NASASpaceFlight.com Forum
Commercial and US Government Launch Vehicles => NGIS (Formerly Orbital ATK) - Antares/Cygnus Section => Topic started by: FutureSpaceTourist on 08/08/2022 05:17 pm
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https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-teams-with-firefly-aerospace-to-develop-antares-rocket-upgrade-and-new-medium-launch-vehicle
Northrop Grumman Teams with Firefly Aerospace to Develop Antares Rocket Upgrade and New Medium Launch Vehicle
CHANDLER, Ariz. – Aug. 8, 2022 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Firefly Aerospace have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets.
“Through our collaboration, we will first develop a fully domestic version of our Antares rocket, the Antares 330, for Cygnus space station commercial resupply services, followed by an entirely new medium class launch vehicle,” said Scott Lehr, vice president and general manager, launch and missile defense systems, Northrop Grumman. “Northrop Grumman and Firefly have been working on a combined strategy and technical development plan to meet current and future launch requirements.”
Firefly’s propulsion technology utilizes the same propellants as the current Antares rocket, which minimizes launch site upgrades. The Antares 330 will utilize seven of Firefly’s Miranda engines and leverage its composites technology for the first stage structures and tanks, while Northrop Grumman provides its proven avionics and software, upper-stage structures and Castor 30XL motor, as well as proven vehicle integration and launch pad operations. This new stage will also significantly increase Antares mass to orbit capability.
“Firefly prides itself on being a disrupter in the new space industry and collaborating with a proven space pioneer like Northrop Grumman will help us continue that disruption,” said Peter Schumacher, interim CEO, Firefly.
The Antares 330 performance upgrade will enable Northrop Grumman to continue to support the company’s current contracts while planning for future mission capabilities.
Firefly Aerospace is an emerging end-to-end space transportation company focused on developing a family of launch vehicles, in-space vehicles, and services to provide industry-leading affordability, convenience, and reliability to its government and commercial customers. Firefly's launch vehicles, combined with their in-space vehicles, such as the Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) and Blue Ghost Lunar Lander, provide the space industry with a single source for missions from LEO to the surface of the Moon and beyond.
Northrop Grumman is a technology company, focused on global security and human discovery. Our pioneering solutions equip our customers with capabilities they need to connect, advance and protect the U.S. and its allies. Driven by a shared purpose to solve our customers’ toughest problems, our 90,000 employees define possible every day.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1556688871546568705
🚀 Announcement: Exciting news today! Northrop Grumman and Firefly have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security missions. news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/…
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I wonder if the "entirely new medium class launch vehicle" will be partially or even fully reusable. It would almost have to be, since Antares is already a medium-lift launch vehicle, but one which likely can't be retrofitted with reusability, so a new clean-sheet reusable design is really the only reason to build something entirely new.
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Nice! Looks like Antares may have a future yet. It's a shame the Ukrainians are no longer able to participate for no fault of their own. Maybe Firefly can hire on some of the Ukrainian engineers?
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https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-teams-with-firefly-aerospace-to-develop-antares-rocket-upgrade-and-new-medium-launch-vehicle
CHANDLER, Ariz. – Aug. 8, 2022 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Firefly Aerospace have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets.
Great news! However, this announcement does not mention a schedule.
NorGrum has been flying two CRS-2 Cygnus flights a year. They have two Antares left, which can fly NG-18 (Q4 2022) and NG-19 (Q2 2023). They will need a new launcher by Q4 2023 to maintain the CRS-2 cadence. This seems unrealistic for a brand new launcher. Is there a plan for the Q4 2023 launch?
All options have problems:
--somehow produce a third Antares 230 (how??)
--use this newly-announced Antares 330 (very aggressive schedule)
--use the yet-to-be-flown Vulcan Centaur (agressive schedule)
--use an Atlas V borrowed from the Boeing or Kuiper allocations. (possible contractual issues)
--NASA substitutes a Cargo Dragon. (lost revenue for NorGrum, reliance on single source by NASA)
Other options?
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twitter.com/tgmetsfan98/status/1556706759116570626
What appears to have actually happened here is that Firefly redesigned their future Beta rocket, now a bit bigger and using "Miranda" and "Viranda" engines (possibly just a rename of Reaver 2), and then agreed to sell Northrop Grumman the first stage of Beta to use on Antares.
https://twitter.com/tgmetsfan98/status/1556706760915828743
The new stage is still kerolox, 4.3 meters in diameter, and uses seven Miranda engines.
Two flights of the current Antares rocket are scheduled for this fall and Spring of 2023. After this, the current Antares first stage will no longer be available.
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Interesting... There is some irony here, that the current first stage (built in Ukraine) will be replaced by a company that was rescued and revived by an Ukrainian. (who has since been forced out)
Hopefully there will be future opportunities for US-Ukrainian aerospace cooperation.
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https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-teams-with-firefly-aerospace-to-develop-antares-rocket-upgrade-and-new-medium-launch-vehicle
CHANDLER, Ariz. – Aug. 8, 2022 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) and Firefly Aerospace have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets.
Great news! However, this announcement does not mention a schedule.
NorGrum has been flying two CRS-2 Cygnus flights a year. They have two Antares left, which can fly NG-18 (Q4 2022) and NG-19 (Q2 2023). They will need a new launcher by Q4 2023 to maintain the CRS-2 cadence. This seems unrealistic for a brand new launcher. Is there a plan for the Q4 2023 launch?
All options have problems:
--somehow produce a third Antares 230 (how??)
--use this newly-announced Antares 330 (very aggressive schedule)
--use the yet-to-be-flown Vulcan Centaur (agressive schedule)
--use an Atlas V borrowed from the Boeing or Kuiper allocations. (possible contractual issues)
--NASA substitutes a Cargo Dragon. (lost revenue for NorGrum, reliance on single source by NASA)
Other options?
Have SX move a dragon flight forward in exchange for two Cygnus flights the following year
Same total number of flights for each provider
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Bit more time to develop the new Antares for Cygnus:
https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1556718378370359296
New: Northrop Grumman has bought three Falcon 9 missions from SpaceX to launch its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, a spokeswoman says, as the company looks to replace Antares' Russian-made RD-181 engines with Firefly's Miranda engines.
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https://twitter.com/free_space/status/1556719445816610816
Northrop says new Antares targeted to fly late '24--more than 1.5 yrs after last Antares w/ Russian RD-181 engines is due to launch. To fill the gap, NG looking for other providers to launch an undetermined number of Cygnus freighters to ISS, NG's Kurt Eberly tells @AviationWeek
It seems Reuters has the scoop on the SpaceX flights
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Bit more time to develop the new Antares for Cygnus:
New: Northrop Grumman has bought three Falcon 9 missions from SpaceX to launch its Cygnus cargo spacecraft, a spokeswoman says, as the company looks to replace Antares' Russian-made RD-181 engines with Firefly's Miranda engines.
Doh! well that was obvious. I had somehow put NorGrum in the "anyone but SpaceX" category, but like OneWeb, I guess they think using F9 is not all that bad. Three launches gives them until Q2 2025 before the new rocket must be operational. The minor drawback is that CRS will be dependent on F9, but that's already true for CCP.
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The minor drawback is that CRS will be dependent on F9, but that's already true for CCP.
Dream Chaser launches on Vulcan and these F9 Cygnus flights don't start until H2 2023
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Partnership isn't all one way, NGIS have SRBs which could greatly enhance Beta performance if the two companies want to go after DoD missions. Lots of possibilities with this partnership, will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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Partnership isn't all one way, NGIS have SRBs which could greatly enhance Beta performance if the two companies want to go after DoD missions. Lots of possibilities with this partnership, will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Frankly, this feels like the first step in a process which will lead to the headline "Northrop Grumman acquires Firefly."
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The minor drawback is that CRS will be dependent on F9, but that's already true for CCP.
Dream Chaser launches on Vulcan and these F9 Cygnus flights don't start until H2 2023
If NASA will consider Vulcan to be operational in H2 2023, then Cygnus could also use it, probably more easily than using F9. Cygnus has already flown on Atlas V and the logistics for flying on Vulcan (vertical integration, late loading, etc.) should be basically the same as opposed to flying on F9. But can NASA count on Vulcan being operational in time? To be operational for CRS, I think it must fly at least one and probably two test missions first.
