The big one: Getting to orbit

The time has come to build our first orbit-capable rocket and design a payload for it.

Woden Main Stage

At the core of our new design is a new engine, similar to the RD-107 rocket engine used as the main engine on the Soviet's R-7 rocket. It can achieve a specific impulse (ISP, which roughly equates to efficiency) of 255 in atmosphere and offers a whopping 820kN of thrust, far in excess of anything our space program has worked with before. Despite this, it's conceptually pretty similar to the V-2 rocket engine, only swapping out the ethanol for the more efficient kerosene.

Woden Engines

We are currently constructing a new launch pad capable of shifting 60 tonnes (three times our previous mass).

Easily growing to match our new facilities, our new rocket core weighs a whopping 58 tonnes by itself. We have full avionic control and can control it using the built-in vernier engines. This design is intended to be modular, growing to meet the needs of our orbital programme moving forward and capable of accepting boosters.

Woden Rocket

This puts us far behind the size of the Soviet R-7 rocket itself which sits at a massive 260 tonnes wet mass, but it does exceed the mass of current (1956) US rockets like the Redstone (30 tonnes) and Vanguard (10 tonnes).

This current design offers a modest thrust-to-weight ratio (without a payload) of 1.8:1 and a Delta-V (with payload) of 6,750m/s. This alone won't get our payload to orbit, which requires at least 9,400m/s under optimal conditions.

Komarov Satellite

On top of our new rocket is our payload. The Komarov is a small avionics package, capable of controlled, remote, uncrewed flight. It has a variety of telemetry tools on board and will report back to Earth as it orbits in an elliptical orbit of over 160km at both apogee and perigee.

The Komarov I will utilise latest iteration of our AJ10 derivative, offering up a modest thrust of 34kN but, more importantly, an impressive vacuum ISP (specific impulse) of 271. This equivalent of the AJ10-37 has a funnel to maximise vacuum efficiency. The engines run on UDMH/IWFNA, are pressure-fed, subject to ullage, can only be fired once, and cannot have their throttles adjusted. None of these constraints are new but to allow for specific orbits or correction of any failed burns, our design has two such engines, giving it two stages.

Komarov I Stages

The design will stay in orbit and transmit telemetry until its battery power runs out, as we do not yet have access to solar panels. The overall package has a Delta-V of 11,000m/s, which is hopefully plenty to achieve a solid orbit even with some inefficiencies in our launch and considering any reduction in thrust that might be brought on by engine problems.

Historical aside: The Komarov satellite is named in honour of Vladimir Komarov, a legendary Soviet test pilot/cosmonaut. He was the first human to loss their life while in space flight when he volunteered for Soyuz 1 (against his better judgement) to ensure that Yuri Gagarin would not be chosen in his stead for the ill-fated mission. His story is a warning against hubris and the human cost of pursuing greedy technological goals.

Woden-Komarov I

Our current timescales will see the launch occuring sometime around November 1956, although it is entirely probable that one of the engines will fail and we will have to send up another rocket to achieve this space first.

Historical aside: It wasn't until October 1957 when the Soviets would launch Sputnik 1 and achieve orbital spaceflight in the real world.