What do you think? Keep in mind this is just a quick concept presentation, not a final design. Updates to come! And a thanks to Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut for letting us use some of his beautiful Starhopper footage. 🚀
You guys are amazing! Do much love as always, for Europe! ❤️. Have you guys heard of a UK 🇬🇧 company called Starchaser Industries Ltd (link below)? They are on a similar mission as you! Crewed reusable rocket launches but from the UK! Maybe a European team up someday haha ;) starchaser.co.uk/
How are you going to maintain a certain ullage pressure in propellant tanks? Will there be pressure regulator between the heat exchanger and propellant tanks? Also, how is the feed system for that small heat generator rocket engine?
Looks awesome. One would have to review this system carefully to understand how it will behave in various possible emergencies. Can it be shut down and made safe quickly? One thing that comes to mind is that even though you will hopefully not see any hard starts, it may still be safer to have enough mass in the blast wall to assure containment to protect the propellant tanks behind it. Maybe leave room for a layer of sandbags?
Aren't you worried about the sound levels inside the container? I'm guessing you have to make sure that there are no accidental resonances between the stand and the shell. Vibration suppression washers between the containers and the legs/supports will be also important
alxo82 Won’t the vibrations and sounds be dramatically dampened by the water suppression systems they talked about in the video? That’s the point of a sound suppression system.
@@IntRocketLaunch I know, I'm talking about noise-induced vibrations that due to resonances may become destructive, not the noise created by the outflow of combustion gases. Long engine fires are more prone to create such resonances inside an all metal container
alxo82 well in that case those vibrations are still mostly eliminated by the water suppression system which deals with both types of sound induced vibrations. Though some vibrations will still occur, they will not cause a problem.
@alxo82 That's a good point, but spacecraft and vehicles are subject to LOUD! sound testing before launch. Maybe use a hoop structure around the engine to simulate actual structure. And use the other end of the container as a test chamber for sensitive equipment?
To help load the container down you can reduce the bracketing by increasing the friction. It is a required method when transporting steel plate etc. Local trucking companies can point you to where you can get hard rubber mats for under the container. Then the weight of the container and added weights increases the friction coefficient. At most I'd think you might need some strapping or chains to add to downward force.
Interesting pressurization concept... what are the advantages of adding the complexity of a second engine instead of just using the heat of the main engine (and also cooling it in the process)?
Saving the complexity of having to use heat from the main engine and potentially melting your engine when all your liquid coolant suddenly turns into a gas. Also leaves the design open to potentially use an electric or turbo pump.
Since you planning to store so much water, wouldn’t be simpler to use the thermal mass of water to warm the nitrogen? Could be a heat exchanger inside some tanks or a heat exchanger prior to sound suppression waterfall system
@@1943vermork But that wouldn't replicate how it would work flying on a rocket, which is what we want to test. Basically the test stand is identical to a rocket, albeit folded out a bit
i would reenforce the roof. the roof is NOT designed to hold such weights. the container is designed to hold forces on the 4 corners. the roof itself is NOT structural, it rust keeps the elements out.
and also design some concrete block holders in the back... just in-case it punched through... don't need a complain from ya neighbour to stop the work... and catch some eyebrows on fire...
If the container is to be open at both ends, allowing an airflow, you may also need to consider a Venturi-effect when estimating the load on the walls.
Have you found a spot to park the 40' when not used? A 20' test container stacked on a 20' workshop container may cost less in parking lot / harbour rent. Unless of cause you want to transport something 7 to 12m long when test stand is removed.
idk if this would effect the readings but I would LOVE to have a high speed camera view through the throat as the engine fires, maybe by using mirrors or something? probably too risky, but imagine...
A zoom lens with safety glass could get the image with a low risk to damaging a camera. But I think a high-speed camera w/ zoom requires a large amount of light, but it could encased like the camera, but putting it off to the side closer in seems more practical than directly behind it.
@@robrocksea I think mirrors are a great solution for getting a view up the nozzle without harming the CCC. Still a problem to not fog up the mirror that is in the rocket exhaust stream and to see through that exhaust stream.
