A reusable launch vehicle has parts that can be recovered and reflown, while carrying payloads from the surface to outer space . Rocket stages are the most common launch vehicle parts aimed for reuse. Smaller parts such as rocket engines and boosters can also be reused, though reusable spacecraft may be launched on top of an expendable launch vehicle. Reusable launch vehicles do not need to make these parts for each launch, therefore reducing its launch cost significantly. However, these benefits are diminished by the cost of recovery and refurbishment.
54-504: RLV9 can refer to: Reusable launch vehicle , the general concept of Reusable launch vehicles (to space) Reusable Launch Vehicle program (NASA) , a cancelled NASA program that included the X33 experimental craft RLV-TD , India's Reusable Launch Vehicle - Technology Demonstrator project Relevium Technologies Inc, Stock Symbol: RLV Restrained Life Viewer for Second Life Defence of
108-779: A flight test program with experimental vehicles . These subsequently led to the development of the Falcon 9 reusable rocket launcher. Soyuz-7 (rocket family) The Soyuz-7 (Russian: Союз-7 ) or Amur ( Russian : Аму́р ) is a partially- reusable , methane –fueled, orbital launch vehicle currently in the design concept stage of development by the Roscosmos State Corporation in Russia. The preliminary design process began in October 2020, with operational flights planned for no earlier than 2028. Amur
162-518: A fully reusable successor to the Saturn V rocket, having the capacity of transporting up to 450–910 t (990,000–2,000,000 lb) to orbit. See also Sea Dragon , and Douglas SASSTO . The BAC Mustard was studied starting in 1964. It would have comprised three identical spaceplanes strapped together and arranged in two stages. During ascent the two outer spaceplanes, which formed the first stage, would detach and glide back individually to earth. It
216-666: A higher anticipated launch cadence and landing sites for the new generation of vehicles. Reusable launch systems may be either fully or partially reusable. Several companies are currently developing fully reusable launch vehicles as of March 2024. Each of them is working on a two-stage-to-orbit system. SpaceX is testing Starship , which has been in development since 2016 and has made an initial test flight in April 2023 and 5 more flights as of November 2024. Blue Origin , with Project Jarvis , began development work by early 2021, but has announced no date for testing and have not discussed
270-413: A new design for a reusable, methane-fueled rocket. In 2020, Amur is planned to be a 4.1 m (13 ft)-diameter two-stage-to-orbit , medium-lift vehicle of 55 m (180 ft) height, with a gross liftoff mass of 360 t (790,000 lb). It is aimed to deliver a payload to low Earth orbit of 10.5 t (23,000 lb), but could loft 12.5 t (28,000 lb) if the first stage
324-510: A prototype Amur first stage called Grasshopper , and said that preparations for it would begin in 2025. Roscosmos has not yet located the site for where the launch pad will be located to test the experimental vehicle. In the mid-2010s, Soyuz-7 was initially conceived to be a scalable family, with three conceptual versions: By 2020, Roscosmos had pivoted the Soyuz-7 concept to the Amur , with
378-694: A reusable space vehicle (a spaceplane ) as well as a part of its launch system. More contemporarily the Falcon 9 launch system has carried reusable vehicles such as the Dragon 2 and X-37 , transporting two reusable vehicles at the same time. Contemporary reusable orbital vehicles include the X-37, the Dream Chaser , the Dragon 2, the Indian RLV-TD and the upcoming European Space Rider (successor to
432-418: A single RD-0164 engine on the first stage, and a RD-0169 engine on the second. The first engineering design was expected to be completed by 2016, and the first flight expected as early as 2022. The use of just two stages for the base version, and the simplification of subsystems was intended to product a more reliable and less-expensive launch vehicle , with the lightest version expected to be cheaper than
486-423: Is an in-air-capture tow back system, advocated by a company called EMBENTION with its FALCon project. Vehicles that land horizontally on a runway require wings and undercarriage. These typically consume about 9-12% of the landing vehicle mass, which either reduces the payload or increases the size of the vehicle. Concepts such as lifting bodies offer some reduction in wing mass, as does the delta wing shape of
540-484: Is assumed that the bulk density of the first stage (without propellant) is less than the bulk density of air. Upon returning from flight, such a first stage remains floating in the air (without touching the surface of the Earth). This will ensure that the first stage is retained for reuse. Increasing the size of the first stage increases aerodynamic losses. This results in a slight decrease in payload. This reduction in payload
