New Glenn 9x4 discussion

[321]

I'd subtract one, and make the second two tasks concurrent.

So:
- Booster reuse, increase performance: next two years
- 9x4: Will first launch NET 2 years from now
- Reusable US: on 9x4, First launch NET 4 years
- Starship class vehicle: First launch' NET 8

The third step is a maybe - they can choose to make that part of nextGen.

So what is your definition of a 'starship class vehicle?

Are you labeling by theoretical lift capacity to LEO (or TLI or GEO), or by current lift capacity?

Or are you binning launchers by faring volume?

As I have said before at some point BO is going to have to lift something heavy. My guess is the first round will be the MK1 lander. It has a published wet mass of 47,000# (23.5T), about 1/2 the designed lift. IIRC, NG will put the MK1 in a 350km LEO, then the lander takes it from there. But it will finally be a reasonable lift short of faring full of kuiper sats.

Short answer?  Broadly and inaccurately, I'd say "Starship Class" is around 100 tons, rapidly and fully reusable, give or take.

Long answer?  It's not about a single mission or a single number.

I said before: Designing a vehicle to meet the requirements of a mission (such as Artemis) is misguided.  Starship is designed to satisfy a campaign.  So it's not just "how much you can lift" but also:
- How often will you launch per tower (per day?)
- How many towers
- Production capacity of hardware (per month?)
- Operating mode (Towers/pads? Landing towers? Refueling? Assembly? Integrated US/vehicle or separate?)

So "Starship class" doesn't mean there's a hard number that you should hit.

You can in principle support a campaign with a completely different type of ship (Aluminum Alloy or composite, Stoke-type upper stage, separate ship, etc.)

Go ahead and factor fairing volume into it, to the extent it makes a difference.

NG, 7x2 or 9x4, is far from Starship Class, if that's where you're driving.  9x4 will exceed FH's payload by a bit, but that's about it.

It is expendable, cannot support high flight rates, etc.  Fly it with a theoretical reusable upper stage and RTLS booster, and see what the payload is.

Hence my earlier statement that BO will need a nextGen vehicle, and IMO the sooner the better.

Assuming BO planning to have 2 vehicles in its fleet, NG and NA, then they should not compete:
 - If NA will be next gen vehicle of starship class >100t fully reusable.
 - Then practical evolution for NG would be stay in 50t class, means with 7 engine GS1 and working hard on increasing engine trust as much as possible 50% or more, and swich to methane GS2 that is cheaper and could become reusable in future.

Just a thought...



 

[meekGee]

Assuming BO planning to have 2 vehicles in its fleet, NG and NA, then they should not compete:
 - If NA will be next gen vehicle of starship class >100t fully reusable.
 - Then practical evolution for NG would be stay in 50t class, means with 7 engine GS1 and working hard on increasing engine trust as much as possible 50% or more, and swich to methane GS2 that is cheaper and could become reusable in future.

Just a thought...

The big deal about NA would not be the tonnage.  It would be the ability to be fully reusable, rapidly, and support >1 launch/day/tower.

Even if it only flew 50 tons in that mode, it would be a class above NG.

[sstli2]

This is the New Armstrong thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51364.200

Feel free to speculate about it all you want there. But I wouldn't get your hopes up. I think the strategy is becoming a little clearer now - they're looking to make an incremental step-up in capability so that they can serve the same real customer segments (super heavy-lift, lunar) that Starship and SLS will. Capability always matters first - cost, cadence, and other considerations come after. And so having a super-heavy lift offering is better than having none.

The obvious subsequent move to make is to expand the diameter of the 9x4 to 9m or greater, develop a higher-performance engine, and slap on a bunch more of them, to build a vehicle that could be fully and rapidly reused, and deliver greater than 50 tons to orbit while doing so. That step - call it New Armstrong or any other name - would represent a significant evolution from what New Glenn is today, and isn't likely to happen anytime soon as a result. Come back when 9x4 is flying.

And while I'm sure meekGee would love for them to skip the intermediate step and go straight to the latter, doing so incrementally is a good risk management move. It allows them to test out new processes like sub-cooling and vertical integration, scale their manufacturing operations, scale their launch operations, and continue R&D and trade studies on the pre-requisite technologies (high-thrust and/or FFSC engines, thermal protection systems, etc.). It also allows them to see how the Starship experiment fares in practice and learn from it, without having to repeat the same costly learnings.

[TrevorMonty]

There is practical size liimit for downrange recovery and I think NG9x4 is at limit. The issue is removing booster from barge and transporting it back to launch facilities. Soon as LV is designed to go horizontal there is increase in drymas to support extra loads from transport.

