Very cool, congratulations to Orbital! What, roughly, is the mass of these spacecraft expected to be?I hate to be the one to ask, but what will this launch on?I suppose that may not be knowable for the later birds, but the first one is in 2020, just 5 years. Likely still a little too far out to definitively select a launch vehicle.
Orbital is responsible for securing a launch, right?
This is the last updated user Guide for NASA Missions on the Athena Missile Launch System.Some please find the latest one and reply with the file or link.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/24/2015 11:18 pmVery cool, congratulations to Orbital! What, roughly, is the mass of these spacecraft expected to be?I hate to be the one to ask, but what will this launch on?I suppose that may not be knowable for the later birds, but the first one is in 2020, just 5 years. Likely still a little too far out to definitively select a launch vehicle.The Ball Aerospace JPSS' were ~2500kg. OrbATK is probably similar. Orbit is 830km SSO.LV will probably be F9.Delta II will be gone.A proposed Athena variant could fly it (2cS-6 with DM OAM)Antares 231 (maybe even 221) has the performance, but I doubt they can win. Flying polar out of WFF is iffy.Atlas V could do it easily, but $$$.
Quote from: arachnitect on 03/24/2015 11:54 pmQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/24/2015 11:18 pmVery cool, congratulations to Orbital! What, roughly, is the mass of these spacecraft expected to be?I hate to be the one to ask, but what will this launch on?I suppose that may not be knowable for the later birds, but the first one is in 2020, just 5 years. Likely still a little too far out to definitively select a launch vehicle.The Ball Aerospace JPSS' were ~2500kg. OrbATK is probably similar. Orbit is 830km SSO.LV will probably be F9.Delta II will be gone.A proposed Athena variant could fly it (2cS-6 with DM OAM)Antares 231 (maybe even 221) has the performance, but I doubt they can win. Flying polar out of WFF is iffy.Atlas V could do it easily, but $$$.This is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: edkyle99 on 03/27/2015 04:22 pmThis is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed KyleNot sure I understand exactly, "Falcon 2?"
This is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: arachnitect on 03/27/2015 04:35 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 03/27/2015 04:22 pmThis is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed KyleNot sure I understand exactly, "Falcon 2?"A hypothetical smaller, hopefully cheaper, rocket that could do today's version of what Atlas E and Titan 23G once did. One idea would be a two x Merlin 1D first stage and a 2 x Kestrel second stage - a rocket that would weigh about the same as an old Atlas E at liftoff. I figure up to 2.5 tonnes to sun synchronous orbit could be possible. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: edkyle99 on 03/27/2015 04:22 pmQuote from: arachnitect on 03/24/2015 11:54 pmQuote from: Robotbeat on 03/24/2015 11:18 pmVery cool, congratulations to Orbital! What, roughly, is the mass of these spacecraft expected to be?I hate to be the one to ask, but what will this launch on?I suppose that may not be knowable for the later birds, but the first one is in 2020, just 5 years. Likely still a little too far out to definitively select a launch vehicle.The Ball Aerospace JPSS' were ~2500kg. OrbATK is probably similar. Orbit is 830km SSO.LV will probably be F9.Delta II will be gone.A proposed Athena variant could fly it (2cS-6 with DM OAM)Antares 231 (maybe even 221) has the performance, but I doubt they can win. Flying polar out of WFF is iffy.Atlas V could do it easily, but $$$.This is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed KyleSpaceX has a rocket for this size class, F9R, it's just not quite ready yet.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 03/24/2015 11:18 pmThe Ball Aerospace JPSS' were ~2500kg. OrbATK is probably similar. Orbit is 830km SSO.LV will probably be F9.Delta II will be gone.A proposed Athena variant could fly it (2cS-6 with DM OAM)Antares 231 (maybe even 221) has the performance, but I doubt they can win. Flying polar out of WFF is iffy.Atlas V could do it easily, but $$$.This is where a "Falcon 2" would come in handy. - Ed Kyle
The Ball Aerospace JPSS' were ~2500kg. OrbATK is probably similar. Orbit is 830km SSO.LV will probably be F9.Delta II will be gone.A proposed Athena variant could fly it (2cS-6 with DM OAM)Antares 231 (maybe even 221) has the performance, but I doubt they can win. Flying polar out of WFF is iffy.Atlas V could do it easily, but $$$.