Creating a Stable Unguided Rocket Without the Use of Fins

Doug Coley
Abilene Christian University
(Dated: November 20, 2010)
Unguided rockets have traditionally relied on fins to provide the stabilization necessary to keep
the rocket moving in straight trajectory. Fins allow the rocket to using the air rushing by during its
flight to correct and deviations to the trajectory. Could a rocket without fins, and thus an typically
unstable rocket, ever fly in a predictable pattern? By inducing a spin on the rocket we can use its
own angular momentum to keep it going in the desired direction and create stability. By looking
at the overall aspects of unguided flight and the properties of spin-stabilization I will show that
a finless rocket can achieve stable flight and then compare this theorehtical rocket with its finned
predecessors. In the test scenario the spinning rocket wastes too much of its energy generating its
rotational stability. The traditional finned rocket is going to go higher and get there faster.

I. WHAT MAKES A ROCKET STABLE III. ADVANTAGES OF SPIN

The rocket’s stability is determined by two calculated Besides just making the rocket body stable, a spinning
points. The center of gravity(CG), and the center of pres- rocket has other advantages over a non-rotating rocket.
sure(CP). The CG is the balancing point for the whole A spinning rocket reduces all body-fixed errors such as
rocket. The CP is where the sum of all the aerodynamic thrust misalignment and inconsistencies with the center
forces act. The CP is affected by all the drag forces act- of gravity. In an unrotating rocket with even the slightest
ing on the body of the rocket and the fin size and shape. motor misalignment, the thrust is always going in exactly
A rocket’s stability is determined by the relationship be- the same direction, therefore the dispersion, deviation
tween these two points. Positive stability, shown in Fig- from the desired and intended trajectory, increases and
ure 1, is achieved when the CP lies behind the CG.[1] A pushes the rocket increasingly more off course. By adding
rocket body by itself is not stable and will have a wildly spin the misalignment never points in just one direction
eractic flight unless some method establishes stability for and the dispersion cannot grow as quickly and keeps the
the rocket.[3] rocket on the correct path. The graph in Figure 2 il-
lustrates the dispersion on a rotating vs. a non-rotating
rocket.[3]
II. SPIN STABILIZATION CONCEPTS

Spin stabilization isn’t a new idea. It can be found in IV. INDUCING SPIN ON THE ROCKET
everything from flying bullets, to satellites manuevering
through space, to bycicles seen everyday. Try balancing
Spinning the rocket is one way of effectively moving
on a bike that is sitting at rest. Now pedal down the road
the CP behind the CG without the use of fins. The spin
and balancing on the same bike is a child’s game. The
is most crucial at the beginning of the flight while the
premise behind the spin stabilization is angular momen-
rocket is accelerating up to speed. There are various ways
tum. Angular momentum, L, is defined by the following
this can be done some with more benefits than others. A
equation:
rocket without fins will have to spin very fast to account
~ = ~r × p~
L (1) for it’s lack of stability. At these high speeds of rotation
a rocket will start a slight precession that will have to be
Using this, we can think of the rocket as an elongated toy accounted for.
top. It’s spin will give it stability and cause it to remain
pointing up. In the absence of external torques the rocket
will keep heading in the same direction regardless of any
A. Canted Motors
minor interferences caused by the wind or other factors.
Tourque, here as τ , is equivalent to
One way to induce spin would be to simply angle
∆L the orientation of multiple motors, each tangetial to the
~τ = . (2)
∆t rocket’s body and opposite each other. This can be seen
This shows that the faster the rocket spins the more in Figure 3. The thrust itself is the source of the spin.
it will resist any torques. The tradeoff is that energy This accounts for the initial spin at liftoff but leads to
will be wasted spinning the rocket too fast and it will a decrease in velocity and therefore maximum altitude.
go nowhere. So we need to find out how much spin can The work put into creating the spin has to come the up-
stabilize a rocket and whether or not it will be too detri- ward thrust. But this does solve the problem of spinning
mental to the rocket’s overall trajectory. at the start of the launch because model rockets typically
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accelerate very rapidly and canted motors would use this angle of tilt away from vertical as depicted in Figure 5.
their advantage and simply produce the necessary spin.[3] We can also conclude then that the angular momentum,
ω, will come from the F · sin(θ).
The equations for the intial stages of the rockets flight
B. Exhaust Vent are given by

