Author Topic: Antares General Discussion Thread  (Read 363251 times)

Offline arachnitect

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #440 on: 12/18/2014 09:06 pm »
Isn't Antares-130 T/W close to 1.1. Just putting a bit more thrust will help things significantly.
Just increasing the thrust to weight ratio to reduce gravity losses might boost LEO payload by 100 or 150 kg, but increasing the first stage propellant load could increase LEO payload by 500 kg, or, if the extra propellant mass were divided between the two stages, perhaps 700 kg more, or between three stages (assuming a small hydrazine maneuvering third stage) up to 1,500 kg more.

 - Ed Kyle

Well 500kg is roughly the increase Orbital is promising for future Antares CRS flights. So more propellant or a third stage? The possibility of future CRS missions using a third stage was brought up at one point. I'd still bet against it, but I'd no longer say it's impossible.

Edit: For what it's worth I also finally found this ancient gold I'd been looking for:
There are less then 100 engines.

believe the USA received in the 20"s and Russia has in the 40's left?


There's 30-ish here, some healthier than others. New production capability in Samara, and Aerojet is working on it.
Based purely on personal calculation and speculation, and unendorsed in any official capacity by anyone, the RD-191 does miracles for the performance numbers on Antares. Once the current crop of engines runs out, who knows?
« Last Edit: 12/18/2014 09:16 pm by arachnitect »

Offline asmi

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #441 on: 12/18/2014 09:28 pm »
I think if Orbital is serious about increasing payload they should develop liquid second stage. This alone would increase payload way more than anything else.

Offline Prober

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #442 on: 12/18/2014 09:28 pm »
A killer for Aerojet-Rocketdyne.  Some of those funds were originally headed for California.  Now they're Russia-bound.  I shed no tears, however,  because it is the U.S. company's own fault.

 - Ed Kyle
That's a fact. Aerojet and/or Rocketdyne should have gotten off their respective *sses years ago and should have started developing engine(s) to compete with the stuff from Russia. The fact that they didn't is now taking significant bites out of their business.
This.

I'm kind of appalled at Aerojet/Rocketdyne's unwillingness to compete. Even ULA is basically doing everything they can to get engines from someone else. Doesn't Aerojet/Rocketdyne have ANY will to survive??! It's like they won't lift a finger of real, hardcore engineering work without someone else totally footing the bill. I see some news bites of 3d printing some rocket thruster (old news, others have done it years ago, now), but nothing real.

And it's a shame! They make great engines! But I doubt they'll exist in 10 years without a huge change in strategy.

Not really AR fault why do you think Rocketdyne was sold off?   Low launch rates, and the company lives or dies by Government programs.   Even the mighty SpaceX is going corporate.  Read some of the employee reports if you don't wish to believe it.   But the fact is SpaceX needs the government money too.

I've been pushing for sometime that AR made a major mistake when they did the merger.  They should have made two divisions within the company and cleaned the government stuff away from a clean "commercial" type company.  The company still needs this to survive IMHO.

You are misunderstanding the core problem. It has NOTHING to do with having government or commercial contracts. The core issue for AR is a fundamental unwillingness to use income (from any contract) and feed that back into internal research and development of new products. The source of that income does not matter.

Now the shareholders are mostly to blame for this - but they are reaping the seeds too now - but there is a "no development without government earmark" sickness that has permeated the aerospace community for too long.

Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.

Companies have to make money back on their investments (ROI).  Remember another item, AR combined has a lot of overhead.  Not sure the number of people, but they had test stands to maintain etc.  Not cheap stuff at all.  The company is not in the launch business, they are basically the rocket engine manufacturer for government launches.
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Offline Lars-J

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #443 on: 12/18/2014 09:34 pm »
You are misunderstanding the core problem. It has NOTHING to do with having government or commercial contracts. The core issue for AR is a fundamental unwillingness to use income (from any contract) and feed that back into internal research and development of new products. The source of that income does not matter.

Now the shareholders are mostly to blame for this - but they are reaping the seeds too now - but there is a "no development without government earmark" sickness that has permeated the aerospace community for too long.

Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.

Companies have to make money back on their investments (ROI).  Remember another item, AR combined has a lot of overhead.  Not sure the number of people, but they had test stands to maintain etc.  Not cheap stuff at all.  The company is not in the launch business, they are basically the rocket engine manufacturer for government launches.

About the overhead... If two companies merge and you need to maintain the overhead. Then they are doing it wrong! (merging, that is) - You merge to REDUCE overhead.  :) You merge to combine facilities, not maintain all of them.

Offline Prober

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #444 on: 12/18/2014 09:38 pm »
You are misunderstanding the core problem. It has NOTHING to do with having government or commercial contracts. The core issue for AR is a fundamental unwillingness to use income (from any contract) and feed that back into internal research and development of new products. The source of that income does not matter.

Now the shareholders are mostly to blame for this - but they are reaping the seeds too now - but there is a "no development without government earmark" sickness that has permeated the aerospace community for too long.

Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.

Companies have to make money back on their investments (ROI).  Remember another item, AR combined has a lot of overhead.  Not sure the number of people, but they had test stands to maintain etc.  Not cheap stuff at all.  The company is not in the launch business, they are basically the rocket engine manufacturer for government launches.

About the overhead... If two companies merge and you need to maintain the overhead. Then they are doing it wrong! (merging, that is) - You merge to REDUCE overhead.  :) You merge to combine facilities, not maintain all of them.

I agree, and maybe Ed can address this better but the company has a lot of assets they are trying to get rid of.
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Offline woods170

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #445 on: 12/19/2014 06:33 am »
Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.
Not surprisingly I disagree with you on this. Aerojet spent a few RELATIVE nickels and dimes to get an old engine flying. That was in fact much cheaper than doing an all-out new engine development.
And in hindsight the nickels and dimes spent were spent in a pretty bad way too.
A major lesson of the AJ-26 program is this: don't try to do rocket engines 'on the cheap' by cutting corners. Because in the end it will cost you dearly and you still don't have a good product.

Offline Prober

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #446 on: 12/19/2014 02:47 pm »
Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.
Not surprisingly I disagree with you on this. Aerojet spent a few RELATIVE nickels and dimes to get an old engine flying. That was in fact much cheaper than doing an all-out new engine development.
And in hindsight the nickels and dimes spent were spent in a pretty bad way too.
A major lesson of the AJ-26 program is this: don't try to do rocket engines 'on the cheap' by cutting corners. Because in the end it will cost you dearly and you still don't have a good product.

Can understand why you think millions of US dollars are relative nickels and dimes.  You live in governmental spending, your funding values are much different.    Aerojet was a non-governmental company they spent real money.

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Offline woods170

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #447 on: 12/19/2014 03:44 pm »
Disagree with you on the "core problem"  Aerojet on its own spent a ton of cash on the AJ-26, and the next model replacement.   Until Orbital they got no income on that investment i.e. the low launch rate I talked about.
Not surprisingly I disagree with you on this. Aerojet spent a few RELATIVE nickels and dimes to get an old engine flying. That was in fact much cheaper than doing an all-out new engine development.
And in hindsight the nickels and dimes spent were spent in a pretty bad way too.
A major lesson of the AJ-26 program is this: don't try to do rocket engines 'on the cheap' by cutting corners. Because in the end it will cost you dearly and you still don't have a good product.

Can understand why you think millions of US dollars are relative nickels and dimes.  You live in governmental spending, your funding values are much different.    Aerojet was a non-governmental company they spent real money.
Yes, they spent real money. And had they done a proper all-out new engine development, in stead of doing AJ-26, they would have spent a helluvalot more. My 'on the cheap' comment stands.

Offline abaddon

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #448 on: 12/19/2014 04:11 pm »
Yes, they spent real money. And had they done a proper all-out new engine development, in stead of doing AJ-26, they would have spent a helluvalot more. My 'on the cheap' comment stands.

I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine.  The vast majority of companies that are developing engines are developing them for rockets they are also making, or are doing it on a contract.

