Given the combat experience of cruise missiles spanning six and a half decades, they can be considered a mature and well-proven technology. During their existence, there has been a significant development in the technologies used to create cruise missiles, covering the airframe, engines, means of overcoming air defenses and navigation systems.

Thanks to technologies for creating gliders, rockets became more and more compact. Now they can be placed in the internal compartments and external slings of aircraft, ship-based tube launchers or torpedo tubes of submarines. Engines have changed from simple pulse-jet engines through turbojet and liquid-fuel rocket engines or ramjet engines (ramjet engines) to the current combination of turbojet engines for subsonic tactical cruise missiles, turbofans for subsonic strategic cruise missiles and ramjet engines or mixed turbojet engines /missile structures for supersonic tactical cruise missiles.

Means of overcoming air defense arose in the 1960s when systems air defense gained greater efficiency. These include low-altitude, terrain-following flight or missile flight at an extremely low altitude above the sea surface to evade radar, and, increasingly, stealth-enhancing form and radar-absorbing materials designed to reduce radar signature. Some Soviet cruise missiles were also equipped with defensive jammers designed to thwart interception of anti-aircraft missile systems.

Finally, during this period, the cruise missile navigation system has significantly developed and diversified.

Cruise missile navigation problems
The basic idea behind all cruise missiles is that it can be launched at a target beyond the range of enemy air defense systems without exposing the launch platform to retaliatory attack. This creates significant design challenges, the first of which is getting the cruise missile to reliably move up to a thousand kilometers into close proximity to its intended target - and once it is in close proximity to the target, ensuring that the warhead is accurately aimed at the target to produce the intended target. military effect.

The first combat cruise missile FZG-76/V-1

The first operational cruise missile was the German FZG-76/V-1, more than 8,000 of which were used, mainly against targets in the UK. Judging by modern standards, its navigation system was quite primitive: a gyroscope-based autopilot maintained the course, and an anemometer kept the distance to the target. The missile was set on the intended course before launch and the estimated distance to the target was set on it, and as soon as the odometer indicated that the missile was above the target, the autopilot took it into a steep dive. The missile had an accuracy of about a mile and was sufficient to bomb large urban targets such as London. The main purpose of the bombing was to terrorize civilian population and the diversion of British military forces from offensive operations and directing them to carry out air defense tasks.

The first American cruise missile JB-2 is a copy of the German V-1

In directly post-war period The US and USSR recreated the V-1 and began developing their own cruise missile programs. The first generation of theater and tactical nuclear weapons prompted the creation of the US Navy's Regulus series of cruise missiles, the US Air Force's Mace/Matador series, and the Soviet Kometa KS-1 and Kometa-20 series of cruise missiles and further developments in navigation technology. All of these missiles initially use autopilots based on precise gyroscopes, but also the ability to adjust the missile's trajectory via radio links so that the nuclear warhead can be delivered as accurately as possible. A miss of hundreds of meters may be enough to reduce the overpressure produced by a nuclear warhead below the lethal threshold for hardened targets. In the 1950s, the first conventional post-war tactical cruise missiles entered service, primarily as anti-ship weapons. While guidance during the mid-flight portion of the trajectory continued to be gyroscope-based and sometimes corrected via radio communications, accurate guidance in the final portion of the trajectory was provided by a short-range radar seeker, semi-active in the earliest versions, but soon superseded by active radars. Missiles of this generation usually fly at medium and high altitudes, diving when attacking a target.

Northrop SM-62 Snark intercontinental cruise missile

The next major milestone in cruise missile navigation technology came with the introduction of the Northrop SM-62 Snark ground-launched intercontinental cruise missile, designed to fly autonomously over polar regions to attack large missiles. nuclear warheads targets on the territory of the Soviet Union. Intercontinental distances presented designers with a new challenge - to create a missile capable of hitting targets at a distance ten times greater than earlier versions of cruise missiles could do. The Snark was equipped with a proper inertial navigation system using a gyro-stabilized platform and precise accelerometers to measure the rocket's motion in space, as well as an analog computer used to accumulate measurements and determine the rocket's position in space. However, a problem soon emerged: the drift in the inertial system was too great for operational use of the rocket, and the errors in the inertial positioning system turned out to be cumulative - thus, the positioning error accumulated with each hour of flight.

The solution to this problem was another device designed to perform precision measurements geographical location missiles on its flight path and capable of correcting or “binding” errors generated in the inertial system. This is a fundamental idea and remains central to the design of modern guided weapons today. Thus, the accumulated errors of the inertial system are periodically reduced to the error of the position measuring device.

