rocket lab
Rocket Lab is having a great year, with a rising stock price and Electron vehicles reaching monthly launch pace for the first time. But in the space business, as always, the focus is not on what companies have done, but on what they will do next. And for Rocket Lab, the future of the launch business lies with the medium-lift Neutron rocket.
Recently, the company released an updated rendering of the rocket. It shows a slightly sleeker version of the Neutron, with a more pointed nose, fins closer to the top of the rocket, and much wider landing legs. To understand these design changes, Als spoke with Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck.
When asked about Neutron’s snappy new design, Beck quipped:The lesson we’ve learned here is that people take our renderings much more seriously than we take them,” he said. But with that said, this change highlights some important aspects of his Neutron.
wide landing legs
One notable difference is that the rocket’s landing legs are wider from below. This is because the company now expects to land vehicles on barges in the descent zone more frequently than originally planned.
“In Utopia, there’s no difficulty landing on the barge and no need to make up travel time, so you’ll always be back at the launch site,” Beck said. “So we put our focus there. But people really want to use that extra power.”
Neutrons can be transported to low Earth orbit by 8 tons when the booster returns to the launch site, 13 tons for a downrange landing, and 15 tons in full depletion mode. Beck said the company is prioritizing landings by sea because he believes 13 tonnes is best for what customers are looking for. The new legs reflect the need to deal with pitch and sway during barge landing.
Changes to the top row
The new design features a more pointed upper tier with taller grid fins. Beck said the placement of the grid fins is the result of analyzing and improving the vehicle’s aerodynamics, which improves control and precision.
Rocket Lab engineers also put a lot of effort into the upper stages, including the methane and liquid oxygen propellant tanks. The goal is to design a low-cost stage because the upper stage cannot be reused. But at the same time, it also needs to be high performance, since for every kilogram of mass spent on the upper stage structure, his kilogram of payload is lost.
Beck said Rocket Lab will soon begin qualification testing of the upper tank at its New Zealand facility, followed by destructive testing. The goal is to complete these tests by the end of the year, giving teams confidence in their designs or forcing developers to rethink.
Neutron’s new render provides a wider base for landing on the ocean.
rocket lab
Archimedes spiral
Another major development project is the closed-cycle Archimedes rocket engine. Nine of these will have a vacuum-optimized version of Archimedes in the upper stage, providing 1.53 million pounds of thrust (6,800 kN) at liftoff. It’s significantly larger than any engine Rocket Lab has ever built, but Beck says it’s a modest size for the industry, and rather than aiming for high performance, the design team is starting with a 10-20 engine. He said that he pursued robustness and reliability to support. stage flight.
“Engine is always a challenge,” he said. “We did our best to remove any stress from the engine.”
The company plans to test the Archimedes engine at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, and Beck said a lot of “infrastructure” work is currently being done there to prepare the facility.
The Neutron program also benefits from frequent flights of small electrons. Every rocket returning from space carries a variety of test materials and technologies that provide information that will be incorporated into Neutron’s design.
“We test every flight,” Beck said. “So Electron was a great testbed for Neutron. It’s like, let’s try this new TPS material. So what happens?
Neutron Wen?
Rocket Lab continues to work toward a 2024 launch, but Beck is realistic about the potential delay, especially as the upcoming Phase 2 tank testing and Archimedes engine development work completes.
“According to the schedule, we should be able to get there,” he said. “After conducting some of these large-scale tests, the rubber will be on the road within the next six months. We certainly intend to try to have something on the launch pad in 2024. But you know, this is the Rocket Program.” ”
Beck is also in no hurry to sign a Neutron memorandum or contingency-based launch contract. He believes there will be a huge demand for Neutrons once they arrive on the scene, given the lack of launch capacity for medium-sized rockets in the Western world. (If Neutron says he can start offering commercial services in the mid-2020s, he’s probably right). The initial price is expected to be between $50 million and $55 million per launch.
“We don’t believe in signing fake contracts,” Beck said. “ahYour take here is that you intend to bring the vehicle to market during a very limited release period. Most people we talk to about Neutron aren’t looking to buy a single launch, they’re looking to buy years of launches. So you have to make sure they are there. They should make sure we go there. And I see no point in signing an unrealistic contract at a heavily discounted price before the product exists. ”