594-607: Is compensated for by the reuse of the first stage. Reusable stages weigh more than equivalent expendable stages . This is unavoidable due to the supplementary systems, landing gear and/or surplus propellant needed to land a stage. The actual mass penalty depends on the vehicle and the return mode chosen. After the launcher lands, it may need to be refurbished to prepare it for its next flight. This process may be lengthy and expensive. The launcher may not be able to be recertified as human-rated after refurbishment, although SpaceX has flown reused Falcon 9 boosters for human missions. There
SECTION 10
#1732780288172648-568: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Reusable launch vehicle Reusable launch vehicles may contain additional avionics and propellant , making them heavier than their expendable counterparts. Reused parts may need to enter the atmosphere and navigate through it, so they are often equipped with heat shields , grid fins , and other flight control surfaces . By modifying their shape, spaceplanes can leverage aviation mechanics to aid in its recovery, such as gliding or lift . In
702-430: Is eventually a limit on how many times a launcher can be refurbished before it has to be retired, but how often a launcher can be reused differs significantly between the various launch system designs. With the development of rocket propulsion in the first half of the twentieth century, space travel became a technical possibility. Early ideas of a single-stage reusable spaceplane proved unrealistic and although even
756-545: Is expended and not reused, as all traditional launch vehicles of the early space age were. Amur is planned to launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East . The first stage of the rocket will use grid fins to assist with attitude control during atmospheric reentry and is planned to be powered by five RD-0169A metha lox engines, which, as of 2020, were under development at
810-556: Is intended to substitute for the existing Soyuz-2 , at a much lower per launch cost. This is a proposed family of new Russian rockets proposed by JSC SRC Progress in the mid-2010s, to replace the legacy Soyuz for launch after the early 2020s. JSC SRC Progress had been the manufacturer and custodian of the Soyuz family design for many decades. The new design concept was a part of Project Feniks ( Russian : Феникс , lit. 'Fenix'). While all previous iterations of
864-533: Is to be caught by arms after performing most of the typical steps of a retrograde landing. Blue Origin 's New Shepard suborbital rocket also lands vertically back at the launch site. Retrograde landing typically requires about 10% of the total first stage propellant, reducing the payload that can be carried due to the rocket equation . There is also the concept of a launch vehicle with an inflatable, reusable first stage. The shape of this structure will be supported by excess internal pressure (using light gases). It
918-556: The Chemical Automatics Design Bureau . The long-term target is for most of the engines to fire 100 times, but the center engine, reignited for descent through the atmosphere and again for landing operations with landing legs , will be aimed to eventually reach a life expectancy of 300 engine firings. As of 2020 , the ground test program for the new methalox -propellant engines was expected to be completed by late 2024. However, as of November 2024,
972-550: The Falcon 9 and the New Shepard employ retrograde burns for re-entry, and landing. Reusable systems can come in single or multiple ( two or three ) stages to orbit configurations. For some or all stages the following landing system types can be employed. These are landing systems that employ parachutes and bolstered hard landings, like in a splashdown at sea or a touchdown at land. The latter may require an engine burn just before landing as parachutes alone cannot slow
1026-544: The IXV ). As with launch vehicles, all pure spacecraft during the early decades of human capacity to achieve spaceflight were designed to be single-use items. This was true both for satellites and space probes intended to be left in space for a long time, as well as any object designed to return to Earth such as human-carrying space capsules or the sample return canisters of space matter collection missions like Stardust (1999–2006) or Hayabusa (2005–2010). Exceptions to
1080-699: The Space Launch System are considered to be retrofitted with such heat shields to salvage the expensive engines, possibly reducing the costs of launches significantly. Heat shields allow an orbiting spacecraft to land safely without expending very much fuel. They need not take the form of inflatable heat shields, they may simply take the form of heat-resistant tiles that prevent heat conduction . Heat shields are also proposed for use in combination with retrograde thrust to allow for full reusability as seen in Starship . Reusable launch system stages such as
