SpaceDev steaker - a model for a stage-based expansion of OHKLA? | Project planning and misc | Forum

In my post a few days ago discussing a more cohesive and structured set of proejcts for CSTART, and part of that (which so far has not drawn any criticism) was expanding OHKLA into a multi-staged hybrid rocketry project, looking kind of like this:

• Stage 1: Minimalist Suborbital – carry 5 kg of payload (in addition
  to all onboard systems) above 100 km (this stage is what OHKLA
  currently is).
• Stage 2: "Useful" Suborbital – carry larger payloads on higher
  suborbital trajectories, possibly with control of the trajectory, i.e.
  control of time in weightlessness – this could be a revenue raiser by
  selling scientific payload space.
• Stage 3: Manned Suborbital – carry a < 1000 kg single-person
  minimalist spacecraft above 100 km (an Ansari X-Prize capable rocket).
  This is to support Simple Manned Spaceflight Project below.
• Stage 4: Minimalist Oribtal – put a 1U, 2U or 3U Cubesat into orbit.
• Stages >5: Useful Orbital – something on the scale of Falcon 1? Higher? OTRAG-style cluster?

Today I learned that SpaceDev, the company who built the N2O/HTPB hybrid engine for SpaceShipOne, once had a program rather like this, called Streaker.  They're not pursuing it anymore (they seem to have absored some of the ideas into another project of theirs), but you can still find some info about it on the web – here's an AIAA paper on the idea.

The Streaker family of vehicles were numbered with a two-part decimal system, kind of like software, which I actually rather like.  Streaker 1.0 is a single-stage suborbital rocket, for instance, whereas Streaker 1.1 is a minimalist orbital vehicle – it's a small hybrid second stage stacked on top of a Streaker 1.0.  At a higher end of the spectrum, Streaker 3.1 is three Streaker 1.0 boosters strapped together with the second stage from Streaker 1.1 on top.  Basically they have a wide family of gradually more capable vehicles, with lots of common infrastructure between them (the Striker 1.0 suborbital rocket is the basic building block of the whole family, it seems).

I think it would be really neat to have this kind of plan and numbering scheme for our hybrid rocket project.  The current OHKLA project – a bare bones suborbital sounding rocket – could be PROJECTNAME 1.0 (we could have a poll to choose PROJECTNAME) and then we could work forward from there with more ambitious projects, eventually making our way to orbit with 3.0 or some such.  Even if actually getting that far is years away, having a simple plan that shows a steady progression building on experience and technology as we acquire it will make the whole thing seem more purposeful.

If people like this idea we can use this thread to plan a progression.

Precisely that – my only worry with the name OHKLA is that the "Karman Line Attempt" part of the name really sounds like the entire point is a just-over-the-edge suborbital rocket, which isn't really suitable for a program of rockets more like Streaker, where the eventual goal is, presumably, the heaviest lifting orbital hybrid we can develop.

You could always try to come up with something else OHKLA could stand for which would make more sense in the new context. :p

I agree it's not really that important, and if most people are strongly attached to OHKLA we should keep it – we could always just stop saying that it stands for Open Hybrid Karman Line Attempt and treat it like a proper name, perhaps switching to Ohkla.

joe.haydu said:

We could alway refer to the underlying design as Projectname 1.0, 1.1, etc, and call the actual vehicle OHKLA, just like ships have classes and actual names.

That's not a bad idea, and in fact there is something like this in the Streaker project.  The Streaker 1.0 suborbital rocket is generally referred to by itself as the "Common Core Booster" (CCB).  We could always refer to the Projectname 1.0 rocket as Ohkla.