Martin Matador cruise missile

To solve this problem, a celestial navigation system or star orientation was used, an automated optical device that takes angular measurements of the known positions of the stars and uses them to calculate the position of the rocket in space. The celestial navigation system turned out to be very accurate, but also quite expensive to produce and difficult to maintain. It was also required that rockets equipped with this system fly at high altitude to avoid the influence of clouds on the line of sight to the stars.

What is less known is that the success of celestial navigation systems everywhere has given impetus to the current development of satellite navigation systems such as GPS and GLONASS. Satellite navigation is based on a similar concept to celestial navigation, but uses artificial Earth satellites in polar orbits instead of stars, artificial microwave signals instead of natural light, and uses pseudo-range measurements rather than angular measurements. As a result, this system significantly reduced costs and made it possible to determine location at all altitudes in all weather conditions. Although satellite navigation technologies were invented in the early 1960s, they only came into operational use in the 1980s.

The 1960s saw significant improvements in the accuracy of inertial systems, as well as an increase in the cost of such equipment. This has resulted in conflicting requirements for accuracy and cost. As a result, a new technology has emerged in the field of cruise missile navigation based on a system for determining the location of the missile by comparing the radar display of the area with a reference mapping program. This technology entered service with US cruise missiles in the 1970s and Soviet missiles in the 1980s. TERCOM technology (a system for digital correlation with the terrain of a cruise missile guidance unit) was used, like the celestial navigation system, to reset the cumulative inertial system errors.

Cruise missile Comet

TERCOM technology is relatively simple in concept, although complex in detail. The cruise missile continuously measures the altitude of the terrain below its flight path using a radar altimeter, and compares the results of these measurements with the barometric altimeter. The TERCOM navigation system also stores digital elevation maps of the area over which it will fly. Then, using a computer program, the profile of the terrain over which the rocket flies is compared with a digital elevation map stored in memory to determine the best match. Once the profile is matched to the database, the rocket's position on the digital map can be determined with great accuracy, which is used to correct cumulative inertial system errors.

TERCOM had a huge advantage over celestial navigation systems: it allowed cruise missiles to fly at an extremely low altitude necessary to overcome enemy air defenses; it turned out to be relatively cheap to produce and very accurate (up to ten meters). This is more than enough for a 220 kiloton nuclear warhead and enough for a 500 kilogram conventional warhead used against many types of targets. Yet TERCOM was not without its shortcomings. The missile, which had to fly over unique hilly terrain easily compared to the altitude profile of digital maps, had excellent accuracy. However, TERCOM has proven ineffective over water surfaces, over seasonally variable terrain such as sand dunes, and terrain with varying seasonal radar reflectivities such as the Siberian tundra and taiga, where snowfall can change terrain elevation or obscure terrain features. The missiles' limited memory capacity often made it difficult to store sufficient map data.

Boeing AGM-86 CALCM cruise missile

While sufficient for the nuclear-armed Navy Tomahawk RGM-109A and Air Force AGM-86 ALCM, TERCOM was clearly not sufficient for the destruction of individual buildings or structures with a conventional warhead. In this regard, the US Navy equipped the TERCOM of the Tomahawk RGM-109C/D cruise missiles with an additional system based on the so-called technology for correlating the display of an object with its reference digital image. This technology was used in the 1980s on Pershing II ballistic missiles, Soviet KAB-500/1500Kr and American DAMASK/JDAM precision bombs, as well as the latest Chinese guided anti-ship missiles. missile systems, designed to combat aircraft carriers.

Object display correlation uses a camera to capture the area in front of the missile, and then the information from the camera is compared with a digital image obtained using satellites or aerial reconnaissance and stored in the missile's memory. By measuring the rotation angle and displacement required to accurately match two images, the device is able to very accurately determine the missile's position error and use it to correct errors in the inertial and TERCOM navigation systems. The digital correlation unit of the DSMAC cruise missile guidance system used on several Tomahawk cruise missile units was indeed accurate, but had operational side effects similar to TERCOM, which had to be programmed to fly the missile over easily recognizable terrain, especially in close proximity to the target. In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, this led to a number of highway junctions in Baghdad being used as such anchor points, which in turn allowed Saddam's air defense forces to position anti-aircraft batteries there and shoot down several Tomahawks. Just like TERCOM, the digital correlation unit of the cruise missile guidance system is sensitive to seasonal changes in terrain contrast. Tomahawks equipped with DSMAC also carried flash lamps to illuminate the area at night.

In the 1980s, the first GPS receivers were integrated into American cruise missiles. GPS technology was attractive because it allowed the rocket to constantly correct its inertial errors regardless of the terrain and weather conditions, and it also acted the same both above water and above land.

