RECENT PROGRESS INREUSABLE ROCKET VEHICLE TESTING CAMPAIGN

摘要

A fully reusable rocket vehicle is proposed to demonstrategood operability characteristics both on theground and in flight. The proposed vehicle is to be usedas a sounding rocket and has the capabilities of ballisticflight, returning to the launch site, and landing verticallymaking use of clustered liquid hydrogen rocketengines. Before initiating the development of this typeof reusable rocket, a small test vehicle with a liquid hydrogenrocket engine was built and flight-tested. A demonstrationof vertical landing and exercise of turnaroundoperation for repeated flights are the major objectivesof the test vehicle. Three series of flight tests were performedin 1999, 2001 and 2003, and the flight test operationprovided repeated flight environment and manylessons were learned valuable for designing the fullyreusable rocket vehicle.