Author Topic: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development  (Read 55479 times)


Offline Rabidpanda

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #1 on: 04/25/2010 07:10 pm »
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:
Quote
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.

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.

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #2 on: 04/25/2010 07:34 pm »
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:
Quote
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.

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" (???? :o $$$ for resfurbishment?) going to be less expensive than EELVs??? That really makes little if any sense. They seems to think that the costs for developing this thing are going to be reasonable, but that never seems to be the case, there are always design issues and unforseen problems that come up.
Plus, whatever happened to lets commercialize space??? This vehicle could put commercial out of buisness as I doubt NASA would just design and build the new engine and NOT want to use th LV for their own purposes.
Just go EELV phase one or build ACES my god its not that hard.........
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Offline Lampyridae

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #3 on: 04/25/2010 07:50 pm »
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.

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #4 on: 04/25/2010 08:21 pm »
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.
Exactly. It doesn't make much sense to me.
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Offline mike robel

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #5 on: 04/25/2010 08:55 pm »
I don't see why EELV costs go up due to Ares cancellation.  Even if NASA used EELVs for Orion or commerical crew/cargo spacecraft, it seems to me more launches would drive costs down.

As for Reusable 1st stages being cheaper than EELV, color me skeptical.

Online HMXHMX

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #6 on: 04/25/2010 10:11 pm »
I don't see why EELV costs go up due to Ares cancellation. 

They don't.  There is no connection between Ares and EELV costs.

Offline sdsds

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #7 on: 04/25/2010 11:14 pm »
I don't see why EELV costs go up due to Ares cancellation. 

They don't.  There is no connection between Ares and EELV costs.

Broadly speaking, the Obama plan for NASA (which includes Ares cancellation) might lead NASA to purchase more EELV launches (for robotic missions and possibly ACRV Orion).  The assumption has usually been that increased demand for EELV launches would generate economies of scale that lead to reduced EELV costs per launch.
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Offline dks13827

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #8 on: 04/25/2010 11:49 pm »
2025 possible time frame on it.......   quite a few things can develop in that span.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #9 on: 04/26/2010 03:18 am »
[ The assumption has usually been that increased demand for EELV launches would generate economies of scale that lead to reduced EELV costs per launch.
[/quote]

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.
If there is no interest is wanting a lower price, you will not get lower prices.
If you don't have pressure to have a lower price, nor is there much interest in gaining a huge profit- you wouldn't get any effort to lower costs [efforts to do so will not be rewarded- a may even be considered annoying/troublesome- not mention you could become a target by politicians for your "excessive profits"].
And if your customer is mostly a goverment that values your product solely because it generate jobs, you will be responsive by making an effort to [at least, look like you are] hiring more people- not to meet specific labor demands, but to provide a product that your customer [the politicians] wants.

Offline sdsds

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #10 on: 04/26/2010 04:09 am »
Quote from: sdsds
The 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.

We're largely in agreement.  Economies of scale enable lower costs of production, but they do not require producers to lower their prices!

The funding for EELV development and production has been elaborately negotiated, and the mechanisms have changed over the course of the program.  Pricing has not been established by a market mechanism.  Instead, the contracts (between USAF and ULA) have at times looked a lot like subsidies.

For RBS, it will be fascinating to see what kinds of "lessons learned" from EELV are applied to the development and production contracts!
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Offline wdobner

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #11 on: 04/26/2010 06:50 am »
Did anyone else get the feeling they were reading an summary of the Starbooster website in that article?  The plan they outline, with a modular series of winged boosters lifting expendable core and upper stages, and the development program to reach an operational vehicle is almost word for word the program outlined in Starbooster's powerpoints.  If it were about 25 days ago I'd be strongly inclined to think this article was a joke given how strongly its pointing toward one solution.  Maybe we should just turn NASA and USAF space command over to Buzz Aldrin and let him run things :)

I realize some of the mechanics of the Starbooster system is slightly different from that described in the article, what with the USAF proposing to use a rocket-back system as opposed to the jet-back arrangement Starbooster selected.  And I doubt they're going for an expendable propulsion and tanking system using Russian engines, although I'd also imagine those details will be worked out in the downselect.  I'd be very interested to see a study comparing the Starbooster delta wing against a Baikal-like oblique wing, or the swing wing which appeared on some drawings of a reusable flyback Zenit booster.  IMHO some form of folding wing would be ideal because it'd allow us to cluster multiple boosters in a way the Starbooster's delta wing will not allow. 

