maybe the Athena have a chance of capturing that part of the American launch market?
Is there any reason whatsoever (legal, commercial or political) why LM could not spin off their license to operate Athena-II/-III to ULA as a direct replacement for Delta-II?
Quote from: Ben the Space Brit on 03/04/2012 01:18 pmIs there any reason whatsoever (legal, commercial or political) why LM could not spin off their license to operate Athena-II/-III to ULA as a direct replacement for Delta-II? Yes. LM keeps all the revenue from operating Athena-II/-III itself. If it were part of ULA, it splits the money with Boeing.
Quote from: Jim on 03/04/2012 01:42 pmQuote from: Ben the Space Brit on 03/04/2012 01:18 pmIs there any reason whatsoever (legal, commercial or political) why LM could not spin off their license to operate Athena-II/-III to ULA as a direct replacement for Delta-II? Yes. LM keeps all the revenue from operating Athena-II/-III itself. If it were part of ULA, it splits the money with Boeing. Is it possible Boeing wants out of the launch business? The end result being LM owning all of ULA.
Re: Antares comment: I don't regard free market capitalism as annoying.
I just noticed, on reading about X-37B, that Athena 3 could lift that spacecraft mass to orbit from an East Coast pad.- Ed Kyle
Purely FWIW - If I were to nominate a possible HSF application for the Athena family, it would be to launch a quick-reaction crew rescue vehicle - Basically an uncrewed CST-100 that would be flown up to rendezvous with an imperilled spacecraft to allow the crew to transfer over and fly it back down.Being all-solid, Athena has the advantage of a very short reaction time compared to any liquid-fuelled booster. You'd need to have a good automatic flight control system for the rescue vehicle itself and it would need to be checked regularly to ensure it is still flight-worthy but the only launch constraint would really be phasing - launching close enough to the target vehicle's next over-pass so that it can catch up quickly.
Quote from: Ben the Space Brit on 03/06/2012 12:41 pmPurely FWIW - If I were to nominate a possible HSF application for the Athena family, it would be to launch a quick-reaction crew rescue vehicle - Basically an uncrewed CST-100 that would be flown up to rendezvous with an imperilled spacecraft to allow the crew to transfer over and fly it back down.Being all-solid, Athena has the advantage of a very short reaction time compared to any liquid-fuelled booster. You'd need to have a good automatic flight control system for the rescue vehicle itself and it would need to be checked regularly to ensure it is still flight-worthy but the only launch constraint would really be phasing - launching close enough to the target vehicle's next over-pass so that it can catch up quickly.Quick reaction time only if it is pre-stacked and squatting on a pad, sized correctly, solids do not have a "restart" capability, and I do not think Athena III has the Minute Man thrust termination system for fine tuning the final trajectory. The "CST-100" is going to have to do a fair amount of the orbital adjustments. But that's just software and we know software can be written very quickly
Falcon 9 and Antares are going to be busy with COTS/CRS.
Quick reaction time only if it is pre-stacked and squatting on a pad, sized correctly, solids do not have a "restart" capability, and I do not think Athena III has the Minute Man thrust termination system for fine tuning the final trajectory. The "CST-100" is going to have to do a fair amount of the orbital adjustments. But that's just software and we know software can be written very quickly