Author Topic: Excalibur Almaz  (Read 204280 times)

Offline qprmeteor

  • Poverty-stricken astrophysicist
  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 118
  • Liked: 6
  • Likes Given: 1
Excalibur Almaz
« on: 03/11/2007 04:57 pm »
While looking at the entry for TKS on Wikipedia, I spotted:

"TKS VA capsules are presently being modernized for commercial use, by the private spaceflight company, Excalibur Almaz."

On the Wikipedia page for the company:

"Excalibur Almaz is based in Douglas, Isle of Man, with offices in Houston and Moscow. The company follows a lightweight and efficient business model, by owning its spacecraft but contracting expert services, including refurbishment, launch, control, and recovery.

Company founders include: CEO and space law expert Art Dula, CFO and space commercialization veteran Buckner Hightower, and Sales & Marketing Vice President Chris Stott. Stott is also CEO of ManSat and on the board of the International Space University. The company's COO is U.S. Air Force General (ret.) Dirk Jameson, who once commanded the Air Force's Vandenberg missile launching base. Chief of spacecraft operations is Leroy Chiao, formerly a NASA astronaut and Commander of the International Space Station.

Advisory Board members include: former Johnson Space Center Director, George Abbey; former Kennedy Space Center Director and former President of Lockheed Martin Space Operations, Jay Honeycutt; former space shuttle astronaut and VASIMR plasma rocket engine inventor, Franklin Chang-Diaz; former European Space Agency astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien, and former Russian cosmonauts, Vladimir Titov and Yuri Glaskov"

The company homepage is password protected! Interesting line-up of board members - does anyone have any further info on their launch plans etc?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.

Offline qprmeteor

  • Poverty-stricken astrophysicist
  • Full Member
  • *
  • Posts: 118
  • Liked: 6
  • Likes Given: 1
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.

Offline Comga

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6466
  • Liked: 4572
  • Likes Given: 5136
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #2 on: 03/12/2007 02:47 am »
Quote
qprmeteor - 11/3/2007  12:28 PM A quick Google came up with this PowerPoint presentation:
Yes.  We have seen this, in these forums, IIRC.  The presentation was originally created in Russia (??????????? = PowerPoint) by one Dmitry Pieson, whoever he is.   It's almost two years old, which is not much compared to the hardware.  Does anyone here know *when* these capsules flew? And how big is that "station" and what would it take to launch it?
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline Norm Hartnett

  • Elite Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2310
  • Liked: 74
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #3 on: 03/13/2007 01:17 am »
Hum related to this:

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/almaz.html and this http://www.russianspaceweb.com/tks.html

70's era stuff I'd say.

Overview of TKS missions:

Cosmos 881, 882 Two VA 1976 Dec. 15 -   Orbital test of VA
Cosmos 929  TKS/VA 1977 July 17 1977 Aug. 16 1978 Feb. 3 First TKS test.
no name Two VA 1977 Aug. 5 - - LV failure. Suborbital test of VA
Cosmos 997, 998 Two VA 1978 March 30 - - Orbital test of VA
Cosmos 1100, 1101 Two VA 1979 May 23 - - Orbital test of VA
Cosmos 1267 TKS 1981 April 25 1981 May 24  1982 July 29* Docked to Salyut-6 on June 19, 1981.
Cosmos 1443  TKS 1983 March 2 1983 Aug. 23 1983 Sept. 19 Docked to Salyut-7 from March 10 to Aug. 14.
Cosmos 1686 TKS 1985 Sept. 27 -   Docked to Salyut-7 on Oct. 2, 1985
Kvant TKS/Kvant 1987 -   Docked to Mir
Polyus TKS/Polyus 1987 May -   Energia test launch
Kvant-2 Mir module - -   Docked to Mir
Kristall Mir module - -   Docked to Mir
Spektr Mir module - -   Docked to Mir
Priroda Mir module - -   Docked to Mir
Zarya ISS FGB module 1998 Nov. 20 -   ISS

If I'm right these guys are the ones working on the Russian Lab Module.

