JAXA reusable rocket proposals (Starship-like LV) for 2030-2040

[Pipcard]

@MeYkikka tweeted about this JAXA document published on March 3 of this year.

From my understanding (and some Google Translate), there are three "reference systems" proposed:

- A (2030 demonstration): A partially reusable (Falcon 9/Heavy-style) launch vehicle, planning to transition from hydrolox to methalox first stage

- B (2035 demonstration): Two-stage air-breathing (scramjet?) aircraft + expendable rocket, and a crewed version later on

- C (2040 demonstration): Starship-style fully-reusable launch vehicle with crewed version (including P2P capability)

[Eric Hedman]

This looks truly ambitious.  Anyone not seriously looking at reusability will get knocked out of the game eventually. 

[Redclaws]

This looks truly ambitious.  Anyone not seriously looking at reusability will get knocked out of the game eventually.

I mean, it sort of is for a national space agency, but only in that sense.  The private firms looking at reusability are way, way out ahead.  In case we've missed it, it's 2021, F9 is flying, and Electron has a good shot to be reused this year.

It feels increasingly like commercial space launch has really found its feat and government agencies will no longer really be able to compete.  They may keep launching things, but not competitively.

[dror]

Thanks!

Looks like that starship has a cargo and a crew configurations. That could imply having a launch abort system on the crew version.

It seems they also plan a reusable orbital transfer vehicle as part of their reusability model. So a different form of refuelling.

Why would the spaceship land on a boat instead of on a ground pad? Is it not orbital?

[Pipcard]

Why would the spaceship land on a boat instead of on a ground pad? Is it not orbital?

Starship P2P concept also featured launching from and landing on water-based platforms.

[punder]

So, assuming they stay on schedule,

A Falcon 9 analog 15 years after the first F9 landing.

A Starship analog 15 years or more after Starship operations begin.

A scramjet... oh who do they think they’re kidding. Operational scramjets are the commercial fusion of aerospace, always a decade or two away. I had a NASA poster of one on my bedroom wall in 1973.

[su27k]

Just based on Google translation, it seems this is a presentation about the discussions they're having about their future plans. It's not a firm plan and the systems presented are some examples, they don't intend to build all of them (or any of them at this point).

[soyuzu]

Full presentation from MEXT

Besides, according to the text the “air-breathing” engine is rocket based, maybe similar to SABRE.

[soyuzu]

I think MEXT is clearly aware of the time problem many discussed. The example scenario of the presentation suggests accelerate the research of reusable second stage in parallel with first stage to ensure system C achieved maturity before 2040, while delay the test flight of air-breathing system to at least mid-2040s.

Besides, it shows payload figures of the F9-like design:

Single stick, reusable  4.2t GTO  15t LEO

CBC, reusable   8.1t GTO  26t LEO

CBC, expendable   16 TLI  21t LEO  54t LEO

Seems to be a bit better than Ariane 7

[jstrotha0975]

IMHO Jaxa needs to go big or go home. A Starship style LV by 2035.

[Kryten]

 In the last ten years, JAXA have performed at maximum seven launches a year. In 2019 they performed two launches. I just thought these facts should be presented, before JAXA are used as a general synonym for how far behind 'government launch programs' are, or how quickly they need to produce a gigantic fully reusable launcher; it's a miracle they've been able to keep funding reuse efforts at all in the past few decades.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Good points Kryten. Also Japan only spends 0.15% of its budget on JAXA while NASA gets 0.5%, so its not a very high priority.

[edzieba]

Good points Kryten. Also Japan only spends 0.15% of its budget on JAXA while NASA gets 0.5%, so its not a very high priority.

Though growing in priority: budget is up by nearly a quarter over last year.

[Starforces]

Quite frankly - imagine if Microsoft, in response to Apple releasing the iPod in 2001, released the first Zune... ...this year. 2021.

You do not release an inferior product 20 years after the competition. You want to launch a rocket in 2040, it better be competitive with what SpaceX is building in 2040. But of course it won't be. It'll be worse than what they're building now.

Get serious or get out of the launch business. It doesn't matter how big you are - Microsoft is the second-largest public company in the world, and they are now out of the mobile phone and music player business because unlimited funding is not an excuse for stupidity.

[Pipcard]

Quite frankly - imagine if Microsoft, in response to Apple releasing the iPod in 2001, released the first Zune... ...this year. 2021.

You do not release an inferior product 20 years after the competition. You want to launch a rocket in 2040, it better be competitive with what SpaceX is building in 2040. But of course it won't be. It'll be worse than what they're building now.

Get serious or get out of the launch business. It doesn't matter how big you are - Microsoft is the second-largest public company in the world, and they are now out of the mobile phone and music player business because unlimited funding is not an excuse for stupidity.

In the 1990s, there was a proposal for mass space tourism in the 2010s in the form of the Kankoh-maru hydrolox SSTO by the Japan Rocket Society (imagine if that was part of a TSTO instead).



And there was a space hotel and lunar base envisioned by the Shimizu Corporation. The space hotel was planned to be completed by 2020. It's not like the ambition didn't exist.

^{(and here is a parallel universe where all of that happened)}

But there was an economic stagnation called the "Lost Decade(s)" that still lasts to this day. The HOPE mini-shuttle and Fuji crew capsule were cancelled because of that, let alone a massive spacecraft for 50 tourists.

[Asteroza]

There's a bit of a running joke in japan government circles, after the politician Renho at a budgeting meeting said "Is it bad to be second?", and this smells a lot like that.

JAXA and friends have played around with deep cooled air breathing systems similar to SABRE, and they haven't dropped that yet. With the cooperative work they are doing with ESA regarding Callisto/Themis (and in theory the RVT follow-on) they aren't completely out of the VTVL business quite yet either.

As far as why they are specifically looking at ship landings for the common booster core, aside from SpaceX demonstrating it, and a fierce NIMBY component that would fight against landing rights, there's the practical consideration that landing stages downrange increase payload upmass, as you need less of a deceleration burn, compared to flying back near shore or to a shore landing pad (though at the cost of system cycle time while you wait for the stages to come back).

[Pipcard]

As far as why they are specifically looking at ship landings for the common booster core, aside from SpaceX demonstrating it, and a fierce NIMBY component that would fight against landing rights, there's the practical consideration that landing stages downrange increase payload upmass, as you need less of a deceleration burn, compared to flying back near shore or to a shore landing pad (though at the cost of system cycle time while you wait for the stages to come back).

In fact, downrange floating platforms and vertical landing boosters were thought of in Japan since 1996.

[Vahe231991]

As far as why they are specifically looking at ship landings for the common booster core, aside from SpaceX demonstrating it, and a fierce NIMBY component that would fight against landing rights, there's the practical consideration that landing stages downrange increase payload upmass, as you need less of a deceleration burn, compared to flying back near shore or to a shore landing pad (though at the cost of system cycle time while you wait for the stages to come back).

In fact, downrange floating platforms and vertical landing boosters were thought of in Japan since 1996.

When the proposed scheme whereby the H-IIA's boosters could land vertically was envisaged in 1996, what technical mechanism was conceived to allow for the H-IIA boosters to land vertically on a floating platform?