Author Topic: SUSIE, (Smart Upper Stage for Innovative Exploration) concept from ARIANE  (Read 55255 times)

Offline libra

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Ah. There goes the logic. As per F-35...

Offline john smith 19

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Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.
In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles.
So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.

I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry.
I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
Yes Ariane Group is fast turning into Boeing with Starliner (which this also resembles in the "stage" sense). They took 2 goes to finally get to safetly dock with ISS and are no longer viewed as the "safe pair of hands" (at least they shouldn't be, given their poor execution, large cash payout and walking away from the XS-1 contract  :(  )
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline TrevorMonty

If they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.
Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.

Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.
In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles.
So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.

I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry.
I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
Far as I know A6 development is going to plan. The schedule slips are no more than usual for new LV, COVID hasn't helped. The delays are nothing like SLS. Compared to Vulcan they aren't doing to badly.

The $4.4B development cost does seem very high given competition are doing it for lot less. F9R V1.2 would be around $1B. Vulcan is likely to be $1-2B. Terran R <$1B and it is a F9R class LV.

Smaller LVs like Neutron and Beta <$500M.
With addition of  NGIS SRMs Beta could also compete in GEO satellite launch market.

Offline GWR64

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If they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.
Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.

Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.
In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles.
So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.

I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry.
I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
Far as I know A6 development is going to plan. The schedule slips are no more than usual for new LV, COVID hasn't helped. The delays are nothing like SLS. Compared to Vulcan they aren't doing to badly.

The $4.4B development cost does seem very high given competition are doing it for lot less. F9R V1.2 would be around $1B. Vulcan is likely to be $1-2B. Terran R <$1B and it is a F9R class LV.

Smaller LVs like Neutron and Beta <$500M.
With addition of  NGIS SRMs Beta could also compete in GEO satellite launch market.

So, when will Ariane 6 launch for the first time? So far, ESA is been hesitant to announce the date.
That looks more like the second half of 2023.
https://twitter.com/AllPlanets/status/1571473556805910529
And when is the first operational launch?

Offline baldusi

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Ah. There goes the logic. As per F-35...
It wouldn't be French if it didn't had an exception to the rule.  ;D

Offline baldusi

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If they never start to work on this, at least in a serious way, they will again go about doing a thousand studies about "how to copy SpaceX without it being too obvious". The Californian company will have done trades on Starship for ten years by the time they start work on something similar. Of course they will have to copy if they don't put years of effort on designing, testing, redesigning, etc. As much as I think SUSIE as proposed is a bad design, with imaginary numbers of margin, it is their design. I would rather have Europe think out their own solution for a reusable upperstage/spaceship to get something different.
Not unlike how RocketLab designed Neutron: a one for one competitor with F9 with absolutely different technological solutions in every possible way. Europe needs to do something like that. So I think SUSIE is a good place to start the thinking. But for God's sake, don't try to deliver as presented.

Does Europe have to develop a reusable launcher, or is Ariane 6 fine for the launch demand Europe has.
In Europe politicians are destroying their own economy for Environmental misconceptions. There are more than a 1000 more important things to develop than reusable rockets. Engines can't be tested because of the environmental misconceptions. A lot of testing has to take place, to figure out what reuse method works best. Smaller systems use less fuel and 'pollute' less. So they should test on smaller vehicles.
So beter do a test of a 50% scale SUSIE on Vega C/D/E than on Ariane 6, or on a even smaller vehicle.

I don't want promotion of piss pore performance on the development of Ariane 6; by awarding follow on development contracts before Ariane 6 is operational. Arianegroup should deliver what they promise otherwise as they did with Ariane 6 development, they destroy the whole European launch industry.
I think the real reason for Ariane 6 development delays haven't be published, because the company at fold will be held accountable for 1.5years without production demand on all dedicated Ariane 6 production assets. That will be a huge claim.
Government will always have too much things to spend money on and not enough resources. The question is how you decide among all the options and how you keep your strategic options viable for the day when economics are trumped by the realities of plague, famine and/or war.
Everything is a tradeoff between cost and strategic independence. Europe had incredible luck with the absolute mismanagement of Hermes/Ariane 5. They got everything wrong and by sheer luck got a launcher that was the commercial gold standard exactly when the Russians and Americans mismanaged their programs (Atlas V, Delta IV, Angara, Sea Launch and Proton) and the GEO birds size grew to the 3 to 6 tonne size. So they got used to not spend money thanks to the commercial viability of their launcher. I do have to note Ariane 2-4 were excellent dual-use launchers.
But they relied for a long time on Russians and Americans for the small launcher segment and straight Russians for the middle segment. And now that came and bit them in the rear. The sons of wealth and prosperity after the fall of the Berlin Wall are just now finding out that the history of human race is a lot tougher and you really need to keep your strategic options when clients find better deals elsewhere... or the hordes decide to invade you. That's just human nature.
Technology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).
They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.