These benefits were negated by the problem of poor GPS noise immunity, as the GPS signal is inherently very weak, susceptible to "ghosting" effects (when the GPS signal bounces off terrain or buildings) and variations in accuracy depending on the number of satellites received and so on. how they are distributed across the sky. All US cruise missiles today are equipped with GPS receivers and an inertial guidance system package, with mechanical inertial system technology being replaced by the cheaper and more accurate ring laser gyroscope inertial navigation system in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Cruise missile AGM-158 JASSM

Problems associated with the basic accuracy of GPS are gradually being solved by introducing wide-range GPS (Wide Area Differential GPS) methods, in which correction signals valid for a given geographic location are broadcast to the GPS receiver via radio (in the case of American missiles, WAGE -Wide Area GPS Enhancement is used). The main sources of signals from this system are radio navigation beacons and satellites in geostationary orbit. The most accurate technology of its kind, developed in the United States in the 1990s, can correct GPS errors of up to several inches in three dimensions and is accurate enough to hit a missile through the open hatch of an armored vehicle.

Problems with noise immunity and “repeat image” turned out to be the most difficult to solve. These have led to the introduction of so-called "smart" antenna technology, typically based on "digital beamforming" in software. The idea behind this technology is simple, but as usual, complex in detail. A conventional GPS antenna receives signals from the entire upper hemisphere above the missile, thus including GPS satellites as well as enemy interference. The so-called Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) uses software to synthesize narrow beams directed towards the intended location of GPS satellites, resulting in the antenna being “blind” in all other directions. The most advanced antenna designs of this type produce so-called “nulls” in the antenna radiation pattern aimed at the sources of interference to further suppress their influence.

Cruise missile Tomahawk

Most of the highly publicized problems during the early production of the AGM-158 JASSM cruise missile were the result of problems with software GPS receiver, as a result of which the rocket lost GPS satellites and strayed from its trajectory.

Advanced GPS receivers provide high level accuracy and reliable noise immunity to GPS interference sources located on the earth's surface. They are less effective against sophisticated GPS jammers deployed on satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles aircraft or balloons.

The latest generation of American cruise missiles uses a GPS-inertial guidance system, complemented by a digital thermal imaging camera mounted in the nose of the missile, with the goal of providing DSMAC-like capabilities against stationary targets with appropriate software and automatic pattern recognition capabilities against moving targets such as anti-aircraft missiles. missile systems or missile launchers. Data links typically originate from JTIDS/Link-16 technology, implemented to provide the ability to retarget weapons in the event that a moving target changes its location while the missile is on the move. The use of this feature primarily depends on users having intelligence and the ability to detect such target movements.

Long-term trends in cruise missile navigation will lead to greater intelligence, greater autonomy, greater diversity in sensors, increased reliability, and lower cost.

What is the structure of a multistage rocket Let's look at the classic example of a rocket for space flight, described in the works of Tsiolkovsky, the founder of rocket science. It was he who was the first to publish the fundamental idea of ​​​​manufacturing a multi-stage rocket.

The principle of operation of the rocket.

In order to overcome gravity, a rocket needs a large supply of fuel, and the more fuel we take, the greater the mass of the rocket. Therefore, to reduce the mass of the rocket, they are built on the multi-stage principle. Each stage can be considered as a separate rocket with its own rocket engine and fuel supply for flight.

Construction of space rocket stages.

First stage of a space rocket the largest, in a rocket for flight, the space of the 1st stage engines can be up to 6 and the heavier the load that needs to be launched into space, the more engines there are in the first stage of the rocket.

IN classic version there are three of them, located symmetrically along the edges of an isosceles triangle, as if encircling the perimeter of the rocket. This stage is the largest and most powerful; it is the one that lifts off the rocket. When the fuel in the first stage of a rocket is used up, the entire stage is discarded.

After this, the rocket's movement is controlled by the second stage engines. They are sometimes called boosters, since it is with the help of the second stage engines that the rocket reaches its first escape velocity, sufficient to enter low-Earth orbit.

This can be repeated several times, with each rocket stage weighing less than the previous one, since the Earth’s gravitational force decreases with altitude.

The number of times this process is repeated is the number of stages a space rocket contains. The last stage of the rocket is designed for maneuvering (propulsion engines for flight correction are present in each stage of the rocket) and delivering the payload and astronauts to their destination.

We reviewed the device and rocket operating principle, ballistic multistage rockets, a terrible weapon carrying nuclear weapons, are constructed in exactly the same way and are not fundamentally different from space rockets. They are capable of completely destroying both life on the entire planet and life itself.

Multistage ballistic missiles They enter low-Earth orbit and from there they hit ground targets with split warheads with nuclear warheads. Moreover, it takes them 20-25 minutes to fly to the most remote point.

