[AR] Re: clustering big rockets
- From: Chris Jones <clj@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2015 12:56:01 -0500
On 12/27/15 12:24 PM, John Dom wrote:
Chris Jones wrote on 271215:
The Energiya boosters (4 of them) were essentially Zenit first
stages with
LOX/kerosene propellants. Its main stage used LOX/LH2.
Thank you for correcting me:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/energia.htm . So no brown smoke. Not
too surprising since Energiya was a Korolev design I read and he
preferred LOX/kero to toxic UDMH/NTO propellants. Inadmissibly slow
for ICBMs (response time).
Energiya was developed by Korolev's old design bureau, but he was long
dead by then. Glushko was the lead designer and head of the bureau
at that time.
LOX/LH2 for the core but LOX/kero for the 2nd stage. Is that not
unusual?
I don't think I'd call the boosters the second stage, since they dropped
first, but I'm not sure what the Soviets called them (on the R-7 derived
launchers, all four boosters are collectively called the first stage and
the core is called the second stage). Yes, it is unusual. More so,
IMHO, is the Delta 4, which uses LOX/LH2 in its two stages, making it (I
believe) the only rocket to achieve earth orbit using that propellant
combo exclusively.
Even RCS was the cryo LOX/kero.
True on Buran. The orbital insertion engine on Energiya's first
payload, Polyus, was UDMH/NTO. Due to a Polyus attitude control error,
it was pointing the wrong way when it fired and the payload failed to
achieve orbit, though the Energiya itself had performed correctly.
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