Author Topic: H3 Development Update thread  (Read 173033 times)

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #100 on: 08/25/2018 05:59 am »
Report of scrub due to wind direction per NVS chat. Standing by to here if they will switch to the second window of the day at 1300JST. The NVS live stream will run until the camera battery shuts the camera down.
Per NVS: Today's test ended in a scrub due to weather (winds and wind direction (for high speed engineering camera recording)). Currently working a NET 24 hour recycle pending favorable weather. The second test window is currently a no go.

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #101 on: 08/26/2018 06:20 pm »
JAXA MHI/IHI consortium had a nominal static fire test today. Teams are processing data from the test. No translations at this time:

SRB-3地上燃焼試験@竹崎観望台
NVS
Streamed live 12 hours ago
燃焼試験は 24:00 より
H-3ロケット用SRB-3地上燃焼試験の様子を竹崎観望台より配信します。
NVSのメンバーは対応できない為、鳥嶋真也さん(@kosmograd_info)に対応頂けることになりました。

燃焼試験予定時刻 2018/8/26 16:00

なお、実験に適した風向きにならない場合は、実験時間の変更や
再度延期する場合もございます。



and

H3ロケット用固体ロケットブースタ(SRB-3) 地上燃焼試験ライブ中継
JAXA | 宇宙航空研究開発機構
Streamed live 12 hours ago

2020年度に試験機1号機の打ち上げが予定されている新型ロケット「H3(エイチスリー)」の固体ロケットブースタSRB-3(エスアールビー・スリー)。

この度、「実機型モータ」と呼ばれる試験用のSRB-3の燃焼試験の模様を、地上燃焼試験場から約900mの位置にある、現地、種子島宇宙センター竹崎展望台からライブ中継します。
H3ロケットの開発現場を映像を通じて体感ください。


<燃焼試験詳細>
「実機型モータ」と呼ばれる試験用のSRB-3を、燃料タンクであるモータケースに固体燃料を入れて点火し、燃焼時の特性などが設計意図どおりであるかを確認します。この試験により得られたデータをフライト用SRB-3の設計に反映します。


固体ロケットブースタは、ロケット発射直後の推力を補う役割を担っており、約100秒燃焼した後、役目を終え、ロケットから切り離されます。H3ロケットではこのSRB-3を0本、2本、4本と付け替えることができるため、様々な大きさの人工衛星を打ち上げることができます。


燃焼試験日時:平成30年8月26日(日)

放送時刻:15:50~16:05頃

Offline catdlr

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #102 on: 08/30/2018 11:21 pm »
SRB-3 static fire test

SciNews
Published on Aug 30, 2018

JAXA conducted a ground firing test of SRB-3, the Solid Fuel Rocket Booster for the H3 launch vehicle, at the Ground Combustion Test Facilities for Solid Rocket of the Takesaki launch site at the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center, on 26 August 2018, at 07:00 UTC (16:00 local time). According to JAXA, the test lasted 110.1 seconds and was considered successful, with a maximum thrust of 2137 kN.
Credit: JAXA



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Offline Comet

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #103 on: 09/24/2018 08:23 am »

Offline Comet

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #104 on: 09/24/2018 08:25 am »

Offline Comet

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #105 on: 09/24/2018 08:26 am »

Offline Comet

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #106 on: 09/24/2018 08:29 am »

Offline calapine

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #107 on: 09/24/2018 08:59 pm »
Very interesting, thank you!  :)

Can you tell what the source is and whether it's allowed to share the images?
« Last Edit: 09/24/2018 09:01 pm by calapine »

Offline Prettz

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #108 on: 09/24/2018 09:13 pm »
I notice LE-9 is 33% heavier than LE-7 for 33% more thrust, despite using a vastly simpler engine cycle. Shouldn't the weight gain be less than that, all other things being equal?

