The Deep Blue Aerospace "Nebula-M" test arrow completed the kilometer-level VTVL vertical recovery flight test

On May 6, 2022, the "Nebula-M" test arrow independently developed by Deep Blue Aerospace completed the 1-kilometer vertical take-off and landing flight test, and the completion of this flight mission announced that Deep Blue Aerospace has climbed to a new height in the history of China's recoverable and reusable rockets, and has taken a solid step towards the successful realization of orbit entry and recovery.

Video: "Nebula-M" kilometer class VTVL vertical recovery flight test

This test is only half a year after the last 100-meter VTVL vertical recovery flight test, why is the commercial rocket company Deep Blue Aerospace so focused on achieving the goal of recoverable and reusable Chinese launch vehicles?

In this era of rapid development of commercial spaceflight, looking at the invincible SpaceX on the other side of the ocean, and then looking up at the endless deep blue sky overhead, the surface is calm and calm, but the undercurrent is surging. The scramble for space resources in the era of large spaceflight, the advancement of rockets as space round-trip transport vehicles, and the needs of multi-dimensional scenarios for rocket commercial uses can be seen in the necessity and urgency of recyclable and reusable rockets.

Illustration: "Nebula-M" km class VTVL vertical recovery flight test

1

Status quo:

China's commercial spaceflight is urgently needed

Repeatable launch vehicles

On December 3, 2021, the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations and other international organizations in Vienna sent a note verbale to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, informing them that the Starlink satellite launched by the US Space Exploration Technology Corporation (SpaceX) has approached the Chinese space station twice in 2021, posing a serious threat to the safe operation of the Chinese space station and the life and health of Chinese astronauts. For safety reasons, the Chinese space station implemented preventive collision avoidance control ("emergency collision avoidance") for the US Starlink satellite on July 1 and October 21, respectively.

Image: SpaceX has deployed the first phase of the Starlink program: 1584 Satellites are placed in 72 orbital planes, each orbital plane consists of 22 satellites (Source: Lamid58)

Musk's envisioned Starlink Constellation plan is very crazy, he will deploy 12,000 Starlink satellites in the first phase, each weighing about 300 kilograms, and even reach 42,000 in the long run - the significance of the Starlink plan is not only to achieve space Internet communication, but also to seize the remaining low-Earth orbit resources in advance. In contrast, China does not currently have the ability to plan such a huge satellite constellation, let alone launch a network.

Illustration: Starlink satellite before launch (source network)

Domestic future commercial rockets are facing the need to increase the frequency of launch and reduce the cost of launch. Commercially recoverable reusable rockets have a foreseeable and huge demand around the world, which is the only goal of Deep Blue Aerospace's full efforts.

Illustration: "Nebula-M" km class VTVL vertical recovery flight test

In order to achieve this goal, Deep Blue Aerospace has gone all out in this direction, and has successfully completed three consecutive 10-meter-class, 100-meter-class and kilometer-level recovery tests, which is the only engineering VTVL vertical recovery flight test in the field of carrier rockets in China, making Deep Blue Aerospace the fastest Chinese commercial space company in the world except the United States.

2

Breaking:

Reducing the cost of rocket launches becomes key

Illustration: "Nebula-M" km class VTVL vertical recovery flight test

Only by reducing costs can we more easily realize the networking mission of thousands of "star chain" satellites, and the launch needs of large satellite constellations in the future are complementary to the carrying capacity of recyclable rockets.

On March 31, 2017, SpaceX successfully launched a Luxembourg commercial communications satellite using a used Falcon 9 carrier rocket. The mission is a milestone in the history of human spaceflight – the first time the same rocket has been used twice to carry out a launch mission.

As of early May 2022, SpaceX has successfully carried out 118 rocket landings and broken its own recovery records: the B1051 booster successfully launched 48 Starlink satellites on March 19, 2022 and returned, becoming the first rocket booster to be recovered 12 times. The B1060 booster maintained the record for the fastest turnaround time, and after successfully launching the Endeavour manned spacecraft Axiom-1 mission on April 8, 2022, it returned to the sky on April 29, 2021, just 21 days later, and successfully launched 53 Starlink satellites.

