Author Topic: Dynetics partners with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne for F1 Engine  (Read 213225 times)

Offline JohnFornaro

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Whether or not the Dynetics/PWR bid is being handicapped well at this time, I'm heartily encouraged to see another bidder taking a swing at the competition.

FWIW, I think the competition is a good thing.  I believe that kerolox boosters are the better way to augment the stack.  I think that PWR/Dynetics is a good match with great potential.  If they could figure out a re-usable system, that would be a game changer.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline JosephB

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My own personal opinion? It'll come down to F-1A versus ATK's advanced SRB; because let's be honest; Aerojet has never once built a complete NK-33 engine -- all they've done is refurbish old Soviet engines with modern electronics and gimbal systems and change the nameplate to read AJ-26. Now they want to build a massively upscaled version of the NK-33 called the AJ-1000? Doesn't pass my technology readiness level smell test.

F-1A restart already had detailed work done on it in the 1990s for George H.W. Bush's Space Exploration Initative (SEI) regarding a restart.

In the 1990s, Rocketdyne estimated that a F-1A Restart program would cost $315 million in FY92 dollars in non-recurring costs to restart production and re-certify the engine. Recurring costs would have been $1,080 million in FY92 dollars for 72 engines at an average cost of $15m FY92 dollars per engine, with deliveries over a five year period. Deliveries would have commenced four years after authority to proceed, with a peak delivery rate of 16 engines per year.

Link to 1994 F-1A Restart Costing

Basically, they worked out in 1994 what had to be replaced -- such as Beryllium and Cadmium alloys, which were no longer allowable under OSHA regulations along with Abestos, and stuff that just plain got obsolete, like Inconel X-750 and Hastelloy C.

The MK10A turbopump of the F-1A used TENS 50 aluminum in a number of castings. TENS 50 has beryllium at a level over 1994 OSHA standards. It would be replaced with A356 Aluminum or A357 Aluminum which uses beryllium in levels acceptable to OSHA.

This form of conversion was actually done in real life when Rocketdyne restarted Atlas and Delta engine production -- they had to convert the turbopumps/impellers/volutes from TENS 50 to A356/A357.

The abestos thermal insulation blanket used on the Apollo Era F-1s would simply be replaced with the same type of thermal blanket developed for the RS-27 engine restart.

Other changes such as producibility changes would have been implemented -- these were also done during the Atlas/Delta engine restart programs.

One such producibility enhancement would have been the LOX Dome. The original Apollo-Era design had sixty different details such as shell segments, pins, flanges, bosses, spacers, brackets, etc which all had to be individually machined and/or formed; then welded together -- all of which required a lot of joint preparation, fit up work, welding, inspection and rework as necessary.

Under the F-1A restart, the LOX Dome would have been changed to a single piece casting, eliminating all that.

Source for the above:
Advanced Transportation System Studies
Technical Area 3
Alternate Propulsion Subsystem Concepts
NAS8-39210
DCN 1-1-PP-02147
Volume I
Final Report
DR-4
Executive Summary
April 2000
Prepared for
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
The Boeing Company
Rocketdyne
6633 Canoga Avenue
Canoga Park, California 91303

Excellent post. Also, wouldn't this make a decent booster in its own right? Topped with J2X US & Orion/Mission Module?
« Last Edit: 04/20/2012 12:45 pm by JosephB »

Offline notsorandom

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Excellent post. Also, wouldn't this make a decent booster in its own right? Topped with J2X US & Orion/Mission Module?
You mean like Jarvis?  ;) http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/jarvis.htm

Offline phred

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So, the boosters proposed back in '67 for the Saturn V would have had 2 F1s each and about 1,000,000 kg of propellant each.  Is that about what they're talking about now?

Offline JosephB

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Excellent post. Also, wouldn't this make a decent booster in its own right? Topped with J2X US & Orion/Mission Module?
You mean like Jarvis?  ;) http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/jarvis.htm


Exactly, there's the next gen EELV. ;)

Offline TomH

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I disagree, Ryan... If Aerojet is hungry, they have a chance. PWR will have lots of other engines, the RS-25E, the RL-10 (iCPS/CPS), and the J-2X... and that's just on the various versions of SLS...

Hopefully, this does not imply that PRW has enough of the market and others, therefore, deserve their own slice of the pie. If I read you correctly, you're saying that since PWR already has so much of the market that AJ will have reason to be aggressively competitive in their bid, which we all do hope will be an open and fair competition in which there are no pre-determined favorites in the minds of the team of judges.

Offline HangarDude

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What about getting the F-1 up to 2 million lbs? It would a great spectacle. F-1A is 1.8 million lb

Offline TomH

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I used to think that if it makes it to the pad, SLS should be named Phoenix in that it rose from the ashes of Saturn, STS, and CxP. If we get F-1/F-1A heritage boosters, maybe Block IA should be named Saturn III and Block II named Saturn VI in that so much of the heritage has gone back to our original BFR.