I think there's a lot of smug attitude around here that is really unfortunate.  Things have not worked out for Aerojet, but all of this "they deserve it because they were lazy and stupid" type of second-guessing after the fact is really unwarranted and off-putting to me.

All of that said, the subject of Aerojet in an Antares thread is rather peripheral at this point, I don't know if there are Aerojet threads anywhere, but I would suggest that a continuing discussion of Aerojet probably belongs somewhere else.  Antares is headed to a bright new future that does not include Aerojet, after all...


Just my $0.02.

Offline fast

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #449 on: 12/19/2014 04:37 pm »
Yes, they spent real money. And had they done a proper all-out new engine development, in stead of doing AJ-26, they would have spent a helluvalot more. My 'on the cheap' comment stands.

I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine.  The vast majority of companies that are developing engines are developing them for rockets they are also making, or are doing it on a contract.

I think there's a lot of smug attitude around here that is really unfortunate.  Things have not worked out for Aerojet, but all of this "they deserve it because they were lazy and stupid" type of second-guessing after the fact is really unwarranted and off-putting to me.

All of that said, the subject of Aerojet in an Antares thread is rather peripheral at this point, I don't know if there are Aerojet threads anywhere, but I would suggest that a continuing discussion of Aerojet probably belongs somewhere else.  Antares is headed to a bright new future that does not include Aerojet, after all...

OSC game on Antares engines was purely "lets get cheapest" and they unfortunately pulled in to it miserable shortsighted Aerojet. Now game is over. They paying both for being too greedy. And OSC's Antares bright future remains to be seen.

Talking about bright future of Antares and current Atlas, I really do not understand those comments that everything was fine until shit hit the fan... How come that it is ok for US to buy engines for its main space busters from other country, especially from such unreliable?!

 

Offline Lobo

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #450 on: 12/19/2014 05:48 pm »
I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine.  The vast majority of companies that are developing engines are developing them for rockets they are also making, or are doing it on a contract.

I think there's a lot of smug attitude around here that is really unfortunate.  Things have not worked out for Aerojet, but all of this "they deserve it because they were lazy and stupid" type of second-guessing after the fact is really unwarranted and off-putting to me.


A few things.  The smug attitude is basically supporters of the US space industry who are dissapointed that such a major and historic space company like Rocketdyne seems to have allowed themselves to start being shut out of the US LV market.  I imagine all of those "smug" attitudes are people who'd love to have seen Rocketdyne be a major player now and going forward. 

Part of why they seems to be loosing out is what you started by saying.  You don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine?  Probably true.
First, why is it a billion dollars?  How much did the Merlin cost to develop?  I think it was like a few hundred million.
Now SpaceX developed that for an LV they were also making, so that's a little apples and oranges.  But my point is why so much do develop a new engine that could be used on Atlas or Antares?
PWR had the plans and license to make a US made RD-180.  They also had the RS-84 a good deal into develop over a decade ago.  It's not like they'd be starting from scratch like SpaceX essentially did.  They could take up an engine and very quickly be well into development my utilizing the info they already had.  It probably shouldn't have needed to be a multi billion dollar deal.  That's old space.
PWR could also have lobbied congress to get some politicians who -did- care that Atlas was using a Russian engine to start making waves about it.  Certainly some politicians do care (especially when lobbied hard0.  We see it now and Elon is banging that drum with some success.  But PWR could have done that awhile ago to create a customer who would sign a contract to buy engines that -they- produced in the US, rather than this vague fall back option of having a license to do it if needed.  They should have went and helped to -make- it needed...and make it price competative with RD-180.  I honestly cannot imagine Congress members and USAF -not- telling ULA they much reengine Atlas with a US made equivalent engine if it was similar in cost. 

Ditto with Aerojet prior to mergin with Rocketdyne.  They had NK-33's and a new LV that would use them.  That supply was limited to stock purchased from Russia.  A replacement was obviously known to be needed.  Maybe the AR-1 was that replacement, but it came along a little late in the game.  Aerojet should have been discussing that with OSC right from the start to get a modern, current, US-made and affordable engine to replace NK-33's in the near term as soon as practicable.

