Last week, the Suzaku-3 reusable launch vehicle successfully made its first flight. The second-stage rocket successfully entered orbit, but the recovery of the first-stage rocket failed. This is the first time in China that a single-stage recovery has been attempted for an orbit-stage launch vehicle.According to reports, during the flight of this mission, key actions such as rocket takeoff, primary and secondary separation, secondary engine starting, fairing separation, secondary engine shutdown, secondary taxiing, and secondary engine secondary starting were all completed as planned, and the performance was stable and reliable.
An abnormality occurred after the last rocket sub-stage was ignited in the landing section, and a soft landing on the recovery site was not achieved. The debris landed on the edge of the recovery site, and the recovery test failed.
Recently, CCTV interviewed Zhang Xiaodong, the chief designer of Zhuque-3, and disclosed for the first time the key technical details of the recovery and verification of Zhuque-3.
Zhang Xiaodong said: When we were approaching the highest point, we opened the grid rudder, then re-entered, and then ignited the three re-entry engines. This was from 80 kilometers to 40 kilometers. After decelerating, we entered the atmospheric section. At the time, I thought it was quite perfect.
The first stage of the rocket has experienced the most challenging "supersonic re-entry aerodynamic taxiing stage" of a recyclable rocket. At the same time, the rocket has achieved high-precision guidance and control of the landing pad recovery point in both the re-entry ignition section and the aerodynamic taxiing section.
Unfortunately, the rocket burned abnormally when the engine was ignited for the last time a few kilometers above the ground, and the rocket failed to achieve a soft landing.
Zhang Xiaodong revealed: When we started the ignition again, we adopted a relatively conservative design plan. At that time, we thought the problem was not serious, but the problem still appeared in the last link.
Although it failed to achieve a successful soft landing, this recovery verified a large number of rocket reuse technologies. The data accumulated through the flight process also laid a solid foundation for iterative improvements in subsequent models, and explored a feasible path for my country to realize the recovery of the first stage of the rocket.
After returning, in addition to further enriching the database, we can also see on the spot which areas have been burned, or where the design considerations are too harsh. Then we can reduce weight and optimize to improve the performance of the rocket.
It is reported that the Zhuque No. 3 arrow is 66 meters high and 4.5 meters in diameter. The current version has a one-time use capacity of about 13-14 tons and can be reused up to 10 tons (adjusted according to different tracks). It is equipped with a 90-meter-high tower. In the future, the rocket body will be lengthened and the engine will be upgraded to 100 tons, ultimately achieving a take-off thrust of 900 tons.
This is the first time in China that the integrated application of nine-machine parallel liquid oxygen and methane power systems, stainless steel rocket body design, and orbit-stage reusable rocket high-precision return flight verification have been achieved.
The rocket body is made of stainless steel, which has the advantages of high strength, good heat resistance, excellent reusability characteristics, and low cost, making it suitable for mass production; liquid oxygen methane is used as the fuel, which burns cleanly, and the cooling and ignition characteristics meet the needs of reuse.
