Synergy Rocket Formation

I had previously proposed a synergy rocket design on April 21, 2025 and would like to improve on that design. The idea is to create synergy by combining at least three rockets in a closed formation in order to create additional thrust via air flowing between the rockets and reducing the complexity of recovering the first stage of the rocket.

In synergy rocket formation, the rockets of same type are strapped together in a closed formation. The objective is to enclose the air passing between the rockets. At the bottom of the rockets, there will be additional enclosures connecting the nozzles and directing the air flow. These enclosures will not protrude from the rocket walls not to induce additional drag. These enclosures will direct the air in line with the rockets’ direction of movement. The air passing by will be heated by the rocket nozzles to generate additional thrust like in high bypass turbofan engines. Unlike those engines, there will be no duct fan. Therefore, the thrust gain will be limited.

Strapped rockets would induce too much stress on the connection points due to differences on thrust of each rocket. In order to overcome this problem, each rocket nozzle will have controlled ventilation window that release some of the exhausted gas into the enclosed air bypass canal. As a result, thrust lost on ventilated exhaust gas on the engine nozzle will be recovered by the thrust generated by the bypassed air. This will change the direction of the thrust vector to minimize stress and improve maneuverability. Also increase the thrust generated by the bypassed air.

Only first stages of the rockets will be strapped. The upper stages will move independently after stage separation. The strapped rockets will have much higher base area compared to a single rocket. Therefore, recovering the first stage will be a much simpler problem.