Official Armadillo Q&A thread

Given that the purpose of Armadillo Aerospace is to provide me with entertainment, when is the next update happening?

I'm kind of hoping that these launches will become so routine that they don't warrant an update every time, and the sooner the better. So I vote for no update this time, but do please send us a postcard from space if you get there next time around .

@JamesHughes
@SuperShuki
They say wit is wasted on the witless but your words are not just vanishing into the void... you made me smile

@Kansan52

Thanks for the Link. I don't recall having seen that iteration before.

Another Armadillo design that seems to make perfect sense really.
Parachutes, antennas and flight computers in the slim aerodynamic 'nose section' as per STIG.
Human(s?) in the capsule, which one assumes can detach for emergency parachute recovery.

Tankage and engines in the wide base.
All the better for not toppling over on landing and multy engine redundancy.


@Lourens

Let us hope that the next launch will go 100% without misshap and Armadillo will soon be in a position to make press releases without the danger of the Mainstream Media only focussing on any occasional negatives.

We live in interesting times.

At this rate Armadillo could make the first fully reuseable manned suborbital flight, and do it using VTOL before Virgin Galactic even get their passenger carrying spaceplane out of the atmosphere!

There is a recent article where Richard Garriot mentions space diving with Armadillo here:

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/1/26/a ... on-mars--2

OK! Now that AA has started to send up sounding rockets on suborbital
flights of at least 80km, presumably obtaining at least two-three minutes
worth of microgravity, how much is that commodity worth?

Microgravity is a commodity. Scientists covet it; so do engineers;
and perhaps amateur researchers; and they are willing to PAY for it.

So what is the scale used for such a commodity?
How many dollars per kilogram per-second (Of microgravity)?

Assuming an arbitrary 10 dollars per kilogram per-second of
microgravity, a ten kg payload experiencing 200 seconds of microgravity
would cost the customer around 20,000 dollars.
So how far off is my guess-timate?

I had to create an account just to say congrats. This is pretty epically awesome. Almost there.

Thanks for the update. At the end of the article you say "Next up for Armadillo is a larger diameter tube rocket, meant to carry significant payload to 125km.". Do you still plan to go with the OTRAG-style cluster design, or are you now pursuing something more conventional?

Thanks

Feb 22nd, Ben posted an update:
http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armad ... ews_id=378

If I were Masten I'd be putting the rockets inside from now on . All kidding aside, that looked like it was pretty much a completely successful flight, except for a stupid broken strap. I suppose some kind of shock absorber would be needed? I seem to recall you using shock absorbing straps in a hover test of some kind years ago, perhaps they're still around somewhere?

Somethinkg like this..?

http://www.seascrew.com/browse.cfm?s=0149503

Hi,

Does anybody know of any updates or pictures of what is going on?

All quiet, nothing on Twitter either. Maybe it's my fault? I linked to their next blog post in my April 1st post, so now they can't post anything until they've achieved orbit...

this could play to the next flight video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__PU5CVSegg

telemetry overlay would also be nice. speed and distance : )

how high would the 95km Stig-A go if launched from a carrier plane at 10km altitude with vertical speed of say 500km/h?
200km? 300?

Interesting interview with Ben if anyone has 5 mins:

http://moonandback.com/2012/05/16/moona ... ig-rocket/

If this has already been posted then I accept whatever punishment come my way haha!

maybe instead of supersonic parachutes that may be chaotic they could use air brakes. a small surface can create very high drag.
or maybe it could be made to fall sideways and use its body as air brake but that would be more complicated.
or a combination