TMAL02 Expert Conference 2019

Verticle Landing Rockets

Sucheth Krishna Kumar Bysani , Anoop Karpur, Nirnay Arun

Keywords: Vertical landing vehicle, retropropulsive landings, RCS(reaction control system), GPS, Grid
fins,Thrust vector control, Cold gas thrusters, Deployable landing gear, Terrene mapping.

ABSTRACT 2 Theory
The concept of Vertical landing Rockets was devel-
Every Heavy Launch Rocket will have multiple stages
oped to achieve re-usability of the rocket in order to
in its functioning. The VTVL concept concentrates
decrease cost and time of Rocket launching . Suc-
more on the first stage, where they want to retract the
cessful attempts of vertical landing rockets have been
first stage of the rocket rather than drowning it in the
attempted by SpaceX and Blue origin with the mo-
sea. This not only saves a lot of investment in manu-
tivation of reduction of manufacturing and research
facturing, it also builds a reusable system which re-
costs, these have led the path for the re-usability of
duces time and human effort. The vertical landing
rocket engines and autonomous recovery of rockets.
of a rocket weighing almost 500,000 kg from an alti-
This paper will discuss the challenges to meet the pre-
tude of roughly 70 km descending at a speed of nearly
cision landing of rockets on earth and other planets
8000 km/h on a landing path of just 50m wide requires
and also factors required to extend this technology to
the highest grade of engineering brilliance. A typical
implement it in future space tourism.
trajectory of the VTVL rocket is shown in the figure
1.The requirements to achieve a safe vertical landing
is discussed below:
1 History
1) Thrust vector control: The control of the descend-
The history of Vertical landing rockets dates back ing rockets are achieved by the Gimbled nozzles and
to 1961 where this concept was demonstrated by Grid fins. The Gimbled nozzles are gimbled in partic-
Bell Rocket belt i.e a rocket pack. An individual ular angles to orient the rockets to its landing path[3].
was equipped with a low power rocket propulsion Gimbled nozzles are used in thin atmospheres where
device that allowed him to safely travel over small other aerodynamics surfaces are ineffective. It helps
distances[1]. This gave birth to the concept of Ver- in decelerating the rocket during its re-entry or de-
tical Landing of Rockets. Apollo lunar module was a scent into the atmosphere.
1960’s two-staged Vertical take-off and vertical land- 2) Cold gas thrusters: The rockets are employed
ing (VTVL) vehicle for landing and take-off from the with nitrogen cold gas thrusters that are mounted to-
moon. In 1990’s Mc Donnell Douglas "Delta clip- wards the top of the first stage. They are critical in
per" demonstrated the Vertical Take-Off and Land- performing the flip maneuver which orients the rocket
ing capabilities of a scaled rocket[2] . In successive towards it’s landing path[4].
years Blue Origin developed on this concept to build 3) Re-ignitable engines: Since VTVL rockets have
a VTVL suborbital reusable launch vehicle named a complex re-entry trajectory, it is required that the
"New Shepard" which had its first ever successful test engine is ignited several times. Due to this compa-
flight on November 23rd,2015[3]. The greatest break- nies are using Re-Ignitable liquid propellant rocket
through was when SpaceX "Falcon 9" made it’s first engines. They are designed to re ignite in the up-
successful landing on their autonomous drone ship on per atmosphere at supersonic speeds as well as in
March 30th 2017[4]. Subsequently other space agen- the lower atmosphere at transonic speeds[4]. In case
cies around the world are developing their own con- of Falcon 9, Spacex uses Merlin engines which are
cepts of VTVL such as ISRO’s ’Admire’ rocket. The powered by burning Liquid Oxygen(LOX) and rocket-
challenges faced in achieving this is discussed in the grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. Whereas the New
next section. Shepard of Blue Origin employs BE-3 bi-propellant
rocket engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxy-
gen.

Proceedings of the 4th TMAL02 Expert Conference 2019 33

ExCon2019 Verticle Landing Rockets

4) Inertial navigation and global positioning sys- 3 Conclusion

tem: The rockets are equipped with INS which uses The technology required to successfully achieve retro-
several sensors to measure the position, orientation propulsive landings or vertical landing are, the thrust
and velocity of the vehicle, whereas the GPS is used vectoring (gimbaled nozzle), guidance which is capa-
to measure the geolocation. The on board comput- ble of calculating the position and altitude of the vehi-
ers takes inputs from these systems and if there is cle, engines that can re-ignite at different conditions,
any deviation in the flight path then it instructs the RCS (Reaction control system) to keep the vehicle at
rocket to adjust its position using the grid fins or the the correct angle, additionally grid fins are used for
thrusters[4].In case of landing on other planets the attitude control during landing.
Gps doesn’t come of any use, so the telemetry from The additional weight of fuel, larger tank, land-
earth stations should guide the rocket or the space ing legs, and their deployment mechanisms will usu-
craft to land on the desired area. However as the ally reduces the payload capacity. The main benefit
distance from earth to the destination increase there of the technology is seen in the potential for substan-
will be delays and accuracy of the landing will de- tial reductions in space flight costs as a result of be-
crease, there might be communication loss for a while ing able to reuse rockets after successful vertical land-
if the signals are out of reach or due to eclipse be- ings. In order to enhance the precise landing of rock-
tween the earth, extra-terrestrial object and the space- ets on other planets, terrene mapping can be imple-
craft. The possible solution would be to use visual mented. The GPS based navigation doesn’t work on
based navigation[3]. The orbiter can take images once other planets, hence a visual-based navigation system
in orbit and the same image can be fed to the lander is required which maps the terrene and compares it to
where it can compare the image it sees with the ref- the previously taken image to reach the landing site
erence image and develops a flight path to land, this [4].
also increase accuracy of landing.
5) Deployable landing gear: The rockets are REFERENCES
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Copyright

c The Authors 2019.

Fig. 1 SpaceX Falcon 9 launch profile [3]

Proceedings of the 4th TMAL02 Expert Conference 2019 34