Why Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?
Quote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.
Quote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.
QuoteDesignating the launch vehicle requirements (for a new launch vehicle) before having the mission scope/policy/plan/blah done is bass-ackwards. That I pointed that out is not off-topic; your asking for mission plans for anything without SLS was off-topic."Hey guys, I'm going to go order curtains from the store, then I'll measure my windows!"EDIT:I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're finally measuring the windows, even if we ordered the curtains already.The STS had no specific mission really until ISS and it flew for 30 years. Are not all missions designed around the launch vehicles and not the other way around (Apollo era aside)? Edit: Meant STS not SLS
Designating the launch vehicle requirements (for a new launch vehicle) before having the mission scope/policy/plan/blah done is bass-ackwards. That I pointed that out is not off-topic; your asking for mission plans for anything without SLS was off-topic."Hey guys, I'm going to go order curtains from the store, then I'll measure my windows!"EDIT:I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're finally measuring the windows, even if we ordered the curtains already.
The first escalations occur....soon my pretties, soon we will have ARES V again...
...using four engines will allow the vehicle to fly fully fueled in all configurations saving the extra calculations/testing for an under-filled three engine core.
Quote from: Ben the Space Brit on 10/06/2011 02:43 pmQuote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.Doing the math, it could push 40 metric tons to escape velocity, or 35 metric tons TLI (including the iCPS performing the final orbital insertion burn). If you did not need it to perform the final orbital insertion burn, you can increase that to 45 metric tons. 45 Metric Tons, incidentally, would allow the inclusion of a Centaur dual-axis lunar lander along with Orion, using the Centaur for final orbital-insertion burn, and Orion handling the return burn to Earth by itself.
Quote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 04:35 pmQuote from: Ben the Space Brit on 10/06/2011 02:43 pmQuote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.Doing the math, it could push 40 metric tons to escape velocity, or 35 metric tons TLI (including the iCPS performing the final orbital insertion burn). If you did not need it to perform the final orbital insertion burn, you can increase that to 45 metric tons. 45 Metric Tons, incidentally, would allow the inclusion of a Centaur dual-axis lunar lander along with Orion, using the Centaur for final orbital-insertion burn, and Orion handling the return burn to Earth by itself.Just as an aside, in the DTAL white paperhttp://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/DualThrustAxisLander%28DTAL%292009.pdfI couldn't find the total mass of the lander plus fuel. I take it from your post that it is less than 45t (including payload?).
Quote from: BrightLight on 10/06/2011 06:26 pmQuote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 04:35 pmQuote from: Ben the Space Brit on 10/06/2011 02:43 pmQuote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.Doing the math, it could push 40 metric tons to escape velocity, or 35 metric tons TLI (including the iCPS performing the final orbital insertion burn). If you did not need it to perform the final orbital insertion burn, you can increase that to 45 metric tons. 45 Metric Tons, incidentally, would allow the inclusion of a Centaur dual-axis lunar lander along with Orion, using the Centaur for final orbital-insertion burn, and Orion handling the return burn to Earth by itself.Just as an aside, in the DTAL white paperhttp://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/DualThrustAxisLander%28DTAL%292009.pdfI couldn't find the total mass of the lander plus fuel. I take it from your post that it is less than 45t (including payload?).That's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.
