Armadillo Aerospace Crashes Latest Vehicle

[nacnud]

I'm posting the whole story because the Armadillo site is currently being slashdoted.<br /> <br />Armadillo Aerospace News Archive<br /><br />Good tests, Complete loss of vehicle<br /><br />August 8, 2004 notes<br /><br /> <br /><b>Good Tests</b><br /><br /> <br /><br />On Tuesday we did a very successful set of hover tests with the big vehicle. I had two changes that I wanted to test: an optional PWM of the throttle movement to make it change position slower when it was in hunt-for-an-acceleration mode, and testing a 50% gain increase which I might enable during high speed flights if it looks like it is having a hard time controlling the attitude. I had these set up momentary overrides on the joystick, so I could lift the vehicle up, engage the change, let go real fast if it isn’t working, then try the other one, all on a single propellant load.<br /><br /> <br /><br />When we tipped the vehicle up, several catalyst rings fell out of the engine nozzle. We looked up the engine with a boroscope and found that the screen at the bottom had pulled past one section of the support plate, allowing some rings to escape. This had also happened on the previous 12” engine after a few runs (you could see a couple red hot catalyst rings fly out in one of the static test videos). It didn’t seem to be progressive last time, so we went ahead and left it alone, expecting the test run to squash the rings down into an interference fit again. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Because this was set up to be a 25 second hover (tethered), which would be our longest hover test, we decided to make this a no-direct-view test, with my flying it from behind a concrete wall looking at a monitor instead of directly viewing it. The engine warmed up fine and lifted off and hovered fine. I was about to engage the first test when the vehicle just set itself back down on the ground. It took me a few moments to figure out what happened – I had moved the computer and wireless antenna behind the wall with me, so the telemetr

 

[najab]

"The operation was a sucess, but the patient died."<p>I'm glad that they only see this as a temporary setback. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /></p>

 

[mrmorris]

I realize that Armadillo is engineering everything about their craft from ground zero, whereas DaVinici is buying their engines from someone else. However -- I have trouble reconciling something like this with Feeney's statement that there's no need for them to make test flights because the principles of ballistic spaceflight are so well understood.

 

[mrmorris]

And Space Transport provides another example of how test flights are completely unnecessary.

 

[davf]

Thanks for posting this! I have to admit, initially I wasn't very impressed with Armadillo... but more and more, they are winning me over. Kudos to the Armadillo team!

 

[space_dreamer]

Armadillo will learn from this crash and build a better vehicle because of it. The best bit is, the new improved vehicle could be ready in just 5 weeks !

 

[xakk]

I hope this double whammy convinces Feeney and Co. to do some test runs...

 

[davf]

That fast? I thought the debriefing was great to see. No punches pulled and it seems to be an honest look at the vehicle and its shortcomings. I agree with the comment that I hope Feeney will see this and change his mind. The last thing the X-Prize needs is a fatality.

 

[propforce]

<i>"... Armadillo will learn from this crash and build a better vehicle because of it. ..."</i><br /><br />Agree. Sometime we forget that it takes a lot of failures in order to achieve success. In today's political & funding environment, we demand success on the first flight but we forget what it takes to accomplish those, e.g., lots of failures on ground tests.<br /><br />Personally I am glad that both Armadillo and Space Trans publish their stories and documenting developmental histories. We need to encourage these young and upstart companies to continue to experiment and willing to fail in order to make progress. Gawd knows big aerospace companies are certainly 'risk adverse' and reluctant to try anything new. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Gawd knows big aerospace companies are certainly 'risk adverse' and reluctant to try anything new.</font>/i><br /><br />Has anyone heard why Boeing or Lock-Mart chose not to go after the X Prize or explore the space tourism market?<br /><br />Given their extensive experience, stable of scientists and engineers, and technology and tools, they should have been able to get to the prize really fast.</i>

 

[najab]

><i>Has anyone heard why Boeing or Lock-Mart chose not to go after the X Prize...</i><p>They can't. One of the rules of the X-Prize is that you can't be a Government contractor.<p>><i>...explore the space tourism market?</i><p>Boeing tried running an airline once, it went bust. They decided to make the planes and let someone else run them.</p></p></p>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">They can't. One of the rules of the X-Prize is that you can't be a Government contractor.</font>/i><br /><br />I thought they just couldn't use government money for the X Prize effort itself. However, in a large corporation I could see that it would be difficult to separate expenses for things like CAD/CAM tools, lathes, technology developed on prior contracts, etc.<br /><br />Anyone know if some of the experienced Boeing or Lock-Mart scientists and engineers left the company to join any of the smaller companies or form their own?</i>

