“It’s one thing to perform with a helicopter, it’s another to set it up properly”

– On the eve of first-time private company Rocket Lab entrepreneur Peter Beck managed to come back using a helicopter and a parachute to deploy a space rocket when launched for reuse. They became the second company after SpaceX to implement their own stage recovery method. Is this an important event for astronauts?

– In general, the idea of ​​​​taking a rocket stage by helicopter is not new, it has long been put forward, including here in Russia. This is a fairly mature technology related to space. Similarly, landers, photographic film capsules, were also sent back from space.

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Pavel Pushkin

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For the most part, the Americans were engaged in such experiments. Their problem was that their area was expanding in the opposite direction of the throw, and it was easier for them to pick up certain objects. There were even experiments on taking a person. There is such an episode in one of the James Bond movies, and this is not a movie fairy tale – a person jumps with a parachute and is picked up by an airplane or helicopter. This system has worked for many things.

– Have we used a similar system in our country?

– Yes, as far as I know, such a system was tested on our helicopters in the 70-80s to save a military special facility. Many successful pick-ups have been made in the air and high reliability has been demonstrated.

– But during the launch into space, this method of returning the scene was used for the first time …

– Yes, we have never used it for space. The biggest problem with a pick system is the weight of what you want to pick up. It is determined by the carrying capacity of the helicopter.

In Russia, my colleagues worked on the helicopter pick-up of the URM-1 universal missile modules of the Angara missile. It weighs about ten tons.

– Is it true for the world’s largest lift helicopter Mi-26?

– Yes, Mi-26 lifts. Mi-26, which has a carrying capacity of 20 tons in flight, can take a maximum weight of up to 15 tons. There is no problem with that.

– And what’s in there?

– There may be problems with the size of the parachute and the helicopter itself. If the object is small, a small parachute, a hook, all is well. But for a large object large parachutes are needed, helicopters begin to extinguish them. That is, problems begin when moving from small to large. It seems like the right thing Rocket Lab is doing right now, as the tread dimensions provide the easiest way to apply the aggregator. That is, they do not need to make any super-complicated holding devices – a parachute flies, they take it with a hook and that’s it. At the same time, when receiving, there is no overload and shaking, and it solves the problem of the last stage of using the rocket. For Space X, this is the landing of the first stage on the legs, and for Rocket Lab, the pickup.

Keep in mind that it is one thing to take a step with a helicopter, a completely different problem is laying it properly. In principle, I think that in Russia, also in the USA, helicopters can accurately stack cargo, we have extensive experience in erecting masts and other structures.

“After all, a soft landing step in both cases should carry an extra load…

– Yes, in the case of a pickup, you save legs and fuel for a braking blow, but you need to put a parachute on the stage, and you need a helicopter to be serviced … On the fingers, these are approximately similar systems. Getting a rocket from a helicopter is even easier than landing on the legs, you do not need to work out the dynamics of flight.

– Could the idea of ​​\u200b\u200btake find application in Russian missiles?

– Hard to say, we have our own problems with reusability, how promising is in our conditions. And if we are talking about heavy, that is, state-owned missiles, then there is not enough carrying capacity. Yes, the Angara URM can be taken, but if the Angara is reused at the same time, the payload mass will be severely reduced and there will be no need for such a rocket. But if we talk about ultralight missiles, then yes, it will probably be cheaper to get them for someone due to the high competence of the crew. And it will be cheaper for someone to sit on their feet. And I know teams in our country that try to raise them up.

– Landing like a musk on the legs and getting a helicopter in the air isn’t the only way to save the first one. How promising is the use of a scene with wings landing at an airport like an airplane?

Yes, this has been suggested several times. For the first time, they returned to the USSR, when in this way they were going to save the side stages of the Energia rocket. Initially, it was proposed to turn the stage not on the legs, but sideways on the landing legs using gunpowder engines and parachutes. Classic parachute-jet landing, as for the Soyuz spacecraft. This was implemented in the form of mock-ups, we saw these elements on the “sides” of the rocket, but during the firing tests the rocket block was cut in half.

The party and the government urgently began to look for a replacement, including picking up, albeit with two helicopters at once. It turned out to be difficult, and therefore the idea arose to make a rocket block with blades that split like scissors. The project was called GK-175. Calculations were made, liquidations were made, but at this stage everyone understood that the rocket would no longer fly like Buran.

— Were such ideas proposed in the 2000s?

– Yes, people who were previously involved in this project, mostly military, came to the Khrunichev Center and proposed such a plan for the steps of Angara. This is how the Baikal project was born, people from Molniya, who participated in the development of the Buran glider, were driven there and decided to implement this project. It was around 2001. Everyone worked in the finished Angara, it turned out that the system did not give anything, and somewhere in 2002 the project was curtailed, but a lot of money was inflated for this. Later, a project was developed to take the side blocks by helicopter as an alternative.

Later, the project participants came to the conclusion that it is impossible to use winged stages in a finished rocket, it is necessary to increase the size of the rocket, make methane, and the calculations on the fingers showed that everything will work out. Khrunichev was led by Vladimir Nesterov, who in his youth was involved in the Energia project and again supported the wing project.

This is how the MRKS project was born – a “reusable rocket and space system” with wings, but larger in size, based on Baikal. But again, too many technical difficulties were shown at the paper stage, and the economic aspects proved to be controversial even on paper.
Now at TsNIIMash, a flight demonstrator “Krylo-SV” is being built on the base.

But there are also problems with this system.

— Trouble with the hinge where the sash needs to turn?

– That’s not the real problem. The main thing is feedback.

High re-entry rates and high landing rates. From here, other problems stretch – and overheating and dynamics, shocks and others.

The winged block looks beautiful, interesting. But it is very expensive to develop and develop. To stay on your feet, you need to develop simple systems, drivers and add fuel. To get it you need a parachute, a helicopter, minor improvements. And with the wing, it is necessary to completely replace the body of the stage, everything has to be redone, a lot of expensive aviation systems have to be added, but most importantly, this cannot be solved during normal rocket flights, as in SpaceX. and Rocket Lab. The system is very interesting in terms of payment of funds, in a good way, there are very interesting tasks and people are drawn to it. But it is not without reason that two more systems have been implemented so far, and the third is shown only at exhibitions. And for some reason, both ours and the whole world, only the military, apparently, has been interested in him since the days of Buran.

Overall, landing with a helicopter lift isn’t a bad idea, though I wouldn’t say it’s revolutionary. No worse than landing on the legs.