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I wonder if the "entirely new medium class launch vehicle" will be partially or even fully reusable. It would almost have to be, since Antares is already a medium-lift launch vehicle, but one which likely can't be retrofitted with reusability, so a new clean-sheet reusable design is really the only reason to build something entirely new.
(my bold text)
Why not?
Falcon 9 was "retrofitted with reusability".
"Just add legs, gridfins, and cold gas thrusters".
(Yeah, it's never that easy but they do have a working example to learn from as long as Miranda can be throttled sufficiently.)
Copy the ASDS like Blue Origin is claimed to be having done.
Heck! Copy the Octograbber while they are at it (but change to a Hexagrabber {You heard it hear first!} for the six-fold symmetry.)
Possibly easier to do with the clean sheet design they are working with.
Then rely on the low internal cost of NG's Castor based second stage to drive down launch prices for payloads like Cygnus that can handle their own perigee raising, etc.
So Cygnus on Antares (200?) in Q4 2022 and Q2 2023
Cygnus on three Falcon 9's in Q4 2023, Q2 2024, and Q4 2024.
Cygnus on the new Antares 330 in Q4 2025 (three plus years from now) and beyond.
Good for them!
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If NASA will consider Vulcan to be operational in H2 2023, then Cygnus could also use it, probably more easily than using F9. Cygnus has already flown on Atlas V and the logistics for flying on Vulcan (vertical integration, late loading, etc.) should be basically the same as opposed to flying on F9. But can NASA count on Vulcan being operational in time? To be operational for CRS, I think it must fly at least one and probably two test missions first.
NASA has no say in Cygnus use of Vulcan nor number of test missions.
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
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I wonder if the "entirely new medium class launch vehicle" will be partially or even fully reusable. It would almost have to be, since Antares is already a medium-lift launch vehicle, but one which likely can't be retrofitted with reusability, so a new clean-sheet reusable design is really the only reason to build something entirely new.
(my bold text)
Why not?
Falcon 9 was "retrofitted with reusability".
...
The minimum thrust requirement for landing prevents it. You can't throttle low enough with two RD-191 engines.
With 7 Miranda engines, probably yes.
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I wonder if the "entirely new medium class launch vehicle" will be partially or even fully reusable. It would almost have to be, since Antares is already a medium-lift launch vehicle, but one which likely can't be retrofitted with reusability, so a new clean-sheet reusable design is really the only reason to build something entirely new.
(my bold text)
Why not?
Falcon 9 was "retrofitted with reusability".
"Just add legs, gridfins, and cold gas thrusters".
(Yeah, it's never that easy but they so have a working example to learn from as long as Miranda can be throttled sufficiently.)
Copy the ASDS like Blue Origin is claimed to be having done.
Heck! Copy the Octograbber while they are at it (but change to a Hexagrabber {You heard it hear first!} for the six-fold symmetry.)
Possibly easier to do with the clean sheet design they are working with.
Then rely on the low internal cost of NG's Castor based second stage to drive down launch prices for payloads like Cygnus that can handle their own perigee raising, etc.
So Cygnus on Antares (200?) in Q4 2022 and Q2 2023
Cygnus on three Falcon 9's in Q4 2023, Q2 2024, and Q4 2024.
Cygnus on the new Antares 330 in Q4 2025 (three plus years from now) and beyond.
Good for them!
What's the thrust profile like on an Antares 330 (based on the numbers currently available for Firefly Beta)? My understanding was that the profile of the Falcon 9, with its high-thrust second stage, was particularly conducive to propulsive-landing reuse; this contrasts with Vulcan's profile, which made SMART reuse the only option.
The other question is whether the payload hit from adding reusability would impact the ability of the vehicle to carry Cygnus to orbit, which of course is its only role. And for that matter, if you're launching twice a year max, is it worthwhile to pursue reuse?
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Could you clarify? My interpretation was that Antares 330 will use the existing Antares launch pad.
- Ed Kyle
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Consider the list of boosters that Cygnus has launched on :
* Antares 100
* Antares 200
* Atlas V
In the future we can add Falcon 9 and Antares 300
The list of spacecraft that have rode 3, 4 or 5 different boosters to orbit is very, very small.
What spacecraft have done that?
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Consider the list of boosters that Cygnus has launched on :
* Antares 100
* Antares 200
* Atlas V
In the future we can add Falcon 9 and Antares 300
The list of spacecraft that have rode 3, 4 or 5 different boosters to orbit is very, very small.
What spacecraft have done that?
Some of the commercial satellite buses have flown on a lot more LVs than that
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Could you clarify? My interpretation was that Antares 330 will use the existing Antares launch pad.
- Ed Kyle
KSC pad and non solid upper stage to be really useful
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Is there a plan for the Q4 2023 launch?
Other options?
NG ordered 3 Falcon 9 launches. Another option would have been the Ariane 62. I would have preferred that.
A nice development Firefly Beta and Antares merging into a single development.
Can we expect Firefly Beta to get nicknamed Antares 340?
Could Firefly Beta benefit from the upperstages/kick-stages proposed for Antares?
What is the relation between the Firefly Miranda / Viranda Engines and the Ukranian RD-801 engines. Or is it more related to the RS-27(A)? How far along is firefly with the engine development?
It's clear there is a very tight dateline, but I think this is a nice development.
It doesn't have to be reusable, but it could become reusable, if launch demand is high enough.
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NG ordered 3 Falcon 9 launches. Another option would have been the Ariane 62. I would have preferred that.
Buying time until an unflown rocket flies by booking an unflown rocket? Sounds like a plan.
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Could you clarify? My interpretation was that Antares 330 will use the existing Antares launch pad.
- Ed Kyle
KSC pad and non solid upper stage to be really useful
You're not wrong, and that's actually almost exactly what Firefly's full Beta rocket is, just with a pad at CCSFS instead of KSC. Beta will have a full-diameter liquid upper stage with a turbopump-powered kerolox engine with about the same thrust as MVac.
That said, it's undeniably strange that NG didn't just buy Beta launch contracts. They're seemingly clinging to the outdated Antares model of buying lots of different stages/subassemblies from third parties and integrating them into a rocket they call their own. I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
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They're seemingly clinging to the outdated Antares model of buying lots of different stages/subassemblies from third parties and integrating them into a rocket they call their own. I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
They seemingly really like their own avionics and flight software. Can they really be blamed for that?
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They're seemingly clinging to the outdated Antares model of buying lots of different stages/subassemblies from third parties and integrating them into a rocket they call their own. I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
They seemingly really like their own avionics and flight software. Can they really be blamed for that?
Ah, yes. Remember when Northrop acquired Orbital-ATK, and Pegasus suddenly had a problem with position data from the first-stage rudder actuator, because Northrop wanted to use their own avionics, causing a two-year delay to NASA's ICON? Fun times.
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They're seemingly clinging to the outdated Antares model of buying lots of different stages/subassemblies from third parties and integrating them into a rocket they call their own. I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
They seemingly really like their own avionics and flight software. Can they really be blamed for that?
Plus NG own pad so must be cheaper keep it inhouse even with low flightrate. The other advantage is they keep a foot in launch market.
NG are still working with Firefly on Beta, not sure how partnership will workout. NG bring alot launch experience to partnership especially with government customers, they also have flight proven avionics and SRBs. Firefly has only launched 1 Alpha so they've a lot to learn.
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Ah, yes. Remember when Northrop acquired Orbital-ATK, and Pegasus suddenly had a problem with position data from the first-stage rudder actuator, because Northrop wanted to use their own avionics, causing a two-year delay to NASA's ICON? Fun times.
It was the standard Orbital MACH avionics. Nothing was changed when NG bought them. All NG rockets and launch vehicles use Orbital heritage avionics still.
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Northrop Grumman have the Falcon 9 as backup in case the various Antares replacement schemes doesn't bring fruit or become too expensive. As long as the Dragon is flying for NASA.