That's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/05/2011 05:00 pmQuote from: Chris Bergin on 10/05/2011 03:59 pmQuote from: Mr. Justice on 10/05/2011 03:53 pmThis is just a great disappointment. There are no missions of any substance in the planning: flying by and waving at the Moon is not a real mission. It is 51 years after the Apollo 8 mission proving that we cannot match that mission's abilities. It's been noted more times than I can remember that the mission planning is in work, via Mr Shannon It shows where the real priorities are when the actual mission planning (and hardware, etc) is practically an afterthought compared to the launch vehicle.To be fair they had it, with the flexible path, which replaced the VSE, with a nice amount of flexibility on the LV (I think they mainly used an Ares V for that....and we're not a million miles off with SLS on that score).I'm as frustrated with the next man on mission content, but I think the big problem is if they had designed the missions say two years ago, then they'd probably be redoing them now based on the latest budget cycles and such. Not sure, but I bet there would be some people saying "HA, you've created missions and you don't even have a LV yet".We're not launching SLS any time soon, so Mr Shannon has everything he needs, the LV design, the crew capsule design, the latest budget projects and the time to - I'm sure - work his magic, as he's (Dr Evil voice) "a fricking genius"
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 10/05/2011 03:59 pmQuote from: Mr. Justice on 10/05/2011 03:53 pmThis is just a great disappointment. There are no missions of any substance in the planning: flying by and waving at the Moon is not a real mission. It is 51 years after the Apollo 8 mission proving that we cannot match that mission's abilities. It's been noted more times than I can remember that the mission planning is in work, via Mr Shannon It shows where the real priorities are when the actual mission planning (and hardware, etc) is practically an afterthought compared to the launch vehicle.
Quote from: Mr. Justice on 10/05/2011 03:53 pmThis is just a great disappointment. There are no missions of any substance in the planning: flying by and waving at the Moon is not a real mission. It is 51 years after the Apollo 8 mission proving that we cannot match that mission's abilities. It's been noted more times than I can remember that the mission planning is in work, via Mr Shannon
This is just a great disappointment. There are no missions of any substance in the planning: flying by and waving at the Moon is not a real mission. It is 51 years after the Apollo 8 mission proving that we cannot match that mission's abilities.
Quote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 10:32 pmQuote from: BrightLight on 10/06/2011 06:26 pmQuote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 04:35 pmQuote from: Ben the Space Brit on 10/06/2011 02:43 pmQuote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.Doing the math, it could push 40 metric tons to escape velocity, or 35 metric tons TLI (including the iCPS performing the final orbital insertion burn). If you did not need it to perform the final orbital insertion burn, you can increase that to 45 metric tons. 45 Metric Tons, incidentally, would allow the inclusion of a Centaur dual-axis lunar lander along with Orion, using the Centaur for final orbital-insertion burn, and Orion handling the return burn to Earth by itself.Just as an aside, in the DTAL white paperhttp://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/DualThrustAxisLander%28DTAL%292009.pdfI couldn't find the total mass of the lander plus fuel. I take it from your post that it is less than 45t (including payload?).That's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.The DTAL in Figure 9 (attached) has a mass fraction of ~ 0.87 and Propellant Mass of 42 mT, so the lander dry mass weights 6.2 mT and the total mass is ~48 mT. It is hard, if not impossible, to justify why the DTAL lander cannot be lofted on a small LV and filled up on orbit with a depot, along with all the other mission hardware for BEO exploration. With the depot, many more missions will be flown for the same total price. It is time to move away from SLS, and the time is now.
Quote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 10:32 pmThat's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.Yea, the ACES DTAL was based on the ACES-41 stage, which is named that because it holds 41mt of propellant. The dry weigh of the ACES-41 stage is about 5mt. This article has some numbers on that.http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdfThe DTAL ascender has about 4mt of propellant needed too for ascent. So, the fully fueled ACES DTAL with ascender would be about 52mt.I don't think I've ever seen the Centaur lander. Downix, do you have any info on that?