1134-537: The Space Shuttle . Systems like the McDonnell Douglas DC-X (Delta Clipper) and those by SpaceX are examples of a retrograde system. The boosters of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy land using one of their nine engines. The Falcon 9 rocket is the first orbital rocket to vertically land its first stage on the ground. The first stage of Starship is planned to land vertically, while the second
SECTION 20
#17327802881721188-546: The 1970s, the first reusable launch vehicle, the Space Shuttle , was developed. However, in the 1990s, due to the program's failure to meet expectations, reusable launch vehicle concepts were reduced to prototype testing. The rise of private spaceflight companies in the 2000s and 2010s lead to a resurgence of their development, such as in SpaceShipOne , New Shepard , Electron , Falcon 9 , and Falcon Heavy . Many launch vehicles are now expected to debut with reusability in
1242-649: The 2020s, such as Starship , New Glenn , Neutron , Soyuz-7 , Ariane Next , Long March , Terran R , and the Dawn Mk-II Aurora. The impact of reusability in launch vehicles has been foundational in the space flight industry. So much so that in 2024, the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station initiated a 50 year forward looking plan for the Cape that involved major infrastructure upgrades (including to Port Canaveral ) to support
1296-727: The Reich , the World War II German Reichsluftverteidigung (RLV) defensive aerial campaign RLV College of Music and Fine Arts , Kerala, India Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title RLV . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RLV&oldid=980211553 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1350-611: The Shuttle technology, to be demonstrated under the X-33 and X-34 programs, which were both cancelled in the early 2000s due to rising costs and technical issues. The Ansari X Prize contest was intended to develop private suborbital reusable vehicles. Many private companies competed, with the winner, Scaled Composites , reaching the Kármán line twice in a two-week period with their reusable SpaceShipOne . In 2012, SpaceX started
1404-503: The Soyuz family had their roots firmly set on the R-7 ICBM legacy, the new rocket, designated Soyuz-7 in 2013, was to be a completely new design from the ground up. The proposed new design was to be based on a new propellant: LOX and liquid methane , use a new tank structure, new propulsion , and would do away with the famous Korolev Cross , and have thrust vector control in the main engine rather than using vernier engines . It
1458-739: The Soyuz-2. During an interview with the Kazakhstani magazine Space Research and Technologies during 2013, Mr. Kirilin, CEO of TSKB Progress, explained the conception of the project. When the Rus-M project was cancelled, TSKB Progress started work sometime prior to mid-2015 on a methane fueled launch vehicle under the Roscosmos Magistral research program. The venerable Soyuz rocket vehicle would be an approximately 60-year-old design by 2020 and it could not remain competitive with
1512-697: The aircraft is thought of as the first stage of the launch vehicle. An example of this configuration is the Orbital Sciences Pegasus . For suborbital flight the SpaceShipTwo uses for liftoff a carrier plane, its mothership the Scaled Composites White Knight Two . Rocket Lab is working on Neutron , and the European Space Agency is working on Themis . Both vehicles are planned to recover
1566-452: The atmosphere, parachutes or retrorockets may also be needed to slow it down further. Reusable parts may also need specialized recovery facilities such as runways or autonomous spaceport drone ships . Some concepts rely on ground infrastructures such as mass drivers to accelerate the launch vehicle beforehand. Since at least in the early 20th century, single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicles have existed in science fiction . In
1620-479: The craft down enough to prevent injury to astronauts. This can be seen in the Soyuz capsule. Though such systems have been in use since the beginning of astronautics to recover space vehicles, only later have the vehicles been reused. E.g.: Single or main stages, as well as fly-back boosters can employ a horizontal landing system. These vehicles land on earth much like a plane does, but they usually do not use propellant during landing. Examples are: A variant
1674-547: The development program through the first launch. As of 2020, the rocket design was expected to follow the practice of SpaceX with the Falcon 9 to design the first stage for reusability. and the rocket engine to be reused 100 or more times. By November 2024, little progress had been made, with the debut having slipped four years, from 2026 to 2030. In November 2024, Roscosmos official Igor Pshenichnikov, deputy director of future programs, revealed that they will look to develop
RLV - Misplaced Pages Continue
1728-492: The far more promising Skylon design, which remains in development. From the late 1990s to the 2000s, the European Space Agency studied the recovery of the Ariane 5 solid rocket boosters. The last recovery attempt took place in 2009. The commercial ventures, Rocketplane Kistler and Rotary Rocket , attempted to build reusable privately developed rockets before going bankrupt. NASA proposed reusable concepts to replace
