New Armstrong Speculation and Discussion

[sanman]

...
Our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glenn is a very important step. It won't be the last of course. Up next on our drawing board: New Armstrong. But that's a story for the future.

Gradatim Ferociter!

Jeff Bezos

So if there can be speculative discussion on the as-yet-unseen MCT, then there can likewise be speculative discussion on New Armstrong, the next rocket on Blue Origin's drawing board as tipped by Jeff Bezos himself.

What's the minimum payload mass it should be able to send to the Moon, for economic viability of lunar tourism?

Would NA require any new engines, or could the existing available set of engines meet the needs just fine, howsoever they end up being clustered?

How many stages should it have, with what kind of engine-clustering?

Would downrange recovery be required, perhaps using the barge landing approach which Blue Origin had attempted to get a patent on?

With New Glenn being designed for 25 launches, what kind of service life should New Armstrong be designed for?

Given Blue Origin's approach for building incrementally on past achievements, what features from New Glenn could be expected to be carried over to the New Armstrong vehicle?

What new technologies or innovations would be useful for New Armstrong?

[UberNobody]

Well, this is about as speculative as it gets, but here I go anyways:

1: The booster will be BE-4 or BE-4A based, with 15-25 engines and 12-16m in diameter.

2: Combined spaceship and upper stage that travels between the Earth and an L1/L2 commercial space station. *cough* Bigelow *cough*.

3: Separate lunar lander(s) that go back and forth between the surface and L1/L2. 

I chose not to completely duplicate SpaceX here because directly landing on the Moon with your Earth return vehicle is very inefficient, even if you produce fuel on the surface.  No aerobraking on the Moon

[link2universe]

Maybe the kind of rocket you could use to launch a probe twords Planet Nine when it is discovered. If it's at something like 500  UA, maybe we could use this to send a probe to it in a decade time of travel?
I was thinking that other systems my take far too long.

Maybe a 500 kg probe + a lot of probpelant to slow down once there and enter orbit?

[DJPledger]

New Armstrong likely to be SpaceX BFR class. May either use many BE-4's or a smaller no. of an entirely new larger engine of at least F-1 class. Bezos has very deep pockets so he should be able to afford the dev. of a new very large engine which would likely be SC possibly FFSC and maybe LOx/LNG. Going FFSC is the logical next step for BO for a very large engine for New Armstrong. I think that BO is more likely to dev. a new larger engine for New Armstrong than use the BE-4 as I don't think that Bezos wants to dev. his version of the N-1. With a new larger engine New Armstrong may have the same engine configuration as New Glenn.

[redliox]

A good question is whether New Armstrong refers to a rocket or a capsule. Armstrong implies a Moon theme but that's not absolute; the same launcher could send payloads to Luna, Mars, or Neptune after all.

I'm going to assume Armstrong refers to a future capsule or lander.

[Darkseraph]

My hunch is that New Armstrong refers to both a launcher and a lander in the same way New Shepard refers to both the booster and the capsule. In a similar vein, New Glenn is being built to work with a biconic manned capsule.

I believe what follows will be an integrated system for Lunar landings, that can also be used for other missions.

[Youronas]

A good question is whether New Armstrong refers to a rocket or a capsule. Armstrong implies a Moon theme but that's not absolute; the same launcher could send payloads to Luna, Mars, or Neptune after all.

I'm going to assume Armstrong refers to a future capsule or lander.

Chris has already mentioned that he received information which indicates that all astronaut-named Blue products will bei launchers.

New Armstrong is believed to be a BFR deep into the future. Not confirmed, but I'm "told" that the answer to the question is they are only naming rockets after astronauts.

Link: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41146.msg1582373#msg1582373

[TrevorMonty]

NG is big enough with distributed launch for lunar exploration and establishing a small base. To colonise moon will need NA but there no urgency, Blue can take its time developing NA and any new engines it requires.

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[Lars-J]

This thread is pointless. All we have is a name. Nothing more.

[RonM]

This thread is pointless. All we have is a name. Nothing more.

It's the ultimate speculation thread.

[Lar]

Info is pretty thin on the ground, for sure.  Thread's harmless though, at least so far.

[MATTBLAK]

Yes - there's often someone who grumps off to a moderator about some imagined slight or 'pointlessness; let people have their fun or informed speculations for heaven's sake! 

[MATTBLAK]

Im imagining a three-core heavy, similar in configuration to Falcon or Delta Heavy. Also; a stretched cryogenic stage with 2x BE-3 engines. I'm speculating a 3x core because like Elon and ULA I don't expect multiple sets of tooling for different diameter form factors. And uprated 'full thrust' BE-4 engines, too.

[TrevorMonty]

Im imagining a three-core heavy, similar in configuration to Falcon or Delta Heavy. Also; a stretched cryogenic stage with 2x BE-3 engines. I'm speculating a 3x core because like Elon and ULA I don't expect multiple sets of tooling for different diameter form factors. And uprated 'full thrust' BE-4 engines, too.