Also the number of future non Cygnus flights matters. There is no point in replacing the current version of the Antares for only the Cygnus flights to the ISS. IMO.
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Northrop Grumman have the Falcon 9 as backup in case the various Antares replacement schemes doesn't bring fruit or become too expensive. As long as the Dragon is flying for NASA.
Also the number of future non Cygnus flights matters. There is no point in replacing the current version of the Antares for only the Cygnus flights to the ISS. IMO.
There are some types of CRS cargo that can be carried by Cygnus but not by Cargo Dragon. In addition, Cygnus has been demonstrated to provide reboost to ISS, but Cargo Dragon has not. I'm no sure about desat. With all of this, I think is reassuring that there are now multiple potential alternate launchers starting in Q4 2023.
We discussed alternatives much earlier (March?) on the Antares thread. Jim pointed out two problems with Cygnus-on-F9:
--Cygnus uses vertical integration
--F9 fairings do not provide for late-loading cargo.
Do we have any insight into how these problems will be solved?
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<snip>
We discussed alternatives much earlier (March?) on the Antares thread. Jim pointed out two problems with Cygnus-on-F9:
--Cygnus uses vertical integration
--F9 fairings do not provide for late-loading cargo.
Do we have any insight into how these problems will be solved?
The NRO spooks have kindly pay SpaceX to be able to vertically integrated payload on the Falcon Heavy at pad LC-39A with a mobile gantry tower.
However if I am not mistaken. The Antares with the Cygnus travels to the pad from the integration building horizontally on a transporter erector.
AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
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AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
Not true.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grummans-antares-team-demonstrates-new-capability-to-load-cargo-just-before-launch
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Northrop Grumman have the Falcon 9 as backup in case the various Antares replacement schemes doesn't bring fruit or become too expensive. As long as the Dragon is flying for NASA.
Also the number of future non Cygnus flights matters. There is no point in replacing the current version of the Antares for only the Cygnus flights to the ISS. IMO.
From the standpoint of purchasing more than the 3 F9 flights. At Cygnus current flight rate of 2 / yr the 3 F9's will get them all the way to Spring 2025 where either they have to have bought another F9 or the Firefly stage is ready. 1 F9 in Fall 2023 and 2 F9's in 2024 (Spring and Fall). They can wait probably as late as summer of 2024 to decide if they need another F9. So they are good now for awhile.
Also they could start implementing those Cygnus upgrades even before flying on Firefly.
A very useful upgrade would be increased prop load to increase ISS boost capability available on every flight. Higher total volume and cargo mass as well in the 1 to 3t amounts.
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AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
Not true.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grummans-antares-team-demonstrates-new-capability-to-load-cargo-just-before-launch
According to Jim, this would require a hatch in the F9 fairing. (Jim, did I remember this correctly?) Since there are only a very few Cygnus-on-F9 flights, I infer that it is not cost-effective to design a recoverable fairing with a hatch: just design a non-recoverable fairing with a hatch.
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AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
Not true.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grummans-antares-team-demonstrates-new-capability-to-load-cargo-just-before-launch
According to Jim, this would require a hatch in the F9 fairing. (Jim, did I remember this correctly?) Since there are only a very few Cygnus-on-F9 flights, I infer that it is not cost-effective to design a recoverable fairing with a hatch: just design a non-recoverable fairing with a hatch.
For that matter, is late-load done on every Cygnus launch? They could just have three without it (and if the station needs some late-load supplies during that time, carry them up on Dragon). It's only a problem if you've got late-load supplies which also need Cygnus's larger berthing port (rather than Dragon 2's docking port), but I have no idea if that's a real issue.
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Apologies if I’m the last one to get this:
https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1556858269926244352
For those who don’t remember the Firefly movie, Miranda was the secret planet beyond Reaver space.
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This is the first time I'm hearing about the firefly "Miranda" engine. Do we know for how long it has been in development, or any technical details?
Launching in 2024 with a brand-new engine seems very ambitious.
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AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
Not true.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grummans-antares-team-demonstrates-new-capability-to-load-cargo-just-before-launch
According to Jim, this would require a hatch in the F9 fairing. (Jim, did I remember this correctly?) Since there are only a very few Cygnus-on-F9 flights, I infer that it is not cost-effective to design a recoverable fairing with a hatch: just design a non-recoverable fairing with a hatch.
Will Dragon XL require late load for cargo flights to the Gateway? I think the only load path for pressurized cargo for the XL is via the docking port at the nose, so it would have the same problem as Cygnus. Perhaps SpaceX has told NG that their fairing will have the necessary hatch, and maybe this is a way for SpaceX to get NG to pay for its development, or at least share the cost. Since SpaceX already has a commercial cargo contract for Gateway resupply, this would be a win-win for them.
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AFAIK late-loading cargo for the Cygnus can only be loaded before encapsulation. Since the only way to access the pressurized cargo compartment is through the CBM hatch in the nose of the Cygnus.
Not true.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/features/northrop-grummans-antares-team-demonstrates-new-capability-to-load-cargo-just-before-launch
According to Jim, this would require a hatch in the F9 fairing. (Jim, did I remember this correctly?) Since there are only a very few Cygnus-on-F9 flights, I infer that it is not cost-effective to design a recoverable fairing with a hatch: just design a non-recoverable fairing with a hatch.
Will Dragon XL require late load for cargo flights to the Gateway? I think the only load path for pressurized cargo for the XL is via the docking port at the nose, so it would have the same problem as Cygnus. Perhaps SpaceX has told NG that their fairing will have the necessary hatch, and maybe this is a way for SpaceX to get NG to pay for its development, or at least share the cost. Since SpaceX already has a commercial cargo contract for Gateway resupply, this would be a win-win for them.
I have exactly zero inside info on this, but logically I cannot see a requirement for late load for a Gateway resupply mission. Late-load gets you at most a day or two of difference, and Gateway missions are just not sensitive to that difference.
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This is the first time I'm hearing about the firefly "Miranda" engine. Do we know for how long it has been in development, or any technical details?
Launching in 2024 with a brand-new engine seems very ambitious.
I think the assumption is that Miranda is just a rebranding of their existing work on the "Reaver-2" engine. Although it's not necessarily clear how much work had been done on that, either, or what changes may have been made in adjusting their plans to become the first stage of Antares.
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Isn't Northrop Grumman merely proposing a launch vehicle mostly for a future, yet to be awarded set of CRS-2 or CRS-3 contracts? The way things stand now, as I understand it, the company has two launches on Antares 230 to complete its previous contract. Then it has three on Falcon 9 and a possible three on Antares 330 to meet the March 2022 CRS-2 award requirements, but let's be honest about the question of whether the new Antares will be ready in time for those final three launches (it took two full years just to fly a reengined first stage. This proposal replaces the first stage entirely). Doesn't NG really need to propose this to NASA and win new contracts to make it happen?
I'm happy about the proposal, because I believe in RP/LOX and SpaceX plans to shut down its line of RP/LOX rockets and engines. I wouldn't be surprised to see kerosene beat methane over the long run.
- Ed Kyle
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Ah, yes. Remember when Northrop acquired Orbital-ATK, and Pegasus suddenly had a problem with position data from the first-stage rudder actuator, because Northrop wanted to use their own avionics, causing a two-year delay to NASA's ICON? Fun times.
It was the standard Orbital MACH avionics. Nothing was changed when NG bought them. All NG rockets and launch vehicles use Orbital heritage avionics still.
I believe you. Unless this NSF article and its NGIS source was wrong, I would assume that this was deemed a minor change to what is still considered to be the Orbital avionics, and we're arguing semantics on naming conventions:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/ngis-updates-icon-launch-status/
In June, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) began the ferry flight of their Stargazer L-1011 aircraft – with the Pegasus rocket safely encapsulating ICON inside its payload fairing – across the Pacific Ocean from California to the Kwajalein Atoll, where the air-drop launch of ICON was set to occur.
During the first leg of this trip from California to Hawai’i, systems engineers aboard Stargazer noticed an off-nominal reading from one of Pegasus’ new Actuator Control Units.
