Terran 1, a rocket designed and built by the company
Relativity Space, suffered a failure shortly after lifting off from a launchpad
in Cape Canaveral, Florida, late on Wednesday night. A demonstration mission,
the rocket was not carrying people or a customer payload, and no one was hurt.
اضافة اعلان
The vehicle was powered by nine 3D printed engines, and
would have been the first rocket launched into orbit using liquid methane as
its fuel. During a webcast of Wednesday’s flight, the rocket rose on a column of
white flame that flared blue as it shot into space.
But about four minutes into the flight, shortly after the
rocket’s first stage had dropped away, Clay Walker, the launch director for
Relativity Space, said on the company’s webcast that a “T-plus anomaly with
stage two” had occurred, meaning there was a problem with the second stage of
the rocket, which was to carry its payload to orbit.
The hosts of the company’s webcast said additional details
about the problem would be announced at a later time.
To make these rockets, Relativity Space has developed massive 3D printers… that use robotic arms to craft engines and other parts out of metal alloys that can withstand the heat and pressure of ignited rocket fuel.
Following the success of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, investors have
poured money into new spaceflight companies. A number of these businesses have
interplanetary ambitions, including Relativity Space, which announced last year
that it would team up with another company called Impulse Space to send a
private space mission to Mars, aiming to beat Musk’s company to the red planet.
Getting off the groundBut many nascent spaceflight companies experience
difficulties in their early attempts to get to orbit. In January, a Virgin
Orbit spacecraft failed an hour into its flight; the company has since
furloughed employees. Another company, ABL Space Systems, lost its first rocket
just after liftoff from a base in Alaska. And even established rocket builders
lose new rockets on their first flight. This month, a new rocket built for
Japan’s space agency by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which has produced rockets
for decades, failed minutes into its first flight and lost the satellite it was
to deploy.
Wednesday’s Relativity flight did not lose a customer’s
satellite. Its only cargo was a wheel-shaped object, the first thing ever made
by Relativity’s 3D printers, which was to demonstrate the rocket’s ability to
carry a payload to orbit.
In the past, most rockets have relied on hydrogen or kerosene for fuel. Methane — the primary component of liquid gas — is easier to store than hydrogen and offers better performance than kerosene.
The flight, which the company nicknamed “Good Luck, Have
Fun” or GLHF, was the company’s third launch attempt in the past two weeks. The
previous two were canceled for a range of technical issues shortly before
liftoff.
New frontiers of rocket designDuring Wednesday’s launch, the company noted some of the
milestones achieved by the rocket. It was the first time a 3D printed rocket
had reached “max-q”, the point when the vehicle experiences the strongest
stresses, and also stage separation, when the booster used for liftoff drops
from the vehicle’s second stage.
Relativity Space is among a number of new companies
manufacturing and testing small-lift launch vehicles: rockets that can carry
smaller payloads of around 2 tonnes or less, typically with a destination of
low-Earth orbit.
At 33m tall, Terran 1 fell into this “small launch”
category, and is planned as a precursor for a much larger, reusable launcher,
Terran R, which the company hopes to begin testing soon.
To make these rockets, Relativity Space has developed
massive 3D printers in Long Beach, California, that use robotic arms to craft
engines and other parts out of metal alloys that can withstand the heat and
pressure of ignited rocket fuel.
Traditional manufacturing processes often slow rocket
building. But 3D printers, which turn code into physical objects, allow
engineers to move more quickly from design to testing. Instead of having to
create a totally new part, engineers can just instruct the printers to increase
the size of existing parts, or modify them in other ways.
“It’s a step in a path of a complex engineered system. Succeed or fail, they’ll learn something from it.”
Because of this, there are many 3D printed parts in modern
rockets. But Relativity Space is treating 3D printers as a one-stop shop for
nearly all of its rockets. Some 85 percent of the mass of Terran 1 was made
using 3D printers, and each rocket can be crafted from nothing in 60 days.
Rocket fuelRelativity is among several companies building rockets to
launch into orbit using liquid oxygen and liquid methane as propellants. In the
past, most rockets have relied on hydrogen or kerosene for fuel. Methane — the
primary component of liquid gas — is easier to store than hydrogen and offers
better performance than kerosene. Starship, the next-generation rocket being
built by SpaceX for missions to the moon and Mars, will use similar
propellants.
Carissa Christensen, the founder and CEO of the space
analytics firm BryceTech, noted that, of the hundreds of space startups created
in recent years, only a handful have reached the launchpad. This alone sets
Relativity Space apart from many other private companies racing to launch
rockets. It shows “something of a proof point of the investment thesis”,
Christensen said this month.
A launch attempt, whether it is successful or not, is
something Christensen celebrates.
“It’s a step in a path of a complex engineered system,” she
said of the Terran 1 flight. “Succeed or fail, they’ll learn something from
it.”
Read more Trending
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
