A Research Program to Study Airborne Launch to Space

Researchers supported by a multiuniversity research initiative award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research are studying the technical issues involved in an airborne electromagnetic launch to space of small payload masses. The payload mass under consideration (1-10 kg) is much smaller than in earlier studies of launch to space, where payloads of ges1000 kg required a substantial and expensive ground-based launch facility. The lower mass now being evaluated allows all components-launcher and power supplies-to be scaled down, so that power and energy ratings and component masses are considerably reduced. To offset the aerothermal heating of the small projectile as it transits the atmosphere at >7 km/s, the entire launch system may be mounted on a large cargo aircraft and airlifted to a high altitude, where lower air density reduces the aerothermal loads to a feasible level. Such an electromagnetic launcher and pulsed power supply system could fit in a large aircraft, such as a C-5B or A-380F

[1]  J. V. Parker,et al.  Why plasma armature railguns don't work (and what can be done about it) , 1989 .

[2]  D W Lodge,et al.  Use of an Instrumented 120MM Projectile for Obtaining In-Bore Gun Dynamics Data , 2001 .

[3]  M. E. Tauber,et al.  Stagnation-point radiative heating relations for earth and Mars entries , 1991 .

[4]  I. R. McNab,et al.  Launch to space with an electromagnetic railgun , 2003 .

[5]  M. Kohno,et al.  Stable and reproducible production of high velocity projectile in ISAS railgun (HYPAC) , 1993 .

[6]  J. Parker,et al.  Performance loss due to wall ablation in plasma armature railguns , 1985 .

[7]  G. Candler,et al.  Projectile Nosetip Thermal Management for Railgun Launch to Space , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.

[8]  K. A. Jamison,et al.  Analysis of experimental data from a 50-mm railgun driven by a 5-MJ capacitor power supply , 1993 .

[9]  V. M. Sokolov,et al.  Experiments on simple railgun with the compacted plasma armature , 1995 .

[10]  I. R. McNab,et al.  The STAR railgun concept , 1999 .

[11]  J. V. Parker,et al.  Performance loss due to electrical breakdown of pre-accelerator gas , 1993 .

[12]  K. A. Jamison,et al.  Performance characteristics of a high velocity, 25 mm railgun , 1995 .

[13]  S. C. Rashleigh,et al.  Electromagnetic acceleration of macroparticles to high velocities , 1978 .

[14]  J. V. Parker,et al.  Zero-ablation tests on the HART augmented launcher , 1993 .

[15]  Jerald V. Parker,et al.  Electromagnetic projectile acceleration utilizing distributed energy sources , 1982 .

[16]  M. B. Schulman,et al.  HART hypervelocity augmented railgun test facility , 1993 .