Offline Comet

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #109 on: 09/25/2018 08:48 am »
I notice LE-9 is 33% heavier than LE-7 for 33% more thrust, despite using a vastly simpler engine cycle. Shouldn't the weight gain be less than that, all other things being equal?

Some slides from next week's presentation at the IAC in Bremen. They are in the public domain.

Offline Fuji

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #110 on: 11/30/2018 11:21 am »
H3-32 configuration was deleted. H3-32 was consolidated to the H3-22 configuration.

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2018/11/files/20181129_h3.pdf

Offline yoichi

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #111 on: 12/06/2018 06:32 am »
https://www.mhi.com/news/story/181206.html

Inmarsat to be first commercial customer for the new H3 launch vehicle provided by MHI
-The H3 will start commercial launch services in 2022-

2018-12-06 

London/Tokyo, December 6, 2018 - Inmarsat (LON: ISAT), the world leader in global mobile satellite communications, has today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) to be the first commercial customer to place an order for the new H3 launch vehicle. The maiden flight of H3 is scheduled for 2020 with Inmarsat planning to deploy the new launch vehicle after 2022.

This is the second agreement entered by Inmarsat and MHI, following the launch services contract awarded to MHI's H-IIA Launch Vehicle in 2017. These agreements underline the growing partnership between the two companies in the area of launch services.

Rupert Pearce, CEO of Inmarsat, said: "Inmarsat is the world leader in global mobile satellite communications; a position we have achieved by building an exceptional ecosystem of partners. As our company grows - expanding into new markets and opening up new opportunities for our customers to develop their businesses - we continually seek new technology partners that display an outstanding commitment to innovation and excellence.

"It was for these reasons that in 2017 we selected MHI as a launch partner and why today we are delighted to be announcing that Inmarsat is the first commercial customer to select MHI's new H3 launch vehicle. We believe that H3 represents a world-class innovation and one that will deliver an effective and efficient service to place future Inmarsat satellites into orbit."

"Today, development of the H3 Launch Vehicle is proceeding steadily forward under the leadership of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), with MHI serving as primary contractor working closely with key component manufacturers," said Masahiro Atsumi, Vice President & Senior General Manager for Space Systems at MHI. "We greatly appreciate the high evaluation made by Inmarsat during this development phase and, working closely with JAXA and government agencies, we will do everything possible to ensure that development results in a new flagship launch vehicle fully meeting the customer's high expectations."

Rt Hon Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business said: "Science and innovation have no borders, as long-term strategic partnerships like this one built on excellence between Inmarsat in the UK and MHI in Japan demonstrate.

"The space sector is a UK success story and an industry that is growing globally, a year since the launch of our modern industrial strategy, we continue to build on our commitment to space, including through the announcement of the UK's first spaceports and record investment in our world leading science base."

MHI Launch Services enjoys an extremely high success rate of 97.9% and has provided 41 successful consecutive launches since 2005, delivered on-time and to the customer's satisfaction by current launch vehicle both H-IIA and H-IIB.

The agreement with Inmarsat reflects MHI's long-term commitment to supporting a wide range of customers in the space industry. MHI will continue to support the development of the space industry, and will seek further new opportunities in this field both in Japan and globally.

Online GreenShrike

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #112 on: 12/06/2018 06:57 pm »
H3-32 configuration was deleted. H3-32 was consolidated to the H3-22 configuration.

Interesting. Based on a translation of the PDF (attached), the performance of the H3-22 config was greater than anticipated, making it more of a middle step between the light H3-30 and heavy H3-24 configs.

While H3-22 won't match the performance of cancelled H3-32, they'll simply change the reference orbits they offer for given payloads.

To justify this, they note that while GEO-1500m/s may be the "world standard" GTO, most of Falcon 9's launches have been with rather more than 1500m/s delta-V required on the satellite's part to get to GEO. As such, it would seem that sat operators would rather save money by launching on a smaller rocket and simply adding a few hundred more m/s of delta-V to their sat, then demanding a rocket capable of insertion into a strict GEO-1500 GTO.

