I've noticed that the article did mentioned the 230 and 330 cores. I understand that the 230 are the old cores, retrofitted with an under throttled RD-181. And the 330 are the full thrust cores.
[...]Nice to see they are mounting actual flight hardware with that pic. Seems like an aggressive posture for RTF that they need about now. The only way they could have ever done this so fast was by merchant supply of a LRE, and the Russians have a lock on the market for ones of that scale right now. It is unclear to me if that is going to change any time soon, even with the dread pirate Bezos involved
Nope, no appropriate Lego.The 30XL does what the prior Antares needed, and the next Antares to fly won't be able to better it.Further down the road with the 300 series, you could stretch to an "XXL" of some sort, but it would be likely that the trades won't buy all that much, the limitation being the iSP of such stages. Which is unfortunate as the ATK side of OrbATK could use such a project about now.
[...]RD-181 is de-rated on 2xx. They can turn the engines up to 11 on the 3xx because they'll add more mass to S1.I was just wondering what performance you'd get if you retained the 200 S1, but assigned the extra GTOW to an additional solid stage. Yes, it has a lower Isp, but it also stages a lot of mass away. [...]
@baldusiMaybe OrbATK can take a page from SpaceX. Offer Boeing a test flight of the Atlas V 402 lifting a 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. In exchange for a reduced price Atlas V 402 launcher.
Cygnus would need to be man rated especially when it is berthed with ISS.
Note that:e) OA has been attempting to "sell" exploration capabilities/missions based exactly on those Thales Alena human rated requirements supposedly to be abandoned.
But I remember that Thales Alenia had stated that they had used too much human rated requirements on the PCM that could be done away with (which would save mass and cost) if they had a big order. So I would expect a new PCM for CRS-2 anyways. How different? I don't know, but I couldn't discard a four segment.
But with a little advance planning and a sizable order, Quaglino said, a CRS 2 batch could do without some of the cabling and other components that were required for units that would spend years attached to the space station.
Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 08/18/2015 08:13 pmNote that:e) OA has been attempting to "sell" exploration capabilities/missions based exactly on those Thales Alena human rated requirements supposedly to be abandoned.Again, to what does this refer please? Has there been a report of someone abandoning human rating requirements?
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 am@baldusiMaybe OrbATK can take a page from SpaceX. Offer Boeing a test flight of the Atlas V 402 lifting a 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. In exchange for a reduced price Atlas V 402 launcher.Boeing will validate the Atlas V 422 with the unmanned demonstration flight. And an Atlas V discount would have to be given by LM launch services. So it just doesn't makes much sense. It is true, though, that a 4 segment Cygnus would need a 5m fairing in the Atlas V, which will be a bit more expensive (I'd guess 15M to 20M extra for a 511 vs a 401). But the payload differential would probably more than make up for it....There's no point in validating the 4 segment Cygnus. They are very good at spacecrafts. But I remember that Thales Alenia had stated that they had used too much human rated requirements on the PCM that could be done away with (which would save mass and cost) if they had a big order. So I would expect a new PCM for CRS-2 anyways. How different? I don't know, but I couldn't discard a four segment.
Quote from: baldusi on 08/18/2015 06:20 pmQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 am@baldusiMaybe OrbATK can take a page from SpaceX. Offer Boeing a test flight of the Atlas V 402 lifting a 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. In exchange for a reduced price Atlas V 402 launcher.Boeing will validate the Atlas V 422 with the unmanned demonstration flight. And an Atlas V discount would have to be given by LM launch services. So it just doesn't makes much sense. It is true, though, that a 4 segment Cygnus would need a 5m fairing in the Atlas V, which will be a bit more expensive (I'd guess 15M to 20M extra for a 511 vs a 401). But the payload differential would probably more than make up for it....There's no point in validating the 4 segment Cygnus. They are very good at spacecrafts. But I remember that Thales Alenia had stated that they had used too much human rated requirements on the PCM that could be done away with (which would save mass and cost) if they had a big order. So I would expect a new PCM for CRS-2 anyways. How different? I don't know, but I couldn't discard a four segment.There seems to be a misunderstanding. My point is that you sent up a dual engine Centaur with the 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. As precursor to the Atlas V 422 flight with the much more expensive CST-100. To validate the new unflown dual engine Centaur design, not the Thales Alenia PCM. Which I agree with you, needs no new validation. Maybe we will get a full size CBM hatch on top of the 4 segment PCM.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 08/19/2015 06:57 amQuote from: baldusi on 08/18/2015 06:20 pmQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 amThere seems to be a misunderstanding. My point is that you sent up a dual engine Centaur with the 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. As precursor to the Atlas V 422 flight with the much more expensive CST-100. To validate the new unflown dual engine Centaur design, not the Thales Alenia PCM. Which I agree with you, needs no new validation. Maybe we will get a full size CBM hatch on top of the 4 segment PCM.DEC has flown on select misisons of Atlas III anf V Families. They build one DEC every year to facilitate training on DEC config and buildup. DEC is then disassembled and rebuilt back to the standard SEC config. First DEC assembly with RL10C-1 is planned for validation and other testing this and next year
Quote from: baldusi on 08/18/2015 06:20 pmQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 amThere seems to be a misunderstanding. My point is that you sent up a dual engine Centaur with the 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. As precursor to the Atlas V 422 flight with the much more expensive CST-100. To validate the new unflown dual engine Centaur design, not the Thales Alenia PCM. Which I agree with you, needs no new validation. Maybe we will get a full size CBM hatch on top of the 4 segment PCM.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 am
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 08/20/2015 12:18 amQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/19/2015 06:57 amQuote from: baldusi on 08/18/2015 06:20 pmQuote from: Zed_Noir on 08/18/2015 05:39 amThere seems to be a misunderstanding. My point is that you sent up a dual engine Centaur with the 4 segment Cygnus to the ISS. As precursor to the Atlas V 422 flight with the much more expensive CST-100. To validate the new unflown dual engine Centaur design, not the Thales Alenia PCM. Which I agree with you, needs no new validation. Maybe we will get a full size CBM hatch on top of the 4 segment PCM.DEC has flown on select misisons of Atlas III anf V Families. They build one DEC every year to facilitate training on DEC config and buildup. DEC is then disassembled and rebuilt back to the standard SEC config. First DEC assembly with RL10C-1 is planned for validation and other testing this and next yearAFAIK the DEC have not flown on any Atlas V mission so far. There are hardware changes between the Atlas II/Atlas III and the Atlas V versions of the DEC AIUI. So the forthcoming DEC design with the RL-10C have no flight history.
Orbital desired a hydrolox second stage, much like Atlas/Vulcan does, for the same reasons. Look to the sources of these, and the cost of such stage development/deployment being recovered by current manifest flyout as the limitation for uprating to a LRE higher iSP second stage. Somehow, acquiring by similar means LRE second stage as they did/do first stage, might be quick but add additional liabilities they might not want at the moment.