Good article on solid rocket industry. The Minuteman 2 replacement program is probably main reason behind NG buying OA. Whether NG or Boeing wins contract, ATK will still end up making one or more of Minuteman stages. Most likely more stages if NG wins. http://spacenews.com/in-the-wake-of-northrop-orbital-merger-aerojets-solid-rocket-engine-business-teetering-on-the-brink/
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 06/27/2018 05:09 pmGood article on solid rocket industry. The Minuteman 2 replacement program is probably main reason behind NG buying OA. Whether NG or Boeing wins contract, ATK will still end up making one or more of Minuteman stages. Most likely more stages if NG wins. http://spacenews.com/in-the-wake-of-northrop-orbital-merger-aerojets-solid-rocket-engine-business-teetering-on-the-brink/Using space launch to subsidize solid did not come up in the article at all. It says the winner of GBSD will have decades of solid work ahead, sounds to me there no need for artificially propping up the solid industry using space launch any more.
The Minuteman 2 replacement program is probably main reason behind NG buying OA.
Quote from: su27k on 06/28/2018 03:44 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 06/27/2018 05:09 pmGood article on solid rocket industry. The Minuteman 2 replacement program is probably main reason behind NG buying OA. Whether NG or Boeing wins contract, ATK will still end up making one or more of Minuteman stages. Most likely more stages if NG wins. http://spacenews.com/in-the-wake-of-northrop-orbital-merger-aerojets-solid-rocket-engine-business-teetering-on-the-brink/Using space launch to subsidize solid did not come up in the article at all. It says the winner of GBSD will have decades of solid work ahead, sounds to me there no need for artificially propping up the solid industry using space launch any more.The ongoing concern in the Pentagon, as has been discussed upthread, is the continuing loss of capacity in the solids industry, which was explicitly mentioned in the article with the reference to the collapse of demand around 1990 and further loss of demand when Shuttle retired.Back in the late 1980's when I started out in the Air Force doing solid propellant R&D work at the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Lab at Edwards AFB, there were four major solids companies: Aerojet, UT/CSD, Hercules, and Thiokol. Now there are only two: NGIS and Aerojet.So the Air Force is worried that if Aerojet doesn't get enough large SRM business, they'll get out of that line of work altogether and be reduced to tactical missiles only, which would leave the Pentagon at the mercy of one large SRM supplier (NGIS) who would effectively have a monopoly in the same way ULA had a monopoly before SpaceX elbowed in.I expect they'll treat GBSD procurement the same way they're doing launch vehicles now, ie support at least two major suppliers.So, yes, there will be two large SRM suppliers making ICBM stages for another decade, and that will keep the Pentagon happy for a while.Then when GBSD production ramps down, it'll be back to the same question: how to preserve large SRM production infrastructure and knowledge base during a long down-time before the next large ICBM procurement.