1782-431: The first practical rocket vehicles ( V-2 ) could reach the fringes of space, reusable technology was too heavy. In addition, many early rockets were developed to deliver weapons, making reuse impossible by design. The problem of mass efficiency was overcome by using multiple expendable stages in a vertical launch multistage rocket . USAF and NACA had been studying orbital reusable spaceplanes since 1958, e.g. Dyna-Soar , but
1836-476: The first reusable stages did not fly until the advent of the US Space Shuttle in 1981. Perhaps the first reusable launch vehicles were the ones conceptualized and studied by Wernher von Braun from 1948 until 1956. The Von Braun Ferry Rocket underwent two revisions: once in 1952 and again in 1956. They would have landed using parachutes. The General Dynamics Nexus was proposed in the 1960s as
1890-501: The first stage engines, while the tank is expended. The engines would splashdown on an inflatable aeroshell , then be recovered. On 23 February 2024, one of the nine Merlin engines a powering a Falcon 9 launched for the 22nd time, making it the most reused liquid fuel engine used in an operational manner, having already surpassed Space Shuttle Main Engine number 2019's record of 19 flights. As of 2024, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are
1944-490: The first stage. So far, most launch systems achieve orbital insertion with at least partially expended multistaged rockets , particularly with the second and third stages. Only the Space Shuttle has achieved a reuse of the orbital insertion stage, by using the engines and fuel tank of its orbiter . The Buran spaceplane and Starship spacecraft are two other reusable spacecraft that were designed to be able to act as orbital insertion stages and have been produced, however
1998-443: The former only made one uncrewed test flight before the project was cancelled, and the latter is not yet operational, having completed four orbital test flights , as of June 2024, which achieved all of its mission objectives at the fourth flight. Launch systems can be combined with reusable spaceplanes or capsules. The Space Shuttle orbiter , SpaceShipTwo , Dawn Mk-II Aurora, and the under-development Indian RLV-TD are examples for
2052-670: The general rule for space vehicles were the US Gemini SC-2 , the Soviet Union spacecraft Vozvraschaemyi Apparat (VA) , the US Space Shuttle orbiter (mid-1970s-2011, with 135 flights between 1981 and 2011) and the Soviet Buran (1980-1988, with just one uncrewed test flight in 1988). Both of these spaceships were also an integral part of the launch system (providing launch acceleration) as well as operating as medium-duration spaceships in space . This began to change in
2106-535: The ground, in order to retrieve and reuse the vehicle. As of 2021 , SpaceX is building and testing the Starship spaceship to be capable of surviving multiple hypersonic reentries through the atmosphere so that they become truly reusable long-duration spaceships; no Starship operational flights have yet occurred. With possible inflatable heat shields , as developed by the US (Low Earth Orbit Flight Test Inflatable Decelerator - LOFTID) and China, single-use rockets like
2160-641: The mid-2010s. In the 2010s, the space transport cargo capsule from one of the suppliers resupplying the International Space Station was designed for reuse, and after 2017, NASA began to allow the reuse of the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft on these NASA-contracted transport routes. This was the beginning of design and operation of a reusable space vehicle . The Boeing Starliner capsules also reduce their fall speed with parachutes and deploy an airbag shortly before touchdown on
2214-456: The new vehicles, like the Falcon 9 . It was described by Progress CEO, Mr. Kirilin, as technologically and operationally hopelessly outdated . It has conical sections, where each panel is unique, it uses six engines with 24 nozzles, most rocket manufacturing tasks include a number of manual operations, it even requires five different fluids: kerosene , liquid oxygen , hydrogen peroxide , gaseous nitrogen and gaseous helium . Looking forward,
RLV - Misplaced Pages Continue
2268-529: The only orbital rockets to reuse their boosters, although multiple other systems are in development. All aircraft-launched rockets reuse the aircraft. Other than that a range of non-rocket liftoff systems have been proposed and explored over time as reusable systems for liftoff, from balloons to space elevators . Existing examples are systems which employ winged horizontal jet-engine powered liftoff. Such aircraft can air launch expendable rockets and can because of that be considered partially reusable systems if