These guys have a lot of flight time and if their capsule is as reusable as they say they have a real leg up on most other contenders. Their station, as shown in the Power Point presentation, still has most of the cold war era equipment on it. Most of that could go away leaving more living space. The problem would be a LV. They were shooting these VAs off 2 at a time on Protons. :) The station would be a Proton LV too I am sure.
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Norm Hartnett

  • Elite Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2310
  • Liked: 74
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #4 on: 03/13/2007 02:37 am »
Yep these guys do have a space station. OPS-4 is a late 70's era Salyut military space station equipped with a bunch of ground surveillance stuff and rumored to have been equipped with two space-to-space missiles replacing the cannon. It also has two docking ports, the aft one for TKS ships and the forward for Soyuz ships. Who knows how much it would cost to refurbish and update this puppy but it does have a flight pedigree.
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Danderman

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10288
  • Liked: 699
  • Likes Given: 723
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #5 on: 03/15/2007 10:38 pm »
As a reminder, NK magazine has a boatload of photos of Almaz equipment at:

http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/content/photogallery/gallery_098/pages/Img_057.html

Use the arrows to navigate around.


Offline simonbp

  • Science Guy
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7138
  • Liked: 314
  • Likes Given: 183
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #6 on: 03/16/2007 08:06 pm »
Details sound sketchy, but I presume if TKS and Almaz are involved, they'd need to use Protons?

Simon ;)

Online jongoff

  • Recovering Rocket Plumber/Space Entrepreneur
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6807
  • Lafayette/Broomfield, CO
  • Liked: 3987
  • Likes Given: 1684
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #7 on: 03/17/2007 02:35 am »
Simon,
Quote
Details sound sketchy, but I presume if TKS and Almaz are involved, they'd need to use Protons?

Not necessarily.  :-)

~Jon

Offline Danderman

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10288
  • Liked: 699
  • Likes Given: 723
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #8 on: 03/17/2007 04:43 pm »
To be clear, launch of the Excalibur capsule does NOT require a Proton.

Offline hektor

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2706
  • Liked: 1193
  • Likes Given: 54
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #9 on: 03/17/2007 06:00 pm »
So it's Horiemon all over again ?

Offline Danderman

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10288
  • Liked: 699
  • Likes Given: 723
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #10 on: 03/17/2007 08:17 pm »
A few posts up, there is a link to a Powerpoint presentation on Almaz that should answer the "Horiemon" question. BTW, Horiemon was sentenced to 2 years in jail yesterday.

Online jongoff

  • Recovering Rocket Plumber/Space Entrepreneur
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6807
  • Lafayette/Broomfield, CO
  • Liked: 3987
  • Likes Given: 1684
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #11 on: 03/18/2007 05:09 am »
Danderman,
Quote
To be clear, launch of the Excalibur capsule does NOT require a Proton.

Sorry, I guess I was being a wee bit coy.  AIUI, you could even launch one of these on an Atlas V 401,
or a Falcon IX sized vehicle.  Or at least that's what I was hearing.

~Jon

Offline Norm Hartnett

  • Elite Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2310
  • Liked: 74
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #12 on: 03/19/2007 04:26 pm »
So I'm a little confused these guys are or are not the Horiemon group? According to Wikipedia Horie presented his plan to the IAF in 2005 in Fukouka, Japan. The PowerPoint presentation is from an IAA presentation in 2005 in Houston, USA. The Wikipedia entry for Excalibur does not mention Horie.

In any case I would be more impressed if there was even one picture that showed any modernization. The NK presentation looks more like a museum than an operational site.

Still, with a capsule capable of "50-100" reuses and 7(?) on hand that sounds promising. The capsule itself only masses a little over 8T (launch weight with abort system) and could do sub orbital/short orbital "SPAM in a can" flights but the full up TKS with the FGB masses over 23T for orbital missions. I didn’t see any FGB modules in any of the presentations.
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Danderman

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10288
  • Liked: 699
  • Likes Given: 723
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #13 on: 03/19/2007 04:43 pm »

Quote
Norm Hartnett - 19/3/2007  10:26 AM  I didn’t see any FGB modules in any of the presentations.

