Recent Development of Flight Demonstrators for Reusable Suborbital Technologies and It's Application

摘要

The recent market trend for space transportation has paved way for many organizations to design, develop and launch reusable launch vehicles. Falcon 9 of Space X, New Sheppard of Blue origin etc. are the products of this trend. This has motivated many academic organizations to start developing reusable launch vehicles. Winged rocket of Kyushu Institute of Technology is a unique example. Since 2005, Kyushu Institute of Technology has been designing and developing sub-scale rockets to validate the necessary technologies for suborbital winged rocket (launch vehicle) called WIRES (WInged Reusable sounding) rocket. One such version is WIRES#13 rocket developed together in collaboration with University of Southern California (USC). This vehicle is propelled by two LOX Kerosene engines developed by USC. The objective of this vehicle is to validate the technologies such as high power liquid propulsion system, recovery system, reaction control system and long range communication system required for a suborbital vehicle. This vehicle will be launched in September 2019 from Mojave, United States. WIRES 13 has a body length of 4.6 meters and launch mass is 1000 kg. The semi-monocoque structure is made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic and the double fault tolerant avionics uses the ARINC 429 protocol for bus communication. The recovery system consists of two stage parachute and 3 airbags. The engines are made of inconel and are operated by Pressure fed regenerative cooling system. Helium gas is utilized as pressurant for propulsion system. After the powered fight, the remaining helium is used to validate the reaction control system. In parallel to WIRES 13 development, WIRES#15 is also under development in collaboration with JAXA and other organizations in Japan. WIRES#15 will be launched in December 2020 in Mojave, United States. WIRES#15 has the similar structure of WIRES 13 but it is equipped with a wing to validate the guidance and control technology after the reentry phas