Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management ISSN: 1948-9648 [email protected] Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço Brasil Garcia, Alexandre; Cunha Yamanaka, Sidney Servulo; Nogueira Barbosa, Alexandre; Parquet Bizarria, Francisco Carlos; Jung, Wolfgang; Scheuerpflug, Frank VSB-30 sounding rocket: history of flight performance Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management, vol. 3, núm. 3, septiembre-diciembre, 2011, pp. 325-330 Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço São Paulo, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=309426261010 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative doi: 10.5028/jatm.2011. 03032211 Alexandre Garcia* Institute of Aeronautics and Space VSB-30 sounding rocket: history São José dos Campos/SP – Brazil [email protected] of flight performance Sidney Servulo Cunha Yamanaka Abstract: The VSB-30 vehicle is a two-stage, unguided, rail launched Institute of Aeronautics and Space sounding rocket, consisting of two solid propellant motors, payload, São José dos Campos/SP – Brazil with recovery and service system. By the end of 2010, ten vehicles had [email protected] already been launched, three from Brazil (Alcântara) and seven from Sweden (Esrange). The objective of this paper is to give an overview of the Alexandre Nogueira Barbosa main characteristics of the first ten flights of the VSB-30, with emphasis Institute of Aeronautics and Space São José dos Campos/SP – Brazil on performance and trajectory data. The circular 3σ dispersion area for [email protected] payload impact point has around 50 km of radius. In most launchings of such vehicle, the impact of the payload fell within 2 sigma. This provides Francisco Carlos Parquet Bizarria the possibility for further studies to decrease the area of ​​​​dispersion from Institute of Aeronautics and Space the impact point. São José dos Campos/SP – Brazil Keywords: VSB-30, Sounding rocket, Trajectory, Performance. [email protected] Wolfgang Jung German Aerospace Center Oberpfaffenhofen – Germany [email protected] Frank Scheuerpflug German Aerospace Center Oberpfaffenhofen – Germany [email protected] * author for correspondence INTRODUCTION used British Skylark seven rockets, which provided about six minutes of microgravity. Only recently, in 2005, the Skylark The VSB-30 vehicle is a two-stage, unguided, rail ceased to be commercially available, so that from Texus launched sounding rocket, consisting of a solid propellant 42 onwards (November 2005) the Skylark Seven has been S31 rocket booster, a boost adapter, the second stage S30, replaced by the Brazilian VSB-30 rocket, (Seibert, 2006). payload, a recovery and a service systems. Motor and payload are connected by an adapter section and they are In 1996, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) proposed separated by pneumatic pistons. The vehicle is designed to Comando Geral de Tecnologia Aeroespacial (DCTA) to fly in a spin stabilized unguided mode. The spin the adaptation of its Mini-TEXUS payload to the first stage stabilization is achieved by using canted fins. To reduce of SONDA III, which had its first flight in 1976. This new impact dispersion, the vehicle is equipped with three spin- single stage vehicle was known as VS-30. In 2001, the Unified up motors, installed in the booster adapter. The fins are Microgravity Program for Sounding Rockets proposed to arranged in the standard three-fin configuration and they DCTA the development of a boosted version of the VS-30. are nominally set to 18’ (S31) and 21’ (S30), respectively, The challenge was accepted, and the development of the S31 causing the vehicle to spin from lift-off through burnout. booster motor started. The qualification of the motor consisted The roll rate at burnout is approximately 3.3 Hz. Total of three static firings. The maiden flight was from the Alcântara action time for the S31 is 16.0 seconds and 32.0 seconds Launcher Center (CLA) in 2004, (Palmério et al., 2003). for the S30. Both motors have a 22-inch diameter (557 mm) (Jung and Gomes, 2006). The first operational flight from Esrange was in 2005. TEXUS is the European/German sounding rocket programme, which In 1976, Germany’s national Texus sounding-rocket serves the microgravity programmes of the German Aerospace programme was started and it continues to the present day. Center (DLR) and of the European Space Agency (ESA). The Texus (Technologische Experimente unter Schwerelosigkeit) launches are conducted from Esrange, in