Thank You for sharing! This was realy interesting as always, i used SW my self back in time when i learned CAD drawings. It shall be realy interesting to follow this, i am especialy interested in the heat exchanger unit.
I was wondering how you were gonna be fastening the container down, though the idea of a rocket-powered shipping container doing donuts in a parking lot is pretty funny to imagine
Did you guys consider supercritical Nitrogen as a pressurisation medium? You could produce it within a high pressure tank by electrically heating liquid nitrogen prior to the start. That might reduce complexity and weight.
The intial design phase included a thorough study on various systems for pressurisation and conclusion was that the solution we have selected was ligther and had lower cost not including man hours. There were many calculations with one big tank versus many smaller, tanks of various materials, various ways of heating etc. It was thorough as said. The amount of energy to filll the tanks with sufficient pressure is considerably. All the calculations was done. I thought we had a video on it, maybe in the current affairs videos, but can't seem to find it right now.
Interesting video. Please touch on basic vector physics also. Answers to intuitive questions such as 'why doesn't the stand or the motor disintegrate?' will go a long way.
Hi ! I have got a question about the pressurization system. Will you be able to control precisely the pressure of the two tanks during the flight ? Because we know that the problem of pre-pressurized tank is the fact that you dont have a constant flow. Big support from a French follower.
Glad we have french followers. Learning to have the right control of the heating system for the nitrogen will be one of the required goals of the test and tuning of the engine.
Only just found this you tube channel and effort for crowd funded rocket engineering, which I think is really exciting. Does Scott Manley know of it? I was interested to know why you didn't considered an inverted rocket stand so the direction of thrust is directed into the ground, ( a very reliable thrust puck ) this would help you with anchoring the test stand and as an added advantage also makes testing of vectoring or gimbal systems more stable, if you happen to be planning on using those? Your idea of using a small rocket engine for pressuring the feed tanks is a clever idea, using heated expansion of a safe gas to do the job,, a similar thing was used to run a turbo pump in other designs, with a SR's output used to power the turbine. Are you planing to plumb the pressurisation gas around the main engine bell to cool it and also to use the waste heat there to keep the pressure high once the SR has burnt out?
If the engine was smaller could liquid nitrogen be used as coolant for the regen cooling on the thrust chamber? Then use that evaporated nitrogen to pressurize the propelent tanks. Is that crazy? Could you even have like a little turbo pump that used that evaporated nitrogen to pump propelents?
Random thought at 3am. If there was no injector plate etc and the two liquids were just dumped in tangentially at 180 and left to swirl as one gigantic sprinkler head, would that keep the engine cool enough? Probably too cool without enough surface are to evaporate from. Never mind. Back to sleep and good luck to you all. Excellent work so far.
But why not just pass the pressurizing gas around the engine like you did with fuel? Will it be too hard to start? Speaking of engine start up, do you have any videos talking about bpm engines startup?
4 года назад+6
When the nitrogen goes gaseous, it will have a much lower capacity of transfering heat away from the walls in that part of the rocket engine. That could cause the walls to melt. More importantly, adding another heat transfer mode would make the engine different than the one that is supposed to fly, rendering the test kind of pointless. Failure modes is what you test for, and burn-through is one of if not THE biggest risk factors. Spica is supposed to run with a pump to feed the engine and the cooling is supposed to be done by the fuel alone. Since the pump isn't ready yet they have to have a different way of testing, and leaving the cooling as standard is paramount.
I'd be careful with placing that much water like shown on a container. Pressure can only be applied on a containers Anker point (corners). I think otherwise the roof will collapse.
We are considering turbo pumps although initial testing will be with heated nitrogen. Please see our video on the subject ruclips.net/video/-uU2w2kyZiE/видео.html
I'm interested why you haven't chosen to have the heat exchanger as part of the main rocket? E.g. to cool an area that is seeing excessive heating. I'm presuming it's down to complexity.
We had a study into using the big engine heating the nitrogen, but the plumbing and control required made it prohibitely difficult to implement. Also securing the right heat transfer would be difficult. Maybe not impossible, just really hard. The current solution we know we can implement and control without to many challenges.
