kevin-rf - 29/1/2008 8:02 AMOnce the Taurus II is proven, is there any chance of it being able to up the flight rate by picking up some of the GPS launches that are now flying on EELV's?
Jim - 29/1/2008 7:39 AM Quotekevin-rf - 29/1/2008 8:02 AM Once the Taurus II is proven, is there any chance of it being able to up the flight rate by picking up some of the GPS launches that are now flying on EELV's? they would have to win a contract from the USAF. Doesn't look like they will be doing that for awhile, since the EELV contracts go for many years
kevin-rf - 29/1/2008 8:02 AM Once the Taurus II is proven, is there any chance of it being able to up the flight rate by picking up some of the GPS launches that are now flying on EELV's?
Jim's probably right - GPS is firmly baselined on EELV. There may be a few USAF new (currently not manifested) missions that may be interested in T-II. Onesies, likely. But the EELV program needs the big "production" runs, like GPS.
Then, there are the six or so Delta II "white tails" that seem unable to find a home because they are threatened by the disappearance of the assembly and launch infrastructure after 2010 (remember, Delta II's are assembled vertically at the pad). Unless something pops out really fast (i.e. for launch during or before 2010) they will go to waste. And they are all potential "heavys".
CFE - 29/1/2008 1:27 AM Looks like I'm eating crow now. I assumed that RpK did have NK-33's in-house for the partly-complete K-1, but that might not be a valid assumption.
My understanding is that they did not buy any engines during their COTS-I effort. In the pre-Rockteplane days, Joe C. used to think that they had some rights to some of the engines in Sacramento from the pre-Kistler bankrupcy days, but Aerojet always contested Joe's statements and I seem to remember than even the Kistler General Counsel did not believe they had a case.
I also thought that ill-will might exist from the failed negotiations between Orbital and RpK earlier in COTS, but apparently that was a bad assumption too.
Well, we disagreed on how to attack the financing problem and a few other things, but I guess it ended up as a gentleman's disagreement. Orbital looked at Kistler a lot in pre-Rocketplane days, but we just could not get the numbers to close.
I've repeated my "LV reusability only starts to pay off beyond 50 flights/year" mantra so many times that you are probably sick of reading it. However, if somebody put a gun to my head and forced me to choose a reusability concept, I think Kistler's is the best I've ever seen. I know and admire Randy, Will, Joe (when he acts as what he is: one of the country's top space engineers...) And I worship the very ground George Muller walks on.
kevin-rf - 29/1/2008 2:02 PMOnce the Taurus II is proven, is there any chance of it being able to up the flight rate by picking up some of the GPS launches that are now flying on EELV's?
antonioe - 29/1/2008 12:34 AMQuoteTrueGrit - 28/1/2008 2:42 PM Things don't always make sense until you think it out... I was surprised that the T-II stage 1 has greater than D-II 79XX total impluse and yet if you were to put identical upperstages on it would have less capability.I don't think that's what edkyle99 meant - he was not comparing a 79XX with a Delta K on top versus a T-II with a Delta K on top. He was comparing a T-II with a Delta K on top with a T-II with a Castor-30 on top!
TrueGrit - 28/1/2008 2:42 PM Things don't always make sense until you think it out... I was surprised that the T-II stage 1 has greater than D-II 79XX total impluse and yet if you were to put identical upperstages on it would have less capability.
I don't think that's what edkyle99 meant - he was not comparing a 79XX with a Delta K on top versus a T-II with a Delta K on top. He was comparing a T-II with a Delta K on top with a T-II with a Castor-30 on top!
Skyrocket - 29/1/2008 9:16 AMQuotekevin-rf - 29/1/2008 2:02 PMOnce the Taurus II is proven, is there any chance of it being able to up the flight rate by picking up some of the GPS launches that are now flying on EELV's?No way. The GPS to be launched on EELVs do not have an apogee engine and require the launch vehicle upper stage to put them into the circular GPS-Orbit. As Taurus II does not have a reignitable upper stage as Centaur or the Delta-IV-upper stage, it can not handle these launches (neither can Delta II).
CFE - 28/1/2008 11:27 PM Looks like I'm eating crow now. I assumed that RpK did have NK-33's in-house for the partly-complete K-1, but that might not be a valid assumption. I also thought that ill-will might exist from the failed negotiations between Orbital and RpK earlier in COTS, but apparently that was a bad assumption too.
It wouldn't make sense for Kistler to take possession of the NK-33s, thus removing them from Aerojet, where the engines could have been tested near launch time.
I've repeated my "LV reusability only starts to pay off beyond 50 flights/year" mantra so many times that you are probably sick of reading it.
jongoff - 29/1/2008 2:56 PM And fortunately, people are a much lower development cost payload. I hear they can even make them in third-world countries using completely unskilled labor....
Lemme see... I heard that line some time ago from a certain Bart... no, Bert, no..
On the other hand, I understand that the civil liability lawsuits resulting from the loss of said payloads can sometimes reach settlements in the billion $'s, in spite of the very low replacement costs... :laugh:
antonioe - 29/1/2008 10:49 PMQuotejongoff - 29/1/2008 2:56 PM And fortunately, people are a much lower development cost payload. I hear they can even make them in third-world countries using completely unskilled labor.... Lemme see... I heard that line some time ago from a certain Bart... no, Bert, no..
antonioe - 29/1/2008 1:49 PMQuotejongoff - 29/1/2008 2:56 PM And fortunately, people are a much lower development cost payload. I hear they can even make them in third-world countries using completely unskilled labor.... Lemme see... I heard that line some time ago from a certain Bart... no, Bert, no..
jongoff - 30/1/2008 7:36 AMWhile I agree that there are definite risks, there's no other markets that I can think of that will result in the kind of demand necessary to really change the way space is done. But the challenge is that by definition, getting to that point will require changing the way space is done.~Jon
Jim - 29/1/2008 5:54 PMSPS won't be it either
jongoff - 30/1/2008 3:27 AMEdit: Out of curiosity Jim, can you think of any other markets that could *potentially* provide the level of demand necessary to make an RLV worthwhile?
kevin-rf - 30/1/2008 8:46 AM Another would be a set of LEO birds that provide decent resolution IR coverage every half hour or so for detecting, tracking, and fighting wild fires. If we could only make the birds and place them in orbit cheap enough to actually do it.
kevin-rf - 30/1/2008 8:46 AMHow about a network of radar sats for a world wide air traffic control. You will finally get full coverage over the oceans and areas that have sparse radar coverage due to lack of $$$ and population density. You would need (out of thin air here) some 50ish birds in LEO, and I am sure birds like this would be to heavy for anything other than an individual launch on an EELV class vehicle.If designed right it could double as a world wide ship tracking and weather radar system.
Jim - 30/1/2008 9:04 AMQuotekevin-rf - 30/1/2008 8:46 AM Another would be a set of LEO birds that provide decent resolution IR coverage every half hour or so for detecting, tracking, and fighting wild fires. If we could only make the birds and place them in orbit cheap enough to actually do it.DSP does that already