It is difficult to imagine how our world will change if cheap space launches come to it. Bases on other planets and satellites, space tourism, orbital factories and much more will become not just a reality, but commonplace. Reducing the cost of transporting cargo beyond our cradle is now the primary goal of all astronautics. I bring to your attention an overview of the most popular projects for launching cargo using non-rocket methods.

Space elevator

It must be the most popular and widely replicated method in the media. A space elevator is a cable stretched from the surface of the Earth and extending from it 144,000 km into space.
Base is a place on the surface of the planet where the cable is attached and the lifting of the load begins. It can be either mobile (for example, placed on an ocean-going ship) or non-movable. The advantage of a movable base is quite obvious - it is possible to avoid hurricanes and storms that can damage the cable.

Cable It is a very thin thread (relative to its length, of course) made of ultra-strong material, passed beyond the geostationary orbit and held in this position due to centrifugal force. Currently, it is not possible to create such a material, but according to theory, carbon nanotubes could become such a material. Alas, their production on an industrial scale is still very far away. The strength of the space tether should be on the order of 65-120 gigapascals, depending on the height (for comparison, the strength of steel does not exceed 1 GPa).

Counterweight serves to ensure that the cable is always in a state of tension. They can serve as any massive object, be it an asteroid or a space base (which is more attractive). The counterweight is located significantly above the geostationary orbit, therefore, if the cable breaks, it may well fly into near-solar orbit. Therefore, if they are to serve as a space station, then it must be equipped with its own propulsion system.

Loads are lifted into orbit by a special lift (or maybe even more than one), and according to scientists’ calculations, the journey from end to end should take about 7 days. Not fast of course, but very cheap. After all, this is much faster than launching with rockets, the preparation of which takes many months. Of course, a project of this scale must be international, because no state can handle it alone. And this, in turn, raises a number of problems and questions. Firstly, on what territory should such a structure be placed? Indeed, due to its gigantic size, it is impossible to avoid violating the airspace of several states. Secondly, the space elevator must be protected from terrorist attacks and military conflicts.

Pros:

• Relative cheapness of cargo delivery to geostationary orbit
• Significant cost savings when launching interplanetary spacecraft
• Possibility of implementing inexpensive space excursions
• Unlike rockets, no toxic substances are released into the atmosphere

Minuses:

• Implementation complexity
• High construction costs
• The need to resolve many legal and legal issues

And the cable must be made of super-strong material, which, alas, is not available now.

The most suitable and closest material to creation is carbon nanotubes, but progress in their production leaves much to be desired. In addition, this is not the fastest way to get into orbit.

Inflatable elevator for sending into space

Canadian company Thoth Technology decided to take a less ambitious route. The height of the tower, the patent for which was issued in the United States on July 21, 2015, will be 20 kilometers, and the diameter will be about 230 meters.

The tower will be equipped with one or more decks from which satellites with payloads can be launched. 20 kilometers may not sound as impressive as 36 thousand kilometers, but the Thoth Tower would still be 20 times taller than any other man-made structure currently standing on Earth. In addition, it will be high enough to reduce the cost of space launches by about a third.

Canadian engineers propose making a tower from reinforced inflatable sections with an internal elevator.

The giant inflatable tower shouldn't sway in the wind, but the structure itself will be too tall to use guy ropes. For this reason, experts suggest using a system of flywheels that will provide dynamic stability and act as compressors for the structure. The flywheels will be able to regulate pressure and rotation, compensate for any bending of the tower and will keep it in a fixed state at all times.

The patent also assumes that the elevator will not move on cables (a twenty-kilometer cable would not be able to support its own weight without deformation). Loads will be delivered upward either through a pneumatic tube, thanks to the injected pressure, or from the outside using devices similar to mechanical spiders.

The main purpose of the Thoth tower will be to launch spacecraft from the top of the tower. It will act as a launch pad and replace the first stage of the launch vehicle. It can also be used for landing and refueling.

Skyhook is a rotating satellite that is in low-Earth orbit, and two fairly long cables that diverge from it in opposite directions. The satellite must rotate in the plane of its orbit so that the cables contact the upper boundaries of the atmosphere with each revolution.

The rotation speed of the structure will partially or completely compensate for the orbital speed. Overall, Skyhook resembles a giant Ferris wheel with two spokes on the sides that rolls along the surface of the earth at orbital speed. The Skyhook cable can be used to suspend loads from hypersonic aircraft or stratospheric balloons. At the same time, the entire Skyhook structure works like a giant flywheel - an accumulator of torque and kinetic energy.

Start loop

A launch loop or Lofstrom loop is a design for a cable transport system designed to launch cargo into low-Earth orbit. The project is based on a cable that continuously moves at enormous speed (12-14 km/s) inside a vacuum tube. To ensure that the cord does not come into contact with the walls of the pipe, they are separated from each other by a magnetic suspension.

