Aerojet Rocketdyne is targeting a cost of $20-25 million for each pair of new AR-1 engines as the company continues to lobby the government to fund an all-new, U.S.-sourced rocket propulsion system, says Scott Seymour, president and CEO of the company’s parent, GenCorp.Including legacy systems and various risk-reduction projects, Aerojet Rocketdyne has spent roughly $300 million working on technologies that will feed into the AR-1, Seymour said during a June 3 roundtable with Aviation Week editors. The effort to build a new, 500,000-lb. thrust liquid oxygen/kerosene propulsion system would take about four years from contract award and cost roughly $800 million to $1 billion.Such an engine is eyed for United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V rocket as well as Orbital’s Antares and, possibly, Space Exploration Technology’s Falcon 9 v1.1.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9v1.1 is powered by the company’s own Merlin 1D engine, but Seymour says he hopes the AR-1 is competitive enough in pricing to earn a place even on this platform. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has focused his company on vertical integration to support quick development timelines.
Why would SpaceX want to use these on Falcon 9? Is that author just making stuff up?
I believe Aerojet Rocketdyne is just making stuff up. The author expresses skepticism later down the page:QuoteSpaceX’s Falcon 9v1.1 is powered by the company’s own Merlin 1D engine, but Seymour says he hopes the AR-1 is competitive enough in pricing to earn a place even on this platform. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has focused his company on vertical integration to support quick development timelines.Aside from the fact that they are capable of and proud of Merlin 1D, SpaceX remain fond of the reliability margins on 9-engine configurations. 9 of these engines would cost $112.5M and push half the mass of the presumptive BFR core on 1M lbf Raptors.The only place I might be able to imagine a 500klbf engine there, in light of their present lineup & plans, would be to replace the Merlin Vacuum for large payloads on a heavier upper stage for the Falcon Heavy or (my pet notion) Falcon Superheavy. I'd still put odds on such an engine being internal rather than outsourced, though, or more likely, being a multi-core Merlin 1D configuration.
I believe Aerojet Rocketdyne is just making stuff up.
Sorry, lack of clarity - Falcon SuperHeavy is my pet notion for a launch vehicle with 5 to 7 Falcon 9 cores, which seems like a fairly natural extension of their product line five years or so of payload planning in the future.
Quote from: Burninate on 06/11/2014 06:26 pmSorry, lack of clarity - Falcon SuperHeavy is my pet notion for a launch vehicle with 5 to 7 Falcon 9 cores, which seems like a fairly natural extension of their product line five years or so of payload planning in the future.No, it would not be a "fairly natural extension", since its operations would be complex and not horizontal. They would go to a wider core before making a kludge of more cores than 3
Perhaps Burninate means a linear cluster of cores, which could still be integrated horizontally.I imagine control of such a beast in flight would be rather "dynamic".
If this comes to fruition, and SLS sticks around, might be a good replacement for when the RS25D's run out even though they would need to switch fuels... I would think using an existing engine vs developing an expendable RS-25 might make up for the switch.
Both Antares and Atlas V use two roughly 200klbf nozzles. So the decision the only discussion for minimum impact is on turbopump or two turbopumps. They need the two nozzles for compatibility. So it's either a single engine with two 500klbf nozzles or two engines with a single 500klbf each. My guess is that dual engine would impact Atlas V more than Antares, and single engine more Antares rather than atlas V. Given the relative maturity and strategic importance, a single engine with two nozzles would seem the optimal technical development. Optimum economic would depend on Atlas V re-certification cost, probably.
Both Antares and Atlas V use two roughly 200klbf nozzles.
Methinks your first sentence is kgf rather than klbf?
Each NK-33 makes 366,600 lbf thrust at sea level at its 108% setting. Two together make 733,400 lbf.