When Aeroget bought Rocketdyne, then the two projects in development could have merged into a single engine which could be configured to use for both Atlas and Antares.

I think lost opportunities like that are what people are dissappointed about around here.  I have yet to hear anyone on the forums state that they -prefer- Atlas and Antares being dependant on Russian supplies engines.

Offline woods170

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #451 on: 12/19/2014 06:53 pm »
I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine. 

There is your problem. Spending a billion dollars on a new engine is typical for government-style projects. Doing a new engine fully commercially does not require a billion dollars (unless you want something that is way beyond the scope of what is needed for Antares). Not having all the money in the world forces a company to do things smart and efficiently. And that is exactly what a good number of old-space, government-dependent companies such as Aerojet and Rocketdyne cannot do currently. They simply don't have the required mind-set anymore, after having been spoiled by a near-continues influx of government money for 3-plus decades.
A (partial) exception is ATK. On the one hand they blow all the money (and time!) in the world on developing the SLS boosters for NASA. On the other hand they also managed to do fast development of Castor 30 AND Castor 30XL on a relative nickel-and-dime for Orbital. People may not like ATK but at least they always remembered that government-business alone is not going to keep them alive forever.
« Last Edit: 12/19/2014 07:08 pm by woods170 »

Offline Oli

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #452 on: 12/19/2014 07:49 pm »
I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine. 

There is your problem. Spending a billion dollars on a new engine is typical for government-style projects.

Why? Do you know how much Blue Origin will spend on its engine?

Offline Prober

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #453 on: 12/19/2014 08:27 pm »
I have to agree with Prober here.  I don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine. 

There is your problem. Spending a billion dollars on a new engine is typical for government-style projects. Doing a new engine fully commercially does not require a billion dollars (unless you want something that is way beyond the scope of what is needed for Antares). Not having all the money in the world forces a company to do things smart and efficiently. And that is exactly what a good number of old-space, government-dependent companies such as Aerojet and Rocketdyne cannot do currently. They simply don't have the required mind-set anymore, after having been spoiled by a near-continues influx of government money for 3-plus decades.
A (partial) exception is ATK. On the one hand they blow all the money (and time!) in the world on developing the SLS boosters for NASA. On the other hand they also managed to do fast development of Castor 30 AND Castor 30XL on a relative nickel-and-dime for Orbital. People may not like ATK but at least they always remembered that government-business alone is not going to keep them alive forever.

The more I read these posts it comes closer to pointing the disappointment in the direction of Rocketdyne.  It's Rocketdyne that ran itself into the ground so much so it got sold several times in its history.   Aerojet was more of a commercial interest with its AJ-26.  Look at how many years of go's and no go's of small companies that would use these engines.  Those small companies are no longer in business, Aerojet is still around. 

The AR merger is going to take years to digest.  But many revenue streams that could fund new product are in trouble.  Many were outside of AR's control.   Take the RL-10; don't believe AR will sell any new RL-10's for use on Atlas for a while.  ULA has a stockpile from the Delta IV program.  AR has done some rework of the engine and will have some revenue from that but not new engines.   Can those crying about non development come along and say AR should have spent millions on a new RL-10 out of its own pocket when it knew no sales would be forthcoming ?  Get real guys this is business 101

Same is happening in Europe look up the engine manufacturer in Italy.
I could say Europe has invested its money in Russia, in China etc. while the engine company in Italy has problems.  But I just don't know the facts, and would be wrong to start throwing out those claims.
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Offline sdsds

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #454 on: 12/19/2014 08:45 pm »
AJR wasn't going to be able to sell a comparable engine made in the United States at a price lower than Energomash would sell one made in Khimki. AJR costs didn't allow effective competition on price, so they would have had to compete by adding "value" in some other way.

They could do that if the were very innovative in their design or manufacturing technologies, and the benefits of that innovation were made available to the customer, for example.