 

[propforce]

I know many did in the last 10~15 yrs or so, not necessary because of the X-prize but more so for personal dreams. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[propforce]

I'll paraphrase a baseball quote from Christy Mathewson<br /><br />"... You can learn little from success. You can learn everything from failure..." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[no_way]

"Has anyone heard why Boeing or Lock-Mart chose not to go after the X Prize or explore the space tourism market?" <br /> /> />That would be against the X-prize rules. <br /><br />X-Prize rules, chapter two<br /><br />Flight vehicles will have to be privately financed and built. Entrants will be precluded from using a launch vehicle substantially developed under a government contract or grant. Entrants will be prohibited from receiving any direct funding, subsidies, and grants of money, goods, or services from any government (or otherwise tax-supported entity). Entrants will be permitted to utilize government facilities if access to such facilities is generally available to all entrants. Any such goods or services used in connection with the competition must be available to other entrants on similar terms. Entrants will be permitted to utilize subsystems previously developed by a government agency that are currently available on a commercial or equal-access government-surplus basis, or for which manufacturing rights and specifications are available on an equal-access basis

 

[nacnud]

Yeah they didn't have a fuel gauge <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /> but it was a series of unfortunate occurrences and failures that caused the increases fuel consumption it the first place. Still its one way of learning how to build rockets, and I bet that lessons learned won't be forgotten in a hurry.<br /><br />There is a movie of the crash on the website as well as pictures of the wreckage.<br /><br />

 

[bobvanx]

I wish the Armadillo team all the success they can earn. I don't know if that gives me permission to find the video of the crash amusing, but there is something very slapstick about the impact. I've had to watch it several times. I think it's the... well, I'll let you see it.

 

[bobw]

We watched it several times last night at work, too. Everybody chuckled. The road looks too close for comfort in the onboard video. Did they launch that thing in Texas? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow"> ... Entrants will be precluded from using a launch vehicle substantially developed under a government contract or grant. Entrants will be prohibited from receiving any direct funding, subsidies, and grants of money, goods, or services from any government ...</font>/i><br /><br />It seems to me that Boeing and Lock-Mart are able to compete for the X Prize, they would just need to be careful to keep a wall between their government-sponsored efforts and the X Prize efforts. A "clean sheet" design run out of a separate division might do the trick. Oh well, too late now.</i>

 

[jcdenton]

Boeing and Lockheed get perennial contracts from the government so that disqualifies them from the competition. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Boeing and Lockheed get perennial contracts from the government so that disqualifies them from the competition. "</font><br /><br />Not to mention that ten million is pocket change to them -- even if they developed a new vehicle from scratch for free. Considering they'd likely spend more than ten million building it -- then rules aside, there would be <b>absolutely</b> no point to them competing.<br />

 

[radarredux]

My bad. I read it as:<br /><br /> /> <i>Entrants will be prohibited from receiving any direct funding, subsidies, and grants of money, goods, or services from any government (or otherwise tax-supported entity) <font color="yellow">for this effort</font>/i>.<br /><br />The <font color="yellow">yellow</font>stuff is what is <b>not</b> in the rules but for some reason I put it in there when reading it.<br /><br />I could still see Boeing doing something like this on IR&D for promotional reasons as well as potentially opening up a new market. Rutan and other see the initial wave of adventure tourists paying $100K for a slot, and the price coming down to the $30k-$50k range (about the price of a car) over the next decade (about the time the CEV flies).<br /><br />Of course there would be risks too. If Boeing screws up, it looks really bad. And if Boeing shows that rockets can be built and operated cheaply, the government might put pressure on them to bring down the price for the otherwise lucrative CEV contracts.</i>

 

[propforce]

<i>"... If Boeing screws up, it looks really bad. And if Boeing shows that rockets can be built and operated cheaply, the government might put pressure on them to bring down the price for the otherwise lucrative CEV contracts. ..."</i><br /><br />So in other word, a no-win situation for Boeing. <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[propforce]

The party will always go on at LockMart and Boeing. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Both are not interested in building hardware for anything less than $100 million anyway <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

Welcome back, no_way! I missed you! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>