This seems to be a valid conclusion to draw, and makes me wonder if JAXA isn't more attuned with the current and near future launch market than ESA. An H3 with half the performance but half the cost of an Ariane 6 would loft single satellites for the same cost as a launch on an Ariane 6, but without needing to wait for a partner comsat to be ready, as necessary with Ariane 5 and 6's standard dual launches. That's a nice competitive advantage...
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Offline GWR64

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #113 on: 12/09/2018 01:59 pm »
from the pdf:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=21491.0;attach=1530988;sess=55234

Quote
MHI Standard launch price, which is calculated by the gluteal 【note 1 ] : about 50 Billion yen ( H3-30S )

about 50 Billion yen can not be right, probably 5 Billion yen


Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #114 on: 12/09/2018 03:32 pm »
from the pdf:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=21491.0;attach=1530988;sess=55234

Quote
MHI Standard launch price, which is calculated by the gluteal 【note 1 ] : about 50 Billion yen ( H3-30S )

about 50 Billion yen can not be right, probably 5 Billion yen

Somehow 5 Billion Yen don't seems right either. Since that is about 44.5M USD.

Online gongora

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #115 on: 12/09/2018 03:40 pm »
from the pdf:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=21491.0;attach=1530988;sess=55234

Quote
MHI Standard launch price, which is calculated by the gluteal 【note 1 ] : about 50 Billion yen ( H3-30S )

about 50 Billion yen can not be right, probably 5 Billion yen

Somehow 5 Billion Yen don't seems right either. Since that is about 44.5M USD.

Rounded to the nearest billion Yen, that is about right for the smallest version.  I've seen $50M mentioned before.

Offline brickmack

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #116 on: 12/10/2018 08:39 pm »
If theres now only one 3-engine configuration (and its the smallest variant), I gotta wonder how much they're really saving with that vs simply ditching the zero-booster variant and using 2 SRBs on all flights. Liquid engines are usually pretty expensive compared to solids, not unreasonable to expect its close to the cost of an SRB pair. Plus the extra development and tooling cost of the unique parts for that version (I assume the engine section is largely unique), which will no longer be shared with H3-32L. Might allow more performance too, if it was re-optimized for that (pretty sure H3-22L's liftoff TWR is higher than H3-30S, so it might be possible to enlarge the tanks a bit)

Online GreenShrike

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #117 on: 12/10/2018 11:16 pm »
If theres now only one 3-engine configuration (and its the smallest variant), I gotta wonder how much they're really saving with that vs simply ditching the zero-booster variant and using 2 SRBs on all flights. Liquid engines are usually pretty expensive compared to solids, not unreasonable to expect its close to the cost of an SRB pair.

I used to think the 2- or 3-engine options with H3 were weird and counterproductive, but then I worked though the (very rough) financial numbers and H3-30 is probably worthwhile even without an H3-32 variant.


First, from what I can tell, SRB3s have around the same thrust as the upcoming Vulcan GEM-63XLs, but burn for around 10 seconds longer, making them somewhat more beefy. They're also half the thrust/size of Ariane 6's P120 solid motors.

Without a price step between the H3-22 and H3-24, it's hard to get a good read on SRB3 pricing, but putting them in the same price category as GEM-63XLs at maybe $8-10M each might be realistic. And $15-20M for a pair is a sizable chunk of money compared to the ~$50M price for an H3-30.

Second, the H3's expander-bleed LE-9 engine seems designed to be absurdly simple. As it doesn't even have to worry about igniting a gas generator and spinning up a turbine -- LE-9s just flow LH2, ramp the pumps and ignite the main chamber -- one might argue that it's even simpler than a Merlin 1D. That simplicity should substantially reduce costs compared to H2A's LE-7A staged combustion hydrolox engines, and if LE-9's ISP suffers a bit for it, well everyone knows ISP doesn't matter so much on a booster engine.

