Launch vehicle with engine mounted on a rotor

Abstract

A launch vehicle which employs a rotor similar to a helicopter. The vehicle has a four bladed rotor which is mounted on the vehicle body. The body of the vehicle includes propellant tanks and a payload compartment contained within an integral aeroshell. Rocket engines used to propel the vehicle into earth orbit are mounted at the ends of the rotor blades. The engines are connected by propellant feed lines to a propellant transfer hub surrounding the axis of rotation of the rotor. Propellants are fed from an oxidizer tank and a fuel tank through a propellant transfer coupling to oxidizer and fuel lines which extend to the engines at the rotor blades ends. The rotor blades incorporate air foils. To operate the vehicle the vehicle is positioned on a concrete or asphalt pad and fueled with liquid oxygen and kerosene. The engine are positioned tangent to the blade paths and ignited. The thrust of the engines which is tangent to the rotor causes the rotor to turn which accelerates the rotor thus increasing the pressure developed by the propellants as they flow towards the engines. When the rotor has reached operational speed the airfoil creates sufficient lift that the vehicle begins to ascend vertically. As the vehicle exits the atmosphere the rocket engines are aligned with the flight path of the vehicle. After reentry from earth orbit the vehicle utilizes the spun up rotor to fly the vehicle to a soft landing.