It is time to present our preliminary mass budget of our first rocket Aspiration 1 which is currently under development.
Our first rocket Aspiration 1 will be a proof of concept for our innovations such as the re-ignition of a hybrid propulsion system. Therefore, we decided to design a small rocket demonstrator first, also to save resources and speed up the development phase.
In total, 25 percent of the whole rocket consists of the propulsion system including the propellants (solid fuel & liquid oxidizer). For larger rockets, this percentage is much higher with around 90 percent. However, the smaller the rocket, the more is needed for other components that cannot be made lighter and smaller. So, this is another challenge for our team to deal with.
The structure accounts for 23 percent of the total mass of Aspiration 1. This includes the nose cone, the rocket hall and all connections including mounts for actuators, electronics and other parts.
To archive our goal to land the Aspiration 1 vertically, we need the flight control, the flight computer, the landing legs and the thrust vector control (TVC) mount. Therefore, we calculated for this parts 47 percent of the total mass. This seems to be high but as explained before our Aspiration 1 will be a demonstrator to proof our concept.
Since every rocket needs a payload, we have decided to use a camera to get nice pictures and videos of our first launch and flight.
As you might know, the design of a rocket is an iterative process – so we keep you up to date regarding the mass budget.
Stay tuned,
Stephanie
