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Controlling the thrust of an engine is very important to launching payloads (cargoes) into orbit. Too much thrust or thrust at the wrong time can cause a satellite to be placed in the wrong orbit or set too far out into space to be useful. Too little thrust can cause the satellite to fall back to Earth.
Liquid-propellant engines control the thrust by varying the amount of propellant that enters the combustion chamber. A computer in the rocket's guidance system determines the amount of thrust that is needed and controls the propellant flow rate. On more complicated flights, such as going to the Moon, the engines must be started and stopped several times. Liquid engines do this by simply starting or stopping the flow of propellants into the combustion chamber.
Solid-propellant rockets are not as easy to control as liquid rockets. Once started, the propellants burn until they are gone. They are very difficult to stop or slow down part way into the burn. Sometimes fire extinguishers are built into the engine to stop the rocket in flight. But using them is a tricky procedure and doesn't always work. Some solid-fuel engines have hatches on their sides that can be cut loose by remote control to release the chamber pressure and terminate thrust.
The burn rate of solid propellants is carefully planned in advance. The hollow core running the length of the propellants can be made into a star shape. At first, there is a very large surface available for burning, but as the points of the star burn away, the surface area is reduced. For a time, less of the propellant burns, and this reduces thrust. The Space Shuttle uses this technique to reduce vibrations early in its flight into orbit.
Although most rockets used by governments and research organizations are very reliable, there is still great danger associated with the building and firing of rocket engines. Individuals interested in rocketry should never attempt to build their own engines. Even the simplest-looking rocket engines are very complex. Case-wall bursting strength, propellant packing density, nozzle design, and propellant chemistry are all design problems beyond the scope of most amateurs. Many home-built rocket engines have exploded in the faces of their builders with tragic consequences.
Building an efficient rocket engine is only part of the problem in producing a successful rocket. The rocket must also be stable in flight. A stable rocket is one that flies in a smooth, uniform direction. An unstable rocket flies along an erratic path, sometimes tumbling or changing direction. Unstable rockets are dangerous because it is not possible to predict where they will go. They may even turn upside down and suddenly head back directly to the launch pad.
Making a rocket stable requires some form of control system. Controls can be either active or passive. The difference between these and how they work will be explained later. It is first important to understand what makes a rocket stable or unstable.
All bodies, regardless of size, mass, or shape, has a point within the body called the center of mass (CM). The center of mass is the exact spot where all of the mass of that object is perfectly balanced. You can easily find the center of mass of an object such as a ruler by balancing the object on your finger. If the material used to make the ruler is of uniform thickness and density, the center of mass should be at the halfway point between one end of the stick and the other. If the ruler were made of wood, and a heavy nail were driven into one of its ends, the center of mass would no longer be in the middle. The balance point would then be nearer the end with the nail.
The center of mass is important in rocket flight because it is around this point that an unstable rocket tumbles. As a matter of fact, any object in flight tends to tumble. Throw a stick, and it tumbles end over end. Throw a ball, and it spins in flight. The act of spinning or tumbling is a way of becoming stabilized in flight. A Frisbee will go where you want it to only if you throw it with a deliberate spin. Try throwing a Frisbee without spinning it. If you succeed, you will see that the Frisbee flies in an erratic path and falls far short of its mark.
In flight, spinning or tumbling takes place around one or more of three axes. They are called roll, pitch, and yaw. The point where all three of these axes intersect is the center of mass. For rocket flight, the pitch and yaw axes are the most important because any movement in either of these two directions can cause the rocket to go off course. The roll axis is the least important because movement along this axis will not affect the flight path. In fact, a rolling motion will help stabilize the rocket in the same way a properly passed football is stabilized by rolling (spiraling) it in flight. Although a poorly passed football may still fly to its mark even if it tumbles rather than rolls, a rocket will not. The action-reaction energy of a football pass will be completely expended by the thrower the moment the ball leaves the hand. With rockets, thrust from the engine is still being produced while the rocket is in flight. Unstable motions about the pitch and yaw axes will cause the rocket to leave the planned course. To prevent this, a control system is needed to prevent or at least minimize unstable motions.
In addition to center of mass, there is another important center inside the rocket that affects its flight. This is the center of pressure (CP). The center of pressure exists only when air is flowing past the moving rocket. This flowing air, rubbing and pushing against the outer surface of the rocket, can cause it to begin moving around one of its three axes. Think for a moment of a weather vane. A weather vane is an arrow-like stick that is mounted on a rooftop and used for telling wind direction. The arrow is attached to a vertical rod that acts as a pivot point. The arrow is balanced so that the center of mass is right at the pivot point. When the wind blows, the arrow turns, and the head of the arrow points into the oncoming wind. The tail of the arrow points in the downwind direction.
