Rocket Lab CEO reflects on company's humble beginnings as a drainpipe
- Reference: 1661165527
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/22/beck_small_sat/
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After apologizing for his virtual presence – Beck had sensed an imminent propulsive emission of his own before boarding and wisely swapped a 20-hour flight for a camera and microphone – the CEO last week gave viewers an insight into how he and his company had gone from a childhood dream to something capable of launching spacecraft to the Moon and eventually Mars and Venus.
[1]Youtube Video
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Beck described the early days, scrabbling around Silicon Valley in search of funding. $5 million was forthcoming and the very first thing Beck splashed the cash on was constructing a mock-up of the proposed rocket. "It's great to physically inspire people with things that look like they're going to build," he said.
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Which is how a youthful Beck ended up pictured next to an Electron rocket that was not all it might have seemed. "Of course, the only piece of pipe that we could find that was a similar diameter [to the rocket] was a piece of drainpipe."
The rest is history. While the drainpipe was ditched in favor of something considerably higher tech, the challenges of construction and launch remained. As did keeping up the quality for each and every launch. "It's just immensely more difficult to do something 20 times over and over again reliably than to do it once or twice," Beck observed.
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"Ignorance", he added, "is bliss."
Beck went on to extol the virtues of the innovative 3D rocket printing used by the company and its electric pumps before detailing the events of the first Electron flight, which took place in 2017. "It was a perfect flight," he said, a little ruefully. Perfect right up until it wasn't.
The vehicle infamously blew itself to pieces as the mission was abruptly terminated. The telemetry feed to the range safety feed was lost; dishes on the ground hunted for a signal from the vehicle and when one could not be found, the safeties kicked in.
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"The reality is there was one tick box in a piece of software that wasn't ticked for error checking and as the errors accumulated it continued to search around for the rocket and couldn't find it."
Beck has since had a screenshot of the screen with the tickbox framed and stuck on the wall as a reminder of just how a small a mission-ending error can be. Something with which many technologists will sympathize.
Beck went on to detail other challenges faced by the company, including its first post-testing loss of vehicle on the Electron's 13th flight.
"Just when you think you've got it all sorted and everything's going well, you get a baseball bat to the face... and we got to flight 13."
It was, according to Beck, "the tiniest thing."
[7]Rocket Lab to search for signs of life in the clouds of Venus
[8]Rocket Lab is taking NASA's CAPSTONE to the Moon
[9]Rocket Lab successfully catches falling rocket booster with a helicopter
[10]Rocket Lab to attempt mid-air recovery of descending booster
A high-voltage connection was not quite perfect. Good enough to pass testing but, when the rocket was flying, the potting compound around the joint melted and liquefied. A short resulted in an electrical spike and "that was the end of that."
Flight 20 also suffered a loss of mission when the second stage shut down early.
Beck literally ate his hat after deciding to make the first stage of the Electron reusable via a combination of avionics to ensure the stage made a controlled return to Earth, parachutes, and a helicopter to catch it.
Going forwards, Beck noted that the Electron managed to loft 320kg to Low Earth Orbit for NASA's CAPSTONE mission – "the engines were at 110 per cent the whole time" – and said the company was pondering what to do with CAPSTONE's Photon spacecraft when it swings past Earth later this month. "We've still got about 10 to 15 percent residual propellant in there. We'll have a crack at doing something cool with it and see how far we can get into the solar system."
And there is the mission to Venus, missions to Mars, and the considerably heftier Neutron rocket, on which Beck promised an update in September.
"We do what we say we will," read the final slide from Beck's keynote.
In an industry dominated by PowerPoint rockets and continually slipping timelines, the approach is refreshing. Even if that first mock-up had to be made with a drainpipe. ®
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[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/17/rocketlab_capstone/
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Easier to change words than metal
There aren't enough small satellites for the currently operational small rockets. The more alert small rocket companies are now talking about medium sized rockets. Perhaps a couple of them will reach orbit before the rest realise they have to talk about large rockets...
110%
I was very impressed with what he was saying until he said "the engines were at 110 per cent the whole time" hyperbole is not something you want to hear from a rocket scientist, so downgraded to 'impressed'.
Re: 110%
Running engines over 100% is common in rocketry. The early designs and prototype engines set the 100% mark, so it's quite common for later revisions to be better. The power outputs are still referenced to the original designs, meaning 110% isn't unusual.
The shuttle used to regularly throttle the engines to 107%.
Re: 110%
Engine output is also calculated at a specific altitude at optimal fuel/oxidizer ratio and the turbo pumps running at designed optimal head pressure and flow. By increasing the rocket chamber pressure and thus making the pumps run at slightly above optimal settings engine efficiency (specific impulse) is slightly increased lower in the atmosphere. IIRC the space shuttle engines were designed to run at 500.000 lbs of thrust, but design optimization resulted in them running at aprox. 540.000 lbs (108%) and they could actually throttle to 115% (Which they would only do if the shuttle lost the center engine in the later stages of launch for a once around abort or abort to orbit).
“A high-voltage connection was not quite perfect. Good enough to pass testing but, when the rocket was flying, the potting compound around the joint melted and liquefied. A short resulted in an electrical spike and "that was the end of that.”
I’m always astonished at the level of detail possible in these post “ the rocket blew up “ events and curious as to how they manage to analyse the exact cause.
Lots and lots of very precise data logging on almost every single channel at multiple points of the vehicle with accurate and synced timing. This makes it possible to trace which signals start getting lost at what time and position relative to one another. This would probably get them close to where they need to be. Then it becomes a deep dive into all data logged during production (measurement reports, photos, etc) to find anything that stands out and formulate theories on what might have failed for what reason. Put all of that together and they can quite accurately tell what is the most likely thing that happened, possibly performing some extra testing to prove or disprove the theories. Sometimes it remains guesswork though.
Also: finding what's left of the circuit board at the rocket crash site can explain quite a lot.
That too, but I don't think recovery of the fragments from RUD at later stages of flight is usually an option (What with them landing in some of the most remote and deepest bits of ocean of our planet and spreading out over several square kilometers as they tumble down from several dozen kilometers up)
Seems odd to use a thermoplastic potting compound in a very hot environment.
There are non-melty potting compounds available but I suppose there's quite a difference between everyday "hot" and "rocket exhaust hot".
Sadly there is a LOT of talk in the small satellite world and far less actual action.
Well done Peter Beck for delivering on your dream!