Author Topic: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10  (Read 320147 times)

Offline Blackstar

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #440 on: 12/27/2009 11:38 pm »
1-They already have a U2 replacement. It's called Global Hawk. No pilot means no Gary Powers incident.

2-The X-37 is a test vehicle for technologies that could be used for ASAT, satellite recovery, surveillance, space bomber, or yes, troop carrying. But one most not underestimate the futility of government procuring.

3-The Soviet Union thought Space Shuttle was created for these kinds of tasks, I mean why else would you want a vehicle that big, with that amount of crossrange, if you weren't going for a bomber or satellite recovery? Hah.

1-Yes and no.  Global Hawk is supposed to replace the U-2, but that supposed to has been put off several years now.  Naturally, the U-2 community has a certain amount of disdain for the GH and think that it's a lousy replacement.  There's also been some political maneuvering by the USAF which would rather retire the U-2 before proving that GH can really do the mission.  Bottom line: we're not there yet.

2-It's not really suited as a test vehicle for technologies for any of these missions.  As for the troop carrying, forget it.  There's been a crazy idea called SUSTAIN that has been floating around for awhile and has a near zero chance of getting implemented.  It is really really hard to put a squad of armed soldiers on a rocket and land them somewhere.

3-The Soviets believed a lot of crazy things about the shuttle.  Read my article:

http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Soviet-Star-Wars.html

Offline mike robel

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #441 on: 12/29/2009 11:11 pm »
Jim.

I expect to soon stick my 1/144 X-37 inside the shroud.  I have a general question about how payloads are placed inside.  For the model, I was just going to stick it on top of the adapter, but from looking at New Horizons, it appears it is suspended from the verticle sides of the payload shroud and not on a bottom solid surface.

You have also stated that no SRMs will be needed, but I recall (dimly) someplace that when they use the large shroud, they use 1 in order to overcome the drag.  Or, in this case, is the payload so light that they don't need to worry about such things.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Offline Jim

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #442 on: 12/29/2009 11:18 pm »
Jim.

1.  I expect to soon stick my 1/144 X-37 inside the shroud.  I have a general question about how payloads are placed inside.  For the model, I was just going to stick it on top of the adapter, but from looking at New Horizons, it appears it is suspended from the verticle sides of the payload shroud and not on a bottom solid surface.

2.  You have also stated that no SRMs will be needed, but I recall (dimly) someplace that when they use the large shroud, they use 1 in order to overcome the drag.  Or, in this case, is the payload so light that they don't need to worry about such things.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

1.  New Horizons was mounted on the base on top of the centaur and so will X-37


2.  It is light.

Offline mike robel

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #443 on: 12/29/2009 11:57 pm »
@ Jim.  Thanks.

Offline yinzer

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #444 on: 01/17/2010 04:56 am »
Any thoughts on the possibility of using the X-37 as a means to deploy a highly secret and stealthy satellite?

It's practically impossible to hide launches, and finding a primary payload to tag along with can be difficult.  The X-37 provides a cover story, can deploy a satellite outside the range of tracking stations, relay initial communications to the ground, provide a comparison target for attempts to track the satellite, and possibly retrieve it if it turns out to not be as stealthy as desired.
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Offline Antares

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #445 on: 01/17/2010 06:42 am »
I don't think so.  We've hidden satellites prior to this launch... unless the ways we hid those satellites are now detectable.
If I like something on NSF, it's probably because I know it to be accurate.  Every once in a while, it's just something I agree with.  Facts generally receive the former.

Offline Jim

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #446 on: 01/17/2010 11:38 am »
Any thoughts on the possibility of using the X-37 as a means to deploy a highly secret and stealthy satellite?


It would have to weigh less than 500 lbs

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #447 on: 02/26/2010 08:27 pm »
"The Air Force X-37B spaceplane arrived in Florida this week for April launch on an Atlas 5 rocket."
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av012/100225x37arrival/

It looks kind of like what the Shuttle should've been (IMHO there were too many design constraints that were necessary to keep it funded), but a lot smaller.