Pictured: Left: Falcon 9, which has just taken off

Right: Falcon 9 first-class booster on landing

(Source Network)

The economic benefits of recyclable reuse are staggering. SpaceX can now do the recovery and reuse of rocket stage boosters and fairings, and according to Musk himself, the proportion of full arrow multiplexing has reached 80%. This is equivalent to the cost of only the rocket's first stage maintenance, rocket secondary manufacturing, and fuel at launch.

SpaceX did not disclose the specific cost details of its recycling technology. But in April 2020, the U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) reported that the budget for a space mission of the U.S. Air Force was $95 million, while SpaceX executive Christopher Curruris said that the launch mission only needed $28 million. Based on this, we can calculate that recyclable rockets have reduced the cost of space launches by at least 70%. The impact of this value on the space industry is enormous. Russian Space Agency Director Rogozin said in April 2020 that they had to lower the offer for commercial launches of Russian rockets by 30 percent to cope with the shock of SpaceX's "price dumping."

Illustration: Comparison of SpaceX and Deep Blue Aerospace Kilometer VTVL vertical recovery flight test

In contrast, the flight test of Deep Blue Aerospace, from the 10-meter class and 100-meter class to the kilometer-level VTVL vertical recovery flight test, used the same test arrow of "Nebula-M", which initially verified the rocket recovery and reuse technology, and explored a full-element process of liquid rocket development with deep blue aerospace characteristics. The cost reduction brought by this for flight tests is already considerable: under the premise of the application of full-arrow vertical recovery technology, the cost of re-performing the flight mission is only about 1% of the production and manufacturing cost of the arrow body, including the replacement of some wear parts, the test and maintenance cost of the whole arrow, and the cost of propellant.

So, in order to achieve rocket recovery and reuse to reduce costs, what are the technical difficulties? To sum up, two core technology breakthroughs should be achieved to achieve the recoverable reuse of rockets, one is the engine technology that can flexibly adjust the thrust in a large range, and the other is the lateral guidance control technology that returns to landing. The success of the deep blue aerospace kilometer-class VTVL vertical recovery flight test marks that deep blue aerospace has initially mastered these two core technologies.

3

Win:

Thrust-adjustable engine

with transverse guidance control technology

In 2012-2013, SpaceX specially designed the "Grasshopper", a small rocket, in order to break through the rocket recovery and reuse technology, the main goal is to verify the thrust adjustment performance of the "Merlin-1D" engine and the rocket transverse guidance technology.

Pictured: SpaceX "Grasshopper" rocket 325 meters VTVL vertical recovery test (source network)

As shown in the image below, grasshopper conducted a total of 8 flight tests. In the first test on September 21, 2012, Grasshopper jumped only 1.8 meters, and the second test on November 1, 2012 jumped 5.4 meters. Half a year later, the fourth test jumped 80 meters on March 7, 2013, and the highest height of the eighth test jump in late October 2013 reached 774 meters. These 8 trials have accumulated a lot of valuable data and experience for SpaceX.

It is worth noting that the flight test of the Deep Blue Aerospace "Nebula-M" test arrow is extremely close to the flight test target of Grasshopper, and even performs better.

In July 2021, the first flight beautifully completed the ten-meter flight test, just three months later, October 13, 103.2 meters, and 10 months later, the "Nebula-M" test arrow maximum flight altitude of nearly 1 kilometer, Deep Blue Aerospace with less than a year of three missions, to achieve the technical level of SpaceX in more than a year a total of eight missions to reach, the progress is surprising.

Illustration: Comparison of the technological breakthrough history of Deep Blue Aerospace and SpaceX

From the perspective of deep blue aerospace, compared with the 100-meter VTVL vertical recovery flight test, the single ignition working time of the engine during the kilometer level VTVL vertical recovery flight test is equivalent to the working time of the single-stage engine of the in-orbit rocket, and it is different from the state of the ground interview vehicle, this time it is in the real flight environment to assess the stability of the engine's large-scale rotation and long-range work, which is more authentic and practical assessment significance in the engineering development.

