Author Topic: NASA Launch Services Program outlines the alternative launcher review for EM-1  (Read 28254 times)

Offline Khadgars

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Not a shocking conclusion... But that's what you get, when you try to take a spacecraft that has basically been designed purposefully for over a decade to NOT work with any commercial providers and then you try to answer the question "can we launch this on a commercial rocket anyway?"

The bit about the LAS rings very false, though. So they considered launching with a LAS, or with Orion inside a regular fairing. Uh... Did no one consider the obvious option? (see image - Orion ogive fairing without LAS)

And if we only had the technology breakthrough to launch a capsule without a fairing... ::) (CST-100, Dragon)

So you're saying your expertise single handily is superior to the entire team that considered all the options outlined in this three page article?

From the article, they considered as many options as they could.

I'm not saying that at all. Just pointing out that if the only options they considered was A) the full LAS and B) inside a regular fairing, they missed some rather obvious choices and thus did a bad job. Or perhaps the article failed to list those alternatives.

Sometimes there are 'real' open studies, and sometimes there are rubber-stamping studies where the outcome was known in advance. This seems to fall in the latter category, from what I can tell in the article.

I understand your point, but I find it hard to believe you came to the conclusion that this study was nothing more than a rubber stamp.   Simply because an extremely talented team didn’t consider your option doesn’t invalidate the study. 
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing - Thomas Jefferson

Offline RDoc

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<snip>
The arrangement would look like this, where ">" = the designed normal direction of force:

>Falcon S2>Dragon><Orion<Service Module

Both the Dragon and the Orion would have forces applied to them that they were not designed for, and the Service Module would also be forced to operate in a mode that it was not designed to operate in (i.e. going backwards).

Even if they could somehow dock with the Orion Service Module with some sort of temporary attachment, the Dragon 2 is still forced to carry a lot of load it was not designed to carry.

Would be interesting to hear the detail of what concerned them, to see what was the weakest link...
I'd assumed they'd put the docking collar on the bottom of the stack so the force would be in the correct direction. Pushing it upside down certainly seems pretty fraught. I was just trying to understand what the comment in the quote was. Steven Pietrobon's answer seems like the killer, but in any case, doing something like that which, as you point out, it was never designed for seems pretty unlikely.

Offline ZachS09

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On the first page, the article mentioned, "LSP provides the integration between NASA spacecraft programs and launch services providers like Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, all the way from selecting a launch vehicle through liftoff and beyond."

Regarding Northrop Grumman, is it possible for the heavy version of OmegA to lift Orion, considering its really high payload capacity?
Liftoff for St. Jude's! Go Dragon, Go Falcon, Godspeed Inspiration4!

Online Steven Pietrobon

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Steven; if the target docking stage was a Delta IV-H upper stage with a single RL-10B2 - would that fall within what the docking mechanism can stand? Or is a fully-fuelled Centaur with 2× RL-10s still falling within the range?

Yes, as each RL-10B-2 is only 110 kN. If 25 t is the mass of Orion and 5 t is the mass of the empty stage, then the load at the orion docking adaptor is F*25/(25+5) = F*5/6, where F is the thrust of the engine.
« Last Edit: 04/22/2019 10:50 am by Steven Pietrobon »
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline MATTBLAK

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Sounds good - although I doubt the EM-1 Orion could be an active participant in a rendezvous and docking with a Centaur-like stage. Still: perhaps ULA could trial a rendezvous and docking avionics/software package for an ordinary Centaur, as preparation for later Vulcan upper stage systems? Could an Atlas V-551 get a Centaur with sufficient propellant remaining to push the 26 ton Orion to TLI? And I would think the Orion would have to provide some delta-v as well, via it's Service Module.

The Delta IV-H would have to use virtually every drop of propellant to get the fully-fueled Orion into L.E.O. But with the RS-68A engines and 5-meter upper stage that shouldn't be a problem. I don't imagine there are two suitable launchpads at KSC that could launch 2x Delta IV-H's in quick succession? I also don't imagine the mix of D-IVH and Atlas V-551 would be much of a problem, though.
« Last Edit: 04/22/2019 11:33 am by MATTBLAK »
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Offline A_M_Swallow

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Sounds good - although I doubt the EM-1 Orion could be an active participant in a rendezvous and docking with a Centaur-like stage. Still: perhaps ULA could trial a rendezvous and docking avionics/software package for an ordinary Centaur, as preparation for later Vulcan upper stage systems? Could an Atlas V-551 get a Centaur with sufficient propellant remaining to push the 26 ton Orion to TLI? And I would think the Orion would have to provide some delta-v as well, via it's Service Module.