A large single core is better for reuse, only need one barge or landing pad. To benefit most from 3 cores the middle core reaches high velocity making it harder to recover.

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[sdsds]

Im imagining a three-core heavy, similar in configuration to Falcon or Delta Heavy. Also; a stretched cryogenic stage with 2x BE-3 engines. I'm speculating a 3x core because like Elon and ULA I don't expect multiple sets of tooling for different diameter form factors. And uprated 'full thrust' BE-4 engines, too.

A large single core is better for reuse, only need one barge or landing pad. To benefit most from 3 cores the middle core reaches high velocity making it harder to recover.

We're still waiting for that other launch service provider that touts reusability to demonstrate recovery of a "center of three" booster core. Blue has the amazingly great option of two methalox boosters strapped to the side of a hydrolox sustainer core that might itself come darn awful close to -- or even reach -- orbit. And that's just with their engines that we know about!

[ncb1397]

Im imagining a three-core heavy, similar in configuration to Falcon or Delta Heavy. Also; a stretched cryogenic stage with 2x BE-3 engines. I'm speculating a 3x core because like Elon and ULA I don't expect multiple sets of tooling for different diameter form factors. And uprated 'full thrust' BE-4 engines, too.

A large single core is better for reuse, only need one barge or landing pad. To benefit most from 3 cores the middle core reaches high velocity making it harder to recover.

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Maybe it has crossfeed. The center core has a full propellant tank and uses half its propellant to give an extra kick to the upper stages. It then uses half of its propellant to undo what it just did and slow down as much as possible to avoid disintegrating on re-entry.

[bad_astra]

The New Glenn can handle most commercial activities as well as crew and resupply flights if they really are interested in setting up orbital habitats.

The only need for a SLS class lifter would be for rare infrastructure work (moonbase if the name is any hint, deep space habs, etc), so to keep their costs down, I might speculate Armstrong would be a three-Glenn first stage core. 2nd stage and beyond, no idea. It does not have to compete with BFR or SLS performance wise, it just has to accomplish whatever goal it is they have, as cheaply as possible.

[Lars-J]

Yes - there's often someone who grumps off to a moderator about some imagined slight or 'pointlessness; let people have their fun or informed speculations for heaven's sake! 

But then we should be honest about it, and rename the thread to "What *I* think Blue should do next".

And let me know when *informed* speculation will be taking place...  Carry on (as if you need the permission of this grumpy old man)

[DJPledger]

The New Glenn can handle most commercial activities as well as crew and resupply flights if they really are interested in setting up orbital habitats.

The only need for a SLS class lifter would be for rare infrastructure work (moonbase if the name is any hint, deep space habs, etc), so to keep their costs down, I might speculate Armstrong would be a three-Glenn first stage core. 2nd stage and beyond, no idea. It does not have to compete with BFR or SLS performance wise, it just has to accomplish whatever goal it is they have, as cheaply as possible.

New Armstrong will likely be a single core along the lines of SpaceX BFR with possibly 3-5x the thrust of New Glenn. BO has said that the larger the booster stage the easier it is to land due to the pendulum effect. Also landing a single booster stage is easier than landing three per launch. I don't see BO moving towards any multi core designs.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

I posted this in another thread and it should be here.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41146.msg1583335#msg1583335

Speculation warning 

Possible New Armstrong:
10-11m diameter
14 upgraded BE-4 (750klbf) engines
30% taller 1st stage
2 BE4U engined 2nd stage
Fully reusable 1st and 2nd stage
1 BE-3U engined 3rd stage but twice or more propellant than NG
LEO fully reusable 2 stage ~110-130mt
3 stage LLO or L2 ~40mt
3rd stage a possible Lunar landing and ascent stage with capsule on top (no Lunar orbit rendezvous)

BTW still launchable from 39B. (10.5Mlbf)

Reasoning:
- Single core
- Ability to lift 100+mt to LEO even if both 1st and 2nd stages are reused. Need 100+mt to LEO  to make a viable moon transport system without having a lot of smaller vehicles flights and a lot of on-orbit docking/refueling.
- Fully expendable 200+mt to LEO.
- Need enough room to have engines able to produce the ~10Mlbf thrust to lift the GLOW so diameter must be greater than 10m.
- May be used as a bulk cargo to LEO to support future infrastructure that only needs transport of cargo, prop, and people to LEO. Where cargo and people are then transported by reusable tu"g" to probable L2. Then a reusable lander to the Lunar surface. But initially no infrastructure or very minimal infrastrusture will exist so the system ust be able to do a Lunar mission without much help.
- thrust level at ~10Mlbf still alows the use of 39B (possibly sharing with SLS if it is still flying) without having to build a new pad. Only requires the piping in of LNG and LNG site mass storage. Also new ML's specifically built for NA. With 2 MLs and 2 VAB bays could launch 2x /month. Max rate possible at 39B would be 4/month with 4 MLs and use of 4 VAB bays.