I was reading a ULA document from 2010, I wasn't aware of the design life of the engine. I knew they'd looked at re-usability, but I didn't know it was designed for 10 uses.From the document: "The booster engine on the Atlas V, the RD-180, has several other features that enable practical reuse. It is a compact object fabricated with robust structures, as seen in Figure 1, yet it is not excessively heavy. Most importantly, it is an evolved version of the RD-170 engine designed for 10 operational uses. This last fact provides the foundation for economical reuse."Anway, I thought I'd throw it out there that if they had have successfully pursued this and had it now been operational, then the current crisis would have been much less of a problem - even if they could re-use the existing engines just one more time.http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/EELVPartialReusable2010.pdfMaybe worth a re-look? ("too late", she cried)
With the ban on the rd 180 seeming to become apparent would the F1 be the only man rated engine available without a massive investment in a brand new engine for Atlas 6 seeing as a rapid replacement is needed ?
Yup but a 2 or 3 billion to build a new factory to build something that has already been built is far easier than starting a whole new high technology lab plus factory that costs about 10 billion .US Congress might decide that having their precious voters at risk to a foreign despot might not be sensible.
Quote from: floss on 06/01/2014 05:40 pmYup but a 2 or 3 billion to build a new factory to build something that has already been built is far easier than starting a whole new high technology lab plus factory that costs about 10 billion .US Congress might decide that having their precious voters at risk to a foreign despot might not be sensible. OK, lets assume that there is an F-1B. What happens when one is stuck onto an Atlas 5 in place of an RD-180? First , the big F-1B engine adds 3 tonnes of dry mass to the first stage, a nearly 14% increase. Second, since F-1B produces twice as much thrust as RD-180, it will tear the Atlas 5 apart unless it can be massively throttled - something that F-1 did not do for Saturn. At its fixed full thrust it will produce more than 15 g acceleration near the end of the first stage burn.Finally, since F-1B is a less efficient gas generator cycle engine, Atlas 5 payload to GTO will be cut by one-third. This assumes that the LOX and RP tanks can be resized to account for the different LOX to RP ratio of the engine. The billions spent to create this engine would result in a rocket unable to even match Atlas 3A performance. - Ed Kyle
Thanks but I was talking about LEO not GEO a manned launcher to carry astronauts is what I was talking about.
So it would be an ok starter rocket but would cost way too much to construct a cheaper knockoff of the rd 180 is needed preferably with a bit more thrust . I wonder what the next us manned rocket will look like ?
Quote from: floss on 06/01/2014 10:39 pmSo it would be an ok starter rocket but would cost way too much to construct a cheaper knockoff of the rd 180 is needed preferably with a bit more thrust . I wonder what the next us manned rocket will look like ?I think that it is already flying (including the RD-180 Atlas 5 possibility).That aside, there would be a much better, though still imperfect, solution for Atlas 5 than F-1. Six Merlin 1D engines on a CCB carrying the same propellant mass as the current first stage would create a rocket that lost only 12.8% of its LEO performance and 14.2% of its GTO performance. - Ed Kyle
Is the AJ-1E6 project to green as a replacement? The propulsion module is quite self-contained in the Atlas V and Antares.