Los Alamos Tests New Rocket Technology

Hello reader!

It follows a note published on the day (10/26) in the website “Parabolic Arc” noting Los Alamos tests New Rocket Technology.

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Los Alamos Tests New Rocket Technology

By Douglas Messier

October 26, 2014, at 12:58 pm

(Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Rocket flight test at the Energetic Materials Research and

Testing Center launch sitE near Socorro, NM.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Oct. 23, 2014 (LANL PR) — Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists recently flight tested a new rocket design that includes a high-energy fuel and a motor design that also delivers a high degree of safety.

“What we’re trying to do is break the performance versus sensitivity curve, and make a rocket that’s both very high-energy, as well as very safe,” said Bryce Tappan, an energetic materials chemist at the Laboratory. “Typically, when you look at a propellant that’s high-performance, it’s not as safe a material.”

See the flight tests and hear how Tappan and his research partners at New Mexico Tech and Penn State accomplished a fully successful flight in a new video on the Laboratory’s YouTube Channel.

Conventional solid-fuel rocket motors work by combining a fuel and an oxidizer, a material usually rich in oxygen, to enhance the burning of the fuel. In higher-energy fuels this mixture can be somewhat unstable, and can contain sensitive high explosives that can detonate under high shock loads, high temperatures, or other conditions.

The new rocket fuel and motor design adds a higher degree of safety by separating the fuel from the oxidizer, both novel formulations that are, by themselves, not able to detonate.

“Because the fuel is physically separated from the oxidizer,” said Tappan, “you can utilize higher-energy propellants.”

After years of development and bench-top static tests, the new rocket design was recently flight tested at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center’s Socorro launch site, part of New Mexico Tech.   The new rocket design was tested against conventional, high-energy commercial rockets to enable a comparison of data gathered on velocity, altitude, burn rate, and other parameters.

“You don’t have to do much more than a few seconds of YouTube searching to find numerous failed rocket tests,” said Tappan.  “So, I had that worry in the back of my mind.  But once we saw that successful launch go off, it was the culmination of a lot of years of research, it was very satisfying to see it fly.”

Researchers will now work to scale-up the design, as well as explore miniaturization of the system, in order to exploit all potential applications that would require high-energy, high-velocity, and correspondingly high safety margins.

Source: Website Parabolic Arc - http://www.parabolicarc.com/

Comentário: Pois é trago esta notícia, pois ela pode ser do interesse dos grupos brasileiros que trabalham na área de propulsão para foguetes. Vale dizer que a pesquisa tecnológica e científica na área espacial nos EUA não pára, seja nos institutos de pesquisas públicos e privados, como também nas empresas, todos subsidiados em grande parte pelo pomposo orçamento anual da NASA e por outras fontes de financiamento do governo americano. No Brasil estamos muito longe de algo assim, anos luz eu diria, mesmo para um Programa Espacial do tamanho do Brasil, principalmente após a confirmação ontem nas urnas de um resultado já esperado, resultado este que levará o país a pagar um alto preço que só será sentido na próxima década. Pois é Sr. Heisenberg, é como eu lhe disse um dia, este país está condenado pela ignorância e pela estupidez de seu povo e pela esperteza de políticos maus intencionados, tudo sustentado por um sistema complexo que só beneficia o saque da nação e da impunidade política administrativa. Sugiro que siga com seus planos e busque novos rumos, o senhor ganhará muito mais com isso. Boa sorte.