Payload hit from RTLS means NA would need to be significantly larger than NG9x4 to justify it. That is part or reason why SS is so large.
Blue goal is moon  not to colonize Mars so no need to send large fleet every 2 years.

[DanClemmensen]

There is practical size liimit for downrange recovery and I think NG9x4 is at limit. The issue is removing booster from barge and transporting it back to launch facilities. Soon as LV is designed to go horizontal there is increase in drymas to support extra loads from transport.

How severe is this penalty? Breakover and horizontal transport are relatively benign since they are done on land in controlled conditions with empty (possibly pressurized) tanks. The booster must already be designed to support the full load of its second stage while accelerating through Max-Q. Max-Q loads are mostly axial but include dynamic lateral buffeting loads that are probably nastier than breakover and horizontal transport.

[sstli2]

There is practical size liimit for downrange recovery and I think NG9x4 is at limit. The issue is removing booster from barge and transporting it back to launch facilities. Soon as LV is designed to go horizontal there is increase in drymas to support extra loads from transport.

How severe is this penalty? Breakover and horizontal transport are relatively benign since they are done on land in controlled conditions with empty (possibly pressurized) tanks. The booster must already be designed to support the full load of its second stage while accelerating through Max-Q. Max-Q loads are mostly axial but include dynamic lateral buffeting loads that are probably nastier than breakover and horizontal transport.

It's worth noting two things here:

- Starship Superheavy is going to be transported horizontally.
- You can do upper stage reusability without simultaneously limiting yourself to RTLS.

[DanClemmensen]

There is practical size liimit for downrange recovery and I think NG9x4 is at limit. The issue is removing booster from barge and transporting it back to launch facilities. Soon as LV is designed to go horizontal there is increase in drymas to support extra loads from transport.

How severe is this penalty? Breakover and horizontal transport are relatively benign since they are done on land in controlled conditions with empty (possibly pressurized) tanks. The booster must already be designed to support the full load of its second stage while accelerating through Max-Q. Max-Q loads are mostly axial but include dynamic lateral buffeting loads that are probably nastier than breakover and horizontal transport.

- Starship Superheavy is going to be transported horizontally.

Sure. And basically all smaller boosters are/were transported horizontally, including the early Atlasses that were basically stainless steel balloons. I just don't see a penalty, which is why I asked.

[TrevorMonty]

If you watch recovery of NG booster from barge it is craned to dock onto cradle that supports/pivots base while top is lowered horizontally to transporter.
All bending forces from move are carried by booster not a cradle.

[DanClemmensen]

If you watch recovery of NG booster from barge it is craned to dock onto cradle that supports/pivots base while top is lowered horizontally to transporter.
All bending forces from move are carried by booster not a cradle.

Indeed. But by contrast to the brute-force use of two cranes, BO uses a breakover fixture that causes the pivot point to be more or less at the CoM. I think this reduces the max bending forces during the breakover. Just looking at it, I would guess there are larger bending forces during the actual horizontal transport. I'm not a structural engineer with access to the NG design so I do not actually know whether or not they added any structure specifically to handle transport forces, but it's at least possible that they just designed for Max-Q and then performed analyses that showed that the booster would also handle boost-back, landing, vertical ocean transport, breakover, and horizontal transport.

[TrevorMonty]

If you watch recovery of NG booster from barge it is craned to dock onto cradle that supports/pivots base while top is lowered horizontally to transporter.
All bending forces from move are carried by booster not a cradle.

Indeed. But by contrast to the brute-force use of two cranes, BO uses a breakover fixture that causes the pivot point to be more or less at the CoM. I think this reduces the max bending forces during the breakover. Just looking at it, I would guess there are larger bending forces during the actual horizontal transport. I'm not a structural engineer with access to the NG design so I do not actually know whether or not they added any structure specifically to handle transport forces, but it's at least possible that they just designed for Max-Q and then performed analyses that showed that the booster would also handle boost-back, landing, vertical ocean transport, breakover, and horizontal transport.

Aero dynamic forces maybe far greater in which there is no dry mass penalty.

Still logics of moving larger boosters from barge back to pad does become issue. Blue my prove me wrong and build NA with barge recovery.

[sstli2]

If you watch recovery of NG booster from barge it is craned to dock onto cradle that supports/pivots base while top is lowered horizontally to transporter.
All bending forces from move are carried by booster not a cradle.

