North Star rocket family with hybrid propulsion

Theo Pirard of the Space Information Center/Belgium  points me to the news that the company Nammo and the Andøya Rocket Range are developing a rocket system called North Star that will use a standardized hybrid motor, clustered in different numbers and arrangements, to build two types of sounding rockets and an orbital launcher (10kg nanosat to polar orbit) :

Jan.23.13: Nammo and Andøya Rocket Range (ARR) are working together to develop a new series of scientific rockets. The North Star family will consist of 3 configurations, North Star 1, North Star 2 and the North Star Launch Vehicle, all using hybrid propulsion technology. Hybrid rocket motors have several advantages compared to solid fuel motors. A hybrid motor does not contain explosives, which means it is easier to transport. Hybrids are environmentally friendly and the liquid oxidizer is not toxic.

These and several other advantages of the North Star rocket family you can find when browsing through the attached PDF-file describing the proposed North Star concept.  - The hybrid motors will initially be used to power the proposed North Star 1 and 2 sounding rockets, both carrying the ARR developed Hotel Payload.  After gaining experience with them on the sounding rockets, they will be used on the proposed three stage North Star Launch Vehicle (NSLV). The NSLV will be a fully hybrid powered vehicle for Nano-satellites up to 10kg, launched into Polar Low Earth Orbits from Andøya Rocket Range about 2020.

Rather than what is happening to most of the Nano-satellites these days, when they are intermittently piggy-backed into too high orbits, the NSLV is intended to serve a growing market of Nano-satellites in need for a launch at a specific time, and into a specific orbit and altitude.

The NSLV is a green alternative, both in its hybrid rocket configuration, but also when it comes to orbital limitations. Future legislation will put limits on the orbits small scientific payloads can utilize. The NSLV will be the first and only launcher specifically tailored to serve those polar low altitude orbits. The maximum altitude is set to 350km. The favorable latitude of ARR is another factor positively influencing the size of the launcher needed to carry these scientific payloads into their desired orbit. Together, this will be a milestone in the process of limiting the growing amount of space debris caused by satellites launched into too high orbits for both their own needs and their technical capabilities.

Nano-satellites launched these days do not have any form of de-orbiting features which leaves them up there for far too long. Launched to a lower altitude, natural forces will bring them down much faster without causing unnecessary problems for other satellites and the International Space Station.

North Star: The Flexible, Green and Safe Sounding Rocket Service - Andøya Rocket Range(pdf)

The North Star sounding rockets:

The NSLV orbital rocket:

Comments (4)

Ben Brockert

OTRAG will never die and OTRAG will never make orbit.

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28th January 2013 11:12am

Clark S. Lindsey

I also was thinking of this as the Otrag approach. Why do you say Otrag designs won't reach orbit? I know Otrag is not ideal in terms of maximizing payload mass, but I don't see in principle why they cannot get to orbit.

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29th January 2013 8:35am

Ben Brockert

In principle it can get to orbit, but in reality having a first stage and a third stage with identical attention toward mass ratio really hurts performance. Either you're spending too much money to make a high performance first stage, or you're spending too little on the third. It seems like a nice idea, "we'll just crank out a bunch of identical parts". But when you realize that the payload would be twice as big if you didn't use an identical third stage, it becomes much less attractive. Read More

In principle it can get to orbit, but in reality having a first stage and a third stage with identical attention toward mass ratio really hurts performance. Either you're spending too much money to make a high performance first stage, or you're spending too little on the third.

It seems like a nice idea, "we'll just crank out a bunch of identical parts". But when you realize that the payload would be twice as big if you didn't use an identical third stage, it becomes much less attractive. There's not maximizing for payload mass, and then there's just throwing away performance.

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31st January 2013 2:39pm

Clark S. Lindsey

Thanks Ben, that makes sense. Sounds like it might be OK to use clustering of one type of tube rocket for different versions of the first stage and another type of tube rocket for versions of the upper stage.

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31st January 2013 7:40pm

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