Offline john smith 19

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Technology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).
They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.
Unfortunately "At any cost" has gotten them A6.  :(

Interesting strategy.  Remember though that the funding usually goes through ESA, and ESA has other members than those of the EU, the UK, Canada and Israel to name a few.  ;)
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline woods170

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Technology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).
They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.
Unfortunately "At any cost" has gotten them A6.  :(

Interesting strategy.  Remember though that the funding usually goes through ESA, and ESA has other members than those of the EU, the UK, Canada and Israel to name a few.  ;)

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

ESA has 22 member states. Neither Canada, nor Israel are member states of ESA.

Canada has a Cooperation Agreement with ESA and has a seat on the ESA council. As such they have a voice in how ESA spends its money. But Canada is not a member state of ESA.
Three European countries are Associate Members of ESA.
And five EU states have a Cooperation Agreement (ECS - European Cooperating State) with ESA, similar to the one Canada has, but WITHOUT a seat on the ESA council.

Israel is neiter a member state, nor an associate member. And it also is not an ECS.
There is a cooperation agreement between ESA and ISA (the Israeli Space Agency), but it is similar to the agreement between ESA and NASA. It does not give ISA any leverage in what ESA spends its funds on.

Offline baldusi

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Technology and space has become clearly a most important intelligence and military asset that Europe needs to keep at any cost. The future is clearly on at least partially reusable launchers. And Europe has botched this segment of the space chain. Regrettably they need to work right now on short term solutions (specially on the medium polar segment), medium term (partially reusable heavy (16 to 25 tonnes to LEO) launchers, and long term (fully reusable).
They shouldn't go full bending metal on SUSIE, that's clear. But keep studying it, and ideally agree on a small set of top-level requirements that it must comply with. Then, add a couple of extra companies getting the same requirements but absolute design freedom to achieve them.
Unfortunately "At any cost" has gotten them A6.  :(

I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.

I don't think it matters. The CNES design and the current design are already obsolete.
« Last Edit: 10/09/2022 04:29 am by Steven Pietrobon »
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline woods170

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I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.

I don't think it matters. The CNES design and the current design are already obsolete.

So is Vulcan. But I don't hear anyone complaining over that little fact.
And NO, SMART is nowhere close to be implemented on Vulcan. It is as far along in development as Themis and Prometheus: at least 7 years away from implementation.

Offline baldusi

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I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.

I don't think it matters. The CNES design and the current design are already obsolete.

Current A6 design is barely competitive in a segment that's not very well aligned with demand, but can do albeit at a high cost while they actually do what needs to be done. The CNES (PPC was it called?) was an atrocious design that would have meant A7 would have to be a new start cost ESA a lot more.

Offline john smith 19

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Wrong, wrong and wrong.

ESA has 22 member states. Neither Canada, nor Israel are member states of ESA.

Canada has a Cooperation Agreement with ESA and has a seat on the ESA council. As such they have a voice in how ESA spends its money. But Canada is not a member state of ESA.
Three European countries are Associate Members of ESA.
And five EU states have a Cooperation Agreement (ECS - European Cooperating State) with ESA, similar to the one Canada has, but WITHOUT a seat on the ESA council.

Israel is neiter a member state, nor an associate member. And it also is not an ECS.
There is a cooperation agreement between ESA and ISA (the Israeli Space Agency), but it is similar to the agreement between ESA and NASA. It does not give ISA any leverage in what ESA spends its funds on.
Thank you for clarifying my understanding.  My key point was ESA membership <> EU membership, therefore ESA could consider from countries that are not EU member states are within Europe.
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline john smith 19

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I don't want to sound like a broken record but A6 is actually a wonderful achievement in comparison to the four solids monster that CNES was pushing. I think they actually saved the program with that.
Actually I would agree, and IIRC the design only got reconsidered when the Germans said LH2 needed to be part of the design.

