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India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

arstechnica.com

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Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#81

Post by rayiner »

mayama wrote: post #46

Regarding Indian private space sector, In addition to skyroot solid rocket, following are noteworthy Agnikul is planning to launch semi-cryo kerosene rocket pretty soon. Their engine is 3d printed and use electric pump fed 25kN small engine. Planning to launch 4 clustered engines as first stage and already did suborbital test, with some parachute splash down reusability claims. Astrobase is recent entrant. With decen…

Wow, being able to develop an FFCS engine would be a huge feather in the cap for the Indian aerospace industry.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

detritus wrote: post #77
alephnerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Pixxel, Skyroot, and Agnikul are targeting orbital data center launches this year for defense applications (which is what the entire ODC story is about). The US NRO already uses India's Pixxel [0] along with Finland's ICEYE (which is now co-manufacturing synthetic aperture sats in India with Agnikul [1]) for hyperspectral scanning. Edit: can't reply > But.. why? Missile Defense and C4ISR [2]. Seconds matter, so…

Mein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I…

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute?

Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this.

One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper to move compute upwell instead - atmosphere losses for beamed power are just too big. Of course this doesn't matter if you can get cheap, clean power from elsewhere (e.g. nuclear).

This is in general data center case. Here, GP says the motivation is reducing C2 RTT, which makes sense for military applications.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#83

Post by rayiner »

detritus wrote: post #77
alephnerd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Pixxel, Skyroot, and Agnikul are targeting orbital data center launches this year for defense applications (which is what the entire ODC story is about). The US NRO already uses India's Pixxel [0] along with Finland's ICEYE (which is now co-manufacturing synthetic aperture sats in India with Agnikul [1]) for hyperspectral scanning. Edit: can't reply > But.. why? Missile Defense and C4ISR [2]. Seconds matter, so…

Mein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I…

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute?

In the real world, "physics" is not necessarily the gating factor. There is a major concern about the environmental footprint of terrestrial data centers, to the point where major U.S. states are enacting moratoriums: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/first-statewide-moratorium-.... These legal and social roadblocks must be accounted for in analyzing the viability of orbital data centers.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#84

Post by rayiner »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #82
detritus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Gott, you're not just making this up ( https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/neevcloud-and-agn... ). But.. why? Musk bandwagon-hopping? Investor bamboozlery? (Same diff?) Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? - ed, disclosure: You seem to have edited your response whilst I…

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…

Could we have giant nuclear reactors in space? What's the power loss from beaming down power?

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#85

Post by rayiner »

walrus01 wrote: post #65
alephnerd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India's bureaucracy and MEA is beset with gandhian mindset who try to avoid confrontations and minimise belligerence, opposite of PRC wolf warriors I guess. It isn't because of some purported Gandhian mindset. It's becuase India is in a pacing conflict with China and Pakistan, whereas China is in one with the US and historically the USSR. Assuming the Chagos Archipelago dispute gets resolved in the next decade (Ind…

I presume they're thinking any potential adversaries have functioning intelligence agencies, so something as public as a launch is sufficient. No need to come out and explicitly state it. If I, some rando on the internet, can theorize "that sure looks like it could be turned into a storable icbm that could deliver a nuke to hawaii or Tierra del Fuego or anywhere else on the globe" can make that guess, then any other…

> Also well known that having the institutional knowledge and technical capability to build or adapt something in a fairly short time frame is almost as good as having the thing ready to go.

This is similar to how Japan doesn't have nuclear weapons.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#87

Post by TeMPOraL »

rayiner wrote: post #84
TeMPOraL wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is my borderline childish understanding of basic physics THAT off because I cannot see the value or utility (beyond a small smear of niche edge cases) of space-based compute? Don't worry, most of the people online didn't get the memo on this. One of the major selling points of orbital compute is power supply - more specifically, it turns out that, compared to beaming power from space, it's projected to be cheaper t…

Could we have giant nuclear reactors in space? What's the power loss from beaming down power?

> Could we have giant nuclear reactors in space?

We could. The usual stumbling block is how to ship fissile material upwell without the risk of a launch failure spreading highly radioactive material over several countries.

> What's the power loss from beaming down power?

I think it's about 10% from atmosphere alone, but you have to add losses from other components in the system, including light -> current -> RF and RF -> current legs, and I've seen estimates ranging from 15% to 40% efficiency end to end; this random article includes breakdown with estimates, that multiplies down to 37.5% efficiency end-to-end.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sci...

EDIT:

This system design gives 7-14% end-to-end efficiency: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.08373

EDIT2:

Also to spell out another non-obvious aspect of beamed power, it turns out that it's not the efficiency that's the limiting factor per se, but land - you can improve efficiency by building larger rectennas, but it gets very expensive very quickly once you consider paying for land under them.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#88

Post by aduwah »

vivzkestrel wrote: post #80
itissid wrote: post #35

There is just so much that can go wrong with rocket launches if you do cursory reading about these things. A few random examples: The lowest stage cant just be "turned down" or modulated because they work by burning an inner solid rubber lining that's like an annular cylinder. The first three stages are roughly doing the job sequence: `lift off the ground -> reach target altitude -> reach target orbital velocity` and…

- you seem to know what you are talking about - is there a place that you recommend where they teach you how rockets work, what is involved in building one, the math and physics behind it, materials required etc etc?

Kerbal Space Program

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#89

Post by villgax »

zbentley wrote: post #10

And with $160MM in funding at a $1.1B valuation? I don't know about their debt, but to get to LEO in 8 years on that little money is extremely impressive.

you can imagine if they bother cracking landing back to re-use, it's KO for spacex

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#90

Post by TeMPOraL »

echoangle wrote: post #5
bovermyer wrote: post #3

That's pretty cool. The phrase "3D-printed engine" stuck out to me as neat, too.

Rocket Lab has been printing engines for some time now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_(rocket_engine)

So has SpaceX. It's becoming standard practice these days.
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