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.
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?
Quote from: kevin-rf on 02/03/2015 03:42 pmNot 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
Not to show geo/political ignorance, but are not the tanks produced in Dnipropetrovsk? Which is inside the eastern Ukraine area of conflict?
Quote from: Lobo on 02/12/2015 04:08 pmWallops 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.
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.
If OrbitalATK ever wanted to get into the liquid business I bet they could buy Aerojet-Rocketdyne from GenCorp ....
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.
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.
Quote from: notsorandom on 02/16/2015 03:30 pmThat 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?
So we're left with Ed Kyle's adequate 2x stacked solids, or my poor performance, absurd "liquid solid solid", whichattempted 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