Indeed. But by contrast to the brute-force use of two cranes, BO uses a breakover fixture that causes the pivot point to be more or less at the CoM. I think this reduces the max bending forces during the breakover. Just looking at it, I would guess there are larger bending forces during the actual horizontal transport. I'm not a structural engineer with access to the NG design so I do not actually know whether or not they added any structure specifically to handle transport forces, but it's at least possible that they just designed for Max-Q and then performed analyses that showed that the booster would also handle boost-back, landing, vertical ocean transport, breakover, and horizontal transport.

Aero dynamic forces maybe far greater in which there is no dry mass penalty.

Still logics of moving larger boosters from barge back to pad does become issue. Blue my prove me wrong and build NA with barge recovery.

I agree with your previous point about Blue not necessarily prioritizing rapid reusability. In this case, the severe payload penalty for RTLS - which requires an even larger vehicle and even more powerful engines to overcome - may be deemed a poor trade, with drone ship landing continuing to be the preferred recovery method. In fact, absent any other information, and acknowledging that we continue to have this discussion about a vehicle that does not exist, this would be my base case.

[spacenut]

So where does this leave New Armstrong?

Optimize 7x2 and BE-4 engines: About 1 - 3 years.

Design and build 9x4: maybe 3 - 7 years.

Design and build reuseable NG second stage: 7 - 12 years.

Armstrong: 12 - 18 years out.   

And that is not taking into account all their other projects.

Don't hold me to this, but I think its reasonable timing.   

PS:- About the only reason I can think of building a 200 tonne payload capable LV at this point is to be able to transport masses of propellant up to fuel depots in LEO. And it would have to be completely reuseable.

spaceX
falcon 9
officialy unveiled okt 2005
first flight june 2010
first operational flight dec 2010 (flight 3)
first successfull booster landing block 3 B1019 dec 2015 (flight 20) (B1019 never flew again, as the historic rocket it was)
first flight block 5 B1021 apr 2016 (flight 24)
8 month refurbishment B1021
first successfull reuse block 5 B1021 march 2017 (flight 39)
first crewed testflight may 2020 (flight 85)
first crewed operational flight nov 2020 (flight 100)

falcon heavy
official unveiled april 2011
first (test) flight/successfull booster landing feb 2018
first operational flight apr, 2019 (flight 2)

starship
official unveiled sept 2019
first test flight april, 2023
first successfull booster landing test flight, oct 2024 (flight 5)

blue origin
new shepard
first sub-scale test vehicle, goddard, nov 2006
first uncrewed scaled testflight april 2015 (flight 1)
first uncrewed operational flight april 2015 (flight 2)
first successfull booster landing nov 2015 (flight 3)
first operational crewed flight july 2020 (flight 16)

new glenn 7*2
officially unveiled sept 2016
first flight jan 2025 (flight 1)
first operational flight/succesfull booster landing nov 2025 (flight 2)

new glenn 9*4
officially unveiled nov 2025
 

So it seems Blue takes around 10 years to develop a vehicle, while SpaceX takes around 5 years.  Give or take a year or two.  Blue is much slower, but had come up with some good vehicles. 

[JEF_300]

So it seems Blue takes around 10 years to develop a vehicle, while SpaceX takes around 5 years.  Give or take a year or two.  Blue is much slower, but had come up with some good vehicles.

Depends where you put the finish line.
If you put it at first commercial flight, yeah.
If you put it at successfully reflying a stage, they'd both be around 10 years.

Which makes more sense is mostly context dependent.

[LouScheffer]

Sure. And basically all smaller boosters are/were transported horizontally, including the early Atlasses that were basically stainless steel balloons. I just don't see a penalty, which is why I asked.

The boosters, as they exist, are capable of quite high side loads *when pressurized for flight*.  See the payload load envelope for New Glenn below.  So by pressurizing them for horizontal transport, you can get away with no dry mass penalty, at the cost of operational complexity, possibility of error, and safety concerns (SpaceX has recently demonstrated what a pressurized tank can do...).  It's a tradeoff.  Note that two non-flying Atlas rockets at museums were lost when pressurization failed, as did several Atlas rockets on the pad.  It's not an entirely academic risk.

[DanClemmensen]

Sure. And basically all smaller boosters are/were transported horizontally, including the early Atlasses that were basically stainless steel balloons. I just don't see a penalty, which is why I asked.

The boosters, as they exist, are capable of quite high side loads *when pressurized for flight*.  See the payload load envelope for New Glenn below.  So by pressurizing them for horizontal transport, you can get away with no dry mass penalty, at the cost of operational complexity, possibility of error, and safety concerns (SpaceX has recently demonstrated what a pressurized tank can do...).  It's a tradeoff.  Note that two non-flying Atlas rockets at museums were lost when pressurization failed, as did several Atlas rockets on the pad.  It's not an entirely academic risk.