SpaceX's "Merlin-1D" engine can achieve a thrust adjustment range of 70%-100% in the early test, while the "Thunder-5" pump-pressure liquid oxygen kerosene engine used in Deep Blue Aerospace's "Nebula-M" test arrow can achieve 50%-100% thrust adjustment by adjusting the oxidant and fuel pump speed. In addition, the Thunder series engine uses the same needle bolt injector technology as the "Merlin-1D" engine, which has the advantage of unique recovery technology, which can suppress unstable combustion and reduce vibration during the process of adjusting thrust to achieve a smooth thrust adjustment function.

Illustration: Comparison of the technological breakthrough history of Deep Blue Aerospace and SpaceX

It is also worth noting that Deep Blue Aerospace successfully verified the lateral guidance algorithm in this kilometer-class VTVL vertical recovery flight test. In the flight process of vertical take-off - vertical landing, the horizontal guidance algorithm is added, the target point coordinates are pre-bound, the calculation and planning are carried out by the computer on the arrow, the transverse guidance instruction is issued, the guided rocket is laterally shifted to the target coordinates, the rocket is carried out to verify the technology of the off-site return recovery, and the early technical verification is carried out for the off-site return recovery and reuse of the future orbiting rocket and even intercontinental travel.

Illustration: "Nebula-M" km class VTVL vertical recovery flight test

In the kilometer-level VTVL vertical recovery flight test, the flight speed reached 0.2Ma and the flight altitude was nearly 1 kilometer, which is the vertical recovery flight test with the highest flight height, the fastest flight speed and the longest flight time carried out in China.

Through this flight test, the key core technologies such as the aerodynamic problems of the arrow body in the vertical recovery process of the rocket, as well as the adaptability of the long-term force heat and vibration environment, the long-term and large-scale variable thrust work ability of the engine, the reusable arrow body structure and landing buffer device, the lateral guidance and attitude control capability, etc., have laid a solid foundation for the subsequent 10 km vertical recovery and orbital stage recovery.

4

Perspective:

Go all out for recyclable reuse

The rocket's way into orbit

Space X designed a larger version of the Falcon 9 R test version of the rocket after these eight flight tests, conducted larger kilometer-level VTVL hover and landing tests, and successfully achieved the recovery landing of the Falcon 9 core class on land and sea barges on December 21, 2015 and April 8, 2016, at this time, only more than three years after the Grasshopper rocket jumped 1.8 meters. SpaceX has broken the limitation that rockets cannot be recycled vertically, and SpaceX's valuation has increased from $970 million to $12 billion, achieving a 12-fold increase.

Illustration: Comparison of the development history of Deep Blue Aerospace and SpaceX (first orbital recovery achieved on December 21, 2015)

The completion of the kilometer-class VTVL vertical recovery test flight of Deep Blue Aerospace also announced a successful end to the low-altitude recovery stage, and the "Nebula-M" test rocket successfully completed its historical mission.

In the next stage, Deep Blue Aerospace will use the exact same full-size test rocket as the orbiting rocket, continue the high-altitude recovery test stage (similar to the second phase of SpaceX using the full-size prototype "Falcon 9 R" for recovery testing), and move towards a rapid breakthrough of 10km and 100km, and finally achieve controllable recovery and reuse of the first sub-stage of the orbiting rocket. Deep Blue Aerospace's current level of technology is equivalent to SpaceX's level in early 2014. If everything can be carried out according to the plan, Deep Blue Aerospace will complete the first orbital launch-recovery mission of the "Nebula-1" carrier rocket before the end of 2024, officially opening the curtain on the commercial operation of China's recoverable carrier rocket.

Pictured: Group photo of the test team after the recovery of the "Nebula-M" arrow is completed

Huo Liang, CEO of Deep Blue Aerospace, said: The mission of Deep Blue Aerospace is to realize the recoverable reuse of China's carrier rockets, greatly reduce the cost of entering orbit per kilogram of payload, and become a powerful promoter of the space transportation industry. Through this kilometer-class VTVL vertical recovery flight test, Deep Blue has taken another important step towards this goal.