Copenhagen Suborbitals

Astronauts

As of 2015, 3 members are candidates for becoming the first astronaut to fly on the Spica rocket:

Since the first manned flight is several years away, this could very well change before training and selection start.

Crowd funding

Funding comes from people all over the world donating to the project, many of them on a monthly basis as members of Copenhagen Suborbitals Support. This is augmented by fees from speeches and lectures done by group members. Also, in 2015 Copenhagen Suborbitals are teaching students from the National Technical University of Singapore in basic rocket design, for which the group also receives a fee. All money goes directly to the group's project, with all members working completely for free.

Sea launch

A unique aspect of the project is that all rockets are launched at sea. This concept was introduced in 2009 by Peter Madsen. As a non-governmental, non-commercial organisation, flying rockets from land is virtually impossible anywhere in the world. Therefore, the group conducts all flights from a mobile launch platform, MLP Sputnik, in international waters on the Baltic Sea, east of the Danish island Bornholm. The port of Nexø becomes the Copenhagen Suborbitals fleet's homeport during the summer launch missions, affectionately dubbed Spaceport Nexø. The group operates 3 ships:

During missions, the 3 vessels are augmented by multiple ships (including a patrol vessel from the Danish Navy), boats and aircraft. When not deployed, Vostok and Sputnik are based at Copenhagen Suborbitals HQ in the port of Copenhagen.

Background

Copenhagen Suborbitals was founded in 2008 by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, as a non-profit, crowd funded project where important aspects of the operation were described in detail on blogs and lectures They defined the project as "open source". In 2014, this claim was dropped, since the group in reality doesn't adhere to the software industry concept.

On 23 February 2014 the board of Copenhagen Suborbitals announced that Kristian von Bengtson has left the group, after falling out with Madsen. In July 2014 Madsen also left the group to pursue other interests.

Among the organisation's specialists are:

• Mads Stenfatt, parachute lead & photo • Bo Brændstrup, electronics • Peter Scott, electronics • Flemming Nyboe, software • Steen Andersen, software • Thomas Pedersen, space strategy lead & photo • Jonas Bjarnø, technology lead • Mads Wilson, communication lead • Peter Mærsk-Møller, live stream lead • Thomas Madsen, metal works • Peter Meincke, metal works • Flemming Rasmussen, metal works • Jesper Rosendal, mechanical engineer • Jacob Skov Larsen, engine production • Claus Nørregaard, pyrotechnics • Niels Johansen, pyrotechnics & captain of command ship M/S Vostok • Christian Ravn, physicist • Niels Foldager, space medicine & capsule • Rune Henssel, recovery diver & gas handling • Per Siebeneicher, recovery diver • Kristian Elof Sørensen, maritime lead & captain of MLP Sputnik • André Christensen, recovery lead • Jev Olsen, photo • Carsten Olsen, capsule lead and photo • Kristian von Bengtson, capsule • Claus Mejling, video production • Carsten Brandt, concept art • Jonas Linell, communication and design

Suborbital space flight profile

From the launch site on the Baltic Sea, the Spica rocket will carry the Spica capsule and the astronaut into space above 100 km. The capsule will separate and fall back to earth, where it will be decelerated by a ballute and parachutes, and land back in the Baltic Sea.

Facilities

CS started on a barge called M/S Half Machine in Port of Copenhagen. On 1 August 2009 they relocated to its base and office on Refshaleøen, the old Burmeister & Wain shipyard, in Copenhagen. Their workshop is dubbed HAB 2 ("Horizontal Assembly Building" as a reference to NASA's VAB).

Spica

In 2014, Copenhagen Suborbitals settled on the basic design for their first manned rocket and space capsule. The rocket will be named Spica, and will stand 12–14 m tall with a diameter of 950 mm. It will be powered by the BPM-100 engine class, using liquid oxygen as oxidizer and ethanol as fuel, producing 100 kiloNewtons of thrust. It's likely to feature pressure blow down tanks, optimised by a dynamic pressure regulation (DPR) system, but turbo pumps are also a possibility, albeit they are very difficult to build. Flight control will be either jet vanes or thrust vectoring via a gimbal engine. The rocket will be fully guided by homebuilt electronics and software. Most of the systems and technology will initially be tested on the smaller Nexø class rockets in 2016. The space capsule will be of a tubular design as its predecessor Tycho Brahe, but its greater diameter will allow the astronaut to assume a sitting position during launch and re-entry, in order to withstand the G-forces.

BPM-2 and BPM-5

In 2014/2015 the group designed, built and tested a series of smaller engines with a nominal thrust of 2 and 5 kN. The BPM-5 class will fly on the Nexø I and II rockets in 2016, paving the way for the much bigger Spica rocket and engine. The purpose was to validate the performance and operation of the group's new engine design direction. The tests were highly successful, with results exceeding expectations. Different fuel additives (such as TEOS) as well as different jet vane material were also tested. The BPM engines are bi-liquid rocket engines using LOX and ethanol cooled by the ethanol fuel. The spring/summer 2015 test firings used passive pressure blow-down, but winter 2015/2016 will see the testfirings continue with a dynamic pressure (DPR) regulation system, which then will fly on the Nexø II rocket in summer 2017.

