OmegA vs Vulcan- First maiden flight

[birdman]

Which vehicle will fly first? (Maiden flight can have dummy payload or no payload, whatever. Just getting off the pad.) Both vehicles secured Air Force EELV funding.

Basically Northrop Grumman vs ULA, the poll.

[ZachS09]

I'll vote for OmegA just in case Vulcan gets delayed a few months.

[Lar]

Sorry to be a party pooper, but at one level, who cares? These are both dead meat walking vehicles in the long run. Can they eke out some revenue given they both got 1B or so in free[1] development money? Sure. Are they good ideas? Vulcan MIGHT evolve more in the reuse direction but solids are non starters for commercial.

That said, I think ULA is farther along so gave them the edge.

1 - free to them except for strings. Not free to we taxpayers, but you get what I mean.

[spacenut]

I see OmegA as being kept in service by the Air Force, to keep solid production going.  Vulcan may be a good one, but with SpaceX and New Glenn, both being reusable, costs will come down and beat Vulcan. 

[Kansan52]

I see OmegA as being kept in service by the Air Force, to keep solid production going. 

Same reason to keep Vulcan going. That changes the benchmark to "best price with solids".

[Coastal Ron]

I said Northrop Grumman, but just because I think they will fly first doesn't mean I think they will ultimately be successful.

Being the #4 launch provider in the U.S. Government launch market won't do much for moving humanity out into space, but maybe it will provide some incremental profit for Northrop Grumman. I don't ever imagining calling the OmegA a "success story" though...

[Stan-1967]

I think NG flies first because they are more vertically integrated with their own solids for stage 1 & 2.  As for the third stage, that is their high risk spot to make that portion.  I do think the RL-10 shaves some risk of of stage 3.

[mme]

I think NG flies first because they are more vertically integrated with their own solids for stage 1 & 2.  As for the third stage, that is their high risk spot to make that portion.  I do think the RL-10 shaves some risk of of stage 3.

My thinking was the same and I voted that way. But I don't know where the RL-10C-5-1 variant is in development.

[Lars-J]

I voted Vulcan, assuming that the poll is intended to be about which complete rocket flies first. All stages, no dummy upper stages. So that would exclude an Ares 1-X like stunt, which I wouldn't be surprised of NGIS decides to do. They might be desperate enough.

[Lars-J]

I think NG flies first because they are more vertically integrated with their own solids for stage 1 & 2.  As for the third stage, that is their high risk spot to make that portion.  I do think the RL-10 shaves some risk of of stage 3.

There is so much more to making Hydrolox upper stage. So much more. And NGIS will have to learn as they go. The engines are the easy part, since they are just buying them off the shelves.

[IanThePineapple]

I think NG flies first because they are more vertically integrated with their own solids for stage 1 & 2.  As for the third stage, that is their high risk spot to make that portion.  I do think the RL-10 shaves some risk of of stage 3.

There is so much more to making Hydrolox upper stage. So much more. And NGIS will have to learn as they go. The engines are the easy part, since they are just buying them off the shelves.

They're also - AFAIK - building Stage 3 from scratch (except the engines), since they've never built anything like it.