What you are asking for is why not use turbo pump. We are considering turbo pumps although initial testing will be with heated nitrogen. Please see our video on the subject ruclips.net/video/-uU2w2kyZiE/видео.html
Next time worry about finishing the model before you worry about adding reflective textures to the metal. This is basically how you get vaporware, people more concerned about how it looks than how it works
As mentioned in the video as well as our pinned comment, this is just a conceptualization to talk about the design. Contrary to how most other space programs work, we share our design process with the public as well, not just the final outcome.
Pressuring both fuel and oxidizer with nitrogen from heat exchanger; why not pass liquid oxygen bled from the lox tank and pass through the heat exchanger for oxidizer tank pressurization? Would this not save some weight? Or just add extra complexity? I’m guessing hot gaseous oxygen is difficult or dangerous?
It is a very traditional approach -- Russian Soyuz-type rocket have used evaporated liquid nitrogen for tank pressurization for the last 66 years. It's cheap and very dependable.
We had a study into using the big engine heating the nitrogen, but the plumbing and control required made it prohibitely difficult to implement. Also securing the right heat transfer would be difficult. Maybe not impossible, just really hard. The current solution we know we can implement and control without to many challenges.
hello i have made a verry low cost solid propellant based on laterite+ aluminium i need a test stand for rockets using solid propellant fly range up to 7000 km
Peter Maersk-Moller Saving weigth and saving money. A large high pressure helium system will be heavy in steel or expensive in carbon fiber . And the amount of helium needed not only for the launch, but also for all the engine tests, would be prohibitely expensive when you are not backed up by billions. So we plan to test and tune the engine using inexpensive nitrogen. We did a smaller test on BPM5 with nitrogen suggesting it will work although nitrogen is denser slower flowing than helium. So there is that to include in design from beginning, as we do with BPM100.
I think your nitrogen evaporator system is over engineered. I don't have enough data to make a specific suggestion. I can say that it looks cool though. Who is working on that part of the project?
Hypergolic fuels tend to be quite dangerous compared to their current combination of water+ethanol (almost same mix as in hand sanitizer) pure oxygen and pure nitrogen.
What do you think? Keep in mind this is just a quick concept presentation, not a final design. Updates to come!
And a thanks to Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut for letting us use some of his beautiful Starhopper footage. 🚀
When testing spica, your could ask Tim to launch a dummy wearing his suit into space
You guys are amazing! Do much love as always, for Europe! ❤️. Have you guys heard of a UK 🇬🇧 company called Starchaser Industries Ltd (link below)?
They are on a similar mission as you! Crewed reusable rocket launches but from the UK! Maybe a European team up someday haha ;)
starchaser.co.uk/
How are you going to maintain a certain ullage pressure in propellant tanks? Will there be pressure regulator between the heat exchanger and propellant tanks? Also, how is the feed system for that small heat generator rocket engine?
Looks awesome. One would have to review this system carefully to understand how it will behave in various possible emergencies. Can it be shut down and made safe quickly? One thing that comes to mind is that even though you will hopefully not see any hard starts, it may still be safer to have enough mass in the blast wall to assure containment to protect the propellant tanks behind it. Maybe leave room for a layer of sandbags?
What about TurboPumps?
Elon has a flying water tower and you will have a flying container :-)
Hah! Hopefully not, but potentially. ;)
Aren't you worried about the sound levels inside the container? I'm guessing you have to make sure that there are no accidental resonances between the stand and the shell. Vibration suppression washers between the containers and the legs/supports will be also important
If It i would, i think it will be pretty easy to use an external control module, perhaps that's even the original plane.
alxo82 Won’t the vibrations and sounds be dramatically dampened by the water suppression systems they talked about in the video? That’s the point of a sound suppression system.
@@IntRocketLaunch I know, I'm talking about noise-induced vibrations that due to resonances may become destructive, not the noise created by the outflow of combustion gases. Long engine fires are more prone to create such resonances inside an all metal container
alxo82 well in that case those vibrations are still mostly eliminated by the water suppression system which deals with both types of sound induced vibrations. Though some vibrations will still occur, they will not cause a problem.
