Liquid/solid hybrid used a design taken from HAL5 Society
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
-The launch of the first privately owned spacecraft may not have been as smooth without some Huntsville engineering experience.
Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne was powered during its maiden voyage into space Monday by a hybrid motor, which used solid fuel but a liquid oxidizer. The motor was devised by using a rocket design developed by the Huntsville Alabama L5 Society, or HAL5, a group that supports space exploration.
"We were indirectly involved," said Ronnie Lajoie, a HAL5 member and Boeing Phantom Works space systems engineer. "We were pursuing a concept that would launch a rocket from a high-altitude balloon, and Burt Rutan saw our engine and liked its design."
The contributions to the SpaceShipOne project drew extensively from HAL5's High Altitude Lift-Off, or HALO, program.
Rutan met Tim Pickens, another HAL5 member, at a 1998 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics event in Huntsville, where they discussed the engine design.
Pickens, a Huntsville native, served as a propulsion consultant on SpaceShipOne. Pickens' responsibilities included main and reaction control system propulsion development, a nitrous-oxide portable fill station, rocket motor test stand, propulsion fluids, and pressurization.
SpaceShipOne's hybrid rocket engine uses a solid rubber grain as the fuel and nitrous-oxide as a liquid oxidizer.
The hybrid motor is also attached to the fuel tank. "This is called a common bulkhead between the oxidizer tank and the motor," Lajoie said.
Lajoie said the approach reduced the weight of Rutan's ship and reduced the complexity of the design. Most rocket motors are separate from supply tanks.
The launch of SpaceShipOne will move spaceflight into the hands of all people, said Greg Allison, president of HAL5 and chairman of the National Space Society's executive committee.
"This means an opportunity for people in our governments to now recognize that regular people can fly into space," Allison said. "It's not just for a privileged few. Space is now open for business."
Lajoie sees the SpaceShipOne launch as a new way to stimulate the public's interest in space, he said.
"People will be interested because it will affect them directly. This is great, not just for Huntsville, but for the world," said Lajoie, 42. "This is the dawn of a real turning point in ... bringing back that individual personal experience with space. It's what we were promised in the 1960s, but we've lost out on the last generation. We are trying to bring that back."
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