Rocket Concept 2

After thinking over my previous ideas, I came up with the following liquid propellent rocket design. It will have cascaded propellent tanks to reduce the overall tank weight. Liquid oxygen can be separated from liquid methane by a comparably thin wall and the liquid methane will be stored in a unibody rocket tube made of borosilicate glass covered with carbon fiber and coated with magnesium and aluminum layers. The nozzle of the rocket will be a unibody pressure molded graphite that has four major thrust nozzles and four deceleration nozzles. Unibody graphite nozzle will be enclosed inside a tungsten shell which will be used to attach the nozzle to the rocket’s body.

Tesla turbine pumps will be used to pressurize propellent inside the combustion chamber. The propellent will be preheated inside the reservoir over the unibody graphite block which is heated by the exhaust gas. There will be four independently throttleable engines to generate differential thrust for navigation control. The propellent tanks will be pressurized by the hydrogen gas placed above the propellent tanks.

When the rocket’s propellent is depleted, the second stage will separate from the first stage. Then the first stage will start falling towards the earth. The propellent tanks connections to the pumps will be closed and direct connections between the tanks and the combustion chamber will be opened. The main nozzles of the rocket will serve as air intake and will pressurize the air filling the nozzle cone while the rocket is falling down. The pressurized hydrogen filling the tanks will be released to the combustion chamber and ignited with the air coming from the main nozzles. The exhaust gas will then be released from the deceleration nozzles placed with an angle to the sides of the unibody graphite block.

Slightly outer emission of exhaust gas will not block the fresh air directly coming below the rocket. Additionally, horizontal vector of the thrust will help to stabilize the rocket during descent, negating the need for foldable fins. Hydrogen coupled with the ambient air will generate thrust for a longer time allowing a smoother descent. Finally, there will be no need to conserve some propellent for descent and all the propellent will be used to accelerate the payload.