Author Topic: Antares General Discussion Thread  (Read 363143 times)

Offline JazzFan

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #500 on: 02/12/2015 10:31 pm »
I have seen far worse business models than focus on what you do best.   I just wonder if OrgATK's goal is to maintain market share or to expand?  Is Antares envisioned as a stepping stone for long term gains with a true planned programmatic expansion and development or just designed and reacting to meet current demand?

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #501 on: 02/12/2015 11:17 pm »
Wallops is not a good location for those orbits, and Jim has said before that USG won't launch their payloads on an LV that's not launching out of CCAFS for East Coast launches.  It also sounds like the pad at Wallops would not be easily modified for vertical payload integration which USG would require.
Technically these are DoD requirements. NASA isn't quite as picky, hence the LADEE mission from Wallops about a year and a half ago.

Offline Ikarie XB-1

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #502 on: 02/13/2015 01:52 am »
I have seen far worse business models than focus on what you do best.   I just wonder if OrgATK's goal is to maintain market share or to expand?  Is Antares envisioned as a stepping stone for long term gains with a true planned programmatic expansion and development or just designed and reacting to meet current demand?

From reading the NASA historian interview with Orbital's Antares managers, I understand Orbital's payloads often went on Delta IIs, yet they knew the vehicle is going away soon. They were studying Taurus II as a replacement but never could really close the business case for building it. Then CRS presented an opportunity to cover the development costs and so they finally went for it. I don't think there was/is any plan to compete with ULA, rather to fill the void left by Delta II and be able to offer a complete package for the payloads they build including launch. Now that ATK is in the picture, plans may have changed though.

Obviously if it's no longer cool to launch DoD birds on RD-180 powered vehicle, neither it's on RD-181 powered Antares. Developing a radically new booster may not make sense for the same reason building Taurus II didn't - if the money doesn't come from outside. And considering the only such source would be CRS-2, for which the proposals were already submitted and for all we know will no longer include development support and even if it did it would likely be too late anyway. I think they either fly liquid or don't fly at all. And the liquid can only come from Yuzmash. Now that Yuzmash's tooling is no longer serving other needs, perhaps they could buy it off of Ukraine and establish production somewhere less turbulent?

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #503 on: 02/13/2015 07:49 pm »
From reading the NASA historian interview with Orbital's Antares managers, I understand Orbital's payloads often went on Delta IIs, yet they knew the vehicle is going away soon. They were studying Taurus II as a replacement but never could really close the business case for building it. Then CRS presented an opportunity to cover the development costs and so they finally went for it. I don't think there was/is any plan to compete with ULA, rather to fill the void left by Delta II and be able to offer a complete package for the payloads they build including launch. Now that ATK is in the picture, plans may have changed though.
Accurate.

Obviously if it's no longer cool to launch DoD birds on RD-180 powered vehicle, neither it's on RD-181 powered Antares. Developing a radically new booster may not make sense for the same reason building Taurus II didn't - if the money doesn't come from outside. And considering the only such source would be CRS-2, for which the proposals were already submitted and for all we know will no longer include development support and even if it did it would likely be too late anyway. I think they either fly liquid or don't fly at all.
And the reason for RD-181 is ... the smallest investment to return Antares to flight. Which may continue to be held hostage in various ways to the obvious.

And the liquid can only come from Yuzmash. Now that Yuzmash's tooling is no longer serving other needs, perhaps they could buy it off of Ukraine and establish production somewhere less turbulent?
It's not just the tooling, its the full industry base and it's highly skilled labor/experience that's hard to get elsewhere at the same cost, like with Russia, absent the very obvious contest of powers underway. In these, among the first victims are commerce, truth and transparency.

Not to show geo/political ignorance, but are not the tanks produced in Dnipropetrovsk? Which is inside the eastern Ukraine area of conflict?
It is well within the Kiev controlled zone currently.  But of more importance is the possibility of the Ukrainian company shutting itself down, as it is reportedly on the verge of bankruptcy, etc.  Yuzhmash is reportedly shut down right now, its workers, who say they haven't been paid since June, sent home until March at least.  (Of course these reports could be propaganda, since you would expect a company like this to be producing arms for Kiev right now.)

 - Ed Kyle
And is interdependent on Russian interests (industrial, finance, other) to operate. Companies aren't assembled like LEGOs either ...

Holding Ukraine in the Russian economic influence appears to be what this conflict is all about.  And that is why Antares is at risk and will continue to be.

