ULA Vulcan Launch Vehicle - General Discussion Thread 2

[john smith 19]

the 5m fairings are already two sections.  The base module which surrounds the Centaur.  And the payload module, which has varying lengths.  They will eliminate the base module with the 5m Centaur.  Also, changing the fairing length does not qualify as a new fairing

That sounds like a worthwhile saving, not just in new fairing costs, but simplifying the whole build process.

Given fairing separation takes place fairly early in flight, and they have a relatively low ballistic coefficient, fairing reuse sounds like quite a good idea in the "low hanging fruit" category.

[john smith 19]

Tory Bruno has mentioned a few times that Vulcan will use the existing Atlas pads, most recently in October:
"Cape pad will be backwards compatible.  VAFB may not need that"

The original op-ed seemed to imply that Vulcan only fly an enhanced Centaur (later identified as Centaur V), but you are correct I can not find a statement explicitly excluding Vulcan/Centaur III (though Atlas V/Centaur V has been ruled out.

My impression is that building and/or  substantially modifying large launch pads is pretty expensive for ULA. Minimizing the changes that are absolutely necessary lowers the cost (and shortens the schedule) of pivoting to Vulcan/Centaur 5 (I'm sticking with the number, searching with the V gives too many irrelevant search results).

Backwards compatibility is a (beneficial) side effect. All of which moves Vulcan/Centaur 5 further from the "nice to do" column to "doing it now"

In the same way that with SX you should always consider a decision or announcement in terms of "how does this get Elon to Mars better/faster/cheaper" with ULA you need to consider "How does this help Bruno pivot ULA to Vulcan/Centaur 5 cheaper/faster (but mostly cheaper given the parents ongoing reluctance with funding)"

[john smith 19]

Article cited just said new avionics by L3.

The common avionics is "new".  That is just a new contract.

Would perhaps "flight proven" give a better idea of the pedigree of the hardware?

I assume the software will also inherit the same basic structure as well, but with relevant entries in the driving tables changed to the appropriate values for Vulcan/Centaur 5.

Retaining as much systems heritage, providing they don't have a seriously negative impact on costs and performance is very pragmatic of ULA.

Are you aware if anything been penciled in regarding avionics for reuse?

[Chasm]

Thought Jim said there were no new fairings?

Sorry, I forgot for a second that ULA is heritage uber alles. 

New as in for Vulcan and build by RUAG in the out of autoclave process. Single piece layup no matter the size.
My thinking was that ULA is most likely still required to offer a Titan IV class fairing. Looking at payload envelope drawings in the user manuals the Ariane 64 fairing happens to be very close. (2mm less envelope diameter, a bit more tip volume) Which is why I would push as RUAG but also ULA for a single fairing type, perhaps with different length options. As of now Ariane 62 also uses the 20m fairing.

[Zero_V]

Article cited just said new avionics by L3.

The common avionics is "new".  That is just a new contract.

Employee here.  Not a spokesperson, but this is more significant than that. I can't get into the details, but there's a future beyond common avionics. Vulcan has some unique hardware too.
Common Avionics has been modified in significant ways already, also.

[AncientU]

Requirements are changing.  DoD has recognized the vulnerability of its battleship Galactica approach to NSS.

Still not going to remove the need for them.  Physics drives the requirements.

Again, ignoring reality and skewing new/information to reflect a biased view.

DOD does not operate the "battleship Galactica" NSS.

Also, most DOD spacecraft are not invulnerable ASAT orbits.

You clearly haven't been reading up on latest anti-satellite technologies development.

Here's a recent study(attached) and quote(from page 28):

Major Policy Issues in Evolving Global Space Operations

Any vestiges of a space sanctuary mindset were removed following a May 2013 Chinese test of a ground-based, direct-ascent system all the way to GEO, a capability the United States and Soviet Union did not develop even in the depths of the Cold War.

The entire report is worth reading as it directly informs this discussion in several ways.

