Author Topic: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)  (Read 37519 times)

Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #20 on: 06/27/2015 01:41 am »
Surely SALVO is simply a modernised air-launched ASAT system? What else could it be, when the commercial world has looked at, and rejected, such micro-launchers time and time again, and for good reasons?

This is a weapons system, guys, and not in terms of information warfare, either.

You are right it could be use in the anti-satellite role. But remember that is no difference between a ballistic missile and an orbital launcher other than the payload.

The commercial world does not have squadrons of F15s and F22s available for use as the first stage for micro-launchers. The launches can staged from any runway that can handle the F15 and the F22. AFAIK it just take a standardized ordnance rack and some software to enable this capability to launch a micro-sat or kinetic impactor to LEO.


Offline Kryten

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #21 on: 06/28/2015 01:50 am »
I have just found this article on SALVO with an artist impression:

http://www.americaspace.com/?p=83211
This image is not of SALVO, it's an early ALASA concept.
« Last Edit: 06/28/2015 01:51 am by Kryten »

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #22 on: 10/11/2015 10:26 am »
Any info, when the SALVO will fly?

The last news from Ventions was in September, when they successfully conducted a static fire test of electric pump-fed SALVO stage.

Offline jongoff

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #23 on: 10/12/2015 05:01 pm »
Any info, when the SALVO will fly?

The last news from Ventions was in September, when they successfully conducted a static fire test of electric pump-fed SALVO stage.

DARPA's public release process is time consuming enough that it tends to put a damper on talking about work they fund. It takes 30 days to get approval for just about anything, including a tweet or a short blog post.

That said, knowing that this is DARPA you should expect some changes in direction occasionally...

~Jon

Offline Kryten

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #24 on: 05/01/2016 10:44 am »
After months of silence, a new update from Ventions;
Quote
Ventions awarded 2 DARPA contracts for on-going development of electric-pump fed propulsion and launch vehicle stage technologies.

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #25 on: 11/18/2016 03:34 pm »
Has anyone heard any news on SALVO? Still active development or has it died together with Boeing's ALASA?

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #26 on: 11/18/2016 05:17 pm »
Has anyone heard any news on SALVO? Still active development or has it died together with Boeing's ALASA?
Ventions has a one year contract for SALVO since April 2016 but that is the last mention of it by all partners in the project.

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #27 on: 12/02/2021 09:23 am »
Some time ago, a SALVO rocket has been spotted in Astra Space's factory.

Before this, only a extremly low resolution photo of SALVO was found in a DARPA powerpoint presentation.

https://twitter.com/Astra/status/1405950229388595202
« Last Edit: 12/02/2021 09:25 am by Skyrocket »

Offline Celeste_El

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #28 on: 12/05/2021 07:02 pm »
SALVO was a really wild concept. Based on information in patent US9745063B2 filed by Adam London and some of the other former Ventions members, what you see in the pictures mostly isn't the rocket. The rocket itself was going to be held inside an outer shell type thing (Fig.19A) which would reduce structural loads during takeoff and deployment as well as keeping the propellant cool during a possibly lengthy flight to the drop zone. Upon deployment the rocket would ditch the outer shell, sliding out the top and continuing to orbit (Fig.23). Its truly a wild concept and I highly suggest looking through the patent.
Also, I also found an old tweet with a much higher quality image of the prototype sitting in their factory.
https://twitter.com/mattfellowship/status/1289278441993322497

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #29 on: 12/05/2021 07:26 pm »
SALVO was a really wild concept. Based on information in patent US9745063B2 filed by Adam London and some of the other former Ventions members, what you see in the pictures mostly isn't the rocket. The rocket itself was going to be held inside an outer shell type thing (Fig.19A) which would reduce structural loads during takeoff and deployment as well as keeping the propellant cool during a possibly lengthy flight to the drop zone. Upon deployment the rocket would ditch the outer shell, sliding out the top and continuing to orbit (Fig.23). Its truly a wild concept and I highly suggest looking through the patent.

Thank you very much - this aspect of SALVO was not known to me.
« Last Edit: 12/05/2021 07:43 pm by Skyrocket »

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #30 on: 12/05/2021 07:42 pm »
SALVO was a really wild concept. Based on information in patent US9745063B2 filed by Adam London and some of the other former Ventions members, what you see in the pictures mostly isn't the rocket. The rocket itself was going to be held inside an outer shell type thing (Fig.19A) which would reduce structural loads during takeoff and deployment as well as keeping the propellant cool during a possibly lengthy flight to the drop zone. Upon deployment the rocket would ditch the outer shell, sliding out the top and continuing to orbit (Fig.23). Its truly a wild concept and I highly suggest looking through the patent.

The patent document US 9,745,063 B2 attached as pdf.


Offline Celeste_El

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #31 on: 12/05/2021 11:38 pm »
Yeah, it was a cool rocket. The test article in the factory doesn't get enough love and seems to get moved around a lot. Spotted it in the background of the latest factory tour so its still kicking around.

Offline Celeste_El

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #32 on: 05/03/2022 06:49 am »
Found a Facebook post from March 25, 2022, presumably from a party Astra threw after their first successful commercial launch. By far one of the best photos I've been able to find of the rocket.
« Last Edit: 05/03/2022 06:50 am by Celeste_El »

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #33 on: 05/03/2022 07:57 am »
The back end of the rocket looks pretty empty. Is this just a model of the rocket?
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Online Skyrocket

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #34 on: 05/03/2022 08:01 am »
The back end of the rocket looks pretty empty. Is this just a model of the rocket?

No, this is just the end of the aerodynamic shell. The SALVO rocket itself is inside the shell. The only visible part of the SALVO rocket is the gray payload fairing. A few posts up in this thread are some drawings of the configuration.

Offline Celeste_El

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #35 on: 09/28/2022 06:54 am »
Found some more pictures of SLAVO hardware during development. Picture is taken from a presentation to NASA about the possibility of using electric pump fed engines for the MAV (linked below). It seems the rocket was slated to have two individually electric pumped 4.5 kN Lox/Kerosene engines. Its interesting seeing how much hardware they had ultimately built for the rocket. Makes me wonder truly how close it was to flying.

Offline Celeste_El

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Re: DARPA SALVO (Small Air Launch Vehicle to Orbit)
« Reply #36 on: 09/28/2022 07:38 am »
I FOUND IT! I finally found that blurry photo of SALVO mounted under the F-15. It was posted on one of the former engineers LinkedIn page.

Edit: Found the full version of the bottom photo
« Last Edit: 09/28/2022 07:13 pm by Celeste_El »

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