Engines and propellant 2008 - 2014

From 2008 to 2012, the group based the work on a hybrid rocket, using liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer. Originally, the HEAT-1X rocket was to be fuelled by paraffin wax, but a ground test 28 February 2010 revealed that some of the paraffin wax had only partially melted, instead of evaporating. The result was that HEAT-1X had less power than expected. A ground test firing of HEAT-1X-P (P for polyurethane) was conducted 16 May 2010. It was positive, the polyurethane had the right power but showed heavy oscillation. Until 2011 the group had performed more than 30 tests of various engine types at their rocket engine test facility at Refshaleøen. In fall of 2012 a concept engine using white fuming nitric acid and furfuryl alcohol was tried using a static test setup. In 2012 it was decided to switch to bi-propellant, liquid fuelled engines running on liquid oxygen and ethanol.

HATV

The HATV (Hybrid Atmospheric Test Vehicle) was a 220 mm diameter hybrid booster, used for testing purposes, it is 1/3 the size of the HEAT rocket. It produces approximately 12 kN thrust within a combustion time of 20 seconds.

HEAT-1X

HEAT 1X (Hybrid Exo Atmospheric Transporter) was the rocket booster module, intended to launch the Space capsule Tycho Brahe into space, the combination being known as HEAT-1X TYCHO BRAHE. The rocket design was the result of numerous static booster tests of the solid fuel epoxy and the liquid oxidizer nitrous oxide. A combination which was also used in the scale-down test rocket HATV (Hybrid Atmospheric Test Vehicle) which was only 1/3 size of the HEAT. Stabilization of the rocket was by rollerons, a mechanism also used to stabilize missiles. The rocket was successfully launched 3 June 2011 but the test was aborted at an altitude of 2.8 km.

TM-65 and TM-65 IIA and TM-65 IIB

TM-65 and TM6-5 IIA/B were liquid propellant engines using 75% Ethanol and liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer. These engines produced about 65 kN thrust. First static tests were conducted in May 2012. One TM65 II engine was for HEAT-2X and one was for HEAT-1600 LE. The TM-65 engine passed the test undamaged, and was fired at up to 50% of its rated thrust. The group planned to repeat the test with higher thrust levels, until the TM-65 class in 2014 was abandoned in favour of the BPM-100 engine concept.

HEAT-2X

The HEAT-2X was a rocket built for flight testing the TM-65 engine. It was planned to carry an 1:3 scale, 80 kg space capsule mock-up, TDS-80, into the statosphere.

The rocket was not flown as it suffered an engine fire during a static test in the summer of 2014. The rocket nozzle imploded and a welding seam opened resulting in the expulsion of all the ethanol fuel (some 500 L) in just 3 seconds resulting in a large fire which damaged the part of the rocket. The engine failure and subsequent fire was filmed up close with a high speed camera, which although burned on the outside, survived the inferno enough for the film to be recovered.

HEAT-1600 LE and HEAT-1600

The HEAT-1600 LE and HEAT-1600 (after the 1600 mm diameter of the rockets), were the biggest rocket concept by the group, and was in pre-production in 2013. However, the 1600 mm diameter rocket and capsule concept was abandoned in 2014, in favour of the 950 mm diamenter Spica rocket and capsule. HEAT-1600 LE was to be a full size version of the HEAT-1600 with only one TM-65 engine. The HEAT-1600 was planned to fly with a single 260 kN engine or a cluster of 4 x TM-65 engines fed by turbo pumps on a single stage.

Tycho Brahe

The micro space craft (MSC), named Tycho Brahe after the Danish astronomer, has a steel pressure hull, with room for one passenger. The passenger would be able to view the outside through a Perspex dome. The occupant would fly in a half-standing/half-sitting position, in a specially designed seat, and wearing anti-G trousers to avoid blackout. Another compartment contains both the high-speed drogue parachute and the low-speed main parachutes for deceleration. The sheer volume of the MSC will provide the buoyancy in the water upon touchdown.

The first MSC was christened "Tycho Brahe 1" and its first flight was unmanned using a crash test dummy. A new aluminium MSC called MAX-1 named after Maxime Faget is under development. According to the group development on this capsule has been abandoned due to the physiological problems associated with large acceleration of a human in standing position. The craft is now on display in the Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen.

Tycho Deep Space

Tycho Deep Space is a space capsule developed by von Bengtson. The first version officially named "Beautiful Betty" by Mikael Bertelsen, the capsule's protector. The unmanned capsule was launched on 12 August 2012 at sea by a test Launch Escape System, off the coast of Bornholm. The launch did not provide enough height for the parachute to deploy and the capsule was partly damaged on impact with the sea. The capsule is 2 meter in diameter, allowing for an astronaut to be in a horizontal position relative to the acceleration during launch and landing.