[AncientU]

Regarding dis-aggregation of large 'target' NSS spacecraft (page 30):

There are many ways this explosive commercial space growth has great potential to augment and enhance space mission assurance and to create agile, resilient, and distributed architectures including:
•   increasing the number of nodes in the overall architecture by orders of magnitude, thereby reducing the value of attacking individual nodes;
•   expanding opportunities for deception, multiple types of various SSA and mission sensors, and perhaps even offensive and defensive counterspace capabilities built into each large constellation;
•   providing new reconstitution opportunities from responsive launch of small satellites constellations at time and places advantageous to the United States and its deployed warfighters; and
•   creating new ways to use persistent coverage and big data analytics to understand and predict activity on Earth and in space.

One quote (page 32) as sample of what many experts were saying:

“[The] primary [US focus] must be [on  creating] a philosophy of resilience — clear eyed assessments of what space capabilities are critical, what can be done decently well without exquisite systems and instead with smaller, less sophisticated systems or using commercial  capabilities.  It  may not be that one can replicate exactly the capabilities that a large, expensive satellite/constellation can provide, but if such systems provide too big a risk of loss, then the process that led to them being considered the solution might need to be retooled.  Commercial satellites can increasingly take many important roles.”

[AncientU]

...
Ultimately they will need to design their satellites for integration with these 2 vehicles and also keep one or two of them "in the barn" so to speak for quick integration and launch. Now we'd be talking in terms of a day or two to replace a satellite that had been taken out.

The only other approach would be a satellite capable of defending itself. Either that or a companion defense satellite station keeping with it to protect its charge, like fighter jets flying with the bombers. Either option would be prohibitively expensive.

It's a lot less expensive, when building a satellite, to build 2 or 3 of them at a time and store the replacements for quick access than to start from scratch and build them 1 at a time. So the answer is to build and store already built replacement satellites at the time of the initial build, as well as to build and store a few of their launch vehicles.

Expensive, yes I know. But not as expensive as losing a vital capability with no replacement possible in an acceptable timeframe.

Building 1-2 replacements of the large, easily targetable satellites is a waste of money.  Why wouldn't the next billion dollar satellite being emplaced not suffer the fate by the same million dollar a-sat weapon?

Dis-aggregation (increasing the number of 'nodes') is 'the only other approach'.
It is quickly becoming the solution.


Edit: added critical, but missing part of clongton's quote

[Darkseraph]

Could satellite servicing be another solution to this problem? If a satellite is threatened by a kinetic attack, it has some means to detect the threat and moves out of the way. Later on, a robotic servicing satellite captures the satellite and tops up the propellant tanks, inspects and makes any necessary repairs.

[AncientU]

Could satellite servicing be another solution to this problem? If a satellite is threatened by a kinetic attack, it has some means to detect the threat and moves out of the way. Later on, a robotic servicing satellite captures the satellite and tops up the propellant tanks, inspects and makes any necessary repairs.

Generally, we are discussing how the market that Vulcan enters in early 2020s might be different than the traditional NSS market the Atlas V is currently servicing and that:

Per Ed Kyle...

Vulcan is being designed for EELV requirements specifically.

Since it is only five years or so from now, many of the aspects of that market will be similar to today's and yesterday's, but moves are afoot to significantly reshape NSS launch needs.  Ten or twenty years from now, the landscape will likely be drastically different.  (In my opinion, and others quoted above, change is inevitable and happening at an accelerating rate already; some don't believe that change is going to happen at all due to 'physics'.)

Edit: Added quote concerning timeline for change...

U.S. satellites eventually will be targets of enemy jammers and laser weapons now being developed by Russia and China, he said. “They are building this to change the balance of power in the world. We can’t allow that to happen.”

Many in the Pentagon still don’t get it, Hyten lamented. “We don’t have that much time anymore. We have to change the way we do business. If we don’t do something differently, our advantage in five years may be gone. Ten years from now we could be behind. That is unacceptable.”

Emphasis mine
http://spacenews.com/battle-brewing-in-the-pentagon-over-military-space-investments/

Satellite servicing, orbital debris removal, small sat constellations, whatever, are likely to be happening and changing the landscape, just as anti-satellite weapons from ground (jamming, dazzling, etc.) and on launched vehicles (kinetic energy, proximity ops, etc.) from adversaries are forcing change.  DoD is being told by many experts that the order of battle for space must change.