Accelerator section of the space loop (return cable not shown).

In general, this device is a huge structure about 2000 km long, and the loop itself must rise to a height of up to 80 km and be held there due to the moment of inertia of the rotating cable. Rotating the cable essentially transfers the weight of the entire structure onto the pair of magnetic bearings that support it, one at each end. The advantage of this system is that it can support space tourist launches while providing a relatively mild g-force level of 3g.

Advantages

The launch loop is expected to provide a high rate of launches (several launches per hour, regardless of weather), and this system is virtually non-polluting environment. During a rocket launch, pollutants in the form of nitrates are formed due to high temperature exhaust gases, and depending on the type of fuel, greenhouse gases may be released. The starting loop, as a type of electric power plant, is environmentally friendly, it can operate from any energy source: geothermal, nuclear, solar, wind or any other, even intermittent type, since the system has a huge built-in energy storage device.

Unlike a space elevator, which must travel through the radiation belt over several days, passengers on a launch loop can be launched into low-Earth orbit, which is below the radiation belt, or through it in a few hours. This situation is similar to that faced by the Apollo astronauts, for whom radiation doses were 200 times lower than the space elevator could provide.

Unlike a space elevator, which is at risk of colliding with space debris and meteorites along its entire length, the launch loop is located at altitudes where orbits are unstable due to air resistance. Space debris does not remain there for a long time; the chance of it colliding with the installation is quite small. While the lifespan of a space elevator is on the order of several years, damage or destruction of the launch loop is relatively rare. Moreover, the launch loop itself is not a significant source of space debris, even in the event of an accident. All its possible fragments will have a perigee, intersecting with the atmosphere, or their speeds will be lower than the first cosmic speed.

The launch loop is geared toward people transport because it has a maximum acceleration of 3g that is safe and that the vast majority of people can handle. In addition, it provides a much faster way to reach outer space than the space elevator.

The launch loop will operate quietly and, unlike rockets, will not produce any noise impact.

Finally, the low cost of launching a payload into orbit makes it suitable even for space colonization.

Difficulties

The untwisted loop will store great amount energy in the form of impulse. Because the maglev system will have a lot of redundancy, a failure in a small area will not affect the system's functionality. But if significant destruction of the structure occurs, the entire stored energy (1.5 petajoules) will be released, which is equivalent to the explosion of an atomic bomb with a power of 350 kilotons (though without radiation emission). Although this is a huge amount of energy, it is unlikely that the entire structure will be destroyed due to its very large size, and also because if a fault is detected most of energy will be directed to a specially designated place. It may be necessary to take measures to lower the cable from a height of 80 km with minimal damage, for example, provide parachutes. Therefore, for safety and astrodynamic reasons, the launch loop will need to be installed over the ocean near the equator, away from populated areas.

The published launch loop design requires electronic control of magnetic levitation to minimize power dissipation and stabilize cable attenuation caused by other causes. Instability will occur primarily in the rotating sections, as well as in the cable.

Rotary sections are potentially unstable because moving the rotor away from the magnets results in a decrease in magnetic attraction, while moving toward the magnets creates an increase in attraction. In any case, instability arises. This problem is solved by using servo control systems that control the force of the magnets. Although the reliability of servos at high rotor speed is a subject of research, very many serial servo sections will be lost to restrain the rotor in the event of a system failure.

Sections of cable will also share this potential fate, although the force is much lower. However, there is another potential instability, which is that the cable/sheath/rotor can undergo meandering (like a Lariat circuit), and the amplitude of this process can increase without limitation (resonance). Lofstrom believes that this instability could also be controlled in real time using servomechanisms, although no one has done this yet.

To maintain the vacuum in the system at an acceptable level, you will need many vacuum pumps evenly distributed along the length (i.e. at an altitude of 80 kilometers too) constantly working for pumping to compensate for leakage.

The difficulty is in obtaining the necessary electrical power in the middle of the ocean.

Problems

• Suborbital space flights begin at an altitude of approximately 100 km, while already at an altitude of 30 km, a decrease in air density negates the aerodynamic advantages of the wing and rocket technology is needed to further increase the altitude.
• Scalability is difficult - rockets that launch at least 2 tons into orbit weigh 100-200 tons, which is close to the lifting capacity limit of existing aircraft: the An-124 lifts 120 tons, the An-225 - 247 tons.
• Problems of structural strength of the payload and launch vehicle - satellites are often designed to withstand only axial overloads, and even horizontal assembly (when the satellite lies “on its side”) is unacceptable for them.
• The need to develop powerful hypersonic engines. Since an effective carrier is a fast carrier, conventional turbojet engines are poorly suited.