The reason that the weather vane arrow points into the wind is that the tail of the arrow has a much larger surface area than the arrowhead. The flowing air imparts a greater force to the tail than the head, and therefore the tail is pushed away. There is a point on the arrow where the surface area is the same on one side as the other. This spot is called the center of pressure. The center of pressure is not in the same place as the center of mass. If it were, then neither end of the arrow would be favored by the wind and the arrow would not point. The center of pressure is between the center of mass and the tail end of the arrow. This means that the tail end has more surface area than the head end.
It is extremely important that the center of pressure in a rocket be located toward the tail and the center of mass be located toward the nose. If they are in the same place or very near each other, then the rocket will be unstable in flight. The rocket will then try to rotate about the center of mass in the pitch and yaw axes, producing a dangerous situation. With the center of pressure located in the right place, the rocket will remain stable.
Control systems for rockets are intended to keep a rocket stable in flight and to steer it. Small rockets usually require only a stabilizing control system. Large rockets, such as the ones that launch satellites into orbit, require a system that not only stabilizes the rocket, but also enable it to change course while in flight.
Controls on rockets can either be active or passive. Passive controls are fixed devices that keep rockets stabilized by their very presence on the rocket's exterior. Active controls can be moved while the rocket is in flight to stabilize and steer the craft.
The simplest of all passive controls is a stick. The Chinese fire-arrows were simple rockets mounted on the ends of sticks. The stick kept the center of pressure behind the center of mass. In spite of this, fire-arrows were notoriously inaccurate. Before the center of pressure could take effect, air had to be flowing past the rocket. While still on the ground and immobile, the arrow might lurch and fire the wrong way.
Years later, the accuracy of fire-arrows was improved considerably by mounting them in a trough aimed in the proper direction. The trough guided the arrow in the right direction until it was moving fast enough to be stable on its own.
As will be explained in the next section, the weight of the rocket is a critical factor in performance and range. The fire-arrow stick added too much dead weight to the rocket, and therefore limited its range considerably.
An important improvement in rocketry came with the replacement of sticks by clusters of lightweight fins mounted around the lower end near the nozzle. Fins could be made out of lightweight materials and be streamlined in shape. They gave rockets a dartlike appearance. The large surface area of the fins easily kept the center of pressure behind the center of mass. Some experimenters even bent the lower tips of the fins in a pinwheel fashion to promote rapid spinning in flight. With these "spin fins," rockets become much more stable in flight. But this design also produces more drag and limits the rocket's range.
With the start of modern rocketry in the 20th century, new ways were sought to improve rocket stability and at the same time reduce overall rocket weight. The answer to this was the development of active controls. Active control systems included vanes, movable fins, canards, gimbaled nozzles, vernier rockets, fuel injection, and attitude-control rockets. Tilting fins and canards are quite similar to each other in appearance. The only real difference between them is their location on the rockets. Canards are mounted on the front end of the rocket while the tilting fins are at the rear. In flight, the fins and canards tilt like rudders to deflect the air flow and cause the rocket to change course. Motion sensors on the rocket detect unplanned directional changes, and corrections can be made by slight tilting of the fins and canards. The advantage of these two devices is size and weight. They are smaller and lighter and produce less drag than the large fins.
Other active control systems can eliminate fins and canards altogether. By tilting the angle at which the exhaust gas leaves the rocket engine, course changes can be made in flight. Several techniques can be used for changing exhaust direction.
Vanes are small finlike devices that are placed inside the exhaust of the rocket engine. Tilting the vanes deflects the exhaust, and by action-reaction the rocket responds by pointing the opposite way.
Another method for changing the exhaust direction is to gimbal the nozzle. A gimbaled nozzle is one that is able to sway while exhaust gases are passing through it. By tilting the engine nozzle in the proper direction, the rocket responds by changing course (one of the gimballing motors is in the top center of the picture below bracketted by the rising, gaseous Liquid Oxygen, LOX).
Vernier rockets can also be used to change direction. These are small rockets mounted on the outside of the large engine. When needed they fire, producing the desired course change.
In space, only by spinning the rocket along the roll axis or by using active controls involving the engine exhaust can the rocket be stabilized or have its direction changed. Without air, fins and canards have nothing to work upon. (Science fiction movies showing rockets in space with wings and fins are long on fiction and short on science.) The most common kinds of active control used in space are attitude-control rockets. Small clusters of engines are mounted all around the vehicle. By firing the right combination of these small rockets, the vehicle can be turned in any direction. As soon as they are aimed properly, the main engines fire, sending the rocket off in the new direction. On the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), shown above on the left, attitude control rockets were used to change the attitude of the LEM as it returned from the moon's surface to the Apollo command module (carried by the Saturn V rocket, shown above right) into space. The attitude control rockets, placed in groups of 4, are visible against the black area on the left of the picture, about 1/4 inch above the gold base of the LEM. Other groups of 4 rockets can also be found on the right side of the LEM and in the center.
TO THE ROCKET PERFORMANCE: MASS PAGE - SECTION 5
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Updated: March 12, 2004