Technical Paper presentation

on

REUSABLE LAUNCHING VEHICLE

INTRODUCTION

What is launching vehicle?

A launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket

propelled vehicle used to carry a payload
from Earth's surface to space, usually to
Earth orbit or beyond. A launch system
includes the launch vehicle, launch pad, 
vehicle assembly and fuelling systems,
range safety, and other related infrastructure.
What is reusable launching vehicle?

 A Reusable launch vehicle (RLV) refers to a vehicle which can be used for
several missions.

Expended launch vehicle are designed for one-time use. They usually separate from
their payload, and may break up during . RLV on the other hand, are designed to be
recovered intact and used again for subsequent launches

• The main advantage of an RLV is it can be used multiple times, hopefully with
low servicing costs. The expendable rocket that is used for launching the RLV can
also be designed to be used multiple times. A successful RLV would surely cut
down mission costs and make space travel more accessible.
 1.Vertical Landing

• Parachutes could be used to land vertically, either at sea, or with the use of
small landing rockets, on land

• Rockets could be used to soft land the vehicle on the ground from the
subsonic speeds reached at low altitude. This typically requires about 10% of
the landing weight of the vehicle to be propellant.

• Alternately, autogyro or helicopter rotor. This requires perhaps 2-3% of the

landing weight for the rotor.

.
Retro-Propulsion/ Backward Propulsion

• Retro-propulsion means firing your rocket engines against your

velocity vector in order to decelerate.

• The vehicle fires its rockets towards the surface to slow the craft’s
descent, after parachutes had already brought it below the speed of
sound.

• It is very expensive in the sense that the fuel required for landing
must be carried to space, which erodes the useable payload capacity
of the launch system.
2. Horizontal landing

 A Reusable Launch Vehicle in this form Ideally it takes off

vertically on the back of an expendable rocket and then glides
back down like an aircraft. During landing phase, an RLV can either
land on a runway or perform a splashdown
General working principle of RLV

The working of a RLV can be divided into 4 stages:

1) First stage–subsonic and supersonic stage:
The RLV with its payload takes off from the runway and climbs to
about 100,000 feet or 30 km using conventional jet-engines, or
using a combination of conventional jet-engine and ramjet engine.
2) Second stage-Hypersonic stage:
When the space plane is at an altitude of about 100,000 ft and at a velocity of about
mach 4, the scramjets are fired. Scramjets are basically ramjets. Scramjet engines
takes RLV to mach 15.
3) Third stage-Space stage:
The RLV is at a great height that there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain the scramjet
engine. At this point the rocket engine fires up.
4) Third stage-Space stage:
RLV is accelerated to mach 25. - Rocket engine takes RLV to payload release
site and required operations are performed.

5) Fourth stage–Re entry stage : Once the RLV finishes its mission in space, It
performs de-orbit operations to slow itself down, It drops to lower orbit and enters
upper atmospheric layers. - RLV uses its aerodynamics to glide down once it reaches
dense air.
Preparing for Reuse

• The vehicle requires extensive inspection and refurbishment.

• Each and every part of the launch vehicle needed to be individually inspected. For
example the orbiter’s thermal protection tiles needed to be individually inspected
(and potentially replaced).

• Main engines needed to be removed to undergo extensive inspection and overhaul.

• Parts contaminated with ocean salt water and had to be cleaned, disassembled, and
refurbished before reuse.