Offline Lobo

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AS cool as it would be to see the F-1 come back, I’m surprised that’s what PWR is considering offering.  I’d think their RS-84 would be a better choice, as you say.  More modern design, and a more useful size really.  I think the SLS LRB is going to be required to be about 3 Mlb.  If F-1A is 1.8-2.0  M lbs each.  One isn’t enough, but two is about a million lbs thrust more than SLS is asking for.

That extra thust will only help on liftoff and early phase of the flight, gravity losses will be much smaller. Problems come if it cannot be throttled back enough.

And those 2 F-1A's weight less than 3 RS-84's would weight.

RS-84 has definite advantage in isp, but F-1A saves so much on smaller gravity losses, and also saves little on engine weights, so overall performance should be quite close.

And RS-84 being new high-tech engine means it's more expensive to manufacture? (in addition to the cost of finalizing the design)

Now that I double check the masses, I see you are right with that 2XF-1A is less than 3X RS-84.

And I would guess ISP is not a big deal on boosters coupled to a high-isp sustainer stage like the Core with RS-25's.  Obviously SRB's don't have very good ISP. 
Shuttle SRB's were 237s
F-1'a were 265s
F-1A's are 270s
RS-84's are 301s
(all of those are at sea level.  More if vacuum, obviously)
Not sure what 5-seg SRB's or Advanced SRB's would be, but I'd -guess- they'd be pretty similar to Shuttle SRB's.

I suppose if you are just talking a "booster" engine, especially on a  on a high ISP sustainer stage, isp isn't that important.  IF it's being used as a "first stage" that does more ascent duties, adn does it by itself without antoher sustain stage, then higher ISp would be better.  The RD-180 is 313s at sea level. , and RS-68 is 365s at seal level.

A big, dumb, simple, cheap, high thrust, engine is all you really need I guess.  However, not sure how much commonality there'd be with such a larger engine over RS-68 and RS-25.  SOme I suppose, like with RL-10 being so much smaller than the other two, but apparently there will still be commonality in production with it.

Offline 93143

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If the production rate is several per year, than having an extra one lying around isn't a big deal.  If it's one every two years, it is.

Why?  If SLS is actually tasked with the ISS backup role (and it is), it's very poor management to not allow for the possibility that it will be needed in that role.

Besides, it's not like there isn't tons of lead time for anything it's going to be doing, including an ISS mission, and in any case there should be plenty of warning that a mission will be necessary.  Unless the factories themselves really do max out at one every two years (which it seems they won't), there should be plenty of time to accelerate production without screwing up the BEO mission.

As an aside, I don't honestly think that SLS will both make it to production and be limited to one flight every two years for any significant period.  At some point someone is going to have to realize how silly that is.

This is off topic - but it doesn't seem to warrant its own thread...
« Last Edit: 04/20/2012 06:26 pm by 93143 »

Offline Lobo

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Quote from this article:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1204/18dynetics/

"Cook said the F-1 engine-powered advanced booster will provide about 20 metric tons, or 44,000 pounds, more lift capacity into low Earth orbit over the heavy-lift launcher's baseline solid rocket boosters. "

Is that 20 mt over ATK's advanced booster, or 5-seg?

I'm assuming over ATK's advanced booster, because any advanced booster is supposed to get 35mt over the 5-seg.  70mt to 105mt.

So if an F-1A powered LRB can put 125mt into LEO, wouldn't we be darn near the NAA2010 mandate right then?
IF the CPS or whatever is decided to go on Block 1A can sling another 5mt to LEO within it's design, would that meet the mandate, and we'd not have to worry about a Block II with a J2X powered 2nd stage.  Maybe not a 5th RS-25E either.

And could such an LRB be a stand alone man rated LV for Orion?  Or other NASA intermediate lift missions?

Could ULA put one 1800 klb F-1A on an AVP2 instead of two 933 klb RD-180's?

Lastly, I don't know much about Dynetics, do they make rocket cores?  I assume PWR doesn't.  Who makes this booster core?

Offline 93143

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...any advanced booster is supposed to get 35mt over the 5-seg.  70mt to 105mt.

Aren't those legacy numbers from when the initial configuration was weaker?  A J-140SH is no 70-tonne booster...

Offline Robotbeat

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Dynetics is an integration/design firm, they don't really do big rocket core manufacture. They do mostly smaller components (they've got an igniter, they've done some R&D work especially related to reaction control systems). They're handling integration of Stratolaunch, but most of the large components are being built by others (Scaled = airplane, SpaceX = rocket). I've got a friend/acquaintance who used to work for them.

But they have connections. They're headquartered in our favorite district, Huntsville, Alabama.
« Last Edit: 04/20/2012 06:31 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline PahTo

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mods:  if too much L2 here, please remove.