But they quite apparently didn't make an offer of added value that was compelling to Orbital.
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Offline Remes

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #455 on: 12/19/2014 11:41 pm »
You don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine?  Probably true.
First, why is it a billion dollars?  How much did the Merlin cost to develop?  I think it was like a few hundred million.

You say it took SpaceX a few hundred million for a simple gas generator 690kN engine.

Now make out of the 690kN e.g. 4MN (like an RD-180).
Now add a highly complex und to the US currently unknown oxydizer-rich preburner process.
Increase the chamber pressure from xxxx to 26MPa.

And I think you end up at a billion.

(to be fair: SpaceX engines contains all the electronics onbaord the engine, RD-180 just comes with sensors and no hw/sw).

...smug...
..."smug"...
And it would be nice if we could exchange our arguments without questioning each others personality.
« Last Edit: 12/19/2014 11:57 pm by Remes »

Offline Jim

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #456 on: 12/20/2014 02:03 am »

(to be fair: SpaceX engines contains all the electronics onbaord the engine, RD-180 just comes with sensors and no hw/sw).


Quite wrong.  There is an engine controller

Offline Lars-J

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #457 on: 12/20/2014 06:30 am »
You don't know any engine company that spends a billion dollars without a contract for an engine?  Probably true.
First, why is it a billion dollars?  How much did the Merlin cost to develop?  I think it was like a few hundred million.

You say it took SpaceX a few hundred million for a simple gas generator 690kN engine.

Now make out of the 690kN e.g. 4MN (like an RD-180).
Now add a highly complex und to the US currently unknown oxydizer-rich preburner process.
Increase the chamber pressure from xxxx to 26MPa.

And I think you end up at a billion.

Perhaps - But only if you make the (IMO mistaken) assumption that a new engine HAS TO equal RD-180 in every aspect. But SpaceX has clearly proven that a compelling alternative can be made by clustering 2,4,5, even 9 (gasp!) :) cheaper engines to do the same work.

Nor does a competing engine need to be equal in Isp or chamber pressure to offer a compelling alternative. Merlin has proven that.

Offline Remes

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #458 on: 12/20/2014 07:12 am »

(to be fair: SpaceX engines contains all the electronics onbaord the engine, RD-180 just comes with sensors and no hw/sw).


Quite wrong.  There is an engine controller

Of course there is an engine controller. But afaik the controller on Atlas V is not developed/delivered by Energomash. So if we compare development costs, this should be taken into account.

Perhaps - But only if you make the (IMO mistaken) assumption that a new engine HAS TO equal RD-180 in every aspect.
The topic of conversation, as I get it, was about why did US-companies miss to develop a competetive RD-180/nk-33 replacement for xyz $.

Offline baldusi

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #459 on: 12/20/2014 10:57 am »

(to be fair: SpaceX engines contains all the electronics onbaord the engine, RD-180 just comes with sensors and no hw/sw).


Quite wrong.  There is an engine controller

Of course there is an engine controller. But afaik the controller on Atlas V is not developed/delivered by Energomash. So if we compare development costs, this should be taken into account.
Its made in Russia and NPO Energomash got the contract to do the crewed rated version.

Quote
Perhaps - But only if you make the (IMO mistaken) assumption that a new engine HAS TO equal RD-180 in every aspect.
The topic of conversation, as I get it, was about why did US-companies miss to develop a competetive RD-180/nk-33 replacement for xyz $.
Nope, originally it was about how OSC had to look for solutions outside the US because none was available in time for them to complete their CRS-1 obligations. It then went into how the merged entity that conglomerates all significant liquid rocket manufacturers haven't been able to do a single competitive kerolox engine. In fact, the main critique was that they ended in that situation because they were quite comfortable to stay only in big government contracts. Now the companies that brought men to the moon can't compete on anything but already existing government designs.
Orbital would have loved to have a TR-107, RS-86 or even a modernized RS-27 as an option. Something like a throttleable GG on the 1MN range, or even 800kN 15 years ago could have been an Atlas replacement and might have work for OSC in the COTS proposal. Just to put an example.

 

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