DIVING DEEP INTO ROCKETS

"Rockets"

Elongated, metallic/non-metallic stem containing fuel, oxidizer and engines which are used to overcome the thick layers of atmosphere and gravity so that an appreciable amount of hardware can be put into orbit. Sometimes beyond orbit. 

Too big to be read in one breath. Right? 

Whenever people need to define something as easy or difficult, they compare their stuff with rocket science. For eg: "This isn't rocket science that you aren't getting it" This means that the work must be comparatively easy. 

Rocket is a collective term. This post focuses on individual units inside it. Let's dive straight into it. 

Let's go

SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5

Rockets have too many structural complexities. To explain them in the best way, I thereby have a labelled model of the SpaceX Falcon 9 Fifth-block rocket. It has an impressive height of 70m. With a massive mass of 549 metric tones. 

As we all know a rocket is mainly divided into stages. These stages contain huge fuel tanks. Once the rocket lifts off the ground, it spreads out fuel at an insanely humongous rate. Roughly it is 7000 litres/second. Once the stage burns out all the fuel, it is detached from the main body and descends back to the land/sea. This process is known as Stage Separation. To define this term, it is the moment when the empty fuel cylinder of a rocket is separated from the rest of the body of the rocket that has to travel up. This is done to reduce the weight of the rocket and reduce the amount of thrust force it has to produce to proceed further. 

According to past flight data of past flights of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the first humongous stage separates around 70-80km above the earth's surface and returns back to the earth and then is sent for refurbishments so that it can be flown again. Now, this is a notable fact. 
SpaceX is known for flying its first stage again and again till it retires. 

This rocket is the first reusable rocket after the Space Shuttle program. The first stage booster of this tall stem can vertically land on its legs on a landing pad or a drone ship in the middle of an ocean. Elon has achieved this feat of engineering and now this deadly task looks like a piece of cake. If you wish to know how difficult the process was, have a look at this video. 

Watch this after reading the article

Let's unfold the labels on the diagram and talk about them: 

1. Payload: Payload is the part of the rocket that is supposed to be inserted in orbit or launched into space. Usually, it is satellite or cargo that is sent to the ISS (International Space Station) (More about the ISS in a later article.) Specifically for this rocket (Falcon 9), the part numbered 1 in the diagram is the Dragon Spacecraft. It is a space capsule designed by SpaceX, capable of sending astronauts to the ISS and bringing them down to Earth from the ISS. 
   
   
2. Solar panels: Dragon spacecraft has an arrangement of solar panels to receive the sun's energy and produce its own electricity. It is a great feature of a spacecraft like this. 
   
   
3. Second Stage of the Rocket: This is the stage of the rocket that propels the payload to its destination orbit. It has vacuum optimised engines that are specifically designed to work in space. More about them in another article. 
   
   
4. Interstage: They are the primary structures intended to connect the upper stage to the lower stage of the rocket. 
   
   
5. 
   Grid Fins: These structures are new to the rocket industry seen for the first time in SpaceX rockets. These are criss-cross structures that navigate the rocket in its way through the thick atmosphere and help it reach a perfect location by turning clockwise and anti-clockwise thereby controlling the rockets movements mid-air during its journey to the drone ship. 
   
   
6. First Stage of the Rocket: The most impressive part of the rocket. Also known as Booster. SpaceX went on to create the world's first completely reusable rocket booster with minimum refurbishments. This is that part which deals a lot with propulsions as it carries the maximum fuel and weight in the rocket. The heaviest and the most important part of it. It serves as a storage to the fuel tanks that provide the necessary amount of fuel to the engines to propel their way up in the sky. 
   
   
7. Landing Legs: Strong hydraulic landing legs can withstand the weight of an empty booster. These are expanded when the booster is a few meters above the ground during its descent towards the landing pad. These are specifically seen only in falcon 9 boosters as they have the capability to return to the land and be reused. 
   
   
8. 
   Rocket Engine: The Heart of the Rocket. Rocket Engine is the most challenging and the second most complicated thing to understand. It conducts the mixing of the fuel and the oxidizer that ignite to form a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid. The main principle of the engine is to produce enough lift to accelerate the rocket to orbit. 
   

This was the second part of the introduction to Rocket Science. The upcoming videos would be detailed articles on specific parts of a rocket or concepts related to propulsion. 

Upcoming in the list: 

• What it takes to Launch a Rocket
• Lift • Thrust • Drag
• Space v/s Orbit
• Rocket Engine Analysis
  

The order may vary. Follow to get notifications for the upcoming blogs. Don't forget to Like, Comment and Share. Thanks for reading. B-bye. Catch you next time.