Another similar option to induce spin without the com-

plexity of multiple motors would be to use a single motor 1 − e−p·τ
and deflect the exhaust off at tangent angles. This would vτ = q · (3)
1 + e−p·τ
achieve the necessary spin, but again at the cost of the
total upward forces.[3] See Figure 4. with vτ is the velocity at burnout, for the full derivation
see the Appendix[2]
C. Helical Rails
mB q2
hB = · ln 2 (4)
k q − vτ2
A model rocket is typically lanched off a rod or rails
to ensure that it is heading in the right direction while
the rocket is accelerating up to it’s max speed. So by al- where hB is the altitude at burnout.[2]
tering this and using a special launch system that forces
the rocket into a spin before it is free of the launch rods
is another option. It would be similar to the rifling in a
VII. ROCKET COMPARISON
gun barrel that spins a bullet. These can be costly and
hard to maintain. There wouldn’t be any wasted motor
thrust used to create the spin but the friction along the In our hypothetical case we can generalize that each
rails could be even more detrimental to the rocket’s per- rocket has equal mass of 0.5kg, diameter and that their
formance. Normally these systems are created so that motors are identical, each rocket having dual motors that
the fins ride the rails around to generate spin. A finless produce a constant 25 Newtons of thrust each during
rocket obviously couldn’t do that so a new system would their burn time, which is for this experiment 2 seconds.
have to be in place to achieve spin in this fashion. An- While a constant thrust is very unlikely with the solid,
other problem would be constructing a rail system that normally blackpowder, motors this scenario is under ide-
could get the rocket spinning fast enough to achieve sta- alized conditions. Not to mention that this is a whole lot
bility. Helical launch rails are usually only used when the of thrust for a very lightweight rocket. Two motors push-
rocket needs a little help with stabilty from spin, and not ing 25N s each gives the normal, finned rocket, rocket A
counting on it entirely as in our case.[3] from now on, an upward thrust of 50N s. Rocket B, the
finless experimental rocket, has it’s motors tilted 25 de-
grees vertical opposing one another. This gives rocket
V. HISTORICAL ATTEMPTS B an adjusted upward force of about 45N s. So already
it is clear that rocket B is going to suffer by requiring
The US Department of Defense has a history of cre- thrust to induce a spin. The horizontal component on B
ating unguided rockets that use spin to help with stabi- is roughly 21N s which when applied to a relatively small
lization. Most of their rockets, especially in the techno- diameter rocket should be more than enough to keep it
logically advanced modern age, are sophisticated enough stable. Table 1 below shows what this data looks like
to deploy fins after launch or have some kind of internal when plugged into the equations above.
stabilization such as a gyroscope.[3] We can assume that both of the rockets will coast rel-
atively the same and so after the motor burnout and as
time increases the differences between the two rockets A
VI. ADAPTATIONS OF THE EQUATIONS and B will only grow. So from that point and from Table
INVOLVED 1 it is clear that a rocket that is spin-stabilized by it’s
own angled thrust is not going to be in true competition
The following equations can be used to find the vari- with a traditional rocket like A. There is simply too much
ous performance characteristics of a simple rocket. These force wasted in creating the necessary rotation. But the
equations give us information up to the burnout time be- fact that it is even capable of maintaining a straight tra-
cause after that point both a finned and finless rocket jectory is a statement in and of itself.
will coast about the same. The biggest change from the It would be interesting to see how rocket B would fair
following equations to make them fit our model is to ac- against a traditional rocket that isn’t completely stable
count for the thrust going at an angle away from vertical. due to fins that are too small or a body that is too short.
This means that instead of the full force going downward If the finned rocket had a high dispersion the comparison
the adapted downward force will be the F · cos(θ) of the between the two rockets could be much closer.
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With some basic algebra the above equation becomes

TABLE I: This table shows that even after just the first two
seconds of flight rocket A is out to a considerable lead.
Equation Rocket A Rocket B
Burnout Velocity m
s
170.90 154.12
Altitude at Burnout m 175.30 157.83

APPENDIX: DERIVATIONS OF THE ROCKET 1 − e−p·τ

vτ = q · (A.4)
EQUATIONS[2] 1 + e−p·τ

Terminal Velocity at Motor Burnout

The equations found above can be derived from Newton’s
Second Law,
F = ma
dv This equation yields the maximim velocity of the
= m·
dt rocket at motor burnout.
dv
m· = T − mg − k · vτ2
dt
m · dv Terminal Velocity at Motor Burnout
dt =
T − mg − k · vτ2
m · dv
= T −mg Again starting with Newton’s second,
k · k − k · vτ2
m · dv
=
k · q 2 − k · vτ2
(A.1)
where k is air resistance, vτ is the terminal velocity,
and
F = ma
2 T − mB · g dv
q = . = m·
k dt
Plugging in and simplifying the equation becomes dv dh
= m· ·
m dv dh dt
= · dv
k q 2 − vτ2 = m·v·
Z vt dh
m dv
τ = · = T − mg − k · vτ2
k 0 q − vτ2
2

mB 1 q + vτ dv
τ = · · ln (A.2) m·v· = T − mg − k · vτ2
k 2q q − vτ dh
mv
which is the motor burn time represented in Gordon’s dh =
kq 2 − kv 2
text. [2] With this we can now substitute and solve for m v
vτ to find out the terminal velocity, or burnout velocity. dh = · ·v
k q2 − v2
Z vt
m v · dv
2kq q + vτ h = ·
· τ = ln k 0 q2 − v2
mB q − vτ m
2kq hB = · ln q 2 − ln q 2 − vτ2
= p 2k
mB m q2
q + vτ hB = · ln 2 (A.5)
p · τ = ln 2k q − vτ2
q − vτ
q − vτ
−p · τ = ln
q + vτ
q − vτ
e−p·τ =
q + vτ This equation, as the name suggests, gives the altitude
(A.3) gained by the rocket as it is accelerating.
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[1] Stine, G. Harry, Handbook of Model Rocketry, 7th Edition, [3] U.S. Department of Defense, Design of Aerodynamically
Hoboken, NJ, 2004. Stabilized Free Rockets, July 1990.
[2] Gordon K., Mandell, Topics in Advanced Model Rocketry,
MIT Press, 1973.