Quote from: gongora on 05/24/2017 04:03 pmQuote from: BrightLight on 05/24/2017 03:43 pmThe main engine is LOX/hydrogen but will toxic chemicals requiring suited ground crew be required for handling after the ship has landed?Don't see why a suborbital aircraft would have on-orbit maneuvering thrusters, so probably not.The X15 had them as well. At the maximum operating altitudes of these vehicles aerodynamic control surfaces are very poor unless they are very big. But they don't have to be toxic. X15 used HTP
Quote from: BrightLight on 05/24/2017 03:43 pmThe main engine is LOX/hydrogen but will toxic chemicals requiring suited ground crew be required for handling after the ship has landed?Don't see why a suborbital aircraft would have on-orbit maneuvering thrusters, so probably not.
The main engine is LOX/hydrogen but will toxic chemicals requiring suited ground crew be required for handling after the ship has landed?
I'm sure this is a basic newbie question, so my apologies in advance, but why wouldn't this vehicle also launch horizontally? Wouldn't that provide far more flexibility and ease of processing? What is the advantage for vertical launch in this case?
Could the Blue Origin partnership still be intact if they're doing the expendable launcher? Or was it tied to the spaceplane's propulsion?
It's X-33 all over again.
http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-05-24
DARPA spokesman Rick Weiss said the value of the award to Boeing is $146 million. The award is structured as a public-private partnership, with Boeing also contributing to the overall cost of the program, but Boeing declined to disclose its contribution.
Is it just my memory or have they dialed back from 10 flights in 10 days, with at least the last one leading to a launch to 10 engine tests in 10 days?
[EDIT That cost target is going to be one hell of a target to hit unless the development budget for the expendable upper stage is included in the programme budget. Also LH2 is the most expensive fuel outside the Hydrazines. For safety reasons (and in this context safety --> cost) you want to avoid solids and keep the US as simple as possible. That suggests a) Pressure fed liquids or b)some kind of low cost pump system. You also want the US GNC as simple as possible....
Here is another article on the announcement:http://spacenews.com/darpa-selects-boeing-for-spaceplane-project/Quote from: SNDARPA spokesman Rick Weiss said the value of the award to Boeing is $146 million. The award is structured as a public-private partnership, with Boeing also contributing to the overall cost of the program, but Boeing declined to disclose its contribution.
Quote from: punder on 05/24/2017 06:10 pmIt's X-33 all over again.Given that it's putting together Boeing, DARPA and rockets, I'd say it's closer to being ALASA all over again.
Quote from: dchill on 05/24/2017 09:12 pmQuote from: punder on 05/24/2017 06:10 pmIt's X-33 all over again.Given that it's putting together Boeing, DARPA and rockets, I'd say it's closer to being ALASA all over again.Or Delta IV minus DARPA.
The cost target is $5M, which is about what an Electron launch costs. The upper stage is also roughly the size of the Electron booster. Seems like Boeing could get reasonably near the cost target if they really wanted.
Quote from: envy887 on 05/24/2017 11:53 pmThe cost target is $5M, which is about what an Electron launch costs. The upper stage is also roughly the size of the Electron booster. Seems like Boeing could get reasonably near the cost target if they really wanted.It is suspiciously, isn't it? We often think about reusability as being about reducing costs, what if the point of the XS-1 program is to show that it can be about something else - improving launch capability. As we watch RocketLab scrub for perfect weather, it certainly would be nice to have a vehicle that could launch on demand.
That may be true - but they are going to need a bunch of new RS-25 parts if they are going to field an operational system. But sadly this seems to be more a tech demonstrator that a real system. But maybe I should have known better. It just seems like 3-4 BE-3's would have been the slam dunk option. A low cost operational engine. Oh well.
Quote from: Lars-J on 05/25/2017 01:30 amThat may be true - but they are going to need a bunch of new RS-25 parts if they are going to field an operational system. But sadly this seems to be more a tech demonstrator that a real system. But maybe I should have known better. It just seems like 3-4 BE-3's would have been the slam dunk option. A low cost operational engine. Oh well.I always got the feeling it was a tech demo... there's an X in the name.I mean, it's going to be "operational" in the sense that you could do ops with it... just like the X-37. Presumably the idea is to get the military customers addicted to responsive launch.