Hate to rain on the parade, but it really looks like there will be no competition in the near future/timeframe of Block 1A competition as previously thought.  We may be left with Block 1 for a very long time, if we even get a Block 1.  I preceive that ATK's "thumbs on the scale" ended up being strong enough to break the scale.  Hopefully the issues of safety, cost and performance/efficiency won't break SLS.

And not to take this too far OT, but per earlier posts, FWC SRBs of STS size were ground tested in the 1980s--performance was only slightly better (about 1 -2 tonne improvement iirc) and with significantly higher TO (so forget about TVC on core only).  Remember, ATK is still developing the 5 seg PBAN booster, not sure they could even develop the HTPB booster in time to meet Block 1A competition.

Offline strangequark

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My own personal opinion? It'll come down to F-1A versus ATK's advanced SRB;
You're surely entitled to your own opinion.

because let's be honest; Aerojet has never once built a complete NK-33 engine -- all they've done is refurbish old Soviet engines with modern electronics and gimbal systems and change the nameplate to read AJ-26. Now they want to build a massively upscaled version of the NK-33 called the AJ-1000? Doesn't pass my technology readiness level smell test.
And here's where your entitlement ends. You have absolutely no clue what Aerojet has done internally with respect to being ready to start US production of AJ-26. I can tell you that your statement is absolutely incorrect, regardless of what you think you smell.

F-1A restart already had detailed work done on it in the 1990s for George H.W. Bush's Space Exploration Initative (SEI) regarding a restart.
I was in elementary school. The people that will be project leaders on this were in middle to high school. They will certainly review those studies (and everything dating back to the original F-1), but don't kid yourself, most of that work will be redone.

The fact is, that without knowing what's been done internally at Aerojet and Rocketdyne, there is simply no way to tell who is closer to having a qualified, flight ready engine.

Offline TomH

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Problems come if it cannot be throttled back enough.

And don't forget that with its 5 engine configuration, Saturn V was able to go center engine out partway through the S-I burn which helped cut the Delta V increase as propellant mass bled down. I don't think you could take one of two out in this configuration, could you?  (Although Atlas V-411 makes me think maybe you could.) Also, on the Saturn V, you still had a significant percentage of the original mass in the stack at the end of the S-I burn. With SLS Block IA (having no US) the launch mass has decreased by a much greater percentage by the end of the boosters' burn when contrasted with Block II or Saturn V. Ability to deep throttle does seem important with this configuration. I suppose an advantage of 3 RD-180s on each booster would be that you could take one out on each booster midway through their burn and still have symmetrical thrust.
« Last Edit: 04/21/2012 03:04 am by TomH »

Offline simonbp

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Dynetics is an integration/design firm, they don't really do big rocket core manufacture.

But they've wanted to for very long time (they were talking about it a decade ago), and now finally see their chance. Even if they don't get the booster contract, I'd expect them to still spend some money on developing it into a modernized Saturn C-3/Jarvis to compete with SpaceX's Falcon Heavy.

And they did build the Mother Of All Bombs...
« Last Edit: 04/21/2012 04:22 am by simonbp »

Offline Downix

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I did a bit of research, and it turns out Dynetics is no slouch, nor stranger to rocket systems.  I've found their names attached to various launchers.
chuck - Toilet paper has no real value? Try living with 5 other adults for 6 months in a can with no toilet paper. Man oh man. Toilet paper would be worth it's weight in gold!

Offline MP99

Problems come if it cannot be throttled back enough.

And don't forget that with its 5 engine configuration, Saturn V was able to go center engine out partway through the S-I burn which helped cut the Delta V increase as propellant mass bled down. I don't think you could take one of two out in this configuration, could you?  (Although Atlas V-411 makes me think maybe you could.) Also, on the Saturn V, you still had a significant percentage of the original mass in the stack at the end of the S-I burn. With SLS Block IA (having no US) the launch mass has decreased by a much greater percentage by the end of the boosters' burn when contrasted with Block II or Saturn V. Ability to deep throttle does seem important with this configuration. I suppose an advantage of 3 RD-180s on each booster would be that you could take one out on each booster midway through their burn and still have symmetrical thrust.

4x SSME at full thrust are something like a fifth F-1A.

It's not much, but they will presumably be throttled down to 65%.



BTW, anyone have any thoughts how plume infrigement between F1 & SSME would affect overall efficiency of the launcher, as compared with SSME & RSRMV?

Somehow I have an image of a hugely expanded plume from Saturn V (ie F-1) that I don't associate with Shuttle, rightly or wrongly.

cheers, Martin

Offline jimgagnon

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A very positive development. A modernized F-1a is the engine both the Air Force and SpaceX need; it's good to see NASA on board as well. Time frame fits well with the Air Force's needs, and SpaceX (and others) can get their reqs in so that they can be customers once this engine is a reality.

Curious if any attention will be paid to reuse. One of the weak spots of the F-1a was that it needed refurbishment before resuse. Killed the flyback booster idea. I know it the idea of reuse wasn't economical with the Shuttle engines, but perhaps in the hands of private companies...

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