“This is the first time that we’re using Northrop Grumman-designed Actuator Control Units,” stated Bryan Baldwin, Pegasus Program Manager, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, in an exclusive interview with NASASpaceflight.
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Ah, yes. Remember when Northrop acquired Orbital-ATK, and Pegasus suddenly had a problem with position data from the first-stage rudder actuator, because Northrop wanted to use their own avionics, causing a two-year delay to NASA's ICON? Fun times.
It was the standard Orbital MACH avionics. Nothing was changed when NG bought them. All NG rockets and launch vehicles use Orbital heritage avionics still.
I believe you. Unless this NSF article and its NGIS source was wrong, I would assume that this was deemed a minor change to what is still considered to be the Orbital avionics, and we're arguing semantics on naming conventions:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/ngis-updates-icon-launch-status/
In June, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) began the ferry flight of their Stargazer L-1011 aircraft – with the Pegasus rocket safely encapsulating ICON inside its payload fairing – across the Pacific Ocean from California to the Kwajalein Atoll, where the air-drop launch of ICON was set to occur.
During the first leg of this trip from California to Hawai’i, systems engineers aboard Stargazer noticed an off-nominal reading from one of Pegasus’ new Actuator Control Units.
“This is the first time that we’re using Northrop Grumman-designed Actuator Control Units,” stated Bryan Baldwin, Pegasus Program Manager, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, in an exclusive interview with NASASpaceflight.
Fin actuators are not part of the avionics system much like engine or nozzle actuators are not either.
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I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
If NG are sizing Antares 330 to launch Cygnus, then 'bigger fairing' and 'better performance' are two things they don't need. AIUI, Antares 330 would already allow them to launch a somewhat heavier Cygnus.
As for 'cheaper', well maybe, but it's all accounting magic anyway
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I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
If NG are sizing Antares 330 to launch Cygnus, then 'bigger fairing' and 'better performance' are two things they don't need. AIUI, Antares 330 would already allow them to launch a somewhat heavier Cygnus.
As for 'cheaper', well maybe, but it's all accounting magic anyway
Cygnus XL?
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I would bet money that Beta will be significantly cheaper, have a bigger fairing, and offer better performance than Antares 330.
If NG are sizing Antares 330 to launch Cygnus, then 'bigger fairing' and 'better performance' are two things they don't need. AIUI, Antares 330 would already allow them to launch a somewhat heavier Cygnus.
As for 'cheaper', well maybe, but it's all accounting magic anyway
Cygnus XL?
Yes, however only upon customer request.
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Weren't NG working on a cryogenic upper stage for the Omega? Perhaps a version of that for the new medium lift rocket?
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Weren't NG working on a cryogenic upper stage for the Omega? Perhaps a version of that for the new medium lift rocket?
RL10 powered I think?. They were also working on Be7 powered Transfer Element of National Team lander , so there is some hydrolox experience inhouse.
To keep booster reuseable the US would need to be quite a bit larger than Vulcan's Centuar which stages later. In which case BE3U would be better option and also cheaper. In expendable mode with GEM SRBs should match or better Vulcan across all missions.
Without SRBs Vulcan booster has 1100klbs of thrust while Beta is 1600klbs.
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Ah, yes. Remember when Northrop acquired Orbital-ATK, and Pegasus suddenly had a problem with position data from the first-stage rudder actuator, because Northrop wanted to use their own avionics, causing a two-year delay to NASA's ICON? Fun times.
It was the standard Orbital MACH avionics. Nothing was changed when NG bought them. All NG rockets and launch vehicles use Orbital heritage avionics still.
I believe you. Unless this NSF article and its NGIS source was wrong, I would assume that this was deemed a minor change to what is still considered to be the Orbital avionics, and we're arguing semantics on naming conventions:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/ngis-updates-icon-launch-status/ (https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/ngis-updates-icon-launch-status/)
In June, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) began the ferry flight of their Stargazer L-1011 aircraft – with the Pegasus rocket safely encapsulating ICON inside its payload fairing – across the Pacific Ocean from California to the Kwajalein Atoll, where the air-drop launch of ICON was set to occur.
During the first leg of this trip from California to Hawai’i, systems engineers aboard Stargazer noticed an off-nominal reading from one of Pegasus’ new Actuator Control Units.
“This is the first time that we’re using Northrop Grumman-designed Actuator Control Units,” stated Bryan Baldwin, Pegasus Program Manager, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, in an exclusive interview with NASASpaceflight.
Fin actuators are not part of the avionics system much like engine or nozzle actuators are not either.
So, basically, you are agreeing with butters' original statement other than that he should have said "systems" or "stuff" instead of "avionics"? (which I bolded in both statements)
You keep correcting, with authority we all respect, the errors in the details of his posts without disputing his basic premise, that NG modification lead to issues and the two year delay.
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Weren't NG working on a cryogenic upper stage for the Omega? Perhaps a version of that for the new medium lift rocket?
RL10 powered I think?. They were also working on Be7 powered Transfer Element of National Team lander , so there is some hydrolox experience inhouse.
Omega's cryogenic third stage would have been powered by a pair of Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10C engines. NG received several engines, I believe, and were working on prototype cryo tanks for the stage at Michoud.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/04/northrop-grumman-progress-omega/
Long before that, Orbital Sciences considered using RL10 on Taurus 2 (before it was named Antares). Dr. Elias lost that argument.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15457.msg622401#msg622401
My view is that a growth Antares would be best served by one of two options. First - use NG's own solid motor expertise with Castor 30XL as the starting point. Or, second, use Firefly's LOX/kerosene upper stage engine. Both would fit nicely into the existing launch pad infrastructure. A restartable LOX/RP upper stage would be a big performance improvement.
- Ed Kyle
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If Northrop is envisioning relatively modest launch rate for Antares and wants to go after NSSL contracts in the future, then I'd suggest they make a deal with Arianespace for the Vinci-powered upper stage, and strap some GEMs onto the Firefly booster. LEGO the liquids and leverage the in-house solids expertise, positioning Antares as a more capable/flexible solution than Firefly Beta.
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If Northrop is envisioning relatively modest launch rate for Antares and wants to go after NSSL contracts in the future, then I'd suggest they make a deal with Arianespace for the Vinci-powered upper stage, and strap some GEMs onto the Firefly booster. LEGO the liquids and leverage the in-house solids expertise, positioning Antares as a more capable/flexible solution than Firefly Beta.
The Beta LV needs to be reuseable booster to be competitive as it will be up against Terran R, Neutron and F9 for LEO constellation business. Also needs low cost US if that is expendable so most likely use Firefly RP1 engine.
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If Northrop is envisioning relatively modest launch rate for Antares and wants to go after NSSL contracts in the future, then I'd suggest they make a deal with Arianespace for the Vinci-powered upper stage, and strap some GEMs onto the Firefly booster. LEGO the liquids and leverage the in-house solids expertise, positioning Antares as a more capable/flexible solution than Firefly Beta.
The Beta LV needs to be reuseable booster to be competitive as it will be up against Terran R, Neutron and F9 for LEO constellation business. Also needs low cost US if that is expendable so most likely use Firefly RP1 engine.
This does lead to the question of what Northrop is contributing to the next-generation medium-lift launch vehicle that they're developing to succeed Antares 330. I think we're all assuming that this vehicle is (or is replacing) Firefly Beta, but if it follows the original plan to use Firefly's in-house engine and tanks, what did Northrop add? The ability to optionally strap on SRBs for an expendable configuration which can compete for all NSSL orbits, including direct GEO?
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Fantasy space flight mode:
Northrup does have some impressive capabilities for rendezvous and docking between Cygnus and the MEV series. Perhaps they could use that to build an ACES like upper stage, rather than a cheap expendable?
Boring guess: Northrup was just hoping for a drop in first stage, so they don't loose Antares outright.
I suppose it depends on how much promise they see in fielding this vehicle in the future for applications outside of Cygnus. Are they actually hoping to merge Firefly Beta and Cygnus all around? Are they going to operate as separate vehicles? Will Firefly build and market Beta on their own, with Northrup flying a minimally changed Antares for Cygnus?