 

In the NPO MASH - Khrunichev divorce, Khrunichev was given custody of the TKS/FGB, NPO Mash was given the OPS.

 

 


Offline Norm Hartnett

  • Elite Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2310
  • Liked: 74
  • Likes Given: 5
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #14 on: 03/19/2007 04:50 pm »
Quote
Danderman - 19/3/2007  10:43 AM

Quote
Norm Hartnett - 19/3/2007  10:26 AM  I didn’t see any FGB modules in any of the presentations.

 

In the NPO MASH - Khrunichev divorce, Khrunichev was given custody of the TKS/FGB, NPO Mash was given the OPS.

 

 


Ok. Presumably Khrunichev has the VA reentry capsules too or is that NPO Mash? I believe the FGBs have all been expended in MIR and the ISS except for the last one currently planned for the Russian Lab?
“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Danderman

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 10288
  • Liked: 699
  • Likes Given: 723
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #15 on: 03/19/2007 05:12 pm »

Quote
Norm Hartnett - 19/3/2007  10:50 AM Ok. Presumably Khrunichev has the VA reentry capsules too or is that NPO Mash? I believe the FGBs have all been expended in MIR and the ISS except for the last one currently planned for the Russian Lab?

Actually, I recall that Khrunichev does have at least one OPS in the bowels of the enterprise, and I am told that they have some VA capsules, as well.


Offline publiusr

  • Elite Veteran
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1539
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #16 on: 03/30/2007 06:07 pm »
Almaz was the name of the Mir/Zvezda type DOS core block--with the TKS modules pugging into that like Kvant, Spekter, etc.

So they will call the TKS/FGB by the Almaz name?

Offline Kip Russell

  • Member
  • Posts: 1
  • Liked: 0
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #17 on: 05/01/2007 02:38 pm »
There's an interesting Blog specifically dedicated to Excalibur Almaz. It's at http://excaliburalmazobserver.blogspot.com/2007/04/dear-reader.html

Offline bobthemonkey

  • Extreme Veteran
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1056
  • Liked: 24
  • Likes Given: 26
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #18 on: 05/01/2007 02:47 pm »
I understood that Almaz was the name of the military stations. As far as I am aware the civil DOS's (saylut, mir, Zvezda) were never officially associated with the Almaz designation.

Offline publiusr

  • Elite Veteran
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1539
  • Liked: 1
  • Likes Given: 2
Re: Excalibur Almaz
« Reply #19 on: 05/21/2007 06:46 pm »
Quote
bobthemonkey - 1/5/2007  9:47 AM

I understood that Almaz was the name of the military stations. As far as I am aware the civil DOS's (saylut, mir, Zvezda) were never officially associated with the Almaz designation.

Oh I see now. Almaz was the Soviet MOL. Our MOL was to be launched with a Gemini atop it and a hatch thru the heatshield(!)

The Almaz (DOS) core-block was to have the 'Merkur' capsule on the nose (falsely identified as a Mercury capsule rip-off--debunked by Dwayne Day in a Space Review article some time ago). Two of these capsules were launched atop Proton at one time (Kosmos 881 and 882?). They were also to have hatches thru their heat-shield. These 'long-stemmed' cherry like capsules had both their escape tower (and the retros) atop a long 'stem' to pull it free of Almaz once the mission was over.

The TKS ferry (slightly smaller) was also to have one of these long stem capsules.

Later on, the capsules were omitted and replaced by Soyuz docking hatches. The Almaz (DOS) became Salyut, and Mir later on (with a spherical bulb).

 TKS became the FGB tug (also used with Polyus) and its capsule was omitted as well. These became Mir modules like Spekter, Kvant, and docked with the spherical bulb.

The Mir-2 DOS became Zvezda, and the FGB/TKS became Zarya on ISS.

So Excalibur Almaz must be a private use attempt of the Merkur capsule. So what will it use for a service module? remember, it depended on its mini-station to act as the service module...

I do kinda like the long stem capsule approach, keeping the retros off the heat shield.

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
1