payload

In military aircraft or space exploration, the payload is the carrying capacity of an aircraft or space ship, including as cargo, munitions, scientific instruments or experiments, or external fuel, although internal fuel is usually not included.^{[citation needed]}

Air craft

Also, with aircraft carrying payload, a trade-off has to be made whether to increase payload or whether to increase the range of the aircraft. This trade-off is done according to a so called payload range diagram. The upper horizontal line represents the aircraft maximum take-off weight (MTOW). This MTOW consists of three components: aircraft empty weight, fuel and payload. Up 'til the vertical line, the aircraft can take its maximum payload for its maximum range.^{[citation needed]}

If the range is increased beyond that point, payload has to be sacrificed for fuel, until it reaches the point of payload at maximum range. Flying further than that point means that the payload has to be reduced further, and only for a slight increase in range. The absolute range is thus the range at which an aircraft can fly without carrying any payload.

Space craft

For a rocket the payload can be a spacecraft launched with the rocket, or in the case of a ballistic missile, the warhead(s). Compare the throw-weight, which includes more than the warhead(s).

Examples

Examples of payload capacity:

• Antonov An-225: 250,000 kg
• Saturn V:
  • Payload to Low Earth Orbit 118,000 kg
  • Payload to Lunar orbit 47,000 kg
• Space Shuttle:
  • Payload to Low Earth Orbit 24,400 kg (53,700 lb)
  • Payload to geostationary transfer orbit 3,810 kg (8,390 lb)
• Trident missile: 2800 kg

Payload constraints

Launch and transport system differ not only on the payload that can be carried but also in the stresses and other factors placed on the payload. The payload must not only be lifted to its target, it must also arrive safely, whether elsewhere on the surface of the Earth or a specific orbit. To ensure this the payload, such as a warhead or satellite, is designed to withstand certain amounts of various types of "punishment" on the way to its destination. The various constraints placed on the launch system can be roughly categorized into those which cause physical damage to the payload and those which can damage its electronic or chemical makeup.

Examples of physical damage include extreme accelerations over short time scales caused by atmospheric buffeting or oscillations, extreme accelerations over longer time scales caused by rocket thrust and gravity, and sudden changes in the magnitude or direction of the acceleration caused by how quick engines are throttled and shut down, etc. While damage to electrical or chemical/biological payloads can be sustained through things such as extreme temperatures (hot or cold), rapid changes in temperature, rapid pressure changes, contact with fast moving air air streams causing ionization, and radiation exposure from cosmic rays, the Van-Allen Belts, solar wind, etc.

See also: Tsiolkovsky rocket equation

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