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Fantasy space flight mode:
Northrup does have some impressive capabilities for rendezvous and docking between Cygnus and the MEV series. Perhaps they could use that to build an ACES like upper stage, rather than a cheap expendable?
There is always hydrolox 3rd stage or OTV using BE7.
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This does lead to the question of what Northrop is contributing to the next-generation medium-lift launch vehicle that they're developing to succeed Antares 330. I think we're all assuming that this vehicle is (or is replacing) Firefly Beta, but if it follows the original plan to use Firefly's in-house engine and tanks, what did Northrop add? The ability to optionally strap on SRBs for an expendable configuration which can compete for all NSSL orbits, including direct GEO?
Northrop added funding, and expertise serving the U.S. Government, and its own guidance equipment, and payload fairing systems. But mostly funding.
- Ed Kyle
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Fantasy space flight mode:
Northrup does have some impressive capabilities for rendezvous and docking between Cygnus and the MEV series. Perhaps they could use that to build an ACES like upper stage, rather than a cheap expendable?
ACES doesn't use capabilities for rendezvous and docking. Its technology is how the vehicle uses the main propellants for power, pressurization and attitude control.
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As a person who holds the relatively unpopular opinion that working with ULA has helped Blue Origin's maturation process and not just set them back, I am open to the argument that supplying boosters to Northrop could make Firefly a more capable aerospace company in the future.
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https://youtu.be/oaJf2uxK_uA
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As a person who holds the relatively unpopular opinion that working with ULA has helped Blue Origin's maturation process and not just set them back, I am open to the argument that supplying boosters to Northrop could make Firefly a more capable aerospace company in the future.
Boosters and kick stages.
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Fantasy space flight mode:
Northrup does have some impressive capabilities for rendezvous and docking between Cygnus and the MEV series. Perhaps they could use that to build an ACES like upper stage, rather than a cheap expendable?
ACES doesn't use capabilities for rendezvous and docking. Its technology is how the vehicle uses the main propellants for power, pressurization and attitude control.
Wasn't ACES capable of that specifically to support distributed launch? And distributed launch involves rendezvous and docking? Also somewhat close to NG's unflown work on the transfer vehicle for Artemis. And could make for an upper stage that is not just commodity launch but a distinct service.
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Fantasy space flight mode:
Northrup does have some impressive capabilities for rendezvous and docking between Cygnus and the MEV series. Perhaps they could use that to build an ACES like upper stage, rather than a cheap expendable?
ACES doesn't use capabilities for rendezvous and docking. Its technology is how the vehicle uses the main propellants for power, pressurization and attitude control.
Wasn't ACES capable of that specifically to support distributed launch? And distributed launch involves rendezvous and docking? Also somewhat close to NG's unflown work on the transfer vehicle for Artemis. And could make for an upper stage that is not just commodity launch but a distinct service.
Distributed launch wasn't specific to ACES, was originally designed around Centuar. Google "ULA IVF" you should find a paper on their webpage, checkout DL while there. Lot of ACES technology has found its way into new Centuar V.
Back to NG and Firefly. NG is expert at large composite structures, the partnership may also involve sharing this technology.
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The idea that both Antares 330 and Firefly Beta could well have their common first stage become recoverable vis-à-vis retropropulsion is a very interesting and attractive prospect.
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Northrop and Firefly's Antares330 is a very interesting and fun project.
One question is, why did Northrop decide not to use their SRB (the legacy of the now-deceased Omega) and buy Firefly's first stage?
Was a two-stage solid rocket combining Castor-30XL and Castor300(or 600) not good enough?
Sounds like a good time to salvage Omega components from the grave.
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Could be reusable. That’d allow them to compete with F9, Neutron, Terran-R, and New Glenn.
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Northrop and Firefly's Antares330 is a very interesting and fun project.
One question is, why did Northrop decide not to use their SRB (the legacy of the now-deceased Omega) and buy Firefly's first stage?
Was a two-stage solid rocket combining Castor-30XL and Castor300(or 600) not good enough?
Sounds like a good time to salvage Omega components from the grave.
It doesn't work at Wallops
And it is never a good time to salvage Omega.
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Beta, or whatever the collaboration rocket ends up being called (this is confusing), will absolutely have a recoverable first stage. Markusic has said it in the past, there's been presentations that have said it and included a reusable Beta render (it's in that Scott Manley video), and a seven-engine first stage feels like a telltale that it'll be reusable.
My guess is that Antares 330 will be fully expended though. It seems like Antares is flying considerably faster at stage separation than Falcon 9 (from quick research, 3700 m/s vs. 2200 m/s or so?), and the beefier first stage probably wouldn't help. If they could recover that, it would need to be a downrange landing, which Wallops seems poorly fit to support, and the extra infrastructure might be difficult for Northrop to justify with the low flight rate. Also, Northrop probably just wants it flying without many frills, so that first stage may be stripped back compared to whatever ends up on "Beta". Maybe they'll use Antares flights for early testing though. "Beta" should have a more Falcon-like flight profile.
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Northrop and Firefly's Antares330 is a very interesting and fun project.
One question is, why did Northrop decide not to use their SRB (the legacy of the now-deceased Omega) and buy Firefly's first stage?
Was a two-stage solid rocket combining Castor-30XL and Castor300(or 600) not good enough?
Sounds like a good time to salvage Omega components from the grave.
What Jim said, and also in answer to your question, no, a two-stage Castor 300/30XL would not work. You need a three stage rocket with these motors. Omega had a liquid hydrogen third stage. A Castor 600 + Castor 300 + Castor 30XL combination might get 8 or 9 tonnes to LEO x 51.6 (Omega would have lifted more than 20 tonnes), but I'm not sure about the precision of such an all-solid rocket. I expect that NG considered such options, which would have required a move to KSC.
- Ed Kyle
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Do/did/would these solid Castor stages have thrust termination capability included?
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Beta, or whatever the collaboration rocket ends up being called (this is confusing), will absolutely have a recoverable first stage. Markusic has said it in the past, there's been presentations that have said it and included a reusable Beta render (it's in that Scott Manley video), and a seven-engine first stage feels like a telltale that it'll be reusable.
My guess is that Antares 330 will be fully expended though. It seems like Antares is flying considerably faster at stage separation than Falcon 9 (from quick research, 3700 m/s vs. 2200 m/s or so?), and the beefier first stage probably wouldn't help. If they could recover that, it would need to be a downrange landing, which Wallops seems poorly fit to support, and the extra infrastructure might be difficult for Northrop to justify with the low flight rate. Also, Northrop probably just wants it flying without many frills, so that first stage may be stripped back compared to whatever ends up on "Beta". Maybe they'll use Antares flights for early testing though. "Beta" should have a more Falcon-like flight profile.
But it’s massively overbuilt for Antares-like payloads. I suspect it could still handle RTLS for some payload classes (or even Minotaur scale payloads or, with a Star motor, higher energy payloads even with RTLS). Using an existing proven solid stage reduces the scope of developing a F9-like stage from scratch.
Downrange landing would enable much higher performance, and a high energy stage after the first stage is proven could enable F9-like performance or even full reuse.
It’d be pretty shortsighted to start a major cleansheet first stage right now without a plan to evolve it to reuse. Irresponsible use of investor funds, even.
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Do/did/would these solid Castor stages have thrust termination capability included?
As far as I know (and could be wrong), no thrust termination was planned for the lower stages for Omega. There is generally little drawback from minor first stage overperformance, and the planned RL-10 powered upper stage would be more than capable of tuning the orbit appropriately.
For reference, Orbital's NG's systems that fly solid upper stages (Pegasus, Antares) also don't bother with thrust termination systems, even for pinpoint insertion:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/solid-rocket-stages-and-precise-orbit-insertions/
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My guess is Cynus will move across to Beta RLV once it is flying reliably which will take few years. The Antares 300 is just a stopgap until then otherwise it would've be a case of buying more F9s.
With move to Antares 300 NG will be dependent on Firefly so don't be surprised if they buy them. Given LV competition Firefly is up against its not bad option for Firefly.