The Delta IV-H would have to use virtually every drop of propellant to get the fully-fueled Orion into L.E.O. But with the RS-68A engines and 5-meter upper stage that shouldn't be a problem. I don't imagine there are two suitable launchpads at KSC that could launch 2x Delta IV-H's in quick succession? I also don't imagine the mix of D-IVH and Atlas V-551 would be much of a problem, though.

Within 5 years NASA has the problem of getting a lunar lander to the Moon. The lander will almost certainly have a NASA Docking Port or equivalent. A reusable lander needs propellant delivering to lunar orbit. The tanker module containing the liquid payload has not been designed yet. A Moon base will need habitats, large rovers and frequent delivers of supplies. Does a Centaur like stage with a IDSS docking port count as a lunar tug?

I suspect the Xeus kit's motors can be used as docking thrusters for a Centaur or ACES.

Offline Proponent

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Regarding Northrop Grumman, is it possible for the heavy version of OmegA to lift Orion, considering its really high payload capacity?

I would guess that even Orion's extra-powerful LAS wouldn't be sufficient for an all-solid launch vehicle, unless that vehicle were modified to permit reasonably graceful thrust termination on command.

Offline Jim

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I'm not saying that at all. Just pointing out that if the only options they considered was A) the full LAS and B) inside a regular fairing, they missed some rather obvious choices and thus did a bad job. Or perhaps the article failed to list those alternatives.


Wrong.  Those were the only two options available to LSP.  They weren't going to engineer Orion, that is not their job.  They were trying to find a launch service for Orion as it exists.

Offline Jim

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On the first page, the article mentioned, "LSP provides the integration between NASA spacecraft programs and launch services providers like Northrop Grumman, SpaceX, and United Launch Alliance, all the way from selecting a launch vehicle through liftoff and beyond."

Regarding Northrop Grumman, is it possible for the heavy version of OmegA to lift Orion, considering its really high payload capacity?

That doesn't exist as far as LSP is concerned.  NG's Antares is the only vehicle available to LSP at this time.

Offline Hog

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Whatever happened to the "Emergency Detection System" that NASA paid 6.7 million dollars under CCDev to ULA?  IIRC the EDS detected an emergency and could trigger the LES to take crew away to safety from a failing Atlas 5 and/or Delta IV-Heavy.
Paul

Offline rakaydos

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Sounds good - although I doubt the EM-1 Orion could be an active participant in a rendezvous and docking with a Centaur-like stage. Still: perhaps ULA could trial a rendezvous and docking avionics/software package for an ordinary Centaur, as preparation for later Vulcan upper stage systems? Could an Atlas V-551 get a Centaur with sufficient propellant remaining to push the 26 ton Orion to TLI? And I would think the Orion would have to provide some delta-v as well, via it's Service Module.

The Delta IV-H would have to use virtually every drop of propellant to get the fully-fueled Orion into L.E.O. But with the RS-68A engines and 5-meter upper stage that shouldn't be a problem. I don't imagine there are two suitable launchpads at KSC that could launch 2x Delta IV-H's in quick succession? I also don't imagine the mix of D-IVH and Atlas V-551 would be much of a problem, though.

Within 5 years NASA has the problem of getting a lunar lander to the Moon. The lander will almost certainly have a NASA Docking Port or equivalent. A reusable lander needs propellant delivering to lunar orbit. The tanker module containing the liquid payload has not been designed yet. A Moon base will need habitats, large rovers and frequent delivers of supplies. Does a Centaur like stage with a IDSS docking port count as a lunar tug?

I suspect the Xeus kit's motors can be used as docking thrusters for a Centaur or ACES.
If the problem with FHUS earth orbit rendevus is Orion's solar panels, then a lunar lander can be designed around the restrictions of non SLS launchers while being of comparable mass to Orion.

Offline Sknowball

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Whatever happened to the "Emergency Detection System" that NASA paid 6.7 million dollars under CCDev to ULA?  IIRC the EDS detected an emergency and could trigger the LES to take crew away to safety from a failing Atlas 5 and/or Delta IV-Heavy.

Historically Delta IV and Atlas V had separate avionics packages which meant that the EDS development work for Atlas V was not applicable to the DCSS (which ICPS is a derivative), this changed in January 2018 when Delta IV started using the Common Avionics package in use on Atlas V.   When the study of flying crew on EM-1 was undertaken it was realized that human rating ICPS would be easier than originally anticipated, because the Common Avionics work that had been done with Atlas V, however as the EM-1 ICPS was delivered to NASA in 2017 I don't believe it integrates the Common Avionics package (someone with more knowledge than me would have to confirm that).   Philip Sloss wrote a great article last year detailing a lot of this (the human rating of ICPS discussion starts on page 3).