Versatility in a new launch vehicle will better serve the operator (and USG) than building specifically for a market whose time is passing.
IMO, of course.

[A_M_Swallow]

Could satellite servicing be another solution to this problem? If a satellite is threatened by a kinetic attack, it has some means to detect the threat and moves out of the way. Later on, a robotic servicing satellite captures the satellite and tops up the propellant tanks, inspects and makes any necessary repairs.

A bullet can be ducked but modern missiles are built to follow their target.

[Space Ghost 1962]

So the answer lies not in launch capability, because F9 and Vulcan are capable of addressing that, but in replacement satellite availability. Only the Air Force can address this one.

Correct.

And there are other strategies related to this that change the game in different ways, some addressable with Vulcan, some with other launch architectures.

If you don't disaggregate as with current assets, you can launch on orbit reserves that are inaccessible til needed as replacement, or assuming responsive HLV capability, serve from ground. ASATs can cost less as components, but their overall mission effectiveness and total cost end to end to complete the objective is considerably higher than just those in getting to launch.

If you disaggregate, the economics of ASATs greatly diminish because the concentration in few ASAT targets goes away. Then you have two competing strategies, that of reserves to replenish with means to launch (volume or singularly), or rapid technology acceleration/evolution (like with LEO comsats) where you obsolete on orbit with next advanced to be launched on a much shorter time frame (i.e. increased "arms race" of asset evolution, where the presumption of vulnerability is justification for even better capabilities, made easier by less cross dependence/integration that the larger sats required, especially for longevity which you no longer need.

The launch architectures to exploit these are very different. As are the sat development skills/programs (while the existing birds could leverage deep space missions complexity and longevity, rapid evolution smaller sats need to use more of the quick turn disposable cubesat like approaches that are very foreign to this area).
[/quote]

[AncientU]

...
If you disaggregate, the economics of ASATs greatly diminish because the concentration in few ASAT targets goes away. Then you have two competing strategies, that of reserves to replenish with means to launch (volume or singularly), or rapid technology acceleration/evolution (like with LEO comsats) where you obsolete on orbit with next advanced to be launched on a much shorter time frame (i.e. increased "arms race" of asset evolution, where the presumption of vulnerability is justification for even better capabilities, made easier by less cross dependence/integration that the larger sats required, especially for longevity which you no longer need.
...

Another advantage is that you are alerted to an adversary's nefarious intentions after just losing a fractional capability.  For example, with a large 'battlestar Galactica' approach -- say a 100m antenna at GEO -- 100% of capability can be lost at first round fired.  If a hundred or thousand VLEO sats at 400km with 1m phased arrays are collecting that sigint with highly focused beams, losing one is nothing but a loss of the element of surprise by the adversary... like Pearl Harbor where the Japanese only send one torpedo bomber and attack one battleship.

[woods170]

So the answer lies not in launch capability, because F9 and Vulcan are capable of addressing that, but in replacement satellite availability. Only the Air Force can address this one.

Correct.

And there are other strategies related to this that change the game in different ways, some addressable with Vulcan, some with other launch architectures.

If you don't disaggregate as with current assets, you can launch on orbit reserves that are inaccessible til needed as replacement, or assuming responsive HLV capability, serve from ground. ASATs can cost less as components, but their overall mission effectiveness and total cost end to end to complete the objective is considerably higher than just those in getting to launch.

If you disaggregate, the economics of ASATs greatly diminish because the concentration in few ASAT targets goes away. Then you have two competing strategies, that of reserves to replenish with means to launch (volume or singularly), or rapid technology acceleration/evolution (like with LEO comsats) where you obsolete on orbit with next advanced to be launched on a much shorter time frame (i.e. increased "arms race" of asset evolution, where the presumption of vulnerability is justification for even better capabilities, made easier by less cross dependence/integration that the larger sats required, especially for longevity which you no longer need.

