| ▲ | India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on dramatic debut launch(arstechnica.com) |
| 149 points by sohkamyung 5 days ago | 32 comments |
| |
|
| ▲ | itissid 12 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| There is just so much that can go wrong with rocket launches if you do cursory reading about these things. A few random examples: The lowest stage cant just be "turned down" or modulated because they work by burning an inner solid rubber lining that's like an annular cylinder. The first three stages are roughly doing the job sequence:
`lift off the ground -> reach target altitude -> reach target orbital velocity` and each stage is modulated for atmospheric pressure, gravity. Another limit is you can't really design it for a human in the middle(like a jet plane), so the rocket's computer needs to do everything, and when the rocket's pitch or yaw or roll(in a manner of speaking) go off beyond a nominal range its game over. ISRO has a very good track record of launching rockets with solid state engines. I do wonder if almost all of their expertise was used for the first three stages(and they are not 3d printed)? And how much more difficult it is to make the last stage as compared to the first three, which as I understand, was the stage designed and tested by skyroot itself(manufactured by Wipro 3D). |
|
| ▲ | zbentley an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| And with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive. |
| |
| ▲ | helsinkiandrew 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > And with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive. Interestingly that's $5 million less than the the movie Interstellar cost to make. | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 21 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wonder what their cost-per-launch will end up being? Can they compete with reusable American rockets for $/kg by just building disposable but very cheap rockets? After all, plenty of other disposable things have outcompeted non disposable versions... Diapers... Pens... Lighters... Vapes... | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you do all the work in India, you have low materials costs and low labour costs. | | |
| ▲ | zbentley 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Somewhat, but rocket engineering has some upward cost pressures that offset the savings from being in India: expertise is expensive even adjusting for the cost of labor (since that expertise is likely competing on salary with the rest of the world--rocket engineers/scientists are a hot commodity with lots of likely sponsors for immigration); aerospace materials/fabrication have a pretty global supply and patent chain even given how big and diverse India's industrial base is; safety and engineering tolerances are incentivized to meet global standards (given that many prospective launch/payload customers are international), and so on. I'm no expert, but I suspect that even if you apply a generous discount for being in India, Skyroot's economics are still very impressive. | |
| ▲ | bell-cot 14 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | True, but: Consider how many rocket development efforts squandered 10X to 100X the money, and >8 years, without making it to orbit. Using solid fuel for their first 3 stages also makes it far easier. I'd take that as evidence of their management wisely picking a good shape for the org's learning curve. Vs. chasing the long-odds bragging rights & likely heartbreaks of a liquid-fuels-only version 1.0. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | sidcool an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Only the third country to achieve this. Kudos. There's another startup trying reusable rockets. |
|
| ▲ | jdiez17 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Extremely strong performance from India’s Skyroot with their Vikram-1 rocket. I can say that many in the space industry are looking for new launch capacity to LEO. |
| |
| ▲ | hulitu 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Extremely strong performance Strong ? They shall learn from SpaceX how one explodes rockets on the launch pad. /s |
|
|
| ▲ | ghm2199 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A small but bright light in an economy where manufacturing jobs are hard to come by (https://archive.ph/Haj8n). |
|
| ▲ | ambicapter an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 4 stages feels like a lot of added complexity for your first launch. I assume it gives you more performance margin to drop weight/stages more often? |
| |
| ▲ | MobiusHorizons 43 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | 4 stages is certainly a lot more than most rockets, but most rockets don’t use solid rocket stages. Solid rocket motors are generally much more reliable/ simpler than liquid fueled stages, but they can’t be throttled or turned off early which makes it hard to achieve precise orbits. My guess is the extra stages allow for better control by carefully choosing when to light the next stage. The scout family of rockets are also 4 stage solid rockets and probably a good comparison. | | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 33 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Don't you need at least a little thrust ~40 mins later to circularize the orbit? Obviously solid rockets can't be relit. Could that be the use of the 4th stage? | | |
| ▲ | MobiusHorizons 23 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Good point! The final stage being liquid would also give them more control to fix any errors with the orbit. |
|
| |
| ▲ | walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's three solid rocket boosters stacked on top of each other and a very tiny liquid fueled engine on the 4th stage. I would be interested in what the delta/v stats/capability of the 4th stage booster are with 350 kg payload. | |
| ▲ | wat10000 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | A partially empty stage wastes mass on propellant tanks sized for the full load. The mathematical ideal would be an infinite number of infinitesimally small stages. | | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Except you pay the weight for the nozzles on each stage. That makes there be a mathematically optimal number. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | vjsrinivas an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| India's space work often went under the radar. Im glad they're getting the success and attention they deserve. |
|
| ▲ | bovermyer 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That's pretty cool. The phrase "3D-printed engine" stuck out to me as neat, too. |
| |
|
| ▲ | ColdStream 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Fantastic news! Always good to see others manage achieve great things. |
|
| ▲ | walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The first, second and third stages all being solid rockets also means India now has a global-range ICBM, with only a little bit of modification needed to make it storable in a silo. Privately developed, but I would be astonished if the Indian military isn't well aware of this new capability. |
| |
| ▲ | nirav72 35 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | India has had the ability to reach LEO and beyond for a while now. So bringing down a nuke anywhere on the planet wouldn't be that difficult for them. That goes for any country that has LEO launch capabilities. Of course miniaturization of the nuclear payload is another matter. | | | |
| ▲ | ghm2199 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | The mil have had solid propulsion for a while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni-VI | | |
| ▲ | walrus01 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Right, but see the details for estimated range and the map. Not that India has any foreseeable need to nuke Argentina but it's not in range. It's entirely possible the public data is wrong and the Agni VI has a global range. But by definition if you can put something into a 350x350 km low earth orbit (something like 7800m/s total delta V) you could also deliver a re-entering payload from your launch site to any other spot on earth, within the limitations of the inclination you're launching to. | | |
| ▲ | rrrazdan 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Multiple sources think that the real range is an ICBM level. And the Indian government purposely limits it's range. No strategic reason to communicate a larger range than needed and why have an headline that reads, "India develops capability to nuke Europe or US"? | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | I was under the impression long range missiles aren't much use in global warfare anymore, because they are easy targets for missile defence systems. Even if your target doesn't have missile defence systems, any ally of theirs along the route can intercept too. |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | andsoitis 28 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Congratulations! |
|
| ▲ | nubg an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Superpower by 2026 it seems |
| |