Online TheRadicalModerate

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I'm not saying that at all. Just pointing out that if the only options they considered was A) the full LAS and B) inside a regular fairing, they missed some rather obvious choices and thus did a bad job. Or perhaps the article failed to list those alternatives.


Wrong.  Those were the only two options available to LSP.  They weren't going to engineer Orion, that is not their job.  They were trying to find a launch service for Orion as it exists.

Hmm.  Removing the LAS is, of course, an Orion mod.  Given that they at least considered it, the design rules might not have been as stringent as you think.  I agree that a redesign of the ogive or the load-bearing aspects of the CM was off the table, but there are a lot of little things that could be done.

Has anybody looked at simply removing the abort motor from the LAS?  Seems like that would take about 3 tonnes out of the 7.6 tonne LAS system, and it doesn't affect the fairing or load distribution on the CM.

Two options:

1) Simply eliminate the motor from the stack, shortening it.  The risk here would be that the dynamics of the jettison system would change, in a possibly unacceptable way.

2) Replace the nozzles / thrust structure / solid propellant with a simple fairing.  You don't get quite the same mass savings, but it doesn't seem like a particularly difficult project.

It doesn't take a lot of mass-reduction to get a D4H to be able to deliver an Orion to orbit.  Three tonnes comes awful close to doing it.

Offline su27k

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https://twitter.com/brickmack/status/1594722312653152256

Quote
A ~2019 NASA proposal for an SLS-equivalent launch capability, using @ulalaunch's ICPS on top of @SpaceX's Falcon Heavy (likely fully expended, possibly with downrange booster recovery though). Sometimes termed the "Bridenstine Stack"

Commissioned by @jean_seb_bbr

Offline su27k

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And an interesting discussion about the performance of the "Bridenstine Stack", this is the first time I heard that it's possible that this stack has the same performance as SLS Block 1. Also it's pretty crazy that to this day the only thing NASA disclosed about this stack is from a NSF article...

https://twitter.com/idiot_666666/status/1594727107724279809

Quote from: Just Soap
Could only send Orion to lunar free return, needed to burn quite a bit of ESM propellant to complete TLI
Not sure the boosters would have recovery hadrware though

Quote from: Mack Crawford
You're thinking of the regular single-launch unmodified FH option. Expendable FH with ICPS offers nearly identical performance to SLS Block 1 (within a few hundred kg)

The lunar orbit mission profile would require full expendability, but partial reuse could be possible for flyby

Quote from: Just Soap
“From a performance standpoint, we were getting very close, under the 1000 meter per second augmentation help that we needed...we might have been able to close that case, on the surface we weren’t able to do it though.”
ie Orion would still need to burn most of it's propellant

Quote from: Ozan Bellik
The problem with that interpretation of that quote (which, btw, doesn't say how far under 1km/s they were getting, and what assumptions they were using for the analysis), is that it doesn't jive with claimed FH performance figures.

And considering claimed F9 figures jive w/ 1/



demonstrated F9 capability, I'm inclined to believe claimed FH performance, which you'd have to sandbag dramatically to get the conclusions you're claiming. 2/2

Quote from: Mack Crawford
The article is structured in a confusing way, but I'm like 99% sure the quote he's referring to is talking about a different configuration. There *was* an additional third stage other than ICPS studied for Orion-FH, which offered much less performance but was faster to implement

Quote from: Just Soap
The third stage in question is ICPS, it says so explicitly in the aricle:“The interesting thing was the LOX (liquid oxygen)-hydrogen ICPS (Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage), derived from the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage,”



And yes FH performance isn't enough to send Orion to TLI, even with ICPS
A fully expended FH in theory barely has enough performance to place ICPS+Orion into a low reference LEO, far short of the elliptical transfer orbit needed (2000km apogee) for the ICPS to finish TLI



The difference is small enough that Orion's SM could probably make up the difference but at the cost of not being able to enter any kind of lunar orbit after that.
Maybe this would have been useful as a lunar heatshield test, not an operational mission.
Either way it's a bad idea

Quote from: Ozan Bellik
Not at all true. Orion has >400m/s of excess delta v for NRHO missions, and ~600m/s excess for DRO.

That's more than enough to make up the difference.



Note that even though B1 places the ICPS-Orion stack at nearly 2000km, ICPS can give Orion a 3km/s boost, which only needs an extra 200m/s or so for TLI from VLEO.

And ICPS+Orion is few tons under FHE's mass limit to VLEO, leaving enough mass margin for stiffening.

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