orbital booster roughly a month later, on December 22, 2015. All but one launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy have included VTVL attempts for the two side boosters on each rocket. SpaceX is also developing a fully reusable rocket named Starship.[2]

VTVL rockets are not to be confused with aircraft which take off and land vertically, but which use the air for support and propulsion, such as helicopters and jump jets which are VTOL aircraft.

History

  • 1961 Bell Rocket Belt, personal VTVL rocket belt demonstrated.[3]
  • VTVL rocket concepts were studied by Philip Bono of Douglas Aircraft Co. in the 1960s.[4]
  • Apollo Lunar Module was a 1960s two-stage VTVL vehicle for landing and taking off from the Moon.
  • Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group successfully launched the Hoveroc rocket on 2 May 1981 in a test at Port Wakefield, South Australia.[5] It was capable of "a controlled flight path within a horizontal plane and terminating, if needed, in a controlled descent."[6]
  • The Soviet Union did some development work on, but never flew, a vertically landing crewed capsule called Zarya in the late 1980s.[7]
  • The McDonnell Douglas DC-X was a 1/3 scale uncrewed prototype SSTO VTVL launch vehicle that flew several test flights in the 1990s. Its first successful flight was in 1993. In June 1996, the vehicle set an altitude record of 3,140 metres (10,300 ft), before making a vertical landing.[8]
  • Rotary Rocket successfully tested a vertical landing system for their Roton design, based on a rocket tipped helicopter system in 1999, but were unable to raise funds to build a full vehicle.
  • On June 13, 2005, Blue Origin VTVL Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicle was announced.[9]
  • 2005: Blue Origin Charon, a jet engine propelled test vehicle, verified the autonomous guidance and control technologies later used in Blue Origins VTVL rockets.[10]
  • 2006, 2007: Blue Origin Goddard, a subscale demonstrator for the later New Shephard suborbital vehicle, made 3 successful flights before retirement.[11]
  • During 2006–2009, Armadillo Aerospace's Scorpius / Super Mod, Masten Space Systems' Xombie and Unreasonable Rocket's Blue Ball flying VTVL rockets competed in the Northrop Grumman / NASA Lunar Lander Challenge. Follow-on VTVL designs including Masten's Xaero and Armadillo's Stig were aimed at higher-speed flight to higher suborbital altitudes.[12]
  • SpaceX announced plans in 2010 to install deployable landing gear on the Dragon spacecraft and use the vehicle's thrusters to perform a land-based landing.[13] It was cancelled in 2017.[14]
  • In 2010, three VTVL craft were proffered to NASA in response to NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation under NASA's Flight Operations Program: the Blue Origin New Shepard, the Masten Xaero, and the Armadillo Super Mod.[15]
  • Morpheus is a 2010s NASA project developing a vertical test bed that demonstrates new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology.[16]
  • Mighty Eagle was an early 2010s Robotic Prototype Lander that was being developed by NASA as of August 2012.[17]
A Falcon 9 first stage landing on 21 December 2015 after boosting commercial satellites to low Earth orbit
  • SpaceX announced in September 2011 that they would attempt to develop powered descent and recovery of both Falcon 9 stages, with a VTVL Dragon capsule as well.[18][19]
  • 2012: SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket was a VTVL first-stage booster test vehicle developed to validate low-altitude, low-velocity engineering aspects of its large-vehicle reusable rocket technology.[20] The test vehicle made eight successful test[21] flights in 2012–2013. Grasshopper v1.0 made its eighth, and final, test flight on October 7, 2013, flying to an altitude of 744 metres (2,441 ft) (0.46 miles) before making its eighth successful VTVL landing.[22]
  • 2013–2017: DragonFly was a prototype low-altitude rocket-powered test article for a propulsively-landed version of the SpaceX Dragon space capsule. It was intended to use the technology on Dragon 2, their second generation crew-carrying reusable space capsule, for landing after returning from space, as well as a launch abort system. The DragonFly prototype was used for low-altitude propulsive flight testing in 2014 and 2015.[23] Development was abandoned by mid-2017.[24]
  • 2014: SpaceX's Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle was approximately 50 feet longer than Grasshopper, and was built on their full-size Falcon 9 v1.1 booster tank, with flight-design landing legs and gaseous nitrogen thrusters to control the booster attitude. F9R Dev1 made its first test flight in April 2014, to an altitude of 250 meters (820 ft) before making a nominal vertical landing.[25]
  • On November 23, 2015, Blue Origin's New Shepard booster rocket made the first successful vertical landing following an uncrewed suborbital test flight that reached space.[26]
  • On December 21, 2015, SpaceX's 20th Falcon 9 first stage made the first successful vertical landing of an orbital-class booster after boosting 11 commercial satellites to low Earth orbit on Falcon 9 Flight 20.[27]
  • On April 8, 2016, SpaceX's Falcon 9 made the first successful landing on their Autonomous spaceport drone ship as part of the SpaceX CRS-8 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station.[28]
  • Since 2017, DLR, CNES and JAXA are developing a reusable VTVL rocket demonstrator called CALLISTO (Cooperative Action Leading to Launcher Innovation in Stage Toss-back Operations). [29]
  • January 2018: Chinese private space company LinkSpace successfully tested its reusable experimental orbital rocket with a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL)[30]
  • On February 6, 2018, SpaceX successfully landed two of their first stage boosters during their demonstration flight of the Falcon Heavy.[31]
  • 2018: ISRO revealed details about the ADMIRE test vehicle for which a test and landing site was being developed. The vehicle will have supersonic retro propulsion, special retractable landing legs which will act as steerable grid fins & will be guided by integrated navigation system that will have a laser altimeter and a NavIC receiver.[32]
  • Low-altitude VTVL testing of the large 9-meter (30 ft)-diameter Starhopper, an early test article for the SpaceX Starship, occurred at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site near Brownsville, Texas in July and August 2019 with flights up to ~150 m (490 ft) were made.[33][34][35]
  • In August 2020, SpaceX began testing its Starship prototypes. SN5, SN6, and SN15 made successful VTVL launch and landings while SN8, SN9, SN10, and SN11 were destroyed due to landing failure.[36][37][33][38]
  • On July 20, 2021, Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket made its first successful vertical landing following a crewed suborbital flight. Four passengers were on board the NS-16, including Jeff Bezos.[39]
  • On November 2, 2023 and December 10, 2023, iSpace’s Hyperbola-2Y, powered by a restartable methalox engine, completed vertical launch and recovery twice, with flight heights of 178 meters and 343 meters respectively.
  • On January 19, 2024, Landspace’s Zhuque-3 VTVL-1 test made its first successful vertical landing following a suborbital hop test powered by a methalox engine.

