WASHINGTON — Astrobotic, an organization that develops automobiles for house exploration missions, is making a strategic transfer into the protection sector with its Xogdor reusable rocket, designed to check payloads on the fringe of house.
Masten Area Techniques, an organization acquired by Astrobotic in 2022, began creating the suborbital Xogdor car in 2021. The rocket, anticipated to debut in 2025, is funded by a NASA contract, “however we’re additionally purposes to help the Division of Protection,” Sean Bedford, Astrobotic’s director of enterprise improvement for propulsion methods, stated in an interview final week on the Area Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Astrobotic’s present Xodiac and Xombie suborbital rockets fly from Mojave, California, and the corporate is in discussions with the Air Pressure to fly Xogdor from Edwards Air Pressure Base.
The corporate earlier this month introduced it signed a cooperative settlement with the U.S. Air Pressure Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) Rocket Propulsion Division, based mostly at Edwards. Astrobotic and AFRL will collaborate on the event of liquid rocket engine applied sciences and flight testing alternatives.
Bedford stated Astrobotic plans to supply the liquid-fueled Xogdor — 27 ft tall and about three ft in diameter — to the U.S. Air Pressure, the Missile Protection Company and different protection organizations to be used as a testing and analysis platform, and for transportation. “We predict the alternatives to leverage a platform like this are in depth and so they haven’t absolutely been explored.”
Protection purposes
Xogdor’s reusability interprets to sooner turnaround instances between missions, enabling extra frequent testing alternatives, he stated. Potential purposes embody suborbital atmospheric analysis, testing of missile protection methods and hypersonic weapons, and point-to-point cargo supply. Xogdor’s supersonic capabilities may very well be helpful for simulating the re-entry profiles of shorter-range tactical missiles.
Whereas the reusable rocket revolution has been spearheaded by SpaceX and its Falcon 9 orbital launch car, the idea of reusable suborbital rockets like Astrobotic’s Xogdor has obtained comparatively much less consideration, Bedford stated.
“We anticipate that there are going to be a variety of totally different variants of this car. Proper now we’re creating Block 1 and count on to fly it in 2025,” he stated. “We anticipate an alternative choice to sounding rockets for Block 2 that’ll be primarily targeted on getting up above the Karman Line to related altitudes, with the ability to present entry to the house atmosphere, but additionally to do some fairly cool issues you can solely do with liquid rockets.”
Rocket cargo
The army’s “rocket cargo” program is a significant alternative, Bedford stated.
“Xogdor’s predecessors, together with our Xodiac and Xombie rockets, have executed short-range point-to-point flights since 2009,” he stated. However these had been low-speed hops of a number of hundred meters. Xogdor’s preliminary flight qualification marketing campaign will embody a progressive collection of multi-kilometer point-to-point flights to reveal its method and touchdown operations, he added.
“Beginning with the Block 2 variant, Xogdor automobiles will likely be able to supersonic flight speeds, ranges of a number of hundred kilometers, microgravity environments, and entry to suborbital house.”
Whereas most trendy sounding rockets use strong propellant, Bedford stated Astrobotic hopes that Xogdor will turn out to be the primary absolutely reusable liquid-fueled platform for sounding rocket missions.
