Rocket Science For Earthlings
A continuing series for the gravitationally impaired.
The Sol Cazador launch vehicle is an exercise in low technology, low cost space access. It is brute force and ignorance directed at putting something, anything, into space with a minimum of technology and at lowest cost. It uses sounding rocket technology and methods, with a little innovation, to achieve orbital and lunar trajectories. Bottom line it is the cheapest way to get into space, but it is not an efficient launch vehicle. It is however well within the means of a small private launch organization.
The vehicle as currently planned consists of seven stages. The first three are PVC/N2O hybrid rockets, with liquid injection TVC. Starting packages sit on top of stages one and two for stages two and three. There is no "guidance system", but it has a sun seeker steering system, it seeks the Sun, so you wait until the Sun is in the sky where you want to go and then launch towards the Sun. (Sol Cazador does not qualify as a weapon system because launch and targeting are so restricted as to be nearly useless.) That takes care of pitch and yaw, a cheap pendulum gyro and cold gas thrusters dampen the roll rate only below the level needed to avoid precession effects during pitch and yaw corrections. A PIC microcontroller is sufficient for the control system.
A spin table and electric motor on top of stage three spin up the upper four solid stages prior to launch. An accelerometer, a PIC microcontroller, and battery on top of stage six fires the four solid motor stages. The final stage remains attached to the payload.
Another accelerometer and microcontroller in the payload count down the time until the payload package detonates. The payload consists of the accelerometer to make sure the payload is armed only after launch, a count down timer, a battery, a load of pistol powder in a CO2 cartridge, and tiny grains of "tagent". Tagent is a product developed by the gun control lobby. It consists of tiny ceramic grains with layers of black and white that can be read like bar codes. They are unique and artificial and nearly indestructible. The "tagents" are the payload. Some of the tagents will hit the Moon, some will survive.
The Sol Cazador is launched three days before the new moon, towards the Sun. Two days after launch the payload package detonates, spraying a flotilla of tagent grains into the path of the Moon. Nothing large will hit the Moon, nothing will remain in lunar orbit, NASA has no grounds for complaint but I'm sure they will scream bloody murder about something.
Three quarters of the cost of the Sol Cazador will be in legal fees.
7 stages
Stages 1, 2, 3, N2O PVC hybrid with liquid injection thrust vector control, and cold gas roll control thrusters.
Stages 4, 5, 6, 7, Graphite epoxy cased solids, spin stabilized.
Steering, roll, and booster ignition control on stage three.
Solids ignition control on stage six.
Sun seeker steering sensors, pendulum gyro roll control.
Microswitch accelerometer for staging sequence.
Microprocessor (PIC) controls.