Quote from: muomega0 on 10/06/2011 11:46 pmQuote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 10:32 pmQuote from: BrightLight on 10/06/2011 06:26 pmQuote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 04:35 pmQuote from: Ben the Space Brit on 10/06/2011 02:43 pmQuote from: aquanaut99 on 10/06/2011 02:14 pmQuote from: gospacex on 10/06/2011 02:08 pmWhy Block 1 needs the second stage? It'd lift ~70 tons to LEO without it, and we have no payloads even in that class, not to mention heavier ones. Why do we spend $$$ developing something we don't need?Because the first Orion missions are circumlunar flights. The iCPS is actually an EDS, not a second stage.Purely speculative at this point but SLS Block-I can throw about 20-30t through escape velocity with the DIVHUS, depending on the target. This might one day be useful for launching a heavy-weight Galilean Moon or Titan robotic survey mission.Doing the math, it could push 40 metric tons to escape velocity, or 35 metric tons TLI (including the iCPS performing the final orbital insertion burn). If you did not need it to perform the final orbital insertion burn, you can increase that to 45 metric tons. 45 Metric Tons, incidentally, would allow the inclusion of a Centaur dual-axis lunar lander along with Orion, using the Centaur for final orbital-insertion burn, and Orion handling the return burn to Earth by itself.Just as an aside, in the DTAL white paperhttp://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/DualThrustAxisLander%28DTAL%292009.pdfI couldn't find the total mass of the lander plus fuel. I take it from your post that it is less than 45t (including payload?).That's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.The DTAL in Figure 9 (attached) has a mass fraction of ~ 0.87 and Propellant Mass of 42 mT, so the lander dry mass weights 6.2 mT and the total mass is ~48 mT. It is hard, if not impossible, to justify why the DTAL lander cannot be lofted on a small LV and filled up on orbit with a depot, along with all the other mission hardware for BEO exploration. With the depot, many more missions will be flown for the same total price. It is time to move away from SLS, and the time is now.Quote from: Lobo on 10/07/2011 12:07 amQuote from: Downix on 10/06/2011 10:32 pmThat's for the ACES lander, I'm speaking of the older Lockheed centaur lander, which is less than 45t. The ACES upper stage is around 45 metric tons by my calcs, having twice the fuel load of Centaur, so a lander would be even heavier than that.Yea, the ACES DTAL was based on the ACES-41 stage, which is named that because it holds 41mt of propellant. The dry weigh of the ACES-41 stage is about 5mt. This article has some numbers on that.http://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/AffordableExplorationArchitecture2009.pdfThe DTAL ascender has about 4mt of propellant needed too for ascent. So, the fully fueled ACES DTAL with ascender would be about 52mt.I don't think I've ever seen the Centaur lander. Downix, do you have any info on that?Here is a white paper from ULA on lander options including the Centaur based systemhttp://www.ulalaunch.com/site/docs/publications/LunarLanderConfigurationsIncorporatingAccessibility20067284.pdfIt appears that the crew section was adapted from the Centaur lander to the DTAL.
Also, people need to remember that there is a plan, of sorts, laid out in full-blown legalese in the 2010 NASA Authorization Bill. The plan is to:1. Begin development of SLS, MPCV, and the supporting facilities at KSC and elsewhere in Fiscal Years 2011, 2012, and 2013.2. In 2012, NASA is to ask the NRC to conduct a study on what the next steps in BEO system development should be.3. Based on the results of the NRC study, Congress will develop the 2013 NASA Authorization Bill, covering FY 2014 through 2016. Hopefully, the study results will also influence a decision by the Administration as to what new start to request in the FY 2014 President's Budget Request, which will come out in early 2013.
Sorry, this just looks like the same old MSFC gigantism fetish all over again. And a lot of responsibility for that lies with the Senate and House, who both had plenty of opportunities to clarify...
There are no missions of any substance in the planning: flying by and waving at the Moon is not a real mission. It is 51 years after the Apollo 8 mission proving that we cannot match that mission's abilities.
Quote from: Khadgars on 10/06/2011 05:39 amQuoteDesignating the launch vehicle requirements (for a new launch vehicle) before having the mission scope/policy/plan/blah done is bass-ackwards. That I pointed that out is not off-topic; your asking for mission plans for anything without SLS was off-topic."Hey guys, I'm going to go order curtains from the store, then I'll measure my windows!"EDIT:I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're finally measuring the windows, even if we ordered the curtains already.The STS had no specific mission really until ISS and it flew for 30 years. Are not all missions designed around the launch vehicles and not the other way around (Apollo era aside)? Edit: Meant STS not SLSSTS had a mission: it was sold as a general-purpose space truck that would eliminate the need for any other launch vehicles except perhaps for the very smallest. By the time of the Challenger accident it had become obvious that STS could not fulfill that role.