Concept and Preliminary Flight Testing of a Fully Reusable Rocket Vehicle

A fully reusable rocket vehicle is proposed to demonstrate good operability characteristics both on the ground and in e ight. For achieving technical readiness for future space transportation systems, design considerations not only for higher-performance-related issues but also those for good operability are needed. The proposed vehicle is to be used as a sounding rocket and has the capabilities of ballistic e ight, returning to the launch site, and landing vertically, making use of clustered liquid-hydrogen rocket engines. Before the development of this type of reusable rocket was initiated, a small test vehicle with a liquid-hydrogen rocket engine was built and e ight tested. A demonstration of vertical landing and exerciseof turnaround operation forrepeated e ightsare the major objectivesof the test vehicle. Two e ightswere performed in succession, and the e ight-test operation provided many valuable experiences for designing the fully reusable rocket vehicle.