RL-10 lacks the thrust, simple as that. The RD-0120 will be a fine engine. Of course you realize that this now means that the Taurus II will run main engines from both russian super heavy lift rockets.
Quote from: Downix on 07/27/2010 03:45 pmRL-10 lacks the thrust, simple as that. The RD-0120 will be a fine engine. Of course you realize that this now means that the Taurus II will run main engines from both russian super heavy lift rockets.RD-0124 is only a couple of RL-10's of thrust or so.
Orbital was initially asking $3B to manrate the Taurus II.
Quote from: yg1968 on 07/27/2010 03:04 pmOrbital was initially asking $3B to manrate the Taurus II. Uhhh... not quite an accurate quote. We said (rather, Frank and I have been saying - this is NOT the result of exhaustive planning and analysis) that developing a commercial crew transportation to ISS capability is likely to cost 5 times as much as develping a commercial cargo to ISS capability. Now, we (Orbital, NASA, Virginia) are spending about $600M in Taurus II, Cygnus, WFF, COTS demo flight etc. etc. so the possible price tag for the equivalent is about $3B, but that includes not only Taurus II mods, but LAS, spacecraft, crew-friendly launch pad and service tower somewhere - Florida? (the WFF Taurus II operations does not use a service structure at all), etc. etc. - see the "oh, so you want tires with that car?" message in another thread.Taurus II "manrating" ("personrating"?) by itself may be one or two $100's of the $3B, mostly redundant avionics, added instrumentation and added structural design/testing both at Dnipropetrovsk (S1) and Chandler (S2). I don't think the NK-33's need much additional work, except perhaps added instrumentation. If you MUST add a dedicated, instrumented flight to acheive this rating, add another $80M - $100M or so.
Not Merlin 1C vacuum?
This begs the question: how can they cross the Virginia/Maryland border legally???
actually, it's a HUMONGOUS liquid oxygen tank.... Jeesh, you could fill a Taurus II from it...
How is the Taurus II first stage brought in to MARS?
How long of a tank is that???how are you going to get it to the beach? - down Rt13 then make the left towards Wallops, or take the back-roads.
Quote from: MP99 on 07/27/2010 07:57 pmHow is the Taurus II first stage brought in to MARS?By rail from Dnepro to Oleksandrivka (the big commercial port just south of Odessa) then by ship to Wilmington DE then by road to the HIF. We've already driven a mock-up first stage from Wilmington to the island using a TWO-turntable trailer. Quite a show, some of the corners are QUITE tight!...Trivial pursuit (Taurus II edition) question #17: the S1 passes through Odessa (Ukraine) on its way from Dnipropetrovsk to Oleksandrivka, and also through Odessa (Delaware) on its way from Wilmington to Wallops!I believe the LOX tank in the picture is bigger and heavier than a Taurus II first stage (actually, what comes from Dnipropetrovsk it is not a complete first stage - just the tanks, so it is somewhat shorter and considerably lighter than the full stage)