Another recover fail
- Thread starter Flying Pilot
- Start date
Altaïr
Space Stig, Master of gravity
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I think your main issue is about aerodynamic stability, if the stage you're trying to land is constantly flipping back it will be a pain indeed. But you can have your stage orient itself correctly by making sure the center of drag is located higher than the center of mass. In other terms, ideally, the bottom of your rocket should be heavier, and the top should be more resistive.
A very simple way to do that is to fit a pair of solar panels on the upper part of your stage, and open them during the descent so that they generate drag. That's basically what Space X does with grid fins. They are located on the top of the booster for the same reason.
You can also work on your rocket's shape for that. Here is an example I made:
The bulge I made has a smooth profile and shields the landing legs from the air flow during the lift-off phasis.
There's a small fuel reserve on the top, it's intentionally not connected to the engine to make sure I have a reserve to land back on Earth. Then, after separation, I just transfer the fuel from the reserve to the main tank:
When the transfer is done, the rocket naturally flips back by itself. It's because I transfered some mass downwards, so I lowered the center of mass.
Now the bulge acts as a resistive part on the top of the stage, and I can easily control the end of the descent:
In this case, just make sure you deploy the landing legs once you've slowed down enough, cause once deployed they generate a lot of drag, and this would make the rocket flip back again.
The design in itself is ugly, but the passive control it offers is very efficient in practice. In real life, Blue Origin uses a similar trick to land the New Shepard:
See how the top of the rocket is enlarged compared to the rest? That's the reason for that design.
Some other people may give you more tricks, I'm not keen on recoverability myself, but some members here are a lot used to it.
Good luck pilot
I think your main issue is about aerodynamic stability, if the stage you're trying to land is constantly flipping back it will be a pain indeed. But you can have your stage orient itself correctly by making sure the center of drag is located higher than the center of mass. In other terms, ideally, the bottom of your rocket should be heavier, and the top should be more resistive.
A very simple way to do that is to fit a pair of solar panels on the upper part of your stage, and open them during the descent so that they generate drag. That's basically what Space X does with grid fins. They are located on the top of the booster for the same reason.
You can also work on your rocket's shape for that. Here is an example I made:
The bulge I made has a smooth profile and shields the landing legs from the air flow during the lift-off phasis.
There's a small fuel reserve on the top, it's intentionally not connected to the engine to make sure I have a reserve to land back on Earth. Then, after separation, I just transfer the fuel from the reserve to the main tank:
When the transfer is done, the rocket naturally flips back by itself. It's because I transfered some mass downwards, so I lowered the center of mass.
Now the bulge acts as a resistive part on the top of the stage, and I can easily control the end of the descent:
In this case, just make sure you deploy the landing legs once you've slowed down enough, cause once deployed they generate a lot of drag, and this would make the rocket flip back again.
The design in itself is ugly, but the passive control it offers is very efficient in practice. In real life, Blue Origin uses a similar trick to land the New Shepard:
See how the top of the rocket is enlarged compared to the rest? That's the reason for that design.
Some other people may give you more tricks, I'm not keen on recoverability myself, but some members here are a lot used to it.
Good luck pilot