Posted on 04/15/2015 12:55:30 PM PDT by BenLurkin
I think the battery just powers the pumps that push the fuel into the combustion chamber. But it still runs on refined dinosaurs.
Apparently the batteries power the pumps,but the here’s still propellant that creates the thrust. Pretty conventional.
Space is going to get crowded.
The Rutherford Engine is an electric turbo-pumped LOX/RP-1 engine specifically designed for the Electron launch vehicle, capable of 4,600 lbf thrust and with an ISP of 327 s.
Rutherford adopts an entirely new propulsion cycle, making use of brushless DC motors and high performance Lithium Polymer batteries to drive its turbo pumps.
Rutherford is also the first oxygen/hydrocarbon engine to use additive manufacturing for all primary components, including the regeneratively cooled thrust chamber, injector, pumps, and main propellant valves.
Electron uses two variants of the Rutherford engine, a sea level and a vacuum engine. The vacuum variant differs only in nozzle shape, which is tailored to suit the vacuum conditions outside Earths atmosphere. The duplicate engine design for both stages makes Electron highly optimized for fast production.
The engine is named after the famous New Zealand born physicist Ernest Rutherford.
RP-1 is a refined form of kerosene similar to jet fuel, used as rocket fuel.
LOX is Liquid oxygen.
It's not an electric rocket.
If you think there is a lot of space junk out there now just wait until there are “hundreds of thousands” of satellites in low earth orbit.
Even so, not having to burn fuel to spin the turbopumps is potentially pretty big.
The fuel pumps in an orbital rocket use a lot of fuel that doesn't directly contribute anything to thrust. This results in a significant reduction in Isp, which you basically can't have enough of.
The Russian RD-180 engine that powers some of our launches today uses a system that "recycles" the fuel pump drive turbine exhaust into the main engine's exhaust stream, thereby recapturing some of the work lost to the task of pumping fuel into the combustion chamber.
The RD-180 accomplishes this, but at a price: the turbopump engine has to operate at engine chamber pressure, which puts it under a lot of additional stress. RD-180s have been known to blow up on the launch pad. IIRC, they are not "man-rated," largely for this reason.
My first thought was “Bargain Basement Ballistic Missiles”
Iran could use one of these.
The good thing is that re-entry gets a little tricky. The bad thing is with nuclear devices you just have to get close.
We are simply too nice with bad guys.
A company called Escape Dynamics is working on a rocket powered by microwave beams on the ground.
I thought this was a thread about Hillary’s campaign launch.
You’re thinking of Hillary’s battery-powered “mystery machine”
LOL! Great turn of the phrase.
The batteries, motors and pumps would have to weigh less than the turbopumps and fuel they consume for this to work. Batteries weigh less than fuel producing the same energy? The turbopumps on the shuttle produced thousands of HP.
The Tesla has 1200 pounds of batteries to equal a 100 pound tank full of gas.
Yeah, great point.
The four fuel and ox pumps in the SSMEs generated the following rated horsepower:
LP ox | 1614 |
HP ox | 22880 |
LP H2 | 3330 |
HP H2 | 63080 |
total | 90904 |
Almost 100,000 horsepower. A lot more than a Tesla.
Yep, it only needs its batteries, electric motors and turbopumps—no fuel or combustion! Just listen to the rumble and the wind!
The Marching Morons
By C. M. Kornbluth
http://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/kornbluthcm-marchingmorons/kornbluthcm-marchingmorons-00-e.html
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