@alxo82 That's a good point, but spacecraft and vehicles are subject to LOUD! sound testing before launch. Maybe use a hoop structure around the engine to simulate actual structure. And use the other end of the container as a test chamber for sensitive equipment?
Can’t wait for spica😁
This is getting so exciting! I love it!! Keep up the hard work guys!
What is the current land speed record for a 40” container?
Roads? Where we are going, we don't need roads
@@CopenhagenSuborbitals ;-) perfect!
I'm hoping Copenhagen Suborbitals don't find that out, Bruce!
Guys, your awesome. You just won a great supporter.
Excited for the future of CopSub!
9:35 a flying ISO container might have been hilarious, though
Please follow me
@@modelraketenflugzeuge3074 Reported.
To help load the container down you can reduce the bracketing by increasing the friction. It is a required method when transporting steel plate etc. Local trucking companies can point you to where you can get hard rubber mats for under the container. Then the weight of the container and added weights increases the friction coefficient. At most I'd think you might need some strapping or chains to add to downward force.
I've been following this team for a couple years now. I'm always excided to see a new update from the team.
Quite inspiring, well done and keep up the good work!
Interesting pressurization concept... what are the advantages of adding the complexity of a second engine instead of just using the heat of the main engine (and also cooling it in the process)?
Saving the complexity of having to use heat from the main engine and potentially melting your engine when all your liquid coolant suddenly turns into a gas. Also leaves the design open to potentially use an electric or turbo pump.
Simplicity of single components trough modularity :)
I like it
Since you planning to store so much water, wouldn’t be simpler to use the thermal mass of water to warm the nitrogen?
Could be a heat exchanger inside some tanks or a heat exchanger prior to sound suppression waterfall system
@@1943vermork But that wouldn't replicate how it would work flying on a rocket, which is what we want to test. Basically the test stand is identical to a rocket, albeit folded out a bit
Very nice! I can't wait to see it in the field 😍
i would reenforce the roof. the roof is NOT designed to hold such weights. the container is designed to hold forces on the 4 corners. the roof itself is NOT structural, it rust keeps the elements out.
and also design some concrete block holders in the back... just in-case it punched through... don't need a complain from ya neighbour to stop the work... and catch some eyebrows on fire...
If the container is to be open at both ends, allowing an airflow, you may also need to consider a Venturi-effect when estimating the load on the walls.
Have you found a spot to park the 40' when not used? A 20' test container stacked on a 20' workshop container may cost less in parking lot / harbour rent. Unless of cause you want to transport something 7 to 12m long when test stand is removed.
Also, to remove the workshop from , umm, any mishaps.
idk if this would effect the readings but I would LOVE to have a high speed camera view through the throat as the engine fires, maybe by using mirrors or something? probably too risky, but imagine...
Engines have been built with glass windows in them for cameras.
A zoom lens with safety glass could get the image with a low risk to damaging a camera. But I think a high-speed camera w/ zoom requires a large amount of light, but it could encased like the camera, but putting it off to the side closer in seems more practical than directly behind it.
@@robrocksea I think mirrors are a great solution for getting a view up the nozzle without harming the CCC. Still a problem to not fog up the mirror that is in the rocket exhaust stream and to see through that exhaust stream.
Thank You for sharing! This was realy interesting as always, i used SW my self back in time when i learned CAD drawings.
It shall be realy interesting to follow this, i am especialy interested in the heat exchanger unit.
I was wondering how you were gonna be fastening the container down, though the idea of a rocket-powered shipping container doing donuts in a parking lot is pretty funny to imagine
interesting to see. Thanks for sharing
Did you guys consider supercritical Nitrogen as a pressurisation medium? You could produce it within a high pressure tank by electrically heating liquid nitrogen prior to the start. That might reduce complexity and weight.
The intial design phase included a thorough study on various systems for pressurisation and conclusion was that the solution we have selected was ligther and had lower cost not including man hours. There were many calculations with one big tank versus many smaller, tanks of various materials, various ways of heating etc. It was thorough as said. The amount of energy to filll the tanks with sufficient pressure is considerably. All the calculations was done. I thought we had a video on it, maybe in the current affairs videos, but can't seem to find it right now.