Vertical landing technology

The technology required to successfully achieve retropropulsive landings—the vertical landing, or "VL," addition to the standard vertical takeoff (VT) technology of the early decades of human spaceflight—has several parts. First, the thrust is normally required to be vectored and requires some degree of throttling. However, a thrust-to-weight ratio of more than 1 is not strictly necessary.

The vehicle must be capable of calculating the position and altitude of the vehicle; small deviations from the vertical can cause large deviations in the vehicle’s horizontal position. RCS systems are usually required to keep the vehicle at the correct angle. SpaceX also uses grid fins for attitude control during the landing of their Falcon 9 boosters.

It can also be necessary to be able to ignite engines in a variety of conditions potentially including vacuum, hypersonic, supersonic, transonic, and subsonic.[40]

The additional weight of fuel, larger tank, landing legs and their deployment mechanisms will usually reduce the performance of a soft landing system compared to expendable vehicles, all other things being equal. The main benefit of the technology is seen in the potential for substantial reductions in space flight costs as a result of being able to reuse rockets after successful VTVL landings.[41]

Popular culture

Vertical landing rocket depicted in 1951 comic Rocket Ship X

Vertical landing of spaceships was the predominant mode of rocket landing envisioned in the pre-spaceflight era. Many science fiction authors as well as depictions in popular culture showed rockets landing vertically, typically resting after landing on the space vehicle's fins. This view was sufficiently ingrained in popular culture that in 1993, following a successful low-altitude test flight of a prototype rocket, a writer opined: "The DC-X launched vertically, hovered in mid-air ... The spacecraft stopped mid-air again and, as the engines throttled back, began its successful vertical landing. Just like Buck Rogers."[42] In the 2010s, SpaceX rockets have likewise seen the appellation to this popular culture notion of Buck Rogers in a "Quest to Create a 'Buck Rogers' Reusable Rocket."[43][44]

The Young Sheldon episode, "A Patch, a Modem, and a Zantac®" features Sheldon Cooper developing the equations for VTVL in the 1980s, only to have them rejected by NASA for lack of the technical capability to implement it at that time. Sheldon concludes that he is ahead of his time. A flashforward to 2016 shows the successful SpaceX CRS-8 mission, followed by SpaceX founder Elon Musk looking over Sheldon's old notebook then hiding it in a desk drawer.[45][46][47][48]