STRATCOM chief Gen. John Hyten agrees with you (and rightfully so IMO):
http://spacenews.com/stratcom-chief-hyten-i-will-not-support-buying-big-satellites-that-make-juicy-targets/

[AncientU]

One quote says it all:

As one of nine U.S. combatant commanders, Hyten has a say in how the Pentagon plans investments in new technology. With regard to military satellites, STRATCOM will advocate for a change away from “exquisite” costly systems that take years to develop in favor of “more resilient, more distributed capabilities.”

This is the thinking of the new “space enterprise vision” adopted by the Air force and the National Reconnaissance Office, Hyten said. “That vision is about defending ourselves. In that vision you won’t find any of those big, exquisite, long-term satellites.”

Emphasis mine

[deruch]

Interesting topic for discussion.  Only tangentially linked to discussion of the Vulcan launch vehicle.  Really deserves its own thread, with maybe the Evolving Global Space Operations report AncientU linked as the opening.

Here's a recent study(attached) and quote(from page 28):

Major Policy Issues in Evolving Global Space Operations

Any vestiges of a space sanctuary mindset were removed following a May 2013 Chinese test of a ground-based, direct-ascent system all the way to GEO, a capability the United States and Soviet Union did not develop even in the depths of the Cold War.

The entire report is worth reading as it directly informs this discussion in several ways.

[Space Ghost 1962]

Because the rapid evolution of the payload buys you more than just flooding space with targets. It increases the threat level too.

[AncientU]

I don't see how the Battlestar discussion changes the EELV landscape much.  If large numbers of smaller satellites must be launched, it would be most effective to launch them in multi-satellite bunches using big rockets.  If anything, the EELV Heavy class will be busier launching constellations of smallsats rather than only the occasional largesat.

 - Ed Kyle

I believe that the launch industry will in fact be much busier.  But small sats are inexpensive and can tolerate risk much more than the billion dollar sats.  Launch cost will become the sole selection factor, or maybe one of two... when can we launch being the second.  Notice that Ariane 5 received zero of the OneWeb launches -- 21 for Soyuz, 5 for New Glenn (400 sats), and 39 for Launcher One (?).

[Darkseraph]

I don't see how the Battlestar discussion changes the EELV landscape much.  If large numbers of smaller satellites must be launched, it would be most effective to launch them in multi-satellite bunches using big rockets.  If anything, the EELV Heavy class will be busier launching constellations of smallsats rather than only the occasional largesat.

 - Ed Kyle

I believe that the launch industry will in fact be much busier.  But small sats are inexpensive and can tolerate risk much more than the billion dollar sats.  Launch cost will become the sole selection factor, or maybe one of two... when can we launch being the second.  Notice that Ariane 5 received zero of the OneWeb launches -- 21 for Soyuz, 5 for New Glenn (400 sats), and 39 for Launcher One (?).

Ariane 5 is going into retirement but Ariane 6 has an option to deliver OneWeb sats.

Launch costs are not the only consideration today for satellite delivery and will unlikely be so in the future. The sole benefit of dedicated small launch vehicles in development is not really lower launch costs. Per kilo of payload, many of these vehicles are actually more expensive than existing EELV class launchers. Responsive dedicated launch for this payload class is the selling point. Iridium chose to fly its next batch of sats on reused F9 boosters, primarily to improve schedule rather than lower costs.

[AncientU]

Right.
Iridium chose F9 due to low cost, and is now choosing reused F9 vehicles to get schedule improvements.
#1 = cost
#2 = schedule
As stated above.

Ariane 5 is available during the 21 flights that OneWeb chose to fly on Soyuz and the 39 flights on Launcher One.

The obvious omission in my post above is that not only didn't Ariane 5 get any of these flights (which may represent the bulk of next decade's payloads), but Atlas V also didn't get any, likely because it is even more costly.  Making Vulcan significantly larger to service the NSS Heavy market may be pricing it out of the constellation sat launch market. 

Vulcan is supposed to be available before New Glenn comes to market, and Atlas V will still be available.  They each should be competitors against New Glenn for these payloads -- 400 of which have been awarded to new Glenn, but no awards have been announced for either ULA vehicle.