Interesting video. Please touch on basic vector physics also. Answers to intuitive questions such as 'why doesn't the stand or the motor disintegrate?' will go a long way.
Hi ! I have got a question about the pressurization system. Will you be able to control precisely the pressure of the two tanks during the flight ? Because we know that the problem of pre-pressurized tank is the fact that you dont have a constant flow.
Big support from a French follower.
Glad we have french followers. Learning to have the right control of the heating system for the nitrogen will be one of the required goals of the test and tuning of the engine.
Everyday Astronaut music huh
First thing I thought of, having no land, you're gonna need a big boat.
It was one of the considerations, to be honest.
Only just found this you tube channel and effort for crowd funded rocket engineering, which I think is really exciting. Does Scott Manley know of it? I was interested to know why you didn't considered an inverted rocket stand so the direction of thrust is directed into the ground, ( a very reliable thrust puck ) this would help you with anchoring the test stand and as an added advantage also makes testing of vectoring or gimbal systems more stable, if you happen to be planning on using those? Your idea of using a small rocket engine for pressuring the feed tanks is a clever idea, using heated expansion of a safe gas to do the job,, a similar thing was used to run a turbo pump in other designs, with a SR's output used to power the turbine. Are you planing to plumb the pressurisation gas around the main engine bell to cool it and also to use the waste heat there to keep the pressure high once the SR has burnt out?
for a moment I was using my Mouse scroll to rotate the model :D
Ha!
random but can i ask where you got your material textures in blender? cheers
Is the evaporated nitrogen at a high temperature?
If the engine was smaller could liquid nitrogen be used as coolant for the regen cooling on the thrust chamber? Then use that evaporated nitrogen to pressurize the propelent tanks. Is that crazy? Could you even have like a little turbo pump that used that evaporated nitrogen to pump propelents?
Good luck 👍
Random thought at 3am.
If there was no injector plate etc and the two liquids were just dumped in tangentially at 180 and left to swirl as one gigantic sprinkler head, would that keep the engine cool enough?
Probably too cool without enough surface are to evaporate from.
Never mind. Back to sleep and good luck to you all. Excellent work so far.
Injector plate is like the carburetor of a petrol car. It mixes fuel and air just before burning.
John Crower Doe
Yep and dumping it it gives very poor atomisation.
I got to that point before realising my mistake.
Which model pressure sensor do you
use?
I know very few of rocket engineer, but what's the difficulties/ penalty of using nozzle heat to pressurize nitrogen?
But why not just pass the pressurizing gas around the engine like you did with fuel? Will it be too hard to start? Speaking of engine start up, do you have any videos talking about bpm engines startup?
When the nitrogen goes gaseous, it will have a much lower capacity of transfering heat away from the walls in that part of the rocket engine. That could cause the walls to melt.
More importantly, adding another heat transfer mode would make the engine different than the one that is supposed to fly, rendering the test kind of pointless. Failure modes is what you test for, and burn-through is one of if not THE biggest risk factors.
Spica is supposed to run with a pump to feed the engine and the cooling is supposed to be done by the fuel alone. Since the pump isn't ready yet they have to have a different way of testing, and leaving the cooling as standard is paramount.
Regarding ignition of the BPM-5 (and other similar engines) we wrote a blog about it some years ago: copenhagensuborbitals.com/to-make-fire/
I'd be careful with placing that much water like shown on a container. Pressure can only be applied on a containers Anker point (corners). I think otherwise the roof will collapse.
Yes, it would likely need reinforcement.
Well I think you did... but did you thought about two electrical turbopumps like the Elektron?
We are considering turbo pumps although initial testing will be with heated nitrogen. Please see our video on the subject ruclips.net/video/-uU2w2kyZiE/видео.html
I'm interested why you haven't chosen to have the heat exchanger as part of the main rocket? E.g. to cool an area that is seeing excessive heating. I'm presuming it's down to complexity.