At the current level of technology development, aerospace systems can become effective means delivery of cargo into orbit, but only if these cargoes are small (in the region of five tons) and the carrier is hypersonic.

StarTram, orbital cannon (Gauss cannon), electromagnetic catapult and rocket sled.

All these ideas are similar to the idea of ​​launching objects by shooting from a huge gun, which was considered by science fiction writers back in the 19th century. Over time, the concept was improved, and today it is still considered by theorists as possible method delivery to orbit. The essence of this method of non-rocket launch is to “shoot” the device through electromagnetic acceleration, giving it sufficient speed, and upon reaching orbit it uses a minimum of carried fuel, being able to carry a maximum of cargo.

StarTram proposes to accelerate an unmanned ship with an overload of 30 g through a 130 km long tunnel, at the end of which there is a plasma window that prevents air from entering the tunnel. Ideally, the window should be located on a mountain peak 6000 km high, where the launch will be carried out at an angle of 10 degrees with a speed of 8.78 km/s. You can also get a bonus from the rotation of the Earth in the form of additional speed if you “shoot” to the east, which compensates for losses from the passage of the atmosphere.

The design itself will resemble a huge artillery weapon, the barrel length of which can reach several kilometers, or be located deep into the surface according to the principle of a missile silo.

Theoretically, such a design will allow the projectile to be accelerated to the first cosmic speed (about 8 km/s) necessary for insertion into a stationary orbit; however, the overloads achieved with such acceleration will be enormous, on the order of 100 g, and air resistance in the lower layers of the atmosphere will require heavy-duty heat-resistant materials for the shell “ projectile”, so it would be reasonable to use this launch method exclusively for cargo.

The space gun itself is not suitable for launching cargo into a stable orbit around the Earth. The laws of physics do not allow achieving a stable orbit without flight correction after launch. The launch trajectory can be parabolic, hyperbolic or elliptical (on reaching the first escape velocity).

The latter ends on the Earth's surface at the launch point (plus or minus the planet's rotation and atmospheric resistance). This means that without adjustment, the ballistic trajectory will always end in a fall to the planet within the first orbit, provided that the launch is made at the first escape velocity. When launched at the second escape velocity, the projectile enters an orbit around the Sun, which intersects with the Earth's orbit, however, this orbit, due to disturbances from other planets, may change and no longer intersect with the Earth's orbit. Therefore, launching from a space gun is only possible for devices equipped with their own engines for correction, and they also need serious thermal protection to pass through the atmosphere.

But for example, on the Moon, where there is no atmosphere, a cannon design may be optimal.

Laser propulsion systems

Laser propulsion systems can transmit the spacecraft's impulse in two different ways. The first way is to use photon pressure, transmitting momentum similar to solar and laser sails. The second method uses a laser to heat the working fluid of the spacecraft, as in a conventional rocket.

For example, to launch a satellite weighing 100 kg, a laser with a power of at least 1 MW is required. It has now been established that a gas-dynamic laser can be used most effectively for the above purposes. In this case, laser technology intersects significantly with the technology of creating modern rockets, which has already been quite well developed over the past 50 years, which makes it possible to pose similar tasks. In addition, the laser must operate in a pulse-periodic mode with a high repetition rate of short pulses to eliminate the process of shielding of incoming laser radiation by the plasma generated during engine operation, as well as to increase its operating efficiency. According to domestic and foreign experts, such laser jet engines can be used as part of cheap single-stage launch vehicles for nano-micro- and mini-satellites.

Space fountain

This concept was first introduced by the joint efforts of Robert L. Forward, Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Hans Moravec, Roderick Hyde, and Lowell Wood. A wealth of information about her can be found in Robert L. Forward's book Indistinguishable From Magic.

Unlike the original space elevator design, the fountain is an extremely tall tower, because such a tall tower cannot support its weight using traditional materials, it is planned that this weight will be supported as follows: the inside of the tower will be hollow, inside this cavity there is a special granular substance . This substance, after transferring kinetic energy to it, quickly moves up from the bottom of the tower and transfers this energy to its upper part, after which it falls back under the influence of gravity, this will keep the tower from falling.

The space fountain uses a continuous stream of electromagnetic-accelerated metal granules to deliver a load to extreme heights, using the same basic physics that a regular fountain holds a plastic ball atop a vertical stream of water.

Small metal pellets by the millions would be released into a "deflector" station high above the ground, which would use a magnetic field to catch the pellets, sending them around a curve with an electromagnetic accelerator and returning them back to the ground. The ground station, in turn, will use a magnetic "scoop" to catch the balls, launching them in a curve back to the station by a powerful electromagnetic accelerator, all in one continuous cycle. The pressure exerted on the magnetic fields of the scoop and the curved accelerator by a continuous flow of granules will keep the entire structure in the air.