What sort of delta-V is it capable of?
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

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Offline agman25

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #448 on: 02/26/2010 08:35 pm »
I think what has everyone scratching there head is how much it costs to do that and the amount of time it takes between flights. So $100 million a tweak and then what wait 18 months for a re-flight?

Yep, that's exactly it.  It's hard to see what tweeking of hardware is worth that much money.  It's undoubtedly more efficient to simply throw the extra millions into more ground-testing of the hardware.

This is not a cheap flight, and the confusing thing about it is that there seem to be no good explanations that justify spending the money.  So is there another explanation that we don't know about?
Boondoggle ?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #449 on: 02/26/2010 09:17 pm »
...
What sort of delta-V is it capable of?

Okay, replying to myself, it looks like from this picture ( that I got from here: http://www.space.com/common/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20686 ) and assuming 29 feet long and 15 feet wide, which means that the cylindrical H202 tank has dimensions of about 5.5ftx5ft and density of 1.44kg/liter so that it carries about 4.84 tons of hydrogen peroxide, which at about a 7.35:1 oxidizer-to-fuel ratio, means about another 700kg of JP-8 (based on kerosene). According to Aeronautix, H202/kerosene has a vacuum Isp of about 319s. The Spaceflightnow article says that the X-37B weighs 11tons, and I assume that's fully fueled. Plugging that into the rocket equation via google, I get a delta-v of about 2.17km/s:
http://www.google.com/search?q=319s*9.81m*s^-2*ln(11/(11-4.84/7.35-4.84))
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Offline mmeijeri

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #450 on: 02/26/2010 09:21 pm »
Earlier in this thread it was said that the OMS no longer uses kerosene peroxide. But if it uses hypergolics Isp should be similar.
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Offline Jim

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #451 on: 02/26/2010 09:29 pm »

What sort of delta-V is it capable of?

I have the answer at work.   I was working it when it was a NASA program.  Unfortunately the documents are ITAR and propriety.

Offline neilh

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #452 on: 02/26/2010 09:41 pm »
Out of curiosity, is this the first time that a winged spacecraft has been launched on top of a rocket (instead of side-mounted)? I know this is something that's been proposed quite often, from the 1960s Dyna-Soar to the 2000s Orbital Space Plane, but I don't know of any time that any of them have even gotten to an attempted launch.

The results, if any of them are made public, could be interesting for the Dream Chaser folks.
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Offline Pittsburgh

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #453 on: 02/26/2010 10:28 pm »
Out of curiosity, is this the first time that a winged spacecraft has been launched on top of a rocket (instead of side-mounted)? I know this is something that's been proposed quite often, from the 1960s Dyna-Soar to the 2000s Orbital Space Plane, but I don't know of any time that any of them have even gotten to an attempted launch.

The results, if any of them are made public, could be interesting for the Dream Chaser folks.

X-37 will be launched inside a fairing, no?

Offline neilh

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #454 on: 02/26/2010 10:38 pm »
Out of curiosity, is this the first time that a winged spacecraft has been launched on top of a rocket (instead of side-mounted)? I know this is something that's been proposed quite often, from the 1960s Dyna-Soar to the 2000s Orbital Space Plane, but I don't know of any time that any of them have even gotten to an attempted launch.

The results, if any of them are made public, could be interesting for the Dream Chaser folks.

X-37 will be launched inside a fairing, no?

Oh right, that's true, although I was actually wondering about a spaceplane being launched on top of a rocket period. In any case, I *think* the BOR-4 was launched in such a manner on top of the Kosmos, although I haven't found any photos.
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Offline Art LeBrun

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #455 on: 02/26/2010 10:58 pm »
Out of curiosity, is this the first time that a winged spacecraft has been launched on top of a rocket (instead of side-mounted)? I know this is something that's been proposed quite often, from the 1960s Dyna-Soar to the 2000s Orbital Space Plane, but I don't know of any time that any of them have even gotten to an attempted launch.