Wallops is not a good location for those orbits, and Jim has said before that USG won't launch their payloads on an LV that's not launching out of CCAFS for East Coast launches.  It also sounds like the pad at Wallops would not be easily modified for vertical payload integration which USG would require.
Technically these are DoD requirements. NASA isn't quite as picky, hence the LADEE mission from Wallops about a year and a half ago.
Absolutely.  And the choice of WFF/MARS was more under the theory of bootstrapping a low capital outlay Delta II replacement (many other choices to this as well), that could in the long term provide independence from providers in putting in house sats in orbit.

All American launches are about coupling sat programs to launch services, now even SpaceX is doing that as well.

The odd one here is ULA, in that it supplies the two biggest and longest (Boeing and Lockheed) sat suppliers with a higher end, higher cost, higher reliability means to fly those birds.

They all work/compete the same way. You want to streamline all elements of the mission from concept to on orbit operation. In the case of launch services, not to have a sat sitting on the ground gathering dust because someone else gets your slot for launch. You want to be paid for on orbit so that you can offer/accept new as soon as possible.

I have seen far worse business models than focus on what you do best.   I just wonder if OrgATK's goal is to maintain market share or to expand?  Is Antares envisioned as a stepping stone for long term gains with a true planned programmatic expansion and development or just designed and reacting to meet current demand?
Orbital hedged/hedges its bets with ULA and SpaceX launch services. The point of Antares is independence.

What this means is it does not need to be a "frequent flyer", but a "gap filler".

Perhaps a small cache of RD-181's and Ukrainian assembled stages is a "good enough" strategy to fill enough gaps for the interim, and you do your volume of launches through SpaceX/ULA? Sounds good enough to me.

As to ATK solids - here's the problem in a nutshell. Orbital did Antares amazingly cost effectively, using every cost leveraging trick in the book. They had to! Wall Street would hurt them otherwise! And .. even with set backs (MARS), they made the thing work a few times. But that luck ran out.

Now, tell me any solid strategy that fits the same "use of capital" strategy. The big solids are right out, because they run counter to rational capital structures from the start, because they were/are done under government fiat (e.g. done for a "soft power" reason not a capital use reason). Everything about them drives up launch costs, costs that will never be recovered under any reasonable expectation of use, especially bad as a "gap filler".

So we're left with Ed Kyle's adequate 2x stacked solids, or my poor performance, absurd "liquid solid solid", which
attempted to reuse much of Antares marginal industry base . Even in these reduced cases, the business case comes no where near closing.

Perhaps, if SLS were flying, OrbATK could find a way of leveraging the solids, but no way would that please Wall Street, in the same way that PWR RS68 and SSME kind of propped things up like two playing cards pushed together, until one fell.

And this is why things are the way they are. You may now return to the regularly scheduled fantasy LV discussions.

edit:typos galore
« Last Edit: 02/13/2015 08:48 pm by Space Ghost 1962 »

Offline MattMason

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #504 on: 02/15/2015 01:50 am »
Not sure if this has been posted, but fallout at Aerojet has begun.

Aerojet Rocketdyne Company Replaces President

http://www.astrowatch.net/2015/02/aerojet-rocketdyne-company-replaces.html
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Offline ngilmore

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #505 on: 02/15/2015 02:07 am »
also covered here:

"Aerojet Rocketdyne president leaves post; GenCorp CEO takes over"
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-aerojet-rocketdyne-ceo-resigns-20150214-story.html

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #506 on: 02/15/2015 03:13 pm »
If OrbitalATK ever wanted to get into the liquid business I bet they could buy Aerojet-Rocketdyne from GenCorp and finish the AR-1 cheaper than starting a brand new project. It wouldn't be a bad long-term solution for the Antares. It's unlikely though, at least this soon on the heels of the merger.

Offline MattMason

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #507 on: 02/15/2015 04:24 pm »
If OrbitalATK ever wanted to get into the liquid business I bet they could buy Aerojet-Rocketdyne from GenCorp and finish the AR-1 cheaper than starting a brand new project. It wouldn't be a bad long-term solution for the Antares. It's unlikely though, at least this soon on the heels of the merger.

The engines aren't the real problem, as others might have noted, but the possibility of losing their LV maker in war-embattled Ukraine.
"Why is the logo on the side of a rocket so important?"
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Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #508 on: 02/15/2015 05:04 pm »
If OrbitalATK ever wanted to get into the liquid business I bet they could buy Aerojet-Rocketdyne from GenCorp and finish the AR-1 cheaper than starting a brand new project. It wouldn't be a bad long-term solution for the Antares. It's unlikely though, at least this soon on the heels of the merger.
They should have the money as there is not debit from the merger. After seeking losses from Antares failure,  Aerojet shares may not be worth much.

At very least Aerojet owes Orbital for any down payments on any unflown engines.

