• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.141-149
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• 2016

In this technical note, the issues and challenges for the launch and recovery systems (LARS) and related techniques for the operation of an underwater robot from a manned platform are considered. Various types of LARS fitted to specific manned platforms, surface or sub-surface, are surveyed and categorized. The current UUV launch and recovery systems from surface ships and submarines utilize time consuming processes. As underwater robot technologies evolve and their roles are defined, safe and effective launch and recovery methods should be developed capable of reliable and efficient operations, particularly at a high sea state. To improve the existing underwater robot capabilities, LARS technology maturation is required in the near term, leading to the ability to incorporate autonomous LARS for an underwater robot on a manned platform. In the near term, particular emphasis should be placed on UUV LARS, which are surface ship based, with submarine based systems in the long term. Furthermore, for a dedicated LARS ship, independent of the existing host ship type, particular emphasis should be given to fully utilizing the capabilities of underwater robots.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.332-338
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• 2017

Launch and recovery system(LARS) is required to perform an USV-based underwater exploration. Through the analysis of the requirements according to the scenario of underwater exploration, the mechanism of LARS and the conceptual design of the mechanical parts of LARS are carried out. In addition, a USV motion can be induced due to environmental disturbances such as waves, so the detailed design of LARS for recovering the underwater tow-fish stably in consideration of the USV motion is performed. To verify the performance of launch and recovery operations, LARS and test bed were developed. The results show that the proposed LARS can stably launch and recovery an underwater tow-fish.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.53-64
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• 2017

Aerospace Launch Vehicles (ALV) are generally designed with high reliability to operate in complete security through fault avoidance practices. However, in spite of such precaution, fault occurring is inevitable. Hence, there is a requirement for on-board fault recovery without significant degradation in the ALV performance. The present study develops an advanced fault recovery strategy to improve the reliability of an Aerospace Launch Vehicle (ALV) navigation system. The proposed strategy contains fault detection features and can reconfigure the system against common faults in the ALV navigation system. For this purpose, fault recovery system is constructed to detect and reconfigure normal navigation faults based on the sliding mode observer (SMO) theory. In the face of pitch channel sensor failure, the original gyro faults are reconstructed using SMO theory and by correcting the faulty measurement, the pitch-rate gyroscope output is constructed to provide fault tolerant navigation solution. The novel aspect of the paper is employing SMO as an online tuning of analytical fault recovery solution against unforeseen variations due to its hardware/software property. In this regard, a nonlinear model of the ALV is simulated using specific navigation failures and the results verified the feasibility of the proposed system. Simulation results and sensitivity analysis show that the proposed techniques can produce more effective estimation results than those of the previous techniques, against sensor failures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.138-151
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• 2018

In this study, development information and technologies for reusable launch vehicles were surveyed. We investigated the reusable launch vehicles developed in various countries and analyzed their recovery technologies. In particular, we focus on the technologies of the Falcon 9 of SpaceX and the New Shepard of Blue Origin, which have succeeded in several flight experiments. Moreover, we explain the control algorithms for each flight condition. Finally, we discuss the reusable technologies that can be applied to the Korean Space Launch Vehicle to reduce the launch cost.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Recently, in the space market, there has been a rapid reduction of the launch price. The major reason is that a few commercial companies, especially SpaceX, began to enter into the space market about ten years ago, which has changed the space market from monopolization to competition, and accelerated the adoption of commercial efficiency in the technology and management. Also, the successful landing and recovery of a first stage in 2016 by SpaceX proved to be a prelude to opening a new era of reusable launch vehicles, and SpaceX declared the groundbreaking launch price through using the reusable launch vehicle. This study calculates the total launch cost required to put a certain satellite into the LEO, compares the launch cost in three cases with different payload weights, and reviews the impacts of the payload on the cost effectiveness of a reusable vehicle. The total launch cost is divided into 6 subsections cost, namely development cost, production cost, refurbishment cost, operation cost, fixed-cost of factory and launch site, and insurance cost. The cost estimation relationships used in the calculation are taken from the commonly proven cost models such as TRANSCOST.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.525-534
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• 2019

Water rocket is a pressurized liquid propellant rocket that shares the same basic principles of space launch vehicles. Water rockets can be used as an engineering educational material for the liquid rocket principles and the launch vehicle systems, far beyond the scope of K-12 level science education. In this paper, the principles and theories of water rocket propulsion and flight dynamics was investigated at the level of undergraduate rocket engineering classes. Also, the system level design and operation of water rocket is summarized by including the components of launch vehicle, launch pad, payload and recovery as well as altitude measurement methods.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.488-503
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• 2012

The stern boat deployment system was investigated to evaluate the capability of launching and recovering rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) via the stern ramp. The main parameters to launch and recover RHIB were tested at the design stage. The combined hydrodynamic effect of the stern wake and the water jet flow made it difficult to maintain the maneuvering and sea-keeping ability of RHIB approaching to the stern ramp. The safe recovery course was proposed to maintain the directional control of RHIB and to reduce the combined hydrodynamic effect in the transom zone. To evaluate the feasibility of RHIB recovery, the stern sill depth was measured in various conditions and the ramp availability time was obtained. Also, the experimental percent time operability (PTO) test was performed by the number of successive launching and recovering operations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.72-86
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• 2019

SpaceX is currently leading the global launch market with the successful launch and recovery of Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5. SpaceX developed Merlin engine, a kerosene gas generator engine, and continuously upgraded the engine from Falcon 1 to Falcon Heavy to increase payload weight. SpaceX suffered a lot of failures early on, but with the help of NASA, it was possible to overcome many crises and develop vehicles. In addition, it successfully developed reusable vehicles, which drastically reduced operating costs. Subsequent launch vehicles in Korea also need to be developed with reference to SpaceX's development strategy.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.8 no.8
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• pp.37-46
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• 2008

Launch control system controls the sequence for launching missile in weapon systems. This system have to generate the engagement plan, input information and launch the missile in timeliness requirement. Such a system may fail to operate correctly either due to errors in hardware and software or due to violation of timing constraints. We presented fault-tolerant ethernet for embedded real-time system like launch control system. This approach is designed to handle network faults using dual commercial-off-the-shelf(COTS) network devices. To support fault-tolerant ethernet each node is composed dual channel ethernet and designed the communication middleware for network fault detect and recovery. Especially for time-critical system, the middleware is being developed to achieve that no point of network failure shall take down or cause loss of communication to network nodes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Navigation and Port Research Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.73-74
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• 2015

In the world the interests about a unmanned surface vehicle(USV) are growing up. However it is difficult to launch and recover a USV because of no men on board of USV. And it is more difficult in recovery than launch of USV. So in this research the heaving line launcher was developed to support the recovery of USV easier. And a mock-up was manufactured to validate for adoption to the USV. The muck-up is composed of launcher pipe, remote trigger, air tank, tow shell and heaving line. Tests in land using the mock-up were carried out. The forces by the heaving line launcher to USV were measured by a measuring table during the tests in land. In this paper the development of a mock-up of heaving line launcher, tests in land and the measured forces during tests are presented.