Taiwanese researchers are to conduct the maiden flight test of an indigenously designed HTTP-3A sounding rocket’s second stage propulsion system on Tuesday morning, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University said yesterday.
The test is scheduled to take place at the Syuhai Interim Sounding Rocket Launch Site in Pingtung County as the first-ever launch at the site, the university said in a statement.
The university operates the Advanced Rocket Research Center (ARRC), which developed the rocket.
Photo courtesy of National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
After the first stage is launched, the rocket’s second stage would be deployed when it reaches an altitude of 10km, then deploy deceleration parachutes and fall into the sea, the university said, adding that the maximum altitude of the test is estimated at 12km with a flight time of about eight minutes.
The launch is to test the rocket’s autonomous navigation, flight control, hybrid propellant and ground support systems, in addition to the accuracy of the AARC’s space mission simulator, it said.
The AARC was created in June 2016 by the university and private-sector partners to develop space technology, cultivate technical experts in fields related to space exploration, and create capabilities for Taiwan to launch rockets bearing instruments or satellites unassisted, it said.
The center’s research team in 2020 conducted the world’s first successful suspension test of a hybrid-propellant rocket, it said.
“Rockets are extremely complicated systems that can be tested tens of thousands of times on the ground but not succeed at launch,” the ARRC was cited as saying. “The preparation, data and experience surrounding a test flight are invaluable to the [center’s] technical development.”
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