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Antares and Beta could evolve down two different paths. Beta as RLV only mainly targeted at LEO constellations. Antares as ELV with liquid US and optional SRBs for high performance missions.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
I guess I meant “why would it *win* one”, but I see your point.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
I guess I meant “why would it *win* one”, but I see your point.
I was also thinking back to earlier speculation that they may build an "Antares 330 Heavy" variant with strap-on SRBs to further increase performance. Obviously, such boosters would basically make first-stage reuse impossible, but if they only did it for occasional launches, perhaps even using MLV first stages that have flown a few times already...
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<snip>
I was also thinking back to earlier speculation that they may build an "Antares 330 Heavy" variant with strap-on SRBs to further increase performance. Obviously, such boosters would basically make first-stage reuse impossible, but if they only did it for occasional launches, perhaps even using MLV first stages that have flown a few times already...
Not necessary impossible. But adding strapped-on solid booster probably requires a new launch pad in Florida and recovering the core on a floating platform much further out at sea.
Also what solid boosters as strapped-on booster. Medium size ones like the GEM-63XL or large ones like the Castor-120.
However the easiest way to increase performance is upgrading to a restartable upper stage with liquid rocket motor(s) without changing the ground support equipement much..
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This new first stage is a big thrust upgrade. 730 tonnes thrust versus 392 or 372 or whatever they let the RD-181s throttle up to at launch. That's significant growth opportunity. No strap-on motors needed!
- Ed Kyle
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This new first stage is a big thrust upgrade. 730 tonnes thrust versus 392 or 372 or whatever they let the RD-181s throttle up to at launch. That's significant growth opportunity. No strap-on motors needed!
- Ed Kyle
If they use Miranda engine for US then F9 is closes comparison as they are usingvsame furl and similar engines. F9 booster is 7600kn while Beta is 7100. Firefly say Beta LEO performance is 13t, no mention of reuse but I'm assuming it is as F9R is 16t downrange recovery. If this is case expendable Beta would be about 18-20t. Add 6xGem63 and should be close to 30t.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
Would just be another 1000kg class LV which Alpha is. This class will have 3 LVs servicing within next year.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
No, the development costs would be high. And Pegasus motor thrust is much higher.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
If you cut Pegasus's price in half and increase the payload, it's still more expensive and probably less payload than LauncherOne. Which is itself too expensive and unlikely to survive in the launch market. Trying to make a worse version seems unwise.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
Also, Pegasus is all solid, so now you’ve got to add cryogenic capacity to the carrier. That can be done but it’s going to be a lot of work and sort of invalidates using the existing L1011 (since you might not want to put money in to it).
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
Also, Pegasus is all solid, so now you’ve got to add cryogenic capacity to the carrier. That can be done but it’s going to be a lot of work and sort of invalidates using the existing L1011 (since you might not want to put money in to it).
I kind of assumed that LauncherOne is filled with subchilled LOX on the runway, and then is simply allowed to come up to its boiling point during travel to the drop site. Or maybe they just accept boil-off and recognize that the tanks won't be full at launch. Either way, no cryogenic top-off from the carrier aircraft.
Of course, even having gaseous (but extremely cold) oxygen venting under the plane's wing might not be great...
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https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1557013557312720897
Northrop and Firefly's "50/50 cost-share" plan:
Mid-to-late 2024: Launch the Antares 330, which replaces the 230+ series with Firefly-produced first stage & engines.
Late 2025: Launch the "MLV," which replaces Firefly's Beta rocket.
https://cnbc.com/2022/08/09/northrop-grumman-moves-rocket-work-from-russia-ukraine-with-firefly.html
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
I guess I meant “why would it *win* one”, but I see your point.
I was also thinking back to earlier speculation that they may build an "Antares 330 Heavy" variant with strap-on SRBs to further increase performance. Obviously, such boosters would basically make first-stage reuse impossible, but if they only did it for occasional launches, perhaps even using MLV first stages that have flown a few times already...
Or just strap on two more liquid boosters instead. Could reuse all 3.
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https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1557013557312720897
Northrop and Firefly's "50/50 cost-share" plan:
Mid-to-late 2024: Launch the Antares 330, which replaces the 230+ series with Firefly-produced first stage & engines.
Late 2025: Launch the "MLV," which replaces Firefly's Beta rocket.
https://cnbc.com/2022/08/09/northrop-grumman-moves-rocket-work-from-russia-ukraine-with-firefly.html
Okay, that makes sense. Ukraine and Russia are both out of the picture for Firefly and Antares, so each company has a big gaping hole, on the funding side for Firefly and on the first stage side for Antares. The holes fit together.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
I guess I meant “why would it *win* one”, but I see your point.
I was also thinking back to earlier speculation that they may build an "Antares 330 Heavy" variant with strap-on SRBs to further increase performance. Obviously, such boosters would basically make first-stage reuse impossible, but if they only did it for occasional launches, perhaps even using MLV first stages that have flown a few times already...
Or just strap on two more liquid boosters instead. Could reuse all 3.
Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
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How bout a Pegasus 2 with Reaver engines, is it possible? L1011 has alot of service left in it. Probably reduce the rocket price in half and increase performance. Maybe move to the 747 later, redo the aft skirt with 4 fins and no vertical.
Also, Pegasus is all solid, so now you’ve got to add cryogenic capacity to the carrier. That can be done but it’s going to be a lot of work and sort of invalidates using the existing L1011 (since you might not want to put money in to it).
I kind of assumed that LauncherOne is filled with subchilled LOX on the runway, and then is simply allowed to come up to its boiling point during travel to the drop site. Or maybe they just accept boil-off and recognize that the tanks won't be full at launch. Either way, no cryogenic top-off from the carrier aircraft.
Of course, even having gaseous (but extremely cold) oxygen venting under the plane's wing might not be great...
L1011 already plumbed and wiring installed for X-34 LOX/RP1 back in 2000 for Lox top off. Just need to add more tanks in cargo hold. The First, second stage could be substantially lighter being liquid than chemical and the wing could be removed and even the aft skirt, maybe even the third stage could be eliminated. This should offset the lower ISP Reaver. Development costs could be saved by having an airlaunch platform already, in house avionics, operations experience, some GSE engineers already staffed, already have facilities. Yeah, I think it's very doable for the future of small responsive launch under $20M per launch.
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L1011 already plumbed and wiring installed for X-34 LOX/RP1 back in 2000 for Lox top off. Just need to add more tanks in cargo hold. The First, second stage could be substantially lighter being liquid than chemical and the wing could be removed and even the aft skirt, maybe even the third stage could be eliminated. This should offset the lower ISP Reaver. Development costs could be saved by having an airlaunch platform already, in house avionics, operations experience, some GSE engineers already staffed, already have facilities. Yeah, I think it's very doable for the future of small responsive launch under $20M per launch.
I don't think there's enough "not just responsive launch, but actual air launch" demand to sustain even one air-launch system (LauncherOne). And a system using Reaver engines and the L1011 would almost certainly carry less than (or at least, not substantially more than) 500kg to orbit while costing more than $12 million. So there definitely isn't demand for a second, worse air-launch system (even if it's somewhat more competitive than Pegasus).
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
You bring up a very interesting point here. I've mentioned before that I think the "real" reason Northrop has continued to fly Antares up to this point, despite it being absurdly uncompetitive on the open market, is that every Antares they fly is an opportunity to sell a Castor 30XL upper stage to themselves.
We can deduce that the overall profit margin on Antares is relatively low (i.e., the actual cost of building and flying it is close to its published market price), because if it weren't, Northrop could be making more money by cutting its price to try to capture some of the commercial market. (Yes, the current Antares is a bit small to compete against Falcon 9, but it could take some of the low-end F9 payloads, as well as some of Soyuz's, which until recently was doing a brisk commercial business.) So if very little of Antares's price is actually profit for Northrop, what's in it for them to keep flying it? Why not just spend the same money buying Falcon 9s to launch Cygnus? (F9's list price may be in some cases higher than Antares's, but they could likely negotiate a discount to close that gap since the alternative would be SpaceX not getting any business at all.)