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #509 on: 02/15/2015 05:49 pm »

The engines aren't the real problem, as others might have noted, but the possibility of losing their LV maker in war-embattled Ukraine.
Engines are by far more complex to manufacture than the core. Nearly any major contractor could probably tool up to build it in relatively short notice. ATK's side likely could, although for now Ukraine is still probably cheaper both in labor and having an established production line.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #510 on: 02/15/2015 08:02 pm »
If OrbitalATK ever wanted to get into the liquid business I bet they could buy Aerojet-Rocketdyne from GenCorp ....
That's not going to happen.  Too many antitrust hangups, since these are the two primary solid motor manufacturers in the U.S.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #511 on: 02/15/2015 09:24 pm »
Indeed. As well as a host of other complications as well.

The companies mentioned are all fairly health, they have gotten into strategic "dead ends", mostly because the judgement calls behind past M&A's was about short term revenue optimization that never resulted in any reason for long overdue reinvestment in certain areas of their business.

Which is why many predict continued decline of them, well justified.

Think the current AR exec who just departed can't make ends meet. When you are run by a larger holding company, you accept their strategy and execute tactically within the "box". So either/both he or they screwed up, and that's it.

My perspective is Gencorp naively pursued "business as in the past" strategy, and were ill positioned when a bunch of unexpected changes hit them, so likely he's rightly mad at them for being chosen to lead a disaster of a plan. I did notice that the PW transfer of R to A to form AR was "setup for failure" in numerous ways, and certain things had to happen quickly that didn't, to elide those "land mines". Sometimes in these deals they think they won't go off in the immediate future, then some global event happens that shortens the fuse.

The biggest issue here is that of an unclear kerolox program at AR. Which is not new to any of us since the hydrolox ascendency decades back. The situation is made worse by AJ-26 failures, not only in flight but on the test stand. It makes AR look like it did not have the competence to qualify a large kerolox engine for use.

Measuring against SpaceX (and not ULA/Lockheed given the different, unique path for RD-180), both Aerojet and Orbital appear to not take ground test of engines/vehicles as seriously. If SpaceX had Aerojet & Orbital's approach, I don't think Falcon 9 would have survived and done as well as it has.

But that costs considerably. At a minimum, for domestic kerolox, either in-house or separate vendor, you'll have to pay for this if you want reliability. Neither Aerojet or Orbital does. Thus the RD-181, where it is done as a part of the deal.

So, if you put a rope around "kerolox in AR", and have ANY way of running it - as a product group at AR, a propulsion part of OrbATK, or a privately financed spin out of AR - the above still has to happen that was too costly before. What makes it affordable now?

I think AR expected a multibillion govt deal to do kerolox, not unlike past hydrolox deals. Didn't happen.

They may be able to get $0.3-05B to get closer to putting a test engine on a stand. Perhaps with a small, tight team and judiciously supplied facilities/other, a spin-out might just pull off a capable engine on a test stand and create an assembly line for it. That in turn might be acquired by a launch services company for an in-house vehicle. But this would be a long shot.

As to first stage assembly in America, there's an excellent one in Decatur, and there was one in Colorado. Wouldn't be anything like Yuzhnoye did or cost.

Offline Ikarie XB-1

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #512 on: 02/15/2015 11:32 pm »
How about getting URM-1 complete with RD-191 from Russia and flank it with a handful of ATK solids a la Delta II? Faster, cheaper and partially in-house...

Offline baldusi

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #513 on: 02/16/2015 01:57 am »
GenCorp earned money because they are going to redevelop Canoga Park. It was actually a real estate transaction. The removal of the president has probably to do with normal business issues. The ULA NGLV propulsion loss might have had a lot more to do with it. They still have SLS's RS-25D.

Offline Lars-J

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #514 on: 02/16/2015 06:33 am »

GenCorp earned money because they are going to redevelop Canoga Park. It was actually a real estate transaction. The removal of the president has probably to do with normal business issues. The ULA NGLV propulsion loss might have had a lot more to do with it. They still have SLS's RS-25D.
... And the RS-25 will only be about 2 engines per year, at best. Even at inflated prices, that's not a lot to run your business on. And doesn't ULA currently have a stockpile of RL-10's they are going through. Not a lot of business at the moment.

Offline notsorandom

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #515 on: 02/16/2015 03:30 pm »
How about getting URM-1 complete with RD-191 from Russia and flank it with a handful of ATK solids a la Delta II? Faster, cheaper and partially in-house...
That was actually similar to a very early concept for the Antares (aka Taurus II back then). The idea was to use one AJ-26, the Ukrainian first stage and solid boosters. However that lost the trades to just using the two AJ-26s without the solids.