The key to understanding the space fountain is that it uses a continuous stream of granules to constantly press down on the station and lift it up. Remember the analogy with a fountain, this is how it can hold a ball suspended by a stream of water by continuous recirculation of water: the water that falls back into the fountain is sucked into the water intakes and fed back into the water stream and so on ad infinitum. The same thing with the metal “jet” of the cosmic fountain.

Additionally, it is important to understand that the pellets and the station will never have physical contact. The magnetic fields of the scoop and curved accelerator act as a kind of buffer, preventing any damage from the pellets rushing towards the station at a speed of 4 km/s. However, the granules exert pressure on the magnetic fields as they pass through them, and this force is in turn transferred to the station, keeping it aloft.

Using this technology, the fountain could lift a fully equipped space station weighing 40 tons or more to any height, even the height of a space elevator (40,000 km). However, the higher the altitude, the more energy is required (more on this below). To maintain a cosmic fountain about 2000 km in height requires constant energy comparable to the consumption of a modern city.

But one of the advantages of a fountain is that once the system is started, the energy required to maintain it will be much less than the energy to start it. The loss of momentum from gravity as the stream of granules takes off will be exactly balanced by the gain in momentum from gravity as the stream falls to the ground station and the overall momentum of the system never changes. Entropy dictates that some energy will eventually be lost over time, but this can easily be compensated by auxiliary power plants that provide a small portion of the energy needed to initially start the system. Thus, even if the power supply is interrupted, the fountain will function normally for some time. For overhead stations with an altitude of 1000 km or more, this can take up to several hours.

Another advantage of the space fountain is that the system can be built from scratch. The ground station and station deflector with their boosters can be built entirely on the ground and the station will sit on top of the ground station with the boosters aligned. Then the force of the flow of granules would slowly but eventually raise the station, first by a few centimeters, then by several hundred meters, and so on kilometer after kilometer. The process can be suspended at any height, from a few centimeters to several thousand meters, indefinitely, allowing for calibrations, maintenance, new construction, etc.

The power source to support the fountain can also be used to support lateral structures such as elevators or walls along its length. Electromagnetic accelerators/retarders can be built vertically along a "stream" of granules, so a fountain can slowly build up based on the force of the granules. Since the wall sections (and any internal structure) can support themselves in the air by the internal flow passing through them, they will not experience overload, as would normal buildings hundreds or thousands of kilometers in height.

Thus, space fountains can be used to create truly gigantic buildings and towers. And, unlike a space elevator, a space fountain does not require any extremely expensive or currently non-existent materials to build. Modern alloys and composite materials are quite suitable for its construction.

The most obvious use for such a super-tall structure, of course, would be as a rocketless space launch. Can be installed on external walls electromagnetic accelerators“firing” loads into orbit. A fountain about 40 km high would be enough to launch passengers into orbit with less than 3g of acceleration, and one 100 km high or higher could simply throw cargo directly into orbit without exceeding even 1g.

The fountain tower can also be used as a huge sized arcology, research facility, industrial center, etc. The fountain, 100 kilometers high and 100 meters wide, will have a volume of about 7.85 cubic kilometers. Designers and architects can use this space for anything they want. But wider and more spacious towers are also possible.

Advantages over space elevator

• The space fountain can be built using currently available technologies. It does not require exotic materials (such as nanotubes), unlike a space elevator.
• The space fountain can be built from the Earth, and not from the GEO as is the case with the space elevator.
• A space fountain can be built at any point on earth, not just at the equator.
• A space fountain can be built on celestial bodies with a very low rotation speed, for example: the Moon, Venus.
• The Space Fountain is not as likely to be hit by space debris due to its smaller size than the Space Elevator.

Disadvantages compared to the space elevator

Its main disadvantage is that it is an active structure and therefore requires constant energy.

Thus, we see that today any of the presented methods is unattainable, which is due to economic insolvency and the lack of necessary technologies and materials. However, the need to extract new resources, develop planets and satellites, sooner or later will force us to consider the methods presented above not as the inventions of science fiction writers and theorists, but as a real and necessary alternative to the rocket launch that exists today.

Rocket engines spewing flames spaceship into orbit around the Earth. Other rockets take ships beyond the solar system.

In any case, when we think about rockets, we imagine space flights. But rockets can also fly in your room, for example during your birthday celebration.

Rockets at home

Ordinary balloon can also be a rocket. How? Inflate the balloon and pinch its neck to prevent air from escaping. Now release the ball. He will begin to fly around the room completely unpredictably and uncontrollably, pushed by the force of the air escaping from him.

