Surface Corridor Requirements for Space Launches over the Black Sea

摘要

Romanian space project NERVA develops the small rocket launcher for injecting nanosatellites into a very LEO. The launching area security first requires establishing a safe launch corridor on the ground. The first candidate for the experiments with the orbital rocket prototype is the western coast of the Black Sea in Romania. Optimal flight considerations immediately show that the best launch azimuth is on west-east direction, which defines a launching corridor along the Black Sea with the similar orientation. Do to the dense population of the sea shore area and to the rather agglomerated condition on the Black Sea, serious concerns arise regarding the safety measures to be solved, before any space activity above the Black Sea should begin. The main challenge is the safe prediction of the impact point of the space launcher in every moment of the atmospheric ascent, in case of unavoidable failure of the propulsion system. This task is assumed and presented as developed within a recent research activity of the NERVA team.