how do i get something into orbit with a sugar rocket?
How do i get something into orbit with a sugar rocket?
Lucas Rogers
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Easton Cooper
Multi stage boosters. Basically sugar rockets being launched from the top of larger, in flight, sugar rockets. Considering we use like 2 or 3 stages to get liquid hydrogen/oxygen rockets into orbit, a sugar rocket would probably need like 5+ stages.
Jason Wright
I see that sugar rocket has an Isp of 130, at best. Exhaust velocity would be 1300 meters/sec.
Say LEO velocity is 7600 meters/sec. I'll neglect air resistance and gravity losses. The required mass-ratio is then exp(7600/1300) = 346.
3 or 4 stages would do it. As I said though, this is an extreme simplification because I lack certain critical data.
If you could manage it with no more than 5 (or manage it at all) Kim Jong Un would make you a very attractive job offer.
Christopher Cook
What is the energy density/weight/etc of KNSU compared to standard rocket fuels?
James Flores
didn't F5 to see
Henry Smith
Space shuttle main engines (most sophisticated H-O ones ever) produce a specific impulse (Isp) of 452 seconds (4.43 km/s) in a vacuum, or 366 seconds (3.59 km/s) at sea level
Owen Howard
Staging. You can get any delta v if you stage enough.
Asher Stewart
>3 or 4 stages would do it.
That's not enough.
Try 5 stages. At 130s Isp, each stage can provide 2 km/s and if you multiply the mass at each stage by 7, it should work. So for a 1 kg cubesat payload, the 5th stage is 6 kg, so at burnout the empty stage mass is 0.456 kg, for about a 93.4% propellant mass fraction of each stage (less than achieved values for solid rocket stages).
Stage 5: 7 kg
Stage 4: 49 kg
Stage 3: 343 kg
Stage 2: 2400 kg
Stage 1: 16.8 tonnes
Here you can see how much specific impulse matters when you need 10 km/s. In practice, with things like aerodynamic fairings, I would expect the mass to creep up at least to 25 tonnes, all to launch a meager 1 kg payload.
The picture gets much better if you use simple hydrazine monoprop with 220s Isp (or its slightly more troubled, but also less toxic, higher performance, and more accessible alternative, nitromethane, beloved fuel of RC aircraft enthusiasts). Now, with comparable mass ratios, you only need 3 stages to get the same delta-v, so you should be able to launch a 1 kg payload with a 400 kg rocket that weighs about 30 kg unfuelled.
Asher Rodriguez
Single state rockets can have mass-ratios up to maybe 9 or 10. Early version of the Atlas could throw themselves into orbit.
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Liquid O2 and H2 have very low densities and require very bulky tankage. They more than compensate for this with high energy density and low molecular weight of the exhaust.
Solid fuels are much denser. Of course their Isp are lower and the motor-tube must be thick enough to withstand the pressure.
7 cubed is 343.
I freely admit this is an idealization and more than 3 would be required to account for the factors I neglected. But I wanted you to see where I got my estimate.
Tyler Jones
so it looks like rocketry is a team effort, not a solo hobby