Author Topic: ULA Vulcan Launch Vehicle (as announced/built) - General Discussion Thread 3  (Read 971975 times)

Offline russianhalo117

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Atlas-V, Vulcan, OmegA GEM-63 development Update (Cross Posted):

First static fire for the GEM-63 SRM series which will replace all current GEM Family versions of the GEM-40, GEM-46, and GEM-60 series.





Current GEM-63 roster of strap on (fixed and vectorable) versions are (Orion motor naming system has been adopted for GEM-63 Series).
GEM-63 - Atlas-V
GEM-63XL - Vulcan
GEM-63XLT - OmegA

Future GEM-63 versions are planned to replace the following predecessor inline versions:
GEM-40VN
GEM-46VN
GEM-60VN
« Last Edit: 09/20/2018 07:52 pm by russianhalo117 »

Offline ChrisWilson68

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With Vulcan and ACES they can do high performance missions their competitors can't do.  The ACES will allow ULA to deliver payloads direct to GEO or LLO or even just short of lunar surface ie crasher stage in one launch. The ACES allows them to maximise performance of LV by being able to deliver multiple payloads to different locations.

Time will tell if being able to offer different capabilities to competitors instead of copying them is a good idea.

The problem is that you're comparing capabilities for a not-yet-built ACES with the capabilities their competitors have today.

By the time ACES is built, their competition is likely to be BFR and maybe New Armstrong.  Those can outdo ACES by a long shot in every category.  ACES delivers a crasher stage to the Moon?  BFR soft-lands the payload, plus 10x more payload, and it's all cheaper than Vulcan/ACES.

Offline envy887

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Eric Berger says he's seen confirmation that ULA is picking BE4 for Vulcan.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1042909571382239232

Offline woods170

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Eric Berger says he's seen confirmation that ULA is picking BE4 for Vulcan.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1042909571382239232

His tweets were a bit too cryptic IMO. Let's wait for Tory to confirm it.

Offline russianhalo117

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Eric Berger says he's seen confirmation that ULA is picking BE4 for Vulcan.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1042909571382239232

His tweets were a bit too cryptic IMO. Let's wait for Tory to confirm it.
Well it was expected as early as this years AIAA conference.

Offline envy887

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Eric Berger says he's seen confirmation that ULA is picking BE4 for Vulcan.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1042909571382239232

His tweets were a bit too cryptic IMO. Let's wait for Tory to confirm it.

Ok, I won't sell all my AJRD stock just yet :D

Offline Chris Bergin

ARTICLE: NGIS fires up GEM-63 motor destined for future ULA launches -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/09/ngis-gem-63-motor-future-ula-launches/

- By Justin Davenport (@Bubbinski) who attended the firing for NSF and reviewed the test in his article.

Vulcan render by Nathan Koga for NSF.
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Offline Sknowball

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ARTICLE: NGIS fires up GEM-63 motor destined for future ULA launches -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/09/ngis-gem-63-motor-future-ula-launches/

- By Justin Davenport (@Bubbinski) who attended the firing for NSF and reviewed the test in his article.

Vulcan render by Nathan Koga for NSF.

Really appreciate the details of the test and the timeline for future testing neither of which seem to have been covered elsewhere.   

Offline envy887

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Offline Comet

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I hope this drawing was not posted already:

Offline ethan829

I hope this drawing was not posted already:

For comparison, here's an earlier design (around the time of the PDR, if I remember correctly):

Offline J-V

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I hope this drawing was not posted already:

For comparison, here's an earlier design (around the time of the PDR, if I remember correctly):

Does anyone have a guess what is the cost difference between a Centaur V and a short PLF vs. a Centaur III and a very long PLF?

Offline brickmack

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Does anyone have a guess what is the cost difference between a Centaur V and a short PLF vs. a Centaur III and a very long PLF?

Should be pretty big, in Centaur V's favor. The cost difference between the 4 and 5 meter fairings on Atlas V (and Vulcan uses the same 5 meter fairing) is about 15 million dollars, implying the total cost is probably upwards of 20 million. Centaur III takes up about half that, so Vulcan-Centaur V's fairing should be about half the cost for equivalent payload volume. On the upper stage itself, ULA claimed that ACES (despite being much larger) would be a bit cheaper than Centaur III (cheaper engines, aft-mounted avionics, more automated welding, thicker tank walls, inverted common bulkhead, central sump, multiple systems combined into IVF and elimination of explosive/toxic materials as a result, etc), though they never quantified that. Centaur V has nearly all of those cost reductions (other than IVF), so the same is probably true.

