Selected Articles from the
March 2001 Odyssey
Editor: Terry Hancock
- Scorpius Team Files Again, Steve Bartlett
- The Demise of X-33 and X34, Steve Bartlett
- Opening Space: The SpaceLift Project, Terry Hancock
- The Surf Report, Diane Rhodes
Scorpius Team Flies Again
By Steve Bartlett
The Microcosm Scorpius rocket team achieved another milestone in their effort to lower the cost of spaceflight with the launch of their SR-XM-1 rocket on March 9 at the White Sands Missile Range. The rocket, built under contract to the Air Force, was transported to the launch site and flown in under one week's time with a minimal launch crew. |
| Scropius under construction in El Segundo. Photograph courtesy Craig E. Ward. Addition photographs. |
The Scorpius program seeks to dramatically reduce the cost of launching payloads to orbit by employing simple, reliable, and mass-produced hardware, off-the-shelf avionics, and small development and flight crews. The SR-XM-1 technology demonstrator vehicle featured a pressure-fed propulsion system; a lightweight composite fuel tank; commercially available computer and guidance electronics; ablatively-cooled rocket engines; and simple, robust structures. The rocket was designed, built, and flown in two years.
The airframe design of the SR-XM-1 will serve as the basis for the next several rockets in the Scorpius series, including its first orbital vehicle, the Sprite. The Sprite will feature six identical booster pods clustered around a common core with a lightweight upper stage attached to the core.
OASIS members toured the Microcosm factory in El Segundo in mid-2000 and saw the SR-XM-1 rocket during its construction.
This was the second flight in the Scorpius program. The team's first launch, in January of 1999, showed the basic viability of the concept and was funded by the Air Force and NASA.
File translated from TEX by TTH,
version 2.25.
On 31 Mar 2001, 14:54.
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