Now, if Vulcan's BE-4s are rumoured to be ~$16M/pair, then that's $8M an engine. Given that the BE-4 is an engine almost twice the size of an LE-9 and running a rather more complex ORSC cycle, the cost of an LE-9 should be rather less. It's possible that $5M is a reasonable figure.


As such, I'd guess that a pair of SRB3s are substantially more expensive than an additional LE-9, but obviously can't confirm it until we know the pricing of H3-30 versus H3-22.


Plus the extra development and tooling cost of the unique parts for that version (I assume the engine section is largely unique), which will no longer be shared with H3-32L.

JAXA/Mitsubishi are attempting to commercially compete with SpaceX using an expendable rocket, while also serving domestic institutional launch needs. As such, the H3-30 is like the Ariane 62 and probably not really meant for commercial use -- it's only a 4t+ SSO launcher, after all.  Dropping the H3-30 variant would likely just penalize the costs of institutional launches -- forcing them to go on a pricier H3-22 -- while likely not saving much if anything on commercial GTO launches with either an H3-22 or -24.

Yes, the H3-30 will just need to bear the additional design and manufacturing costs associated with the second booster thrust section design, but with saving, say, $10M overall per flight (as above, adding maybe $5M for an LE-9 while avoiding maybe $15M for a pair of SRB3s), that probably won't take too many institutional launches.

Might allow more performance too, if it was re-optimized for that (pretty sure H3-22L's liftoff TWR is higher than H3-30S, so it might be possible to enlarge the tanks a bit)

The H3s don't really need bigger tanks for more performance -- they can lift anything required as it stands, with the H3-22 covering the electric and small chemical GEO sat market, and H3-24 covering heavy chemical GEO sats.

They really only need more performance if they're going to be recovered which, sadly, they're not.

Like Ariane 6, the H3 project had unfortunate timing -- Falcon 9 had been proven and had low pricing compared to anything else, but F9-R was very much in doubt when the projects started.  Both, then, are aimed to compete with current F9 pricing per-sat and nothing more, and only ESA/JAXA's *next* architectures will compete with reusable rockets.

That said, I think a large clustered LE-9 design has... possibilities. ;-)
« Last Edit: 12/11/2018 07:22 pm by GreenShrike »
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Offline Zed_Noir

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #118 on: 12/11/2018 01:50 am »
If theres now only one 3-engine configuration (and its the smallest variant), I gotta wonder how much they're really saving with that vs simply ditching the zero-booster variant and using 2 SRBs on all flights. Liquid engines are usually pretty expensive compared to solids, not unreasonable to expect its close to the cost of an SRB pair. Plus the extra development and tooling cost of the unique parts for that version (I assume the engine section is largely unique), which will no longer be shared with H3-32L. Might allow more performance too, if it was re-optimized for that (pretty sure H3-22L's liftoff TWR is higher than H3-30S, so it might be possible to enlarge the tanks a bit)

Wonder if a H3-34L configuration with possibly upgraded/enlarged upper stage have any takers.

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: H3 development update thread
« Reply #119 on: 12/11/2018 08:27 pm »
If theres now only one 3-engine configuration (and its the smallest variant), I gotta wonder how much they're really saving with that vs simply ditching the zero-booster variant and using 2 SRBs on all flights. Liquid engines are usually pretty expensive compared to solids, not unreasonable to expect its close to the cost of an SRB pair. Plus the extra development and tooling cost of the unique parts for that version (I assume the engine section is largely unique), which will no longer be shared with H3-32L. Might allow more performance too, if it was re-optimized for that (pretty sure H3-22L's liftoff TWR is higher than H3-30S, so it might be possible to enlarge the tanks a bit)

Wonder if a H3-34L configuration with possibly upgraded/enlarged upper stage have any takers.
MB-60 engine was originally on the table with an ACES class/type US but to cut cost and accelerate H-3 development an enlarged and optimized H-2B US was brought over to H-3 with updated engine version called LE-5B-3 (RL10C-2 equivalent).

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