VLS-1

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VLS-1

The VLS-1 ( V eículo L ançador de S atélites ) was a planned Brazilian launcher that on the sounding rocket Sonda 4 based. It should be able to put satellites weighing up to 350 kg into low earth orbit. After two failed test flights, development was stopped.

construction

The rocket consisted of three stages with solid propulsion . In the first phase, the launch was supported by four boosters . All engines used APCP ( ammonium perchlorate , aluminum powder and polybutadiene ) as fuel.

The total height of the VLS-1 was 19.7 m, its mass about 49.6 t.

  booster First stage Second step Third step
Surname S-43 (4 pieces) S-43 ™ S-40 ™ S-44
height 9.00 m 8.10 m 5.80 m 1.80 m
diameter 1.00 m 1.00 m 1.00 m 1.00 m
Mass empty of fuel 1328 kg 1536 kg 1212 kg 190 kg
Bulk refueled 8550 kg 8720 kg 5664 kg 1025 kg
drive Solid Solid Solid Solid
Engines 1 1 1 1
thrust 303 kN 320.6 kN 208.39 kN 33.24 kN
Specific impulse 260 s 277 s 275 s 282 s
Burn time 59 s 58 p 56 s 68 p

The individual parts of the rocket were manufactured by the CTA (Comando-Geral de Tecnologia Aeroespacial) in São José dos Campos near São Paulo and transported to the Alcântara launch site.

Flights

Test flights

Test flights with the smaller version VLS-R1 took place on December 1, 1985 and May 18, 1989 . The starting point was the Centro de Lançamento da Barreira do Inferno near Natal .

The maiden flight of the VLS-1 was supposed to take place on November 2, 1997 under the designation V01. The payload consisted of the SCD-2A satellite . However, when it took off at 12:25 GMT, one of the boosters failed, so the missile's self-destruct mechanism had to be triggered.

The second launch took place under the designation V02 on December 11, 1999 at 18:25 GMT. This time the second stage failed, so that this rocket also had to be blown up, and the SACI 2 research satellite was also lost.

catastrophe

The next launch was initially planned for October 2002, but was only postponed to May 7th and then to June 20th, 2003 and finally to August 25th, 2003. The two satellites SATEC and UNOSAT were planned as payloads .

Three days before the planned launch, on August 22, 2003, while work was being done on the launcher, one of the boosters ignited prematurely, whereupon the entire rocket exploded. This killed 21 people and injured another 20. The loss of experts, rocket and launch facilities meant a major setback for the Brazilian space program.

The End

After the explosion, further test flights were suspended and the previous development was checked first. In 2008 the project was resumed and the second stage engine tested. A satellite launch was planned for 2012 to 2015. In 2016, however, the decision was made to stop developing the VLS-1 and instead concentrate on the VLM ( Veículo Lançador de Microssatélite ).

Web links

Commons : Lambda Rocket  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fábio Amato: Aeronáutica testa motor do foguete VLS-1 com sucesso. Folha.com, October 21, 2008, accessed September 27, 2010 (Portuguese).
  2. Ivan Plavetz: IAE propõe revisão do Programa VLS -1. Tecololocia & defesa, April 29, 2016, accessed May 22, 2017 (Portuguese).
  3. ^ Gunter Krebs: VLS. In: Gunter's Space Page. April 16, 2016, accessed May 22, 2017 .