Collaborate Disseminate
There’s a lot riding on the development of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane, with agreements in place to deliver cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, while other parties have expressed an interest in its services, too. T… Continue reading Rocket engine for the Dream Chaser space plane undergoes first public test-fire
Where does the Earth’s atmosphere stop and space begin? It is tempting to take the approach Justice Potter Stewart did for pornography when judging a 1964 obscenity case and say “I know it when I see it.” That’s not good enough for scientists, though. The Kármán line is what the …read more
OK, so this isn’t really a rocket. In the strictest definition, rockets are vehicles or projectiles that propel themselves through jettisoning mass, usually through the combustion of fuel. But with electric motors getting stronger and stronger, folks are building craft that look a lot more like rockets than airplanes. [Tom …read more
If you are a certain age, you probably remember the promise of supersonic transports. The Concorde took less than 4 hours to go across the Atlantic, but it stopped flying in 2003 and ended commercial supersonic passenger flights But back in the 1970s, we thought the Concorde would give way …read more
Continue reading Air-Breathing Rocket Engine Promises Future Space Planes
The popular press was recently abuzz with sad news from the planet Mars: Opportunity, the little rover that could, could do no more. It took an astonishing 15 years for it to give up the ghost, and it took a planet-wide dust storm that blotted out the sun and …read more
Continue reading Engineering for the Long Haul, the NASA Way
Water is a stable chemical, but with the addition of a little electricity, it can be split into its component parts. The result is just the right mix of H2 and O2 to convert back into water with a bang. [Peter Sripol] has built a charming desktop cannon …read more
Continue reading Hydrogen Desk Cannon Is Fun With Electricity and Water
Quadcopters are familiar, and remote control planes are old hat at this point. However, compact lightweight power systems and electronic flight controllers continue to make new flying vehicles possible. In that vein, [rctestflight] has been experimenting with a brushless electric rocket craft, with interesting results.
The build uses a single large brushless motor in the tail for primary thrust. Four movable vanes provide thrust vectoring capability. To supplement this control a quadcopter was gutted, and its motors rearranged in the nose of the craft to create a secondary set of thrusters which aid stabilization and maneuverability.
The aim is to …read more
Continue reading Brushless R/C Rocket Tests Different Flight Regimes
Rocketry is wild, and [Foaly] is sharing build and design details of the Cortex 2 mini rocket which is entirely 3D printed. Don’t let that fool you into thinking it is in any way a gimmick; the Cortex 2 is a serious piece of engineering with some fascinating development.
Cortex 1 was launched as part of C’Space, an event allowing students to launch experimental rockets. Stuffed with sensors and entirely 3D printed, Cortex 1 flew well, but the parachute failed to deploy mainly due to an imperfectly bonded assembly. The hatch was recovered, but the rocket was lost. Lessons …read more
Continue reading Cortex 2 is One Serious 3D Printed Experimental Rocket
Retiring to the garden for a few reflective puffs on the meerschaum and a quick shufti through the Racing Post, and the peace of the afternoon is shattered by the buzz of a drone in the old airspace,what! What’s a chap to do, let loose with both barrels of the finest birdshot from the trusty twelve-bore? Or build a missile battery cunningly concealed in a dovecote? The latter is what [secretbatcave] did to protect his little slice of England, and while we’re not sure of its efficacy we’re still pretty taken with it. After all, who wouldn’t want a …read more
Continue reading An Englishman’s Home Is His (Drone-Defended) Castle
Star Trek — as much as we love it — was guilty sometimes of a bit of hyperbole and more than its share of inconsistency. In some episodes, ion drives were advanced technology and in others they were obsolete. Make up your mind!
The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo probe is on its way to Mercury riding on four ion thrusters developed by a company called QinetiQ. But unlike the ion drive featured in the infamous “Spock’s Brain” episode, BepiColombo will take over seven years to get to Mercury. That’s because these ion drives are real.
The craft is actually two spacecraft in …read more