Both subscale vehicles are expected to be powered by existing engines available from the entrepreneurial space industry, he says, while a parallel AFRL demonstration program, called Hydrocarbon Boost, will develop a large LOX/kerosene rocket engine for the full-size booster.Cancellation of its Ares I may be helping drive up EELV costs, but NASA still plans to develop the heavy-lift Ares V and needs a large hydrocarbon rocket motor, so it has begun talks with the Air Force on joint development.“NASA is coming into the picture,” says Hampsten. “We realize there is only enough money to develop one engine.
Very interesting. I hope they derive it from EELV parts and not build everything new.I gather from the article that there are three main components of the launch system. The reusable flyback booster, the cryogenic upper stage, and for the heavy variant, the cryogenic first stage. I think if would make the most sense to use the Delta IV as the cryogenic first stage. Perhaps the cryogenic second stage could be a centaur variant or even some form of ACES? The flyback booster will probably be the only thing that requires a lot of development.Another thing that caught my attention was this:QuoteBoth subscale vehicles are expected to be powered by existing engines available from the entrepreneurial space industry, he says, while a parallel AFRL demonstration program, called Hydrocarbon Boost, will develop a large LOX/kerosene rocket engine for the full-size booster.Cancellation of its Ares I may be helping drive up EELV costs, but NASA still plans to develop the heavy-lift Ares V and needs a large hydrocarbon rocket motor, so it has begun talks with the Air Force on joint development.“NASA is coming into the picture,” says Hampsten. “We realize there is only enough money to develop one engine.The part about Ares V is strange but I guess the writer just confused it with the clean sheet HLV design proposed by Obama. The thing about jointly developing a domestic kerolox engine with NASA was very interesting. It makes sense to use a new kerolox engine on an HLV if USAF is footing part of the bill.I'm curious to see what Jim thinks of this.
I also wondered what they meant by reducing costs with low flight rates. Perhaps it has more to do with stopping and starting production lines? Even so, I wonder what their estimates are based on.Could be they just see RLV as the future, what with Falcon 1/9 being sort-of-reusable-maybe.
I don't see why EELV costs go up due to Ares cancellation.
Quote from: mike robel on 04/25/2010 08:55 pmI don't see why EELV costs go up due to Ares cancellation. They don't. There is no connection between Ares and EELV costs.
Quote from: sdsdsThe assumption has usually been that increased demand for EELV launches would generate economies of scale that lead to reduced EELV costs per launch.This assumes you have a free market. A free market assumes one has competition, and a number of consumers, and that some of those consumers are looking for a lower price.
The assumption has usually been that increased demand for EELV launches would generate economies of scale that lead to reduced EELV costs per launch.
the USAF is using I believe 90% H2O2 in its recently launched X-37B, so the scare mongering against using H2O2 is not valid.
Definitely the right propellant combination, although 98% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and quadricyclane (C7H8) would give 16.5% better performance compared to liquid oxygen (O2) and kerosene (RP-1).
Quote from: Rabidpanda on 04/25/2010 07:10 pmVery interesting. I hope they derive it from EELV parts and not build everything new.I gather from the article that there are three main components of the launch system. The reusable flyback booster, the cryogenic upper stage, and for the heavy variant, the cryogenic first stage. I think if would make the most sense to use the Delta IV as the cryogenic first stage. Perhaps the cryogenic second stage could be a centaur variant or even some form of ACES? The flyback booster will probably be the only thing that requires a lot of development.Another thing that caught my attention was this:QuoteBoth subscale vehicles are expected to be powered by existing engines available from the entrepreneurial space industry, he says, while a parallel AFRL demonstration program, called Hydrocarbon Boost, will develop a large LOX/kerosene rocket engine for the full-size booster.Cancellation of its Ares I may be helping drive up EELV costs, but NASA still plans to develop the heavy-lift Ares V and needs a large hydrocarbon rocket motor, so it has begun talks with the Air Force on joint development.“NASA is coming into the picture,” says Hampsten. “We realize there is only enough money to develop one engine.The part about Ares V is strange but I guess the writer just confused it with the clean sheet HLV design proposed by Obama. The thing about jointly developing a domestic kerolox engine with NASA was very interesting. It makes sense to use a new kerolox engine on an HLV if USAF is footing part of the bill.I'm curious to see what Jim thinks of this.There are alot of things in that article that don't make much sense to me.Most of all is: how is something that large and "resuasble" (? $$$ for resfurbishment?) going to be less expensive than EELVs??? That really makes little if any sense.
if USAF is planning on making a re-usable booster capable of maximum velocity of Mach 6-8 it should most definetly include a ramjet on it.