Future Prospects for Hypersonic Flight Test For University Students

Kurzfassung

The transport to space of satellites and experiments with conventional expandable rockets is a very expensive and time demanding business and therefore almost prohibitive for Universities and High-School or Colleges laboratories. In this lecture an unconventional, low-cost reusable concept-system based on "electromagnetic railgun " is presented and discussed. The aims is to provide in the midterm with a system capable of launch in LEO small satellites of maximum 5 kg weight not by using conventional chemical power but accelerating them up to hypersonic speed with help of electromagnetic forces. In the short term such system could offer the possibility to carry out low-cost hypersonic- and atmospheric-research experiments. The subject of the lecture is to demonstrate the feasibility of launching small meteorological science experiment-payloads by means of hypersonic projectiles, which are accelerated with an electromagnetic railgun up to an end-velocity of about 2100m/s. Associated with this new non- conventional propulsion technique is the development of hypersonic projectiles which shall withstand a harsh thermo-mechanical environment resulting from accelerations of about 10,000g. Compared to the solid and/or liquid rockets available today, a railgun launcher concept-system offers several advantages such as high efficiency with high repetitions rates andlow recurring costs than today's market prices.