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William-Black — Propulsion Module/Entry Vehicle Separation
Published: 2013-09-02 00:38:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 5186; Favourites: 47; Downloads: 0
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Orion and Entry Vehicle separation.
Artwork featured in Issue 34 of 3D Art Direct Magazine Link here
Reaction control jets fire on the Mars Entry Vehicle - increasing the distance between it and the Orion nuclear pulse propulsion interplanetary stage, dropping the Entry Vehicle into a lower orbit. When the distance is increased sufficiently the Orion interplanetary stage will perform one last series of burns, transferring to a high parking orbit for future recovery and use in other applications. The Entry Vehicle completes a partial orbit before arriving at its entry window.
Image is part of a future historical setting, more detail is found on my profile page under the heading Orion’s Arm Future History, A Synopsis. A Timeline Graph is to be found here: Timeline.
The ten thousand ton landing craft is nested inside the Entry Vehicle's aero shell, which protects the lander during aero braking and entry. The landing craft of my fictional endeavor (110 in total) mass ten thousand tons each and are, each, approximately the size of a twenty story building: about 200 feet high (this is the equivalent of tail-landing a Saturn 1b).
The payload is far too massive for parachute descent, the hypersonic entry vehicle will aero brake on entry. Aero braking is followed by a two stage powered descent mode: primary breaking thrust is applied via four externally mounted Gas Core Open-Cycle nuclear thermal rockets firing in unison, generating a combined 600 gigawatts with a resulting braking thrust of 12 million newtons. These are disposed of just as the vehicle goes sub-mach, separation pyrotechnics sever the heat-shield, followed by the aero shell. Now cut free of the webbing which restrained it through its long flight from Earth, seven LH₂/LO₂ chemical rockets roar to life as the landing vehicle transitions to stage-two powered descent mode, descending on a pillar of flame to the landing target.
Note: Open Cycle Gas Core Nuclear Thermal Rockets are notably “dirty” – which means at a later date the entire descent ground track will require decontamination and clean up.
Details of the Orion payload interface are visible in this image: the lander support cradle, internal bracing, red end-caps are hardened micro-meteorite armor protecting impulse charge magazines.
Background image is PIA00407, courtesy NASA/JPL, this is the original full global composite from the Viking EDRs primary data set – cropped. I’ve adjusted level and color, and added atmospheric haze in Photoshop.
Mars Settlement Project Complete Sequence Image Links:
Final Preparations:
Right Before
Launch:
Orion Nuclear Ground Launch
Terminus of an Arc
Entry, Descent, Landing:
Propulsion Module/Entry Vehicle Separation
Piercing the Veil
Flight Control
A Sound of Thunder
Cue The Pyrotechnics
Riding The Fire
Over Noctis Labyrinthus
Terminal Descent
Post Landing:
Martian Dusk
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Comments: 6
The pusher plate gives it away. A precision picture, near photographic.
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OH MY GOD!! An Orion drive spacecraft with an OPEN-CYCLE NTR LANDER!!???!
Mr. Black, you undeniably think in big terms, and you certainly do not do things by half-measures.
The landing site will be somewhat radioactive, but that rig could transport an entire Martian colony in one trip. Or two colonies.
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Thanks Winchell, having a sense of your background (of in depth, and deeply studied interests) that is indeed a satisfyingly expansive statement – indeed the scale of the Martian settlement project is vast.
The defining metric at this stage of the future history is shaped by the intent of the founders who initiated the move to the Red planet, an intent informed by the momentum of politics and philosophy present in societies across the globe in the fifty or sixty years before and leading right up to the departure.
The founders of the colony project hold the conviction that the move must be an all-in-one move – which they attempt, with a preparation stage (even prior to construction and launch of the colony spacecraft) longer than the span of a single human lifetime.
Because humans are fallible, my co-author and I considered that a later period of Earth revisitation might be required; the circumstances of which have consequence that extend across the span of the first epoch of the future history.
By the way, your G+ posts spotlighting my work are enormously appreciated, thank you!
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(do you have a G+ account? I can use it in my posts spotlighting your work if you'd like)
Agreed, the Mars Colony is a huge undertaking, and making it an all-in-one move is probably crucial to making it work.
Your scale is bang on. The "Mars One" project looks like it plans on landing six Merlin vehicles with four colonists, which translates into about 2.3 metric tons of payload per colonist. Offhand I'd say that is far too little, there is zero margin for error. Especially since any emergency relief package is going to take the better part of a year to arrive. It's like trying to colonize Antarctica with a couple of pup tents and a pocket full of MREs.
If the back of my envelope is correct, your project has more like 1,000 metric tons per colonist, which to me is far more reasonable.
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I try to make a diligent effort to ground my assumptions in hard data – which means doing a lot of research, which is where your Atomic Rocket’s site has provided invaluable direction.
I started with your Life Support page and from there followed the information, studying (rather than reading) NASA’s Advanced Life Support Baseline Values and Assumptions Document – which I saved as a reference document. I also read Rick Robinson's essay Spaceship design 102: Life Support. Then I put Eric Rozier’s Mission Calculator to work.
I spent a lot of time researching what kind of durable goods, machine tools, CNC machines, and the like that the settlement might need to take along, because it’s not just the equipment you take with you, it’s about the long-term requirement to fabricate other tools and the spare parts you will need further down the line. I did a lot of information gathering, and then worked out a payload mass. I made some generalizations here, but these are grounded in researched information. All of that ground-work made me realize I could not just send the colonist landers – these would be the final step, and the larger part of the effort needed to be focused on the pre-positioned Cargo-Landers which would be launched ahead of the manned settlement craft.
I came to similar conclusions about the Mars One project – there doesn’t appear to be any margin for error, and considering the time-in-transit for emergency relief supplies, it seems a lot riskier than need be.
Yeah, I should probably set up a G+ account. I’m probably somewhat backward in that regard. Actually xveers commented on my profile page, and from there I went to your twitter - so again, thanks!
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Oh, it makes me very happy to see somebody putting all that data so such good use! You've obviously done your home-work, and all the extra-credit work as well.
My hat is off to you, sir!
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