But what will follow A6? More of the same? Because if they want to retain a market share of the world payload launch market to offset some of the operating and development costs then BAU won't cut it.  :(

BTW This SUSIE-on-A6 has remarkable echoes of the Hermes-on-A5 (which in turn echoed DynaSoar-on-Titan) that drove Alan Bond to propose HOTOL in the early 80's.

It seems there is a section of the French space industry that does not really learn from history  :(
Unfortunately the consolidation that's produced A6 makes changing course to anything more radical quite difficult.
« Last Edit: 10/12/2022 06:58 am by john smith 19 »
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Offline volker2020

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A lot of patronizing about the EU space industry here ...

Well, I think A6 would have been a good design, if the Space Industry would have stayed in the status quo, that reuseability simply does not work. A6 is a good last decades design.

The really bad thing here, if ESA starts to copy F9 now (and that would include minor improvements), they would again end up with a system that is outdated, when reaching the market.

The good argument against reusability has always been, that the base cost are so high, that it does not make sense, if you have very limited payloads. Either the payloads grow (which is likely taking the huge cost reduction in transport to LEO), or the market is already saturated by SpaceX. Pick your poison.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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The really bad thing here, if ESA starts to copy F9 now (and that would include minor improvements), they would again end up with a system that is outdated, when reaching the market.

Better to be 10 years out of date (after starting on a Falcon 9 clone), then waiting another 10 years (and doing nothing) and be 20 years out of date!
« Last Edit: 10/18/2022 05:42 am by Steven Pietrobon »
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline libra

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A lot of patronizing about the EU space industry here ...

Well, I think A6 would have been a good design, if the Space Industry would have stayed in the status quo, that reuseability simply does not work. A6 is a good last decades design.

The really bad thing here, if ESA starts to copy F9 now (and that would include minor improvements), they would again end up with a system that is outdated, when reaching the market.

The good argument against reusability has always been, that the base cost are so high, that it does not make sense, if you have very limited payloads. Either the payloads grow (which is likely taking the huge cost reduction in transport to LEO), or the market is already saturated by SpaceX. Pick your poison.

That's... an understatement. Thank you and Steven Pietrobon for the last two messages.

Offline Rik ISS-fan

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Let's clarify myself. Ariane 6 is a very good expendable launcher design. SUSIE as reusable space vehicle launched on top of Ariane 6 is also a good concept in my opinion. But the 2022 ESA ministerial (2023-2025) already has to many activities for Enabling & Support, Space Transportation. SUSIE should have been proposed after Ariane 6 maiden launch at the earliest. In my opinion SUSIE develoment needs to be postponed to the 2024/'25 ESA ministerial.
ArianeGroup isn't set up to do skunkwork style developments. That is needed to mature technologies required for SUSIE.

Let's discuss the following. Let's assume ESA member states fund SUSIE development for 150 mln between early 2023 and end 2025. What activities should be done to advance the concept the most?
« Last Edit: 10/18/2022 08:44 pm by Rik ISS-fan »

Offline Try_NBS

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First they will begin the development phase, verify if the concept is really feasible... Engineers know their job.

Offline hektor

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Ariane 6 is an excellent expendable launcher. The question is whether you can live with an expendable launcher nowadays.

Regarding SUSIE...

In my view, there are two possible paths for a crewed European system

Path 1 is a very simple crewed vehicle, launched by Ariane 6, capsule type, high TRL technical choices for the systems, the goal is to get European access to space for European astronauts the soonest as possible. Like the old British Aerospace concept MRC from the eighties... (if only Europe had gone for that when Hermes got cancelled !!!)

Path 2 is to be patient. Develop a TSTO fully reusable system to come after A6. When you have a second stage which flies safely and regularly, lands very safely, adapt it by replacing the payload section by a crew cabin and you have a crewed vehicle. This is the long path.

SUSIE is in-between and I think it is either too ambitious for Path 1 and a distraction for Path 2.
« Last Edit: 10/19/2022 11:21 am by hektor »

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