Quote from: russianhalo117 on 09/14/2017 02:53 amIt is out of the question. I believe both Elon and Shotwell have answered this before saying Merlins and Raptors were not for sale and use outside of SpaceX.Not true. Raptor at the very least, as part of the USAF development contract they agreed to (which implemented a section of that years National Defense Authorization Act requiring this), must be made available for sale to other companies or agencies. And SpaceX has tried selling engines and rockets before (Falcon 9 Air, which ended only because it was not seen as compatible with their internal development goals and wouldn't be competitive enough to justify, and various DARPA reusable launch vehicle/engine RFIs). They just need a customer.
It is out of the question. I believe both Elon and Shotwell have answered this before saying Merlins and Raptors were not for sale and use outside of SpaceX.
Could Vulcan be designed to use Merlins from SpaceX? Or is this out of the question? I figure they could use 5 or 7 with the solids. They might even be able to stay with the Atlas V diameter. Air Force or NASA may not want this in order to have more competition.
So this separate engine from rocket development must have played over into the planes also.
USAF wants 2 disimilar launch vehicles - so using same engine in both SX and ULA LV would not be acceptable
Quote from: Rebel44 on 09/14/2017 08:24 amUSAF wants 2 disimilar launch vehicles - so using same engine in both SX and ULA LV would not be acceptableNonsense. Atlas V and Delta IV both use the RL-10 in their upper stages.
Quote from: spacenut on 09/14/2017 03:47 amDidn't Aerojet get bought by Orbital ATK? I don't understand why companies as big as Boeing and Lockheed don't make their own engines. Aerojet was merged with ex-Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to create today's Aerojet Rocketdyne.Orbital Sciences and ATK merged to create today's Orbital ATK.One reason the "legacy" companies didn't do their own propulsion is that the Pentagon insisted, during the early days of ICBM development, that the missile systems be subdivided into subcontractor tasks. Thus Convair only had the missile, while Rocketdyne did propulsion, etc. Convair wasn't happy about that arrangement, BTW. - Ed Kyle
Didn't Aerojet get bought by Orbital ATK? I don't understand why companies as big as Boeing and Lockheed don't make their own engines.
USAF contract said, they have to make it available to others, but it AFAIK doesnt dictate price or availability
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 09/15/2017 06:20 amQuote from: Rebel44 on 09/14/2017 08:24 amUSAF wants 2 disimilar launch vehicles - so using same engine in both SX and ULA LV would not be acceptableNonsense. Atlas V and Delta IV both use the RL-10 in their upper stages.And they are being converted to common avionics (Delta at taxpayers' expense, even though it is being phased out).
Because the legacy avionics literally cannot be purchased anymore and the government wants/needs Delta to stay flying.
Quote from: ethan829 on 09/15/2017 10:22 pmBecause the legacy avionics literally cannot be purchased anymore and the government wants/needs Delta to stay flying.Anything can still be bought so long as there is someone willing to keep the pay to keep the production line for it open.
Quote from: Patchouli on 09/16/2017 09:52 pmQuote from: ethan829 on 09/15/2017 10:22 pmBecause the legacy avionics literally cannot be purchased anymore and the government wants/needs Delta to stay flying.Anything can still be bought so long as there is someone willing to keep the pay to keep the production line for it open.and supply chain still intact. SR-71 cannot easily be reactivated because supply chain is disintegrated.
Quote from: Rebel44 on 09/14/2017 08:24 amUSAF contract said, they have to make it available to others, but it AFAIK doesnt dictate price or availabilityThey would have to charge a government contractor close to what they themselves would charge in a contract.The US government gets involved in its contracts and won't allow big markups from subcontractors.
Anyone want to see some of the old concept art for Vulcan’s paint job?
Requiring individual chips to be kept in production is probably over engineering a computing and memory board. Only the interface to the back plane needs keeping. The new board design needs to be able to run the same software and complete the same commissioning tests.Some specialist boards may need chips keeping in production but those parts were probably made to measure.