Harman Patil (Editor)

Reusable Vehicle Testing

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Manufacturer
  
ISAS/JAXA

Country of origin
  
Japan

Function
  
Technology demonstrator for liquid propulsion based VTOL rocket flight

The Reusable Vehicle Testing (RVT) project was conducted by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) from 1998 until 2003. The project involved a series of experimental vehicles to test repeated flights of a reusable rocket. Four complete vehicles were developed during the project. The design of the experimental vehicles addressed various technical challenges for future Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) such as flight on demand, quick turnaround, higher performance, lightweight structures and materials.

Contents

The project involved ground and flights tests with the flight testing conducted at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) Noshiro Rocket Testing Center in the northern part of Japan's main island.

Naming Conventions

The four vehicles developed during the project were assigned the designations RVT #1 to RVT #4.

Each of the ground and flight test experiments was assigned a name from RVT-1 to RVT-11.

RVT # 1

The first aircraft was developed with the following features:

  • Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants stored in spherical metal tanks
  • Engines in a group, have been simplified as a gas is pressurized. The thrust of the functions needed for vertical takeoff and landing, the thrust is not biased.
  • Attitude control by high-pressure nitrogen gas.
  • Complete airframe consisting of engine frame at the base, internal fuel and oxidizer tanks (oxidizer above the fuel), nitrogen gas tanks and attitude control system mounted at the top of the airframe. The frame around the bottom of the tanks is attached to helium pressurant. The aeroshell (a moulded cover to reduce air resistance) was not installed.

    • RVT # 2

    This vehicle was used for experiments intended to test improvements that increased the flight range.

  • Design engine durability
  • Navigation by GPS
  • Aeroshell

    • RVT # 3

    This test vehicle was developed to accumulate the necessary technology needed to reach an altitude of 100 km.

  • Composite tank for liquid hydrogen
  • High-performance engine and injector
  • Refinement of the operational factors for re-usability
  • Expanded range of flight

    • RVT # 4

    This vehicle was built as a practical reusable rocket, demonstrating a number technologies.

  • Engine pressurization was by a gas turbo pump including capability to change the formula
  • Liquid oxygen tank made from composite materials
  • SURASUTA oxygen gas by using hydrogen gas attitude control, propellant engine integration

    • Future Developments

    JAXA proposes to develop a reusable high altitude rocket based on the technologies demonstrated in the RVT project. [2] The rocket would take a payload of about 100 kg to an altitude of 100 km. RVT-derived equipment such as engines and attitude control will be used. The development and flight testing is expected to take 5 years and the cost is estimated at 50 billion yen. The rocket, capable of five flights in a day. The cost per flight, based on 2500 flights, is expected to be 10,000 yen, reducing the per flight cost compared to current day expendable rocket systems, which cost between 2 and 6 billion yen. The experimental payloads will be recovered after the flight, which will also minimize costs for the payload developer. Moreover, it will be possible to stop and hover the vehicle at any altitude, which is impossible with conventional sounding rockets.

    References

    Reusable Vehicle Testing Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA