Sea landing of space launch vehicles and associated systems and methods

Abstract

Launch vehicle systems and methods for landing and recovering a booster stage and / or other portions thereof on a platform at sea or on another body of water are disclosed. In one embodiment, a reusable space launch vehicle is launched from a coastal launch site in a trajectory over water. After booster engine cutoff and upper stage separation, the booster stage reenters the earth's atmosphere in a tail-first orientation. The booster engines are then restarted and the booster stage performs a vertical powered landing on the deck of a pre-positioned sea-going platform. In one embodiment, bi-directional aerodynamic control surfaces control the trajectory of the booster stage as it glides through the earth's atmosphere toward the sea-going platform.; The sea-going platform can broadcast its real-time position to the booster stage so that the booster stage can compensate for errors in the position of the sea-going platform due to current drift and / or other factors. After landing, the sea-going platform can be towed by, e.g., a tug, or it can use its own propulsion system, to transport the booster stage back to the coastal launch site or other site for reconditioning and reuse. In another embodiment, the booster stage can be transferred to another vessel for transport. In still further embodiments, the booster can be refurbished while in transit from a sea-based or other landing site.

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention relates generally to cleaning, rinsing and drying semiconductor wafers, and more particularly to methods and systems for drying semiconductor wafers after wet rinsing or cleaning processes. Background technique [0002] Critical dimensions of semiconductor devices have shrunk to 2X (ie, approximately 20-30 nm) and 1X nm (ie, less than approximately 20 nm) in both device width and / or device pitch. Wet processing of high-aspect-ratio structures (eg, depth-to-width aspect ratios greater than 5 to 1) becomes increasingly challenging as critical dimensions become smaller. The structures become so fine that the wet processing of these structures required to prepare the state of the surface and / or remove unwanted residues tends to cause damage. The damage can be mechanical due to forces from the flow fields required for cleaning and rinsing, ultrasonics, jets and other particle removal techniques. Such lesions tend to occur on sparse p...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Since too wide an intermediate spacing means that the row structures are separated too far and this can cause serious defects and errors in subsequent operations and in the structures formed thereon

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