Offline J-V

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Does anyone have a guess what is the cost difference between a Centaur V and a short PLF vs. a Centaur III and a very long PLF?

Should be pretty big, in Centaur V's favor. The cost difference between the 4 and 5 meter fairings on Atlas V (and Vulcan uses the same 5 meter fairing) is about 15 million dollars, implying the total cost is probably upwards of 20 million. Centaur III takes up about half that, so Vulcan-Centaur V's fairing should be about half the cost for equivalent payload volume. On the upper stage itself, ULA claimed that ACES (despite being much larger) would be a bit cheaper than Centaur III (cheaper engines, aft-mounted avionics, more automated welding, thicker tank walls, inverted common bulkhead, central sump, multiple systems combined into IVF and elimination of explosive/toxic materials as a result, etc), though they never quantified that. Centaur V has nearly all of those cost reductions (other than IVF), so the same is probably true.

Thank you for the numbers! I had the impression that the current design would be competitive with the Centaur III design, but that looks quite significant. Plus they get the extra performance.

Offline vapour_nudge

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Wall Street Journal today is claiming that ULA has selected the BE-4
Nothing on the ULA site yet and I can’t be bothered checking twitter.
So I guess that decision didn’t blindside anyone


Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Story has been picked up by Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blue-origin-ula/jeff-bezoss-space-startup-to-supply-engines-for-ulas-vulcan-rocket-wall-street-journal-idUSKCN1M70UM?il=0

Jeff Bezos's space startup to supply engines for ULA's Vulcan rocket: Wall Street Journal

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos’s space startup Blue Origin LLC has won a contract to supply engines for United Launch Alliance LLC (ULA), the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

ULA, the rocket joint venture of Boeing Co (BA.N) and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), is set to announce on Thursday that it has picked Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine for its Vulcan rocket, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter

United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin were not immediately available for comment outside regular business hours.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline TripleSeven

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this is an amazing achievement for Blue...and explains where they have been going for a bit.

Offline Markstark

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Awesome news. Looks like we have initial reports from Reuters, WSJ and Fox Business.

Has this happened before? A situation where a company will be so reliant on its competitor. One example I can think of is Apple using some Samsung imaging components. Has Car Company A ever had to buy engines from Car Company B?

This has probably already been discussed in the forum a lot. If there’s a specific post for it, let me know. 

Offline Davidthefat

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Is the WSJ story an actual independent report, or just them picking up on Eric's reporting?

Has Car Company A ever had to buy engines from Car Company B?

A lot of times. Smaller boutique car manufacturers like Lotus use bigger OEM's engines in their cars. There's also cars that are "collaborations" like Mazda MX5/Fiat 124, Toyota Supra/BMW Z4, Toyota 86/Scion FRS/Subaru BRZ, Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe, ect.

There's also rebadging, I know Chevy rebadged Daewoo and Holden cars in the states. But I think auto is a more complicated industry as these manufacturers tend to have stake in each other like Toyota having a share of Subaru, but not owning it, ect.

« Last Edit: 09/27/2018 01:28 pm by Davidthefat »

Offline Markstark

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Is the WSJ story an actual independent report, or just them picking up on Eric's reporting?

Has Car Company A ever had to buy engines from Car Company B?

A lot of times. Smaller boutique car manufacturers like Lotus use bigger OEM's engines in their cars. There's also cars that are "collaborations" like Mazda MX5/Fiat 124, Toyota Supra/BMW Z4, Toyota 86/Scion FRS/Subaru BRZ, Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe, ect.

There's also rebadging, I know Chevy rebadged Daewoo and Holden cars in the states. But I think auto is a more complicated industry as these manufacturers tend to have stake in each other like Toyota having a share of Subaru, but not owning it, ect.

You’re right. There plenty of examples in the automobile industry. Thinking about it a bit, I don’t think analogies with the automobile industry work well in this situation. The market is so big that you can have tens or hundreds of successful car companies. The launch market not so much.

 

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