I'm a fan of the Direct proposal, but if this is where our five years of engine development gets us then I'm all for it.  I didn't think anyone outside a few guys at LockMart were taking flyback boosters seriously.  And if the USAF is getting involved in the development of a new hydrocarbon engine and associated airframe, then presumably that slightly decreases the demand on NASA's R&D development.  So how about we go whole-hog to Aldrin's approach and fund his Starlifter SDLV as well, only call it an Ares III, Jupiter 234, or something?  Down the road we can replace the SRBs with a flyback kerolox booster as one of the Starbooster powerpoints shows.  I'm just glad the possibility exists that we won't spend five years and billions of dollars to recreate the S-1C and a monolithic kerolox HLV which reduces the operational cost by 2% relative to an SDLV but kills us with development and infrastructure costs.  The SDLV could even evolve into something akin to the proposed Energia II as a large flyback first stage with flyback boosters attached to it.

And am I the only one who likes the idea of flying something like a Dreamcatcher atop the Starbooster?  We'd get a nearly fully reusable launch system with just an orbital insertion stage being discarded.  IMHO this is probably what the Shuttle should have been to begin with.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #12 on: 04/26/2010 07:51 am »
Woo hoo! Way to go USAF!

I really like this idea and look forward to the experimental flights. Some of the ideas are similar to a paper I wrote, but I had one huge flyback booster with 2100 t of propellant and that would put 179 t into LEO!

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). Also has the advantage of being storable at room temperature and the USAF is using I believe 90% H2O2 in its recently launched X-37B, so the scare mongering against using H2O2 is not valid. USAF and British experience is that H2O2 can be safely handled and used.

98% H2O2 and C7H8 (also called RP-X2) requires 1.104 litres of propellant for every kg of vehicle final mass for a delta-V of 3 km/s. O2/RP-1 requires 1.286 litres for every kg. Thus, for the same propellant volume, the final mass can be increased by 16.5% compared to O2/RP-1. Also, only 13% of the required propellant mass is C7H8 which is quite expensive.

Here's the link to the Flight International article, which has another painting of the concept vehicle. http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2010/04/20/340788/usaf-seeks-reusable-booster-concepts.html

Here's what the quadricyclane molecule looks like. Very unusual.
« Last Edit: 04/26/2010 08:14 am by Steven Pietrobon »
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Offline Jim

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #13 on: 04/26/2010 11:26 am »
the USAF is using I believe 90% H2O2 in its recently launched X-37B, so the scare mongering against using H2O2 is not valid.

Nope, the H2O2 thruster was deleted years ago, so no new H2O2 experience exists in the USAF.

Offline mmeijeri

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #14 on: 04/26/2010 11:45 am »
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).

Very interesting. Some googling yielded an interesting paper about high performance fuels for use with hydrogen peroxide:

NOVEL ORGANOMETALLIC PROPELLANTS FOR HYPERGOLIC APPLICATIONS

The most spectacular combination was H2O2 + lithium aluminium hexahydride with a theoretical vacuum Isp of 469! I don't know how credible the authors are and I'm sure there's a catch since that is LOX/LH2 territory.
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Offline jongoff

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #15 on: 04/26/2010 03:01 pm »
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:
Quote
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.

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" (???? :o $$$ for resfurbishment?) going to be less expensive than EELVs??? That really makes little if any sense.

The first stage for RB-S would be reentering at a low enough Mach number that TPS considerations are worlds easier than with Shuttle.  Also, the performance requirements are low enough that you can build in heavier margins where they help.  I don't think the boostback approach is the best approach for a reusable first stage, but it's probably in the top 3 approaches.  It requires bigger tanks and engines, but gives a very benign operating environment.  I don't think the idea is crazy at all.

~Jon

Offline jongoff

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #16 on: 04/26/2010 03:03 pm »
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 think their point was that a full TSTO or SSTO RLV requires a much higher flight rate to close the business case.  For a reusable first stage only, where the first stage comes back in a manner consistent with low-cost, rapid turnaround, you don't need a huge standing army, and don't need as much up-front development money as you would for a fully reusable TSTO.

For EELV-class payloads like what they're interested in, there isn't likely going to be enough demand to justify the development cost of the reusable upper stage.  But this allows them to get at least some of the ops and cost benefit of an RLV without having to go all-in.

~Jon

Offline space_man

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #17 on: 04/27/2010 01:48 pm »
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.

Offline sdsds

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #18 on: 04/27/2010 01:59 pm »
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.

Somewhere there's a published claim (sorry, can't cite it) that USAF studied the trade-offs between rocket, air-breathing jet, and (for return to a landing site) glider.  The study conclusion was rocket up; rocket back.

Is a report of that study available to the public?  Can anyone summarize the constraints, i.e. how far down-range (and thus how far up-range for return) the booster needs to travel?  Is there any intuition that supports the analytic conclusion that rocketing back could possibly make sense?  Is lift-off thrust really so "cheap" that it makes sense to carry aloft propellant that in no way is going to help accelerate the payload?
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Offline Robotbeat

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Re: USAF Plans For Reusable Booster Development
« Reply #19 on: 04/27/2010 02:23 pm »
Of course, sdsds. RP-1 is pretty cheap and LOx is far cheaper. You can use the same engines for rocket-back as you can for launch. One propulsion system is much cheaper than two, not to mention far reduced development.
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