We had a study into using the big engine heating the nitrogen, but the plumbing and control required made it prohibitely difficult to implement. Also securing the right heat transfer would be difficult. Maybe not impossible, just really hard. The current solution we know we can implement and control without to many challenges.
@@petermaersk-moller3014 That makes a lot of sense :)
🚀
Can I ask why you decided to use a secondary rocker engine for pressurization instead of using an electric motor like rocket lab does?
What you are asking for is why not use turbo pump. We are considering turbo pumps although initial testing will be with heated nitrogen. Please see our video on the subject ruclips.net/video/-uU2w2kyZiE/видео.html
Yes I've found the video after i posted the question. Thank you and good luck, very envious of you guys getting to work on something this cool.
Burny end out. Cold end in
Next time worry about finishing the model before you worry about adding reflective textures to the metal. This is basically how you get vaporware, people more concerned about how it looks than how it works
As mentioned in the video as well as our pinned comment, this is just a conceptualization to talk about the design. Contrary to how most other space programs work, we share our design process with the public as well, not just the final outcome.
Explain about launch pad
Pressuring both fuel and oxidizer with nitrogen from heat exchanger; why not pass liquid oxygen bled from the lox tank and pass through the heat exchanger for oxidizer tank pressurization? Would this not save some weight? Or just add extra complexity?
I’m guessing hot gaseous oxygen is difficult or dangerous?
Hot pure oxygen rusts metal so fast it actually cuts right through. That's how a workshop burner cuts through steel.
John Crower Doe hot is relative, how hot before it starts to cause damage and can the vaporizer temperature be below that?
It is a very traditional approach -- Russian Soyuz-type rocket have used evaporated liquid nitrogen for tank pressurization for the last 66 years. It's cheap and very dependable.
Why not design a heat exchanger that will use heat from the main engine??
We had a study into using the big engine heating the nitrogen, but the plumbing and control required made it prohibitely difficult to implement. Also securing the right heat transfer would be difficult. Maybe not impossible, just really hard. The current solution we know we can implement and control without to many challenges.
hello i have made a verry low cost solid propellant based on laterite+ aluminium i need a test stand for rockets using solid propellant fly range up to 7000 km
Hmm interesting isn't laterite a stone? For what exactly do you use it? What do you use as an oxidizer?
"fly range up to 7000 km"? The only rockets that do that are ICBMs 🤣
@@tinldw never underestimate some mad scientists...
@@tinldw and Iran's civilian space program... Oh wait it's just a ground splat...
@@flavioernst902 yes it is ( but you can use it as a powder)
Why not use just helium to pressurize the propallent tank instead of using this complex nitrogen rocket system
Peter Maersk-Moller
Saving weigth and saving money. A large high pressure helium system will be heavy in steel or expensive in carbon fiber . And the amount of helium needed not only for the launch, but also for all the engine tests, would be prohibitely expensive when you are not backed up by billions. So we plan to test and tune the engine using inexpensive nitrogen. We did a smaller test on BPM5 with nitrogen suggesting it will work although nitrogen is denser slower flowing than helium. So there is that to include in design from beginning, as we do with BPM100.
This sounds like Everyday Astronaunts music.... I hope you asked him to use this...
It is. And they did. And it fits quite well :)
@@PaulPaulPaulson even if they didn't, i'm sure tim will let them go ... he even give discounts on his merch store....
Indeed, Tim already publicly and generously stated that his music can be used in this context.
We did, he was kind with it. And we credit him in every video.
Blender! :D
I think your nitrogen evaporator system is over engineered. I don't have enough data to make a specific suggestion. I can say that it looks cool though. Who is working on that part of the project?
Why aren't you guys using hydrophobic (iguess) fuel it's easier to make (I guess) cause you don't need to ignite
Hypergolic fuels tend to be quite dangerous compared to their current combination of water+ethanol (almost same mix as in hand sanitizer) pure oxygen and pure nitrogen.
Hypergolic props are usually highly toxic and corrosive. Regardless of it being storable it'd be a difficult job to handle them.
Thanks 😊
@@buraqaerospace9945 its my pleasure
:)
Hahaha you use the same music as that one podcast on purpose