It only really makes sense when you realize that the Castor is the one part of Antares that actually matters from Northrop's business perspective. It doesn't matter that they could probably buy themselves a Falcon 9 for the same price as their internal cost to build and fly an Antares. What matters to Northrop is that a portion of those dollars spent on every Antares are being spent in-house, versus to a third party.
We've heard before that there's a lot of economics-of-scale synergy between Northrop's various solid-rocket lines (they pitched this as a major selling point for OmegA). This means the marginal cost of cranking out a few extra solid motors is probably quite low, relative to the high fixed costs of maintaining the necessary production infrastructure (most of which is likely already paid for by other programs). By "selling" even just a few Castors to the Antares program each year - even at-cost - they can amortize those fixed costs over a larger customer base, raising their profit margin across their whole solid rocket business.
If increasing their solid rocket production cadence by even this small amount can unlock better economics of scale, it's worthwhile for them to pursue, even if the entire rest of each Antares's cost is pure pass-through to the subcontractors they're buying it from. And it likely is pretty close to pure pass-through, since the Antares 230 first stage is basically a kitbash of the old Zenit design: Ukrainian tankage mated to 2x Russian RD-181 engines. There's very little actual value-add by Northrop as integrator, besides the political edge of being able to sell an "American rocket" to win contracts that a Zenit-as-such wouldn't be able to compete for. (They like to sell up Northrop's avionics as a value-add, but Zenit had its own avionics that could have been - and maybe were - used as a starting point. Same situation Firefly will be in.)
This is different from, say, the situation ULA was in with Atlas V. Yes, they were buying engines from the Russians, but the Atlas V tankage, structure, and plumbing were all theirs. There was a clear value-add. Not so much with the Antares first stage.
What's fascinating is that whatever economics-of-scale boost Northrop is getting for its SRB business by making those couple extra Castors a year is evidently enough to outweigh the costs that Northrop has already spent significantly redesigning the Antares first stage. (Going from NK-33s to RD-181s was surely not a trivial change.) It feels like they "should" have given up on Antares several times by now, but they haven't. Instead they're going to invest in a new, even more radical re-design of the first stage with Firefly, merely to support ~2 Cygnus launches per year for a few years.
In light of this, it makes sense that they are pursuing two parallel paths with Antares 330 vs. Firefly Beta/MLV. A330 is designed to meet the needs of the existing Castor upper stage - no more, no less. It will be utterly uncompetitive on the open market, but that's fine, because the ~2 Cygnus launches it'll get each year are (evidently) enough to make the business case close for Northrop.
If this were not so, then Northrop surely wouldn't be doing this. They'd just go all-in on Firefly Beta/MLV and launch Cygnus on that from the get-go. I don't completely buy the argument that Antares 330 will be a "stop-gap" to hold Cygnus over until Beta is available. Getting Antares 330 to fly will require maybe 90%+ of the effort to get the real Beta flying. The only significant difference is the upper stage, and that's not really the hard part compared to the first stage. Surely Firefly could hack together a "minimum viable product" kerolox upper stage for Beta in the same time it'll take them to develop two distinct first stage variants. It's not like it needs to be amazingly efficient; even a low-Isp, overweight kerolox stage will blow away a solid Castor in performance. I just don't see the liquid upper stage being the long pole in Beta's tent.
I would not be surprised if Northrop wants to keep flying Cygnus on Antares 330 even after Beta is successfully flying. Beta will be great for capturing the commercial market (the profits of which Northrop will share in through their "50/50" partnership, and perhaps even as outright owner by then). But continuing to make a "special version" of the Beta first stage for Antares may remain worthwhile simply as an excuse to keep selling Castors to themselves. :)
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It only really makes sense when you realize that the Castor is the one part of Antares that actually matters from Northrop's business perspective. It doesn't matter that they could probably buy themselves a Falcon 9 for the same price as their internal cost to build and fly an Antares. What matters to Northrop is that a portion of those dollars spent on every Antares are being spent in-house, versus to a third party.
We've heard before that there's a lot of economics-of-scale synergy between Northrop's various solid-rocket lines (they pitched this as a major selling point for OmegA). This means the marginal cost of cranking out a few extra solid motors is probably quite low, relative to the high fixed costs of maintaining the necessary production infrastructure (most of which is likely already paid for by other programs). By "selling" even just a few Castors to the Antares program each year - even at-cost - they can amortize those fixed costs over a larger customer base, raising their profit margin across their whole solid rocket business.
Is keeping the large SRM production infrastructure "hot" (never mind any efforts at keeping the industrial base alive zombie style for the purposes of military procurement) all that necessary now though, in the sense of what other products/projects utilize that infrastructure? There was a downtrend in the previous decades that may have made that cross-pollinating business model work, but perhaps the business environment changed in the last year or two, such that the effort to continue Antares made sense then, but is increasingly less so only recently?
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Is keeping the large SRM production infrastructure "hot" (never mind any efforts at keeping the industrial base alive zombie style for the purposes of military procurement) all that necessary now though, in the sense of what other products/projects utilize that infrastructure? There was a downtrend in the previous decades that may have made that cross-pollinating business model work, but perhaps the business environment changed in the last year or two, such that the effort to continue Antares made sense then, but is increasingly less so only recently?
I suspect it's less a matter of "we need Antares as an anchor customer to keep the lines running" than it is "since we already have the lines running for other programs, we can pop out a few extra SRMs at a laughably low internal cost".
Depending on how the accountants want to book things, then, the Castors "purchased" by the Antares program could be considered nearly "pure profit" for the SRM program. Or alternately, the fixed costs could be treated as amortized evenly across all "customers". Either way, the overall profit margin across the SRM division is increased, which boosts the company's financial health in a key metric that investors pay attention to.
In other words, two extra Castors each year are not going to make or break Northrop's SRM business (especially not with ULA and the GBSD ballistic missile program now committed as massive anchor customers), but it's a nice way for them to take some of the money they're getting paid for Cygnus CRS flights and fold it back into the company to make their books look better overall. It beats sending that same money "out of the family" for a Falcon 9 or Vulcan, even though it's probably more or less a wash from the perspective of the Cygnus and Antares programs.
This seems to be a recurring strategy that Northrop/Orbital has used across its various "niche" solid rocket programs. Pegasus is even more laughably uncompetitive than Antares, with an almost completely nonexistent flight rate nowadays, but they still have it on offer because they figure they can crank another one out for peanuts without putting a real dent in the programs that are actually covering their fixed costs. This was also part of their sales pitch for OmegA when they bid it to the Space Force for NSSL: IIRC, they expressly made the point in their bid that unlike other competitors (*cough* ULA *cough*), they did not need to be selected for the primary slot (to receive 60% of the block buy missions) since they could make the program financially self-sustaining with only a couple flights a year.
This tidy little arrangement, however, only remains viable so long as the all-up internal cost of building and launching Antares doesn't truly exceed the cost of the next best alternative (internal or external). Right now, with Falcon 9's publicly-quoted prices in the ballpark of $50M (roughly the same as Antares'), it's close enough that they can continue to justify using Antares for Cygnus.
That could change very quickly when other companies like Rocket Lab and Relativity (and of course Firefly) enter the medium-lift space and force SpaceX to cut their prices closer to their internal costs. At that point, Northrop would face a choice between (for example) sending $30M out of the company versus spending $40M internally on the non-Castor parts of Antares. That's probably not worthwhile for them any more, as "buying" the rocket internally would no longer boost their overall profit margin (any improvements to the SRM division's margins would be offset by reductions in the Cygnus program's margins).
The pivot to a Firefly-produced first stage should help extend Antares' lease on life, since they can likely build it much more cheaply than what Northrop would've had to pay its foreign contractors to build the legacy Antares first stage. (The Russian RD-181s in particular wouldn't have come cheap, especially since they had no other good options at the time and wouldn't have been able to negotiate a good bargain.) If whatever first-stage reuse design Firefly cooks up for Beta can be readily applied to the closely related Antares 330, that'll help even more, as it should bring them roughly in line with their first-stage-reusing competitors' costs. I suspect, though, that they'll prefer to stick with the Castor upper stage as long as possible (i.e. until the market forces them to pivot to full reusability), since as long as other programs are covering the fixed costs, it should still be cheaper internally than buying Firefly Beta's liquid upper stage.
