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What are the limits on rocket fairing size
Tom Womack
post Jan 20 2014, 01:32 PM
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Fairing diameter is one of the more absolute restrictions that shows up in mission planning.

Obviously there's a drag impact at liftoff, but I'd be very interested to see a quantitative analysis as to why a ten-metre-diameter fairing is not a practical object. Has anyone got a pointer to one?
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djellison
post Jan 20 2014, 03:23 PM
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There's also more than just drag....you can also move the center of pressure too far forward. In essence, like throwing a dart backwards...it'll want to flip on you.

Drag is a problem though - a first order approximation....a 10m fairing presents 75sqm of x-section drag...whereas a 5m fairing only 20sqm. This URL shows some numbers.....these wouldn't necessarily quadruple ( you would be going slower I'm the thicker atmosphere ) but a different and slower flight profile would also inflict higher gravity losses.

http://gravityloss.wordpress.com/2008/01/1...or-scalability/
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Posts in this topic
- Tom Womack   What are the limits on rocket fairing size   Jan 20 2014, 01:32 PM
- - nprev   I don't, but it's an interesting question....   Jan 20 2014, 02:20 PM
- - djellison   There's also more than just drag....you can al...   Jan 20 2014, 03:23 PM
- - mcaplinger   NSF is probably a better resource for this type of...   Jan 20 2014, 07:12 PM
- - nprev   Yeah, NSF ain't bad for things like this.   Jan 20 2014, 07:43 PM
- - stevesliva   These guys would know: http://www.ata-e.com/asymme...   Jan 20 2014, 08:28 PM
- - raduczoid   So let's ask a rocket scientist Any volonteer...   Jan 21 2014, 02:00 PM
- - mcaplinger   If you read the NSF thread I linked to above, you...   Jan 21 2014, 04:22 PM

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