Here's another simple rocket. Let's put a cannon on the railway car. Let's send her back. Let's assume that the friction between the rails and wheels is very small and the braking will be minimal. Let's fire a cannon. At the moment of the shot, the trolley moves forward. If you start shooting frequently, the trolley will not stop, but will pick up speed with each shot. Flying backwards from the cannon barrel, the shells push the trolley forward.

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The force that is created in this case is called recoil. It is this force that makes any rocket move, both on earth and in space. Whatever substances or objects are ejected from a moving object, pushing it forward, we will have an example of a rocket engine.

The rocket is much better suited for flying in the void of space than in the earth's atmosphere. To launch a rocket into space, engineers have to design powerful rocket engines. They base their designs on the universal laws of the universe discovered by the great English scientist Isaac Newton, who worked at the end of the 17th century. Newton's laws describe gravity and what happens to physical bodies when they move. The second and third laws help to clearly understand what a rocket is.

Rocket motion and Newton's laws

Newton's second law relates the force of a moving object to its mass and acceleration (the change in speed per unit time). Thus, to create a powerful rocket, its engine must eject large masses of burned fuel at high speed. Newton's third law states that the action force is equal to the reaction force and is directed in the opposite side. In the case of a rocket, the action force is the hot gases escaping from the rocket nozzle; the counterforce pushes the rocket forward.

A Brief History of Rockets

The general principle of jet flight, which formed the basis of all rockets, is simple - some part is separated from the body, setting everything else in motion.

It is unknown who was the first to implement this principle, but various guesses and conjectures bring the genealogy of rocket science right back to Archimedes. What is known for certain about the first such inventions is that they were actively used by the Chinese, who loaded them with gunpowder and launched them into the sky due to the explosion. Thus they created the first solid fuel rockets. European governments showed great interest in missiles early

Second rocket boom

Rockets waited in the wings and waited: in the 1920s, the second rocket boom began, and it is associated primarily with two names.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, a self-taught scientist from the Ryazan province, despite difficulties and obstacles, himself reached many discoveries, without which it would have been impossible to even talk about space. The idea of ​​using liquid fuel, Tsiolkovsky’s formula, which calculates the speed required for flight based on the ratio of the final and initial masses, a multi-stage rocket - all this is his merit. Largely under the influence of his works, domestic rocket science was created and formalized. In the Soviet Union, societies and circles for the study of jet propulsion began to spontaneously arise, including GIRD - a group for the study of jet propulsion, and in 1933, under the patronage of the authorities, the Jet Institute appeared.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.
Source: Wikimedia.org

The second hero of the rocket race is the German physicist Wernher von Braun. Brown had an excellent education and a lively mind, and after meeting another luminary of world rocket science, Heinrich Oberth, he decided to put all his efforts into creating and improving rockets. During World War II, von Braun actually became the father of the Reich's “weapon of retaliation” - the V-2 rocket, which the Germans began using on the battlefield in 1944. The “winged horror,” as it was called in the press, brought destruction to many English cities, but, fortunately, at that time the collapse of Nazism was already a matter of time. Wernher von Braun, together with his brother, decided to surrender to the Americans, and, as history has shown, this was a lucky ticket not only and not so much for scientists, but for the Americans themselves. Since 1955, Brown has worked for the American government, and his inventions form the basis of the US space program.

But let's go back to the 1930s. The Soviet government appreciated the zeal of enthusiasts on the path to space and decided to use it in its own interests. During the war years, the “Katyusha” system showed itself to be excellent volley fire, which fired rockets. It was in many ways an innovative weapon: the Katyusha, based on a Studebaker light truck, arrived, turned around, fired at the sector and left, not allowing the Germans to come to their senses.

The end of the war presented our leadership with a new task: the Americans demonstrated to the world the full power of the nuclear bomb, and it became quite obvious that only those who have something similar can claim the status of a superpower. But there was a problem. The fact is that, in addition to the bomb itself, we needed delivery vehicles that could bypass US air defense. Airplanes were not suitable for this. And the USSR decided to rely on missiles.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky died in 1935, but he was replaced by a whole generation of young scientists who sent man into space. Among these scientists was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, who was destined to become the Soviets' "trump card" in the space race.

The USSR set about creating its intercontinental missile with all zeal: institutes were organized, the best scientists were gathered, a missile research institute was being created in Podlipki near Moscow, and work was in full swing.

Only a colossal effort of effort, resources and minds made it possible Soviet Union V as soon as possible build your own rocket, which they called R-7. It was its modifications that launched Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin into space, and it was Sergei Korolev and his associates who launched the space age of mankind. But what does a space rocket consist of?