See also

References

  1. ↑ February 2016, Elizabeth Howell 06. "SpaceX's Grasshopper: Reusable Rocket Prototype" (in en). https://www.space.com/26042-spacex-grasshopper.html. 
  2. ↑ "SpaceX" (in en). http://www.spacex.com/. 
  3. ↑ "Most Comprehensive Website on Rocket Belts and Jet Belts". https://rocketbelts.americanrocketman.com/history.html. 
  4. ↑ Wade, Mark. "OOST". Encyclopedia Astronautica. http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/oost.htm. 
  5. ↑ Crozier, Mal (2013). Nulka: A compelling story. Canberra: Defence Science and Technology Organisation. pp. 40–41. ISBN 9780987544704. https://www.dst.defence.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/documents/Nulka-a-compelling-story.pdf. Retrieved 2021-03-19. 
  6. ↑ Deans, Arnold L.; Alan J. Smith & Malcolm J. Crozier, "Rocket vehicle", US patent 4562980, published 1986-01-07, assigned to The Commonwealth of Australia
  7. ↑ Zak, Anatoly (2009-04-29). "Russia mulls rocket power 'first'". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8024590.stm. "RKK Energia, ... in the 1980s ... worked on a highly classified project to develop a large crewed capsule, called Zarya ("Dawn"), for a wide range of civilian and military missions." 
  8. ↑ Klerkx, Greg: Lost in Space: The Fall of NASA and the Dream of a New Space Age, page 104. Secker & Warburg, 2004
  9. ↑ "Cosmic Log: June 11-17, 2005". https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna8197350. 
  10. ↑ Blue Origin Charon Test Vehicle , Museum of Flight
  11. ↑ Goddard , Gunter's Space Page
  12. ↑ X Prize Foundation. "2009 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander X CHALLENGE". X Prize Foundation. http://space.xprize.org/lunar-lander-challenge. 
  13. ↑ "Dragon Drop Test – August 20, 2010". Spacex.com. 2010-08-20. http://www.spacex.com/updates.php. 
  14. ↑ "SpaceX skipping Red Dragon for "vastly bigger ships" on Mars, Musk confirms". https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-skipping-red-dragon-vastly-bigger-ships-mars-confirms-musk/. 
  15. ↑ [needs update] "sRLV platforms compared". NASA. 2011-03-07. https://c3.ndc.nasa.gov/flightopportunities/platforms/compare/. "New Shepard which was made by the "Blue Origin"(founded by Jeff Bezos): Type: VTVL/Unpiloted ... Super Mod: Type: VTVL/Unpiloted ... Xaero: Type: VTVL/Unpiloted" 
  16. ↑ Bibby, Joe. "Project Morpheus". NASA. http://morpheuslander.jsc.nasa.gov/about. 
  17. ↑ "NASA's 'Mighty Eagle' Robotic Prototype Lander Flies Again at Marshall". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lunarquest/robotic/12-085.html. 
  18. ↑ "Elon Musk says SpaceX will attempt to develop fully reusable space launch vehicle". Washington Post. 2011-09-29. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/elon-musk-says-spacex-will-attempt-to-develop-fully-reusable-space-launch-vehicle/2011/09/29/gIQAnN9E8K_story.html. "Both of the rocket’s stages would return to the launch site and touch down vertically, under rocket power, on landing gear after delivering a spacecraft to orbit." 
  19. ↑ Wall, Mike (2011-09-30). "SpaceX Unveils Plan for World's First Fully Reusable Rocket". SPACE.com. http://www.space.com/13140-spacex-private-reusable-rocket-elon-musk.html. 
  20. ↑ "Reusable rocket prototype almost ready for first liftoff". Spaceflight Now. 2012-07-09. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/10grasshopper/. "SpaceX has constructed a half-acre concrete launch facility in McGregor, and the Grasshopper rocket is already standing on the pad, outfitted with four insect-like silver landing legs." 
  21. ↑ "Grasshopper Completes Highest Leap to Date". SpaceX.com. 10 March 2013. http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20130310. 
