Part 3
First hybrid propellant space launcher HAPITH-I
Taiwanese Company Aims At Launch Costs 10% Of Competitors’
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
Oct 24, 2019
Bradley Perrett
Hot fire test of Tispace 1-metric-ton-thrust engine: Tispace
A Taiwanese company plans to enter the market for light space launches with what it says will be 10% of the costs of current major operators, thanks to an efficient production setup and use of hybrid solid-liquid propulsion.
Launch of a two-stage demonstrator rocket is scheduled for November, to be followed by monthly launches of larger production rockets in 2021, said Yen-Sen Chen, founder and CEO of the company, Taiwan Innovation Space (Tispace).
At first, each launch by the expendable, three-stage Hapith V production rocket will be priced at $6-7 million, Chen said. This will deliver up to 390 kg (860 lb.) to a low-inclination orbit of 600- 700 km (370-430 mi.). “We have lots of room for a lower price,” Chen added, since costs would be so low.
The initial production facility near Taipei, with a capacity of 12 rockets a year, will be able to achieve the targeted cost of 10% of competitors’, Chen said. But the company is looking for a larger site farther south for a plant that could build 100 rockets a year.
Engines of the Hapith V and the Hapith 1 demonstrator are almost devoid of machinery. Being hybrid, they do not require the elaborate production and handling facilities of potentially explosive solid-propellant motors.
The fuel is a special hard rubber, made in Taiwan. The oxidizer is nitrous oxide fed to the engine by tank pressure, which begins at 6 MPa (870 psi.) at launch, falling to 1 MPa at the time of engine cutoff; there are no turbo pumps.
Tispace has tested engines of various thrust levels. Specific impulse, a measure of propulsion efficiency, will be 270 sec. for the first stage and 301 sec. for the second and third, the company estimates. This is regarded as adequate rather than exceptional, since the most important engine characteristic is simplicity and adaptability to low-cost production.
A contractor will supply the fuel in the single cylindrical block needed for each engine, Chen said. No trimming or other adjustment of shape will be required. Insulation will be placed manually on the fuel blocks, then uncured carbon fiber composite will be laid around them automatically to create the case. The engine will then go into an oven for unpressurized curing of the composite at 90C (190F).
The oxidizer tanks will similarly be made automatically with the same, T800-grade carbon fiber composite. The company chose carbon fiber in preference to the usual aluminum to reduce weight. The company also believes carbon fiber suits low-cost fabrication. About 90% of the Hapith V structure is made of the material.
The engines use commercially available valves and stainless steel piping. Injectors, of proprietary design, will be made with 3D printing.
Attitude control is effected in the first stage by venting nitrous oxide and in the second and third stages by gimballing the engines (that is, the encased rubber blocks).
Chen set up the company in 2016, having previously worked for Taiwan’s National Space Organization. It has 105 employees, he said, speaking on the sidelines of the International Astronautical Congress, held in Washington Oct. 21-25.
The demonstrator is complete and ready for its Nov. 28 launch. It has a weight of 3.04 metric tons and launch thrust of 7.92 metric tons.
The company has begun making the first Hapith V. That 20-m (66-ft.) design has a weight of 35 metric tons and launch thrust of 65 metric tons from five engines. The second stage has four engines and 8 metric tons of thrust; the third has one engine generating 1 metric tons of thrust. Payload to Sun-synchronous orbit is 350 kg.
The company’s launch site is at the southern end of Taiwan, facing the empty Pacific Ocean. With inhabited islands to the north and south, Taiwan is unsuitable for launches to Sun- synchronous orbit, so Tispace is looking at options in Scandinavia. Australia is also a possibility.
Rockets are to be moved to the Taiwanese launch site by truck and to the chosen foreign one by air.
http://web.archive.org/web/20191206224150/https://www.taiwanembassy.org/uslax/post/21945.html
http://archive.is/pR2SN
HAPITH V
is a cost-effective space launch system using cutting-edge, non-explosive hybrid rocket technologies. Our hybrid rocket engines are delivering class-I rocket engine performance that enables fast turnaround space launch services.
PAYLOAD
MICRO AND SMALL SATELLITES TO LOW EARTH ORBIT (LEO) AND SUN-SYNCHRONOUS ORBIT (SSO)
HAPITH V OVERVIEW
MAX. LEO PAYLOAD MASS
390 KG
MAX. SSO PAYLOAD MASS
350 KG
ALTITUDE
600 – 700 KM
HEIGHT
20 M
DIAMETER
2.2 M
STAGES
3
UPPER STAGE
single hybrid rocket engine with gimbaled thrust vector control (TVC) and a cold-gas reaction control system (RCS)
THRUST 10KN
SECOND STAGE
cluster of four hybrid rocket engines with gimbaled thrust vector control (TVC)
THRUST 80KN
FIRST STAGE
cluster of five hybrid rocket engines with liquid-injection vector control (LITVC)
THRUST 650KN
PAYLOAD
The payload fairing of Hapith V is constructed by using lightweight composite honeycomb sandwich structure with ample thermal and environmental protections.
MATERIALS
Hapith V is designed to be constructed using mainly lightweight high strength carbon composite flight structure.
AVIONICS
TiSPACE avionics and GNC flight control subsystem are developed simultaneously such that their performance can be checked and verified through real time simulations with the enhancement of a high precision rate table testing platform.
LELIEN
LELIEN engine is designed based on a high-efficiency N2O/SBR hybrid rocket technology with specially formulated high density and high energy SBR solid grain and N2O injection scheme that gives our propulsion system close to ideal overall thrust performance.
http://archive.ph/WDK6h/bf56dbcadeae9363b52ab7ca505eabe0cbd62fea.png ; https://archive.ph/WDK6h/655ea4fad5777b2b809e6c58b5db183baee72698/scr.png ; http://www.tispace.com/launch.html ; http://archive.ph/OJFSI
▲ 4. HAPITH V SLV
http://www.tispace.com/launch.html
http://archive.ph/OJFSI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y26ZIdxVI3E ; http://www.tispace.com/video/video-4.html ; http://archive.ph/w8Uuy
▲ 5. TiSPACE Video 2,079 views •Sep 12, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SItKkOJ5RMQ ; http://www.tispace.com/video/video-4.html ; http://archive.ph/w8Uuy
▲ 6. Accomplishment of Vehicle Structural Dynamics Testing 778 views •Sep 17, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exXVuppC0Qc ; http://www.tispace.com/video/video-4.html ; http://archive.ph/w8Uuy
▲ 7. High Efficiency Hybrid Rocket Engine 761 views •Oct 17, 2019
We are ready for the first sub orbital launch in late 2019 and the first orbital launch in early 2020.
Our hybrid rocket engines have achieved Class-I propulsion efficiency, including 10,000 N, 20,000 N and 130,000 N thrust levels which can provide dedicated services for small satellites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhM7UmQir5o ; http://www.tispace.com/video/video-4.html ; http://archive.ph/w8Uuy
▲ 8. Successful S2 Stage level Qualification Hot fire Test with Thrust Vectoring 588 views •Nov 20, 2019
Before the first launch, we have another beautiful performance.[/B]