2322-534: The only reusable configurations in use. The historic Space Shuttle reused its Solid Rocket Boosters , its RS-25 engines and the Space Shuttle orbiter that acted as an orbital insertion stage, but it did not reuse the External Tank that fed the RS-25 engines. This is an example of a reusable launch system which reuses specific components of rockets. ULA’s Vulcan Centaur was originally designed to reuse
2376-447: The price of RG-1 fuel was going up, since it could only be distilled from a single oil field, that, by 2015, was expected to be depleted soon. The proposed Soyuz-7 was, unline previous Soyuz rockets, planned to use the same diameter for all sections of the rocket, 3.6 m (12 ft), use liquid methane and liquid oxygen , have a single engine with a single nozzle on each stage, and automate most tasks. The proposed new rocket
2430-407: The project publicly. Stoke Space is also developing a rocket which is planned to be reusable. As of October 2024 , Starship is the only launch vehicle intended to be fully reusable that has been fully built and tested. The most recent test flight was on October 13, 2024, in which the vehicle completed a suborbital launch and landed both stages for the second time. The Super Heavy booster
2484-545: The upper stage. During an August, 2015 interview with Ria Novosti, Mr. Kirilin stated that a preliminary design was expected in 2015 or 2016, that they intended to first develop a light version , that they anticipated an initial test flight of the first prototype in 2022 and that the propulsion would be the RD-0164 for the cores and the RD-0169 rocket engine for the upper stage. However, this project, part of Soyuz-5 ,
2538-419: Was abandoned when Soyuz-5 evolved into a replacement for Zenit family named Irtysh, with RKK Energia as manufacturer. The methalox rocket was later renamed to Soyuz-7. The design concept for a reusable Russian launch vehicle, referred to a Amur , was unveiled publicly in 2020. The design was shown to have a "reusable first stage and methane -fueled engines and land like the Falcon 9 . The maiden launch
2592-461: Was canceled after the last study of the design in 1967 due to a lack of funds for development. NASA started the Space Shuttle design process in 1968, with the vision of creating a fully reusable spaceplane using a crewed fly-back booster . This concept proved expensive and complex, therefore the design was scaled back to reusable solid rocket boosters and an expendable external tank . Space Shuttle Columbia launched and landed 27 times and
2646-689: Was canceled in 1993. In the late 1980s a fully reusable version of the Energia rocket, the Energia II, was proposed. Its boosters and core would have had the capability of landing separately on a runway. In the 1990s the McDonnell Douglas Delta Clipper VTOL SSTO proposal progressed to the testing phase. The DC-X prototype demonstrated rapid turnaround time and automatic computer control. In mid-1990s, British research evolved an earlier HOTOL design into
2700-467: Was caught successfully by the "chopstick system" on Orbital Pad A for the first time. The Ship completed its second successful reentry and returned for a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The test marked the second instance that could be considered meeting all requirements to be fully reusable. Partial reusable launch systems, in the form of multiple stage to orbit systems have been so far
2754-584: Was conceived in 2013 to be a scalable family with three versions covering the medium to heavy payload ranges. The project would help to assure access to space for Russia by acting as a backup launcher in the event of problems with the Angara rocket family. As conceived in the mid-2010s, the smallest version was to be a 270-tonne rocket, intended as a replacement of the Soyuz-2 rocket, with an expected payload to LEO of 9 t (9,000 kg). It will use
SECTION 50
#17327802881722808-535: Was conceived to use the existing Soyuz pads and installations after some modifications. Liquid methane is cheap, Russia has ample reserves and it has a huge installed base. It also has some important thermal and polymerizing properties that paves the way for reusable rockets. The rocket was expected to use the KBKhA RD-0164 engine in the core stages, and a methane version of the KBKhA RD-0124 in
2862-444: Was lost with all crew on the 28th landing attempt; Challenger launched and landed 9 times and was lost with all crew on the 10th launch attempt; Discovery launched and landed 39 times; Atlantis launched and landed 33 times; Endeavour launched and landed 25 times. In 1986 President Ronald Reagan called for an air-breathing scramjet National Aerospace Plane (NASP)/ X-30 . The project failed due to technical issues and
2916-499: Was then planned for 2026. The contract for the preliminary design phase of the Amur was signed on 5 October 2020, to build "the first Russian reusable methane rocket." The design reference goals included high-reliability, operational launch cost target of US$ 22 million , and a reusable first stage , with an expendable second stage. The 2020 Roscosmos budget had a "not to exceed" program cost of 70 billion rubles ( US$ 880 million ) for
#171828