The cost, including all the process, procedures, and QA, of maintaining pressurization will be a very small percentage of the total cost of recovering and refurbishing a booster, which includes maintaining and operating the recovery fleet. BO will decide whether or not the cost of maintaining pressurization is justified by whatever the payload mass gain is. Maintaining pressure during transport (at most a few days) is a different problem than maintaining pressure for weeks or months for booster storage. The Atlas steel balloons were an extreme example.

Do we know if F9, Atlas V, and Vulcan are pressurized for transport?

[LouScheffer]

Do we know if F9, Atlas V, and Vulcan are pressurized for transport?

F9 is, according to this in-person report.

[Robotbeat]

So where does this leave New Armstrong?

Optimize 7x2 and BE-4 engines: About 1 - 3 years.

Design and build 9x4: maybe 3 - 7 years.

Design and build reuseable NG second stage: 7 - 12 years.

Armstrong: 12 - 18 years out.   

And that is not taking into account all their other projects.

Don't hold me to this, but I think its reasonable timing.   

PS:- About the only reason I can think of building a 200 tonne payload capable LV at this point is to be able to transport masses of propellant up to fuel depots in LEO. And it would have to be completely reuseable.

I suspect their target is nearer term than that, but that’s pretty realistic overall

[Chris Huys]

So it seems Blue takes around 10 years to develop a vehicle, while SpaceX takes around 5 years.  Give or take a year or two.  Blue is much slower, but had come up with some good vehicles.

Depends where you put the finish line.
If you put it at first commercial flight, yeah.
If you put it at successfully reflying a stage, they'd both be around 10 years.

Which makes more sense is mostly context dependent.

Forgot spaceX falcon 1 development.

SpaceX
Falcon1
officially unveiled dec 2005

first testflight march 2006, failed on ascent
second testflight may 2007, failed also
third testflight aug 2008, failed also
fourth testflight sept 2008, successfull reached orbit
first commercial flight, razaksat satellite, july 2009 , successfull (flight 5 en final flight)
   
So if you take those flights in to account, then falcon 9 only took around 6 years to successfull recover first stage booster.

Or if you collapse development of, falcon 1 for spaceX, and new shepard for blue origin.
Then spaceX reached reuse of booster in 10 years, were it took blue origin 20 years.

[JEF_300]

So it seems Blue takes around 10 years to develop a vehicle, while SpaceX takes around 5 years.  Give or take a year or two.  Blue is much slower, but had come up with some good vehicles.

Depends where you put the finish line.
If you put it at first commercial flight, yeah.
If you put it at successfully reflying a stage, they'd both be around 10 years.

Which makes more sense is mostly context dependent.

Forgot spaceX falcon 1 development.

SpaceX
Falcon1
officially unveiled dec 2005

first testflight march 2006, failed on ascent
second testflight may 2007, failed also
third testflight aug 2008, failed also
fourth testflight sept 2008, successfull reached orbit
first commercial flight, razaksat satellite, july 2009 , successfull (flight 5 en final flight)
   
So if you take those flights in to account, then falcon 9 only took around 6 years to successfull recover first stage booster.

Or if you collapse development of, falcon 1 for spaceX, and new shepard for blue origin.
Then spaceX reached reuse of booster in 10 years, were it took blue origin 20 years.

SpaceX recovered a booster after 6 years, but they didn't refly a booster until another 2 years after that. So (presuming Blue reflies next year; we'll see), we'd be talking 8 years for SpaceX and 10 years for Blue, and I felt comfortable calling that, "both around 10 years".

Edit: Though, double checking it, it was actually more like a year a four months, which puts it outside the range where I feel comfortable conflating them. So SpaceX ~7 years, Blue ~10 years.

[TrevorMonty]

SpaceX recovered a booster after 6 years, but they didn't refly a booster until another 2 years after that. So (presuming Blue reflies next year; we'll see), we'd be talking 8 years for SpaceX and 10 years for Blue, and I felt comfortable calling that, "both around 10 years".

Edit: Though, double checking it, it was actually more like a year a four months, which puts it outside the range where I feel comfortable conflating them. So SpaceX ~7 years, Blue ~10 years.

Took while for SpaceX to improve heat sheilding so booster could be reflown plus customer were reluctant to use recovered booster.

Blue has been reflying boosters for few years now which is why recovered NG was in far better shape than first recovered F9. Customers are lot more acceptable of reuseable boosters now thanks to F9R.