Author Topic: Blue Origin - New Shepard first developmental test flight  (Read 181953 times)

Offline Prober

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard first developmental test flight
« Reply #340 on: 08/30/2015 02:52 am »
Prober

The suborbital New Shepard capsule and orbital capsule capable of re entry are two different beasts.

Here is picture of Blue orbital vehicle/capsule, the picture is from 2012 so design may have change considerably.
It seems to be a cross between a capsule and space plane (SNC DC). Unlike a capsule it re enters nose cone first.

http://www.space.com/images/i/000/016/905/i02/blue-origin-biconic-120424d-02.jpg?1335288761
I can see one advantage to this design where docking hatch is facing LV. Assuming capsule carries the LAS they could place a service module with extra accommodation below the capsule, for BLEO or extended LEO missions.

Yes, believe the biconic has moved into a BEO design.   While the NS design can be used for LEO operations. Have "faith" BO can handle any shield rework. ;)
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Offline TrevorMonty

Here are Dimitry's calculation for the Vulcan.

BE-3U version of VULCAN

Rocket   Vulcan II
Total Gross Mass   430 Mt
Payload to GTO   8.85 mt
Payload to LEO   20.2 mt (all figures below are for GTO launch)
SI Gross Mass   362.36 mt
SI Propellant Mass   340.30
SI Separation Mass   22.06 mt
SI Diameter   5.1 meters
SI Engine(s)   2xBE-4 LNG/oxygen engines
SI SL Thrust   500 tf
SI Vac Thrust   557 tf
SI Isp SL/Vac   307/342 seconds
SII Gross Mass   56.30 mt
SII Propellant Mass   49.87 mt
SII Separation Mass   6.43 mt
SII Engine   1xBE-3U hydrogen/oxygen engine
SII Thrust (Vacuum)   50 tf
SII Engine Isp   450 Seconds
PLF Mass   2.478 mt
PLF Diameter   5.1 meters
Separation time   220 seconds

A Blue Origin 4xBE4 SI + 2xBE3 SII LV should be capable of 40t (approx 10t per BE4). Partially reusable approx 28t (30% penalty) and fully reusable 20t (50% penalty). For LEO HSF these payloads would be overkill for 7x crew 10t capsule but would allow for a larger capsule (15-20 crew) in future. A 40t LV maybe a bit light for doing BLEO missions in one launch without in orbit refueling (eg ULA distributed launch), but as RLV it should be able to deliver fuel to LEO for <$2K/kg.


Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Blue Origin - New Shepard first developmental test flight
« Reply #342 on: 09/08/2015 02:00 pm »
Current Centaur carries 20.8mt of propellant. The Vulcan US will be 2 times the diameter and same length which give a volume increase for the tanks of a factor of 4 so the propellant amount for ACES should be between 3  and 4 times that of Centaur of 60-80mt.

from http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Upper_Stages/ACES-Stage_Concept-AIAASpace_2015.pdf
Quote
The ACES stage is being designed for 150 klb of propellant

Which is 68.2mt of propellant for ACES.

Your Vulcan SII propellant is way too low.

Expect this same amount for the SII using 1 BE-3U of any BO orbital LV. With 4 BE-4's the prop could well be twice this amount on SII with 2 BE-3's on the stage for redundancy and a healthy amount of prop for margins in the engine out case. A much larger stage could also give the 40% margins needed to do SII reusability. If the stage costs twice as much but is reused 10 times and costs little to refurbish for flight that is a big economic advantage such that the larger SII could cost per flight 2/5 that of the smaller non-reusable SII.

Offline Chris Bergin

Merged all the announcement news into the main thread:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=10685.msg1426320#msg1426320
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