Oleg Zabluda's blog
Monday, November 07, 2016
 
Rocket Lab Unveils Battery-Powered Turbomachinery
Rocket Lab Unveils Battery-Powered Turbomachinery
"""
Rocket Lab, a sounding rocket and launch vehicle company co-located in the U.S. and New Zealand, is preparing to begin testing a smallsat launcher dubbed Electron that would use battery-powered turbomachinery and other innovations to hold the cost per mission below $5 million.

The company, which received U.S. Defense Department funding before branching into commercial development, unveiled its Rutherford engine [...] uses high-performance brushless DC electric motors to drive its liquid oxygen and kerosene turbomachinery, drawing power from lithium polymer batteries.
[...].
Each Rutherford engine has two electric motors the size of a soda can, Beck says, one for each propellant. The small motors generate 50 hp while spinning at 40,000 rpm, “not a trivial problem,” he says.

“The battery technology is also a little bit special,” Beck says. “We’re drawing huge currents and huge energies from those batteries to provide the energy, [...] business model, which foresees customers with payloads weighing as much as 100 kg (220 lb.) launching into 500-km (310-mi.) Sun-synchronous orbits or to inclinations as low as 46 deg. [...] Beck says the company has about 30 “commitments” from customers.
[...]
“In 2009, we launched R-1, our first sounding rocket, on a suborbital ballistic arc,” Beck says. “That got the attention of agencies in the U.S., particularly Darpa.”
"""
http://m.aviationweek.com/space/rocket-lab-unveils-battery-powered-turbomachinery
http://m.aviationweek.com/space/rocket-lab-unveils-battery-powered-turbomachinery

Labels:


- posted by Oleg Zabluda @ 5:45 PM | permalink | | | technorati | bloglines | feedster
| |

Home

Powered by Blogger