Sweden. Received: 30/05/11 Figure 1 shows a sequence of pictures from the time of the Accepted: 23/09/11 launch of VSB-30 V07 in 2010 from the CLA. J. Aerosp.Technol. Manag., São José dos Campos, Vol.3, No.3, pp. 325-330, Sep. - Dec., 2011 325 Garcia, A. et al. Figure 1. VSB-30 being launched from Alcantara Launcher Center. OBJECTIVES FLIGHT EVENTS The objective of this paper is to give an overview of the The VSB-30 flight events sequence is presented in Table 1 main characteristics of the first ten flights of the VSB-30, and Fig. 3 (Garcia, 2010). with emphasis on performance and trajectory data. After briefly delving into the history of the VSB-30 sounding Table 1. Main events of flight. rocket in the Introduction, the idea is to give a brief Time Altitude Range overview of the architecture, the sequence off light events Events (s) (km) (km) in a typical mission, the list of flown missions, and, finally, the trajectory and flight information for each mission. The First stage ignition 0.00 0.051 0.00 final sections of this article deal with the uncertainty in the Lift-off 0.45 0.056 0.00 impact point of the vehicle and the factors affecting it. Burn-out of 1st stage / separation 13.5 3.617 0.450 Ignition of 2nd stage 15.0 4.323 0.552 Apogee of 1st stage 31.0 6.511 0.970 ARCHITECTURE Burn-out of 2nd stage 44.0 43.1 7.32 The basic architecture of VSB-30 is presented in Fig. 2 Nose cone ejection 55.0 64.3 11.3 (Jung, 2006). Yo-Yo release 56.0 66.1 11.6 Second stage /payload separation 59.0 71.7 12.7 Impact of 1st stage 106.0 0.00 1.1 Payload Recovery system including GPS Payload apogee 259.0 252.7 81.1 service module, TV links, experiments, etc. Flight time above 100 km 368 s Drogue chute deployment 492.6 6.1 154.7 Payload impact (without parachute) 497.0 0.00 155.6 LIST OF CAMPAIGNS Table 2 provides the selected information about the first Second stage Payload adapter, separation ring, 10 VSB-30 campaigns. conical modules, S30 solid-propellant motor, second stage fin assembly, consisting of tail can and three fins. IMPACT POINT DISPLACEMENT The impact point showed in Fig. 4 for each flight of the First stage VSB-30 is a statistical displacement of the actual impact Boost adapter, S31 point from the predicted one. It is used to calculate the solid-propellant motor, first stage probability of impact within a given distance from fin assembly, and tail can be equipped with three fins, spin-up the nominal impact point. The distance is referenced motors, etc. to a sigma value. For VSB-30 the radius of 3 sigma is around 50 km. The following procedure was used to determine the actual impact displacement or miss- Figure 2. Basic architecture from VSB-30. distance for each flight (Bristol Aerospace, 1968). 326 J. Aerosp.Technol. Manag., São José dos Campos, Vol.3, No.3, pp. 325-330, Sep. - Dec., 2011 VSB-30 sounding rocket: history of flight performance Figure 3. VSB-30 flight events. Table 2. List of VSB-30 campaign. Flight number Country/ Flight number Country/ Launch Launch Logo mark / payload name Launch Logo mark / payload name Launch day day and mass center and mass center VSB-30 V05 February Sweden, Texus 44 VSB-30 V01 07, 2008 Esrange October Brazil, 372.0 (kg) Cajuana 23, 2004 Alcântara VSB-30 V06 (392.0 kg) February Sweden, Texus 45 21, 2008 Esrange (367.0 kg) VSB-30 V02 VSB-30 V07 December Sweden, December Brazil, Texus 42 Maracati II 01, 2005 Esrange 12, 2010 Alcântara (372.2 kg) (391.25 kg) VSB-30 V03 VSB-30 V08 May Sweden, May Sweden, Texus 43 Maser 11 11, 2006 Esrange 15, 2008 Esrange (407.4 kg) (383.0 kg) VSB-30 V09 November Sweden, Texus 46 VSB-30 V04 22, 2009 Esrange July Brazil, (393.7 kg) Cumã II 19, 2007 Alcântara VSB-30 V010 (350.9 kg) November Sweden, Texus 47 29, 2009 Esrange (362.1 kg) J. Aerosp.Technol. Manag., São José dos Campos, Vol.3, No.3, pp. 325-330, Sep. - Dec., 2011 327 Garcia, A. et al. 50 40 30 ) Legend 20 m k ( n VSB-30 V01 - Cajuana o i 10 s VSB-30 V02 - Texus 42 r e p VSB-30 V03 - Texus 43 s i 0 D VSB-30 V04 - Cumã II e g n VSB-30 V05 - Texus 44 -10 a R VSB-30 V06 - Texus 45 n w VSB-30 V07 - Maracati II -20 o D VSB-30 V08 - Maser 11 -30 VSB-30 V09 - Texus 46 VSB-30 V10 - Texus 47 -40 -50 -50 -40 -30 -20 -10 0 10 20 30 40 50 Cross Range Dispersion (km) Figure 4. VSB-30 actual dispersion operational flights. FLIGHT PERFORMANCE Step 1 Impact displacement in- InR " I p I a cos( p a ) range (∆InR) Figure 5 gives the actual vehicle altitude versus the Step 2 Impact displacement in Cr " I a sen( p a ) range for each of the first ten VSB-30 campaigns.