Author Topic: Airlaunch Quickreach status  (Read 9076 times)

Offline Zond

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Airlaunch Quickreach status
« on: 12/29/2008 03:13 pm »
According to this document the Darpa SLV program and phase 2C of the Quickreach has been concluded.

Quote
The Falcon SLV program also selected AirLaunch LLC to develop a detailed design of their launch vehicle and to continue risk reduction activities. Phase 2C was the last portion of the DARPA/Air Force Small Launch Vehicle program. During phase 2C, AirLaunch conducted a number of test firings to further develop and characterize their vapor pressurization propulsion system. Those tests have been completed, and DARPA's SLV program has concluded.

Does this mean that Airlaunch LLC will close up shop? Or are they hoping they will get money from another program?

Offline jongoff

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #1 on: 12/29/2008 08:36 pm »
According to this document the Darpa SLV program and phase 2C of the Quickreach has been concluded.

Quote
The Falcon SLV program also selected AirLaunch LLC to develop a detailed design of their launch vehicle and to continue risk reduction activities. Phase 2C was the last portion of the DARPA/Air Force Small Launch Vehicle program. During phase 2C, AirLaunch conducted a number of test firings to further develop and characterize their vapor pressurization propulsion system. Those tests have been completed, and DARPA's SLV program has concluded.

Does this mean that Airlaunch LLC will close up shop? Or are they hoping they will get money from another program?

From what I've seen (being one of their friends/neighbors here in Mojave), yeah they've gone into hibernation mode.  The test site is still there, and AFAIK, Gary's trying to keep it around in case someone else is interested in buying it.  Pretty good facilities all told.  The new horizontal stand I think can test engines up into the 100-120klbf range, the high altitude eductor can do test firings of space-rated engines up to 25-30klbf range, and their VTS is pretty cool too.

They did good work, but in the end the program was killed more due to politics than technical issues.

~Jon

Offline Zond

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #2 on: 12/30/2008 04:31 pm »
According to this document the Darpa SLV program and phase 2C of the Quickreach has been concluded.

Quote
The Falcon SLV program also selected AirLaunch LLC to develop a detailed design of their launch vehicle and to continue risk reduction activities. Phase 2C was the last portion of the DARPA/Air Force Small Launch Vehicle program. During phase 2C, AirLaunch conducted a number of test firings to further develop and characterize their vapor pressurization propulsion system. Those tests have been completed, and DARPA's SLV program has concluded.

Does this mean that Airlaunch LLC will close up shop? Or are they hoping they will get money from another program?

They did good work, but in the end the program was killed more due to politics than technical issues.

~Jon

According to a comment Gary made on your blog they weren't happy with their choice for propane as propellant for the VaPak system used on the Quickreach rocket.
Quote from: Gary Hudson
I will say that we decided methane was a much better propellant for VaPak systems than propane for purely operational reasons, not related to Isp or density.
This sounds to me like a serious technical issue.
I'm also wondering if they ever got Air Mobility Command to sign off on loading a $218 million C-17 with a rocket loaded with propellants.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #3 on: 12/30/2008 05:24 pm »
Zond,

A lot of this is hearsay--stuff I've just heard being here on the airport, so take it with an appropriate sized grain of salt.

According to a comment Gary made on your blog they weren't happy with their choice for propane as propellant for the VaPak system used on the Quickreach rocket.
Quote from: Gary Hudson
I will say that we decided methane was a much better propellant for VaPak systems than propane for purely operational reasons, not related to Isp or density.
This sounds to me like a serious technical issue.
I'm also wondering if they ever got Air Mobility Command to sign off on loading a $218 million C-17 with a rocket loaded with propellants.

Yeah, they learned that while the propane could be made to work, Methane turned out to have several operational benefits that were only apparent after working with the propane for a while.  IIRC a lot had to do with the methane being a lot easier to condition correctly.  The LOX conditioning was very easy, and Methane would've been a lot more like the LOX conditioning-wise than the propane. 

The Protoflight guys actually did do a few firings with Methane, to demonstrate the feasibility, and had the contract gone on (and they been allowed to make that change), I'm pretty confident they could've gotten that to work.  I think it's ok to learn and adapt as you go on a project like this that was cutting new grounds.

Now, on the politics side, there were lots of minor annoyances that I heard about.  The whole flying a fueled rocket on an aircraft bit was only one part of the politics dimension I was talking about.  AIUI, the airplane side of the Air Force doesn't like liquids on board (but huge solids, no problem--what could possibly go wrong?), and the space guys didn't like having their operations dependent on the airplane guys, so there was a lot of friction there. 

There were also other political issues, that I heard about that probably aren't for public conception.

Now, I don't know if I actually agree with all of Gary's technical decisions on this project, or think that this particular instantiation was the best way to do what DARPA and the Air Force were trying to achieve.  But I do think it's legit to say that they were making good progress, but it was mostly politics and agency funding issues that torpedoed things in the end, not "Gary Hudson always screwing things up" like Kool-aid was intimating.

~Jon
« Last Edit: 12/30/2008 05:29 pm by jongoff »

Offline kool-aid

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #4 on: 12/30/2008 05:47 pm »
Now, I don't know if I actually agree with all of Gary's technical decisions on this project, or think that this particular instantiation was the best way to do what DARPA and the Air Force were trying to achieve.  But I do think it's legit to say that they were making good progress, but it was mostly politics and agency funding issues that torpedoed things in the end, not "Gary Hudson always screwing things up" like Kool-aid was intimating.
Thanks for weighing in with your observations, Jon, but the man's record speaks for itself--a record "unblemished" by success.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #5 on: 12/30/2008 06:20 pm »
Thanks for weighing in with your observations, Jon, but the man's record speaks for itself--a record "unblemished" by success.

It's easy to make anonymous potshots at Gary, but it isn't like there's a whole slew of commercial space launch successes to compare him against.  Quite frankly the only two I can think of are Sea Launch and Orbital (with SpaceX hopefully being added to that list sometime soon).

Again, I don't agree with all of his technical approaches.  Some of them were overly ambitious.  And sure, it's obvious he's made plenty of mistakes along the way, but this isn't an easy market to get into, and I personally am glad for people like Gary who have been trying to blaze the trail.  While Gary has made mistakes, he's also done a lot more for the commercial space industry than most people realize.

~Jon

Offline RocketmanUS

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #6 on: 04/27/2012 01:26 am »
Would the Quick Reach 1 have been able to fly to LEO if it had been fully funded?

Are they able to start up again if they were funded?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Airlaunch Quickreach status
« Reply #7 on: 04/27/2012 03:30 am »
Would the Quick Reach 1 have been able to fly to LEO if it had been fully funded?

Are they able to start up again if they were funded?
Gary is on here, somewhere... He should be able to answer these questions.
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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