
Rocket Lab - Reusability Plans for Electron Rocket via Helicopter Catching - kevinsundar
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/news/updates/rocket-lab-announces-reusability-plans-for-electron-rocket/
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Robotbeat
Good on RocketLab for finally doing reuse. It's such an obvious path for
improving flightrate and reducing cost for a high flightrate rocket that I'm
super surprised that it has been mostly poo-pooed by the smallsat launcher
startups (even though they all seem to be shooting for high flight rate).
There are also a bunch of different recovery options available to smaller
rockets that aren't available to large rockets. (And Rocketlab has shown an
ability to execute and enter operational service that makes me fairly
confident they'll succeed.)

By the way, this is nearly identical (minus the helicopter) to the method that
John Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace (now Exos Aerospace
[https://exosaero.com/](https://exosaero.com/)) used for recovering their Stig
reusable sounding rocket back in 2011/2012\. I'm a little sad that none of the
media reports are mentioning that, as it's clearly a direct forerunner and
Exos Aerospace is still doing flights.

Here is the ballute: [https://www.universetoday.com/93281/armadillo-launches-
a-sti...](https://www.universetoday.com/93281/armadillo-launches-a-stig-a-
rocket-captures-awesome-image-of-ballute/)

Here is the guided parachute return:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7zL07Tof8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV7zL07Tof8)

And here is an Exos Aerospace flight earlier this year:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk)

~~~
amayne
The key difference is velocity. Exos/Armadillo have never launched an orbital
class vehicle, which comes down a _lot_ faster and hotter.

I love Carmack and rooted for Armadillo. But ballutes are 50 year old tech
(Gemini’s escape system had them.) Armadillo’s real innovations were in other
areas and doing things faster and cheaper. Carmack would have been an
interesting fit at SpaceX if he hadn’t gone to Oculus.

~~~
Robotbeat
Of course it's harder and faster. But the recovery mode is the same, and that
is notable.

Recovery of rockets that have been to space, even just suborbitally, is not
trivial.

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kevinsundar
Direct link to an animation of catching a rocket with a helicopter:
[https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=858](https://youtu.be/joONWIGtcdY?t=858)

~~~
londons_explore
Catching things in the air is hard...

But it's been done[1].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-
air_recovery...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-
air_recovery_system)

~~~
andrewwharton
Like he says in the video, catching is actually the easy bit.

Having the booster survive the re-entry heating and aerodynamic loads while
only using passive methods to slow it is the hard bit.

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twic
Go big or go home:

[http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3741/1](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3741/1)

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amayne
This is great. I was hoping for a little more information in the presentation
on the specifics, but still wonderful news. Best part was reading a Reddit
forum before the announcement where someone was making a passionate argument
that the presentation absolutely wouldn't be about reusability.

~~~
Taniwha
It's worth watching the animation video to the standup at the end where they
explain a lot more about the issues

~~~
amayne
I watched the whole presentation. I was expecting Beck would go into the
specifics about the problems and how they specifically are planning to solve
them, kind of like Musk does. I’m sure we’ll get more details. I was just
curious.

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duckymcduckface
I look forward to the video of Peter Beck eating his hat.

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indolering
> The first phase will see Rocket Lab attempt to recover a full Electron first
> stage from the ocean downrange of Launch Complex 1 and have it shipped back
> to Rocket Lab’s Production Complex for refurbishment

Has anyone been able to economically refurbish engines fished out of salt
water? I know that NASA and SpaceX both failed at this, why would the Electron
be better suited for saltwater recovery?

~~~
deepsun
Maybe because they don't have the most vulnerable part of a rocket engine --
turbine?

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mLuby
1\. Is this possible for Election and not for, say, Falcon 9 due to the
difference in mass?

2\. Is that a retro burn in the animation or reentry heating?

3\. Are they gonna catch those discarded battery packs too? Should be easier
than a whole first stage.

4\. If they nail this, catching _everything_ by helicopter shouldn't be that
much harder.

~~~
phire
I suspect they will modify the design to not drop battery packs anymore.

~~~
DuskStar
I suspect the battery packs cost basically nothing in comparison to the rest
of the stage. (I'm also not sure that the batteries are even reusable - if
there's ever a time to sacrifice rechargeability for performance, it's here)

~~~
Taniwha
(and I'm pretty sure it's the upper stage batteries that they drop)

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greguu
The helicopter in the animation looks like a EC225 or AS332 "Super Puma"

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baybal2
He wants to do it with Super Puma. Ahem, its maximum takeoff weight is 9
tons...

There is a limited supply of Mi-26s in the world, and I bet nobody these days
will be eager to even lease theirs.

Why none out of those "new age" launch companies uses the simplest solution?
Parachutes and solid fuel rockets for soft landing.

~~~
dotancohen
How does one throttle a solid fuel rocket? And what does the thrust profile
look like in the seconds leading up to, and after, ground contact?

If you are really interested, try doing suicide burns in Kerbal Space Program.
KSP is great for disspelling "why don't they just" questions.

~~~
baybal2
1\. Calculate terminal velocity of an empty rocket on a parachute

2\. Calculate thrust and fuel reserve of solid rockets to reduce the speed of
the rocket stage just below the speed at which it can survive hitting the
ground

Such schemes were used in Soyuz for half a century, Zenith for 30 years, and
other parachute landing system for tanks and other military hardware.

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xchaotic
Is this really the most simple available method?

~~~
Robotbeat
Basically, yeah. And it is pretty simple and it has been done before by Exos
Aerospace (formerly Armadillo Aerospace of John Carmack):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9dJ3IQQVk)

... the helicopter recovery of stuff falling by parachute from space bit has
also been done before with the Corona capsules:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YQqAnEN_0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2YQqAnEN_0)

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swiftcoder
I spent a solid minute thinking this headline was about Electron the app shell
and Rocket the rustlang web framework...

~~~
SiempreViernes
Yeah, I was honestly surprised this was about a real rocket, and not some sort
of effort to get electron more efficient.