Missions

The group originally focused on launching from a land based spaceport like Andøya, Kiruna or Iceland The focus however turned towards a sea launch, just outside the territorial waters of Denmark. A permission to launch was given by Danish authorities, but the first option, the North Sea, a possibility suggested by Danish Civil Aviation Administration (Statens Luftfartsvæsen), was rejected in 2009 by the Danish Maritime Authority (Søfartsstyrelsen). They preferred another area and then gave a formal and written permission to launch from the military firing range ESD138/ESD139, which is located on the position 55°02′57″N 15°36′11″E in the Baltic Sea. It is just outside Nexø on the Danish island of Bornholm and is therefore nicknamed Spaceport Nexø. The CS then had to build a floating mobile launcher platform (MLP), called Sputnik after the Russian spacecraft which was the first artificial satellite to be put into orbit. Their launch campaigns includes the following ships:

2010: The first launch attempt

The first full-scale test-launch aimed at 30 km altitude was planned to be conducted off the coast of Bornholm between 30 August and 13 September 2010. The vehicle carried a crash test dummy "Rescue Randy" instead of a human pilot, with manned flight not planned for some years. The success criteria were the completion of the sea voyage and countdown with launch and recovery planned as a bonus.

On Tuesday 31 August 2010, the privately built Danish submarine UC3 Nautilus pushed the launch platform Sputnik carrying the rocket and spacecraft from Copenhagen towards the launch area near Nexø, Bornholm.

A launch attempt was made on Sunday 5 September 2010 14:43 CEST, but the motor could not be started due to a failure of the LOX valve which is assumed to be caused by insufficient heating of the valve. The design famously included a consumer hair dryer for defrosting the LOX-valve; in effect it was not the blow-dryer but its power supply that failed.

The group promised to come back the year after to attempt the launch again.

2011: First flight of HEAT 1X Tycho Brahe

Having done updates on the rocket, and the valve, and with MLP-Sputnik under her own power, and a support vessel. The group sailed again for Spaceport Nexø on May 28 at 4:50 a.m. They again met up with MHV Hjortø, a Naval Home Guard vessel that serves as Mission Control and recovery vessel. The second launch attempt was more successful and the maiden flight took place 3 June 2011, at 16:32 local time (CEST) (14:32 GMT). The Heat-1X rocket lifted off and ascended to an altitude of only 2.8 km, because Mission Control had to shut the engine off after 21 seconds. Although there were problems with the parachutes, the HEAT 1X Tycho Brahe was recovered and the flight produced useful data for subsequent development of the program.

SMARAGD Flight

The SMARAGD rocket ((Danish): Emerald) is a 5.7 meter two-stage rocket weighing 160 kg, intended to reach an altitude of 8 km, that was used for testing various technological aspects of the operation. On July 27, 2012 the team set out from Nexø towards the launch site, intending to launch the SMARAGD rocket. After some initial problems with the remote launch control the rocket launched successfully just after 1 pm and reached the maximum altitude of 8.2 km. It was evident shortly after take off that the nosecone, containing electronics, broke off during launch, possibly due to the large acceleration of estimated 20 g.

Tycho Deep Space / LES flight

On August 12, 2012 at 9:18 a.m. the space capsule Tycho Deep Space, was launched to test a launch escape system. However the parachute did not deploy properly and the capsule was damaged on impact. Several media had misunderstood the schedule and proclaimed the launch to have been started prematurely due to an error. The test was considered partly successful by the team, due to the successful rocket launch and the unsuccessful parachute deployment. The launch could be followed live via live streaming from several video cameras, additionally high speed cameras were mounted on the MLP.

SAPPHIRE-1 Mission

SAPPHIRE-1, a modification of the HATV, was a 4.5 m rocket whose main purpose was to test the active guidance system developed by Copenhagen Suborbitals. It was successfully launched on June 23, 2013.

Goals and records achieved

Some of the things Copenhagen Suborbitals have achieved so far are:

All of the above was archived before the end of 2013. Since then no launches have taken place.

On 3 October 2013, Copenhagen Suborbitals was awarded the "Breitling Milestone Trophy" award by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur.

Support group

On October 5, 2010 an independent group of space enthusiasts founded the Copenhagen Suborbitals Support group (CSS). The main purpose of this group is to "support CS economically, morally and practically in their mission". Within two days after its founding, CSS reached 100 members. November 15, 2011 marked a major milestone for CSS as 500 members was reached. As of early 2014, around 1000 members was recorded. However, this number has dropped substantially since, despite repeated pleas for more money published on Facebook and on the group's blog.

By paying a fixed monthly amount, the members of Copenhagen Suborbitals Support now covers most of the fixed costs for the project in addition to donating various forms of hardware. By 2015, CS was supported with GB£12,500 per month.