ESA’s Maxus-8 : 26 March 2010

[Notebook]

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMNVY8I77G_index_0.html

I wonder what they are up to with "SHARK Sounding Hypersonic Atmospheric Reentry Kapsule"?

N.

 

[lennartsmit]

http://www.ssc.se/filearchive/1/16086/MAXUS 8 text_issue 4 (2).pdf
Look at page 10.

 

[Notebook]

Supersonic regimes, crash loads and recovery in
a hostile terrain where the capsule might land,​

represent its technical and operational challenges

Still not sure what they are up to. A "Black Box" for spacecraft? What do they get from this they haven't learned before?

N.

 

[tblaxland]

Still not sure what they are up to. A "Black Box" for spacecraft? What do they get from this they haven't learned before?

N.

It is listed as a technology demonstrator, ie, they already have a pretty good idea of what the outcomes will be but they just want to prove it. Given that it was built gratis by CIRA, they probably want to prove it works so that they can sell it. I can't think of any previous small ballistic re-entry capsules - they all used parachutes, except for Genisis' unintended crash landing.

 

[Notebook]

Yes, shame what happened to Genesis, but they are getting some data from it.
Re SHARK. Fair doos its a technology demonstrator, but what technology? I thought re-entry was pretty well understood, at least as regard materials and shapes. They have been at it for a while:

(tenuous Woomera links...)
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1967/1967%20-%200147.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1967/1967 - 0154.html

Interesting Black Arrow re-entry test head:
http://www.spaceuk.org/bk/bk_pics/10.htm

Didn't know Redstone's were fired from Womera;

N.

 

[tblaxland]

Re SHARK. Fair doos its a technology demonstrator, but what technology? I thought re-entry was pretty well understood, at least as regard materials and shapes. They have been at it for a while
...
Didn't know Redstone's were fired from Womera

I count 10 as part of the Sparta program, which indeed seems similar in size/shape to SHARK.

BTW, there seems to be some doubt as to whether the Redstones were launched from LA7 or LA8. "Woomera on the Web" reports LA7, whereas Astronautix reports they were launched from LA8 but shows a picture of LA7 :shrug:

 

[Notebook]

Haven't investigaed the Sparta launches much, but the one's I've read about have all said LA7. Not that i'd know where LA7 or LA8 are located, yet!

Re:SHARK
Got this from
CIRA Italian Aerospace Research CentepageGoogle translation

SHARK READY TO FLY
SHARK (Hypersonic Atmospheric Sounding Reentering Kapsules), a ballistic capsule biconical conceived, designed and built from the SPVs CIRA, in recent days has been integrated into sounding rocket MAXUS-8 ESA. Located nell'interstadio rocket probe, will be released during the staging (separation of the first stage). The "nose-tip" of SHARK consists of massive material UHTC and reach of 7 mW/m2 heat flows and surface temperatures of 1000 ° C.

The launch of the sounding rocket MAXUS-8 has been confirmed for next March 26 from the base of "Esrange Space Center in Kiruna (Sweden) the Swedish Space Corporation,
The rocket will make a suborbital flight, reaching the maximum altitude of 720 km and an energy level of about 5 MJ / kg.

http://www.cira.it/html/inglese/home/

I wonder if its a real world test of something they are developing here?
http://www.cira.it/html/inglese/laboratori/scheda.asp?titolo=PWT

Nice touch calling it SCIROCCO.

N.

 

[tblaxland]

Haven't investigaed the Sparta launches much, but the one's I've read about have all said LA7. Not that i'd know where LA7 or LA8 are located, yet!

LA7: http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&ll=-31.032909,136.462845&spn=0.003397,0.004823&t=k&z=18
LA8: http://maps.google.com.au/?ie=UTF8&ll=-30.971584,136.475151&spn=0.006798,0.009645&t=k&z=17

Nice touch calling it SCIROCCO.

Thanks to Wikipedia for telling me what you mean . A hot wind indeed.

 

[Notebook]

Not far from area 6, might make some surface tiles for those. Once I get Artlav's tiles to work for me!

N.

 

[groberto]

Hi Boys
I am the one that has designed realized and delivered SHARK.
I am impressed and honoured to see u, here, writing about my little cpsule!!
Ask whatever u want!!

Roberto