Offline Thorny

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #516 on: 02/16/2015 04:00 pm »
That was actually similar to a very early concept for the Antares (aka Taurus II back then). The idea was to use one AJ-26, the Ukrainian first stage and solid boosters. However that lost the trades to just using the two AJ-26s without the solids.

But was that because AJ-26 was bought at "fire sale" prices? Now that they're having to buy new engines at presumably much higher prices, would this be worthwhile to reconsider?

Offline arachnitect

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #517 on: 02/16/2015 05:00 pm »
That was actually similar to a very early concept for the Antares (aka Taurus II back then). The idea was to use one AJ-26, the Ukrainian first stage and solid boosters. However that lost the trades to just using the two AJ-26s without the solids.

But was that because AJ-26 was bought at "fire sale" prices? Now that they're having to buy new engines at presumably much higher prices, would this be worthwhile to reconsider?

Not in the short run. The launch pad and ground processing isn't setup for SRMs. They would also need a different roll control solution. Still buying one Russian engine, major tank changes, etc. Not worth the effort.

Sadly, I think Antares as we know it is a dead end and it will go away at the end of CRS.

Offline Lobo

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #518 on: 02/16/2015 05:30 pm »

So we're left with Ed Kyle's adequate 2x stacked solids, or my poor performance, absurd "liquid solid solid", which
attempted to reuse much of Antares marginal industry base . Even in these reduced cases, the business case comes no where near closing.

Perhaps, if SLS were flying, OrbATK could find a way of leveraging the solids, but no way would that please Wall Street, in the same way that PWR RS68 and SSME kind of propped things up like two playing cards pushed together, until one fell.

And this is why things are the way they are. You may now return to the regularly scheduled fantasy LV discussions.

edit:typos galore

A good analysis as always Space Ghost.  But I think you hit on it there about 3.7m wide new composite solids.  Unless and until SLS is cancelled, it seems like ATK Advanced solids are going to be a given for SLS after the first couple of launches.  That means NASA money flowing into OrbATK to develop them.  A big booster segment will be different than a stand along monolithic 3.7m wide booster for an Antares replacement.  But the NASA money would pay for the tooling required to make those 3.7m wide casings, and after that tooling exists, they really wouldn't be dependant on NASA so not sure that Wallstreet would care much.
Then it's just a matter of getting the propellant pour and throat correct to make a monolithic booster out of those segment lengths.  Should be much easier than a mult-segment configuration I'd imagine.
As you said, RD-181 gets Antares flying again with the least amount of investment and the fastest time.  But it's hard to see a long term business model for that for OrbATK especially if they want USAF/DoD business as they say they do. 
Big solids solve both the Russian engine issue and the Ukrainian core issue, -and- brings it all in-house which SpaceX has shown is advantageous.  And the infrastructure to get them to CCAFS is already in place.  (unsure about VAFB, but obviously they had a way to get STS solid segments there back in the 80's, so there must be rail access from Utah to there?)

As Ed has referenced in the past, a two SLS booster segment sized monolithic motors stacked on each other with a large hydrolox upper stage.  The BE-3 actually would be a pretty good engine for that because of it's high thrust (and likely affordable cost).  I'd think you'd not need as much dV supplied by the solids before a big upper stage with one of those engines could take it from there.  Unlike smaller upper stages with lower thrust RL-10's.  I'd think between ATK and OSC, they could develop their own upper stage in-house, if they have an engine for it.
For heavier payloads, three 1st stage solid motors are put together in parallell.  (This all assumes new CCAFS and VAFB pads anyway, they'd build them to handle a tri-core configuration)

Otherwise, I don't see much of a long term business model for them with Antares launching from only Wallops as arachnitect said.  Maybe limited commercial comsat business assuming there's no interruptions in Russian engines and Ukrainian cores would be about all they could compete for aside from CRS I believe?
« Last Edit: 02/16/2015 05:38 pm by Lobo »

Offline Antares

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #519 on: 02/17/2015 05:02 am »
Lots of random thoughts:

The military will always need solid motors due to the launch immediately requirement.  How much of space launch should/could take advantage of that requirement?  A sober business analysis would be good here.

Is there any way at all that Antares in its current, as antonioe called it, upside down Isp configuration can compete with Falcon 9 for cost and reliability?  I think its days are numbered.  My consideration of an all-solid version would only be negligibly more sanguine.

I'm not sure I agree with throwing all of AR under the "no LOX/RP competence bus."  Canoga entered the stage long after Sacramento and Dulles made that dubious decision.
If I like something on NSF, it's probably because I know it to be accurate.  Every once in a while, it's just something I agree with.  Facts generally receive the former.

 

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