The results, if any of them are made public, could be interesting for the Dream Chaser folks.

X-37 will be launched inside a fairing, no?

Oh right, that's true, although I was actually wondering about a spaceplane being launched on top of a rocket period. In any case, I *think* the BOR-4 was launched in such a manner on top of the Kosmos, although I haven't found any photos.

Do ASSET/PRIME qualify as spaceplanes?
1958 launch vehicle highlights: Vanguard TV-4 and Atlas 12B

Offline Skyrocket

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #456 on: 02/26/2010 11:17 pm »
Out of curiosity, is this the first time that a winged spacecraft has been launched on top of a rocket (instead of side-mounted)? I know this is something that's been proposed quite often, from the 1960s Dyna-Soar to the 2000s Orbital Space Plane, but I don't know of any time that any of them have even gotten to an attempted launch.

The results, if any of them are made public, could be interesting for the Dream Chaser folks.

X-37 will be launched inside a fairing, no?

Oh right, that's true, although I was actually wondering about a spaceplane being launched on top of a rocket period. In any case, I *think* the BOR-4 was launched in such a manner on top of the Kosmos, although I haven't found any photos.

Do ASSET/PRIME qualify as spaceplanes?

ASSET was launched unshrouded, but PRIME was shrouded

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #457 on: 02/26/2010 11:49 pm »
I think what has everyone scratching there head is how much it costs to do that and the amount of time it takes between flights. So $100 million a tweak and then what wait 18 months for a re-flight?

Yep, that's exactly it.  It's hard to see what tweeking of hardware is worth that much money.  It's undoubtedly more efficient to simply throw the extra millions into more ground-testing of the hardware.

This is not a cheap flight, and the confusing thing about it is that there seem to be no good explanations that justify spending the money.  So is there another explanation that we don't know about?
Boondoggle ?

My take?  This vehicle, so far as can be determined, offers only one obvious function that a regular expendable satellite cannot offer.  It can bring stuff back. 

The intriguing question is;  "what stuff"?

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 02/26/2010 11:50 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline vt_hokie

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #458 on: 02/27/2010 12:24 am »

My take?  This vehicle, so far as can be determined, offers only one obvious function that a regular expendable satellite cannot offer.  It can bring stuff back. 

The intriguing question is;  "what stuff"?

 - Ed Kyle

Another question I have is, will there be a larger follow-on vehicle, or is this it?  And if there is to be a larger craft, what will launch it?  (Back when Boeing was pitching an X-37 based OSP, apparently Delta IV Heavy was thought to be sufficient.)

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Pre-Launch History: Atlas V - OTV X-37B - April 22, 10
« Reply #459 on: 02/27/2010 12:42 am »

My take?  This vehicle, so far as can be determined, offers only one obvious function that a regular expendable satellite cannot offer.  It can bring stuff back. 

The intriguing question is;  "what stuff"?

 - Ed Kyle

Another question I have is, will there be a larger follow-on vehicle, or is this it?  And if there is to be a larger craft, what will launch it?  (Back when Boeing was pitching an X-37 based OSP, apparently Delta IV Heavy was thought to be sufficient.)
BTW, If 2.2 km/s is in the right ball-park for the X-37B, then I think it could put itself into low orbit powered just by an Atlas V first-stage... That's sort of like SSTO (but cheating, since your payload is also another stage). If the delta-v is higher, like 3km/s, then even a double-sized (22 ton) X-37B could be put into LEO with just an Atlas V first stage. Of course, I am probably forgetting something important.

(Now, recover that first stage and you've got yourself a reusable launch vehicle of sorts, though it'd be too small to make sense, with only a 1-ton payload size with a 22-ton X-37B-derivative...).
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

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