  22. ↑ The Grasshopper prototype test vehicle has been retired. "Grasshopper flies to its highest height to date". Social media information release. SpaceX. 12 October 2013. https://www.facebook.com/SpaceX/posts/10153372146765131. "WATCH: Grasshopper flies to its highest height to date – 744 m (2441 ft) into the Texas sky. http://youtu.be/9ZDkItO-0a4 This was the last scheduled test for the Grasshopper rig; next up will be low altitude tests of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) development vehicle in Texas followed by high altitude testing in New Mexico." 
  23. ↑ James, Michael; Salton, Alexandria; Downing, Micah (November 12, 2013). "Draft Environmental Assessment for Issuing an Experimental Permit to SpaceX for Operation of the Dragon Fly Vehicle at the McGregor Test Site, Texas, May 2014 – Appendices". Blue Ridge Research and Consulting, LCC. pp. 12. http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/media/20140513_DragonFly_DraftEA_Appendices%28reduced%29.pdf. 
  24. ↑ WordsmithFL (2017-07-19), Elon Musk, ISS R&D Conference, July 19, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqvBhhTtUm4&t=3890, retrieved 2018-08-02 
  25. ↑ Norris, Guy (2014-04-28). "SpaceX Plans For Multiple Reusable Booster Tests: Controlled water landing marks a major stride toward SpaceX's Falcon rapid-reusability goal". Aviation Week. http://aviationweek.com/space/spacex-plans-multiple-reusable-booster-tests. "The April 17 F9R Dev 1 flight, which lasted under 1 min., was the first vertical landing test of a production-representative recoverable Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage, while the April 18 cargo flight to the ISS was the first opportunity for SpaceX to evaluate the design of foldable landing legs and upgraded thrusters that control the stage during its initial descent." 
  26. ↑ "Blue Origin make historic rocket landing." Blue Origin, November 24, 2015. Retrieved: November 24, 2015.
  27. ↑ @SpaceX (22 December 2015). "The Falcon 9 first stage landing is confirmed. Second stage continuing nominally.". https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/679114269485436928. 
  28. ↑ SpaceX [@SpaceX] (8 April 2016). "Landing from the chase plane". https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/718561436201431040. 
  29. ↑ Dumont, E; Ishimoto, S; Tatiossian, P (June 2019), "CALLISTO: a Demonstrator for Reusable Launcher Key Technologies", 32nd ISTS, Fukui, Japan. 19 (1): 106, doi:10.2322/tastj.19.106, Bibcode: 2021JSAST..19..106D, https://elib.dlr.de/128795/, retrieved 2020-10-27 
  30. ↑ "Chinese space company Linkspace takes step towards reusable rocket with landing test". https://gbtimes.com/chinese-space-company-linkspace-takes-step-towards-resuable-rocket-with-landing-test. 
  31. ↑ Grush, Loren (February 6, 2018). "SpaceX launches its powerful Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time". The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2018/2/6/16971200/spacex-falcon-heavy-launch-success-roadster-orbit-elon-musk. 
  32. ↑ "Isro focuses on vertical landing capability – Times of India". https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/isro-focuses-on-vertical-landing-capability/articleshow/67262964.cms. 
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Baylor, Michael (27 August 2019). "SpaceX's Starhopper completes 150 meter test hop". NASASpaceFlight. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/08/faa-spacexs-starhopper-hop/. 
  34. ↑ Burghardt, Thomas (25 July 2019). "Starhopper successfully conducts debut Boca Chica Hop". NASASpaceFlight.com. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/07/spacex-resume-starhopper-tests/. 
  35. ↑ Murphy, Mike (10 January 2019). "Elon Musk shows off SpaceX's massive Starship test rocket". MarketWatch. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-shows-off-spacexs-massive-starship-test-rocket-2019-01-10. 
  36. ↑ Chang, Kenneth; Roston, Michael (2021-05-05). "SpaceX Successfully Lands Prototype of Mars and Moon Rocket After Test Flight" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/science/spacex-starship-launch.html. 
  37. ↑ Ralph, Eric (4 August 2020). "SpaceX Starship leaps towards Mars with picture-perfect hop debut". https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-sn5-hop-debut-success-mars/. 
  38. ↑ Chang, Kenneth (2021-03-03). "SpaceX Mars Rocket Prototype Explodes, but This Time It Lands First" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/science/spacex-starship-launch-sn10.html. 
  39. ↑ Foust, Jeff (20 July 2021). "Blue Origin launches Bezos on first crewed New Shepard flight". SpaceNews. https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-launches-bezos-on-first-crewed-new-shepard-flight/. 
  40. ↑ Belfiore, Michael (September 30, 2013). "Musk: SpaceX Now Has "All the Pieces" For Truly Reusable Rockets". Popular Mechanics. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/musk-spacex-now-has-all-the-pieces-for-reusable-rockets-15985616. 
  41. ↑ "Reusable rockets cheaper." ZME Science, August 20, 2015. Retrieved: November 24, 2015.
  42. ↑ "Restoration Center Open House Highlights". New Mexico Museum of Space History. 2013-02-12. http://www.nmspacemuseum.org/content.php?id=313. "The DC-X launched vertically, hovered in mid-air at 150 feet, and began to move sideways at a dogtrot. After traveling 350 feet, the onboard global-positioning satellite unit indicated that the DC-X was directly over its landing point. The spacecraft stopped mid-air again and, as the engines throttled back, began its successful vertical landing. Just like Buck Rogers." 
  43. ↑ "SpaceX Continues its Quest to Create a "Buck Rogers" Reusable Rocket". 21st Century Tech. 2013-03-15. http://www.21stcentech.com/headlines-21st-century-tech-march-15-2013/. 
  44. ↑ Elon Musk, Scott Pelley (2014-03-30). Tesla and SpaceX: Elon Musk's industrial empire (video and transcript). CBS. Event occurs at 03:50–04:10. Retrieved 2014-03-31. Only four entities have launched a space capsule into orbit and successfully brought it back: the United States, Russia, China, and Elon Musk. This Buck Rogers dream started years ago...
  45. ↑ Dayani, Aahil (April 1, 2022). "The Young Sheldon Episode You Likely Forgot Starred Elon Musk - Looper". https://www.looper.com/818734/the-young-sheldon-episode-you-likely-forgot-starred-elon-musk/. 
  46. ↑ "Young Sheldon: 5 Of Sheldon's Best Episodes (& 5 Of His Worst)". August 18, 2021. https://screenrant.com/young-sheldon-most-loved-hated-episodes/. 
  47. ↑ Wurzburger, Andrea (May 8, 2021). "Ahead of His Saturday Night Live Appearance: Elon Musk's Acting Cameos Through the Years". https://people.com/tv/elon-musk-snl-acting-cameos/?slide=a460dc23-c34a-465b-a80e-b24357cead4a#a460dc23-c34a-465b-a80e-b24357cead4a. 
  48. ↑ Whittington, Mark (December 1, 2017). "How 'Young Sheldon' solved the problem of reusing rocket". https://us.blastingnews.com/showbiz-tv/2017/12/how-young-sheldon-solved-the-problem-of-reusing-rocket-002204443.html. 
  49. ↑ Anderson, Erik (July 1997). "Kankoh-maru Flight Manual". Space Future. http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/kankoh_maru_flight_manual.shtml. 

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