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As long as Antares cost price is same or cheaper than external LV then it's worth NGIS using Antares. Of course when they designed RD181 version didn't plan on being cancelled so soon for things out of their control.
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Without reusability to lower costs, Antares will only ever launch Cygnus.
The question ultimately becomes "does Northrop Grumman want Antares to launch things other than Cygnus (and maybe occasional high-energy government launches)?" Because if Northrop buys Firefly (as many believe is on the agenda), they'll have MLV (née Firefly Beta) for the commercial market.
Antares isn’t very high energy, at least not the old version - why would it do a high energy launch?
Theyve long considered upgrading the upper stage to high energy liquid. Your question is like “why would NG want more money?”
I guess I meant “why would it *win* one”, but I see your point.
I was also thinking back to earlier speculation that they may build an "Antares 330 Heavy" variant with strap-on SRBs to further increase performance. Obviously, such boosters would basically make first-stage reuse impossible, but if they only did it for occasional launches, perhaps even using MLV first stages that have flown a few times already...
Or just strap on two more liquid boosters instead. Could reuse all 3.
Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
FH hasn’t flown as much because F9 is over twice as capable as planned. SRBs aren’t that cheap any more and they’re no more legos than LRBs.
A high energy liquid upper stage may be a better idea. Solves the rough-ride problem of a solid upper stage, too.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
post-Bole, It would not surprise me if NG floats some kind of OmegA idea again, but no, not now, and definately nothing of that scale at Wallops.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
ULA uses "SRB" for the Atlas V, so there goes that argument...
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
ULA uses "SRB" for the Atlas V, so there goes that argument...
Don't you get it? Everybody else is wrong, but not Jim.
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That but unironically.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
Apparently, those thingees on the side of an Arianne 5 are referred to as "boosters":
https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/09/09/electrical-problem-prompted-ariane-5-countdown-abort/
and the Wikipedia article on the Arianne 5 uses the term 22 times. After I put the Wikipedia link my earlier post, anonymous user has modified the article to remove some stuff without references.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
ULA uses "SRB" for the Atlas V, so there goes that argument...
Don't you get it? Everybody else is wrong, but not Jim.
Especially when it applies to your posts.
Jeesh. Two posters with reading comprehension issues
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
Jim, I'm sure you are correct about the terminology in the context of your specific technical community. However, the general public seems to use "SRB" generically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_rocket_booster
But, no, those huge SRBs are not off the shelf.
Another case wiki is wrong
Delta used SRMs. Show me one piece of Delta documentation with SRB
ULA uses "SRB" for the Atlas V, so there goes that argument...
Don't you get it? Everybody else is wrong, but not Jim.
Especially when it applies to your posts.
Jeesh. Two posters with reading comprehension issues
"SRB" is very commonly used as a generic term for solid rockets.
e.g.,
Definition of 'solid rocket booster'
in American English
NOUN
a solid-propellant strap-on rocket used to accelerate a missile or launch vehicle during liftoff
Abbreviation: SRB
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/solid-rocket-booster
It does not exclusively refer to the Shuttle SRBs, not even in the launch industry.
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Why have an interesting conversation on a new partnership when we can instead get bogged down in pedantry ::)
Call them Solid Rocket Engines and make everyone equally unhappy.
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Show me a SRB in this other than the SLS booster.
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"SRB" is very commonly used as a generic term for solid rockets.
e.g.,
Definition of 'solid rocket booster'
in American English
NOUN
a solid-propellant strap-on rocket used to accelerate a missile or launch vehicle during liftoff
Abbreviation: SRB
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/solid-rocket-booster
It does not exclusively refer to the Shuttle SRBs, not even in the launch industry.
quite wrong
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
How about SRT(solid rocket trampolines).
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Flamy Zoom Sticks
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The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
Likely ULA exclusive use.
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Show me a SRB in this other than the SLS booster.
In fact, Jim, the ONLY reference to "solid rocket booster" in there is in regards to the CASTOR 120. The Shuttle SRBs are referred to as RSRM (Reusable Solid Rocket Motor).
Hoisted by your own reference.
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The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
Likely ULA exclusive use.
Omega was going to us GEM63XLT.
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The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
Likely ULA exclusive use.
Omega was going to us GEM63XLT.
That is neither of them nor off the shelf.
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The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
Likely ULA exclusive use.
Omega was going to us GEM63XLT.
That is neither of them nor off the shelf.
Close enough that development and tooling costs aren't that significant.
They could of cause use GEM63 or XL unless ULA paid for development and have sole rights to them.
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Given how many times FH has flown not worth extra R&D. SRBs are off the shelf.
No, they are not. And they are SRM's. SRB is a Shuttle booster using a Shuttle SRM and it is also what ULA calls the Atlas V SRMs as configured for launch. It is not a generic term.
The GEM63 and XL are off shelf in that NG has production line for them.
(snip)
Sigh
IMO Jim can often be more correct than informative (You too, TM.) but can we give it a rest and take from his posts that the professionals who bolt them on as hardware always refer to them as SRMs (Motors) and from the many alternative sources that SRB (Booster) is a common colloquialism?
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Might not get to GTO/GEO from Wallops, but with the much bigger mega constellations using higher inclination orbits isnt Wallops positioned well?
The GEO market has pretty much evaporated over the past few years, and while there will be a surge of the C-Band replacement satellites after that going to be slow years, where as mega constellations will have consistent refresh needs.
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Wallops isn’t a mistake because I can see Wallops launches from my backyard. ;)
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Wallops isn’t a mistake because I can see Wallops launches from my backyard. ;)
RL have choosen Wallops twice now to build new launch sites.
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Still need a new pad and upperstage. Wallops was a big mistake
Wallops isn’t a mistake because I can see Wallops launches from my backyard. ;)
Well to be fair, under the right circumstances and launch inclinations you would be able to see Florida launches from your yard. Just the second stage, not the first :P.
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Just watch Everyday Astronaut Firefly video from late 2021. Tom said they were partnering with industry leader to speed up development of Beta. Comments at 55:00.
This partnership could be why AE Industrial were happy to put more money into company.
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A little bit of history on AEI.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/22/firefly-aerospace-spac-merger-fcc-filing/
If Redwire is anything to go by AEI will be looking of exit strategy. SPAC won't work in current market which makes NGIS best option, whether that is full or partial buyout.
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I imagine this has to be nearly as good a day for the Antares team as it is for Firefly.
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twitter.com/northropgrumman/status/1577354693713354752
Congratulations to the @Firefly_Space team on your successful launch! We look forward to collaborating with you to upgrade the first stage of our #Antares rocket and co-develop our future medium launch vehicle. 🚀
https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1577355225026809861
Thanks Northrop Grumman! The team is excited to be partnering with you.
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Antares 330.
https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/space/northrop-partners-firefly-new-antares-engine
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I'd like to point out that if PWR had kept on developing the F-1B engine concept from 2011, they'd have had a really good chance of getting this contract.
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I'd like to point out that if PWR had kept on developing the F-1B engine concept from 2011, they'd have had a really good chance of getting this contract.
Like what happened with the AR-1, developing an 'orphan' engine is a waste of time and money. The F1-B never had a real chance because the whole point of the SLS was to keep giving the old Shuttle suppliers new contracts.
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https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1588951348187389953
Some discussion about the successor of Antares 230+, the Antares 330, and future MLV vehicle, at the briefing, including that Northrop/Firefly keeping open the option of making the first stage of MLV reusable.
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From Cygnus NG-18 pre-flight press briefing today:
https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1588949239425634305
NG's Kurt Eberly says new Antares 330 with domestically sourced (Firefly) first stage in late 2024 will be able to launch 10,500 kg compared to nominal 8,100 kg for this version.
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On the one hand, this big powerful new first stage is begging for a heavier upper stage or stages. Northrop could do this as a two-step process, flying Antares 330 with Castor 30XL to complete its ISS cargo obligations, then developing a multi-step solid or restart-able liquid upper stage to expand its launch capabilities.
On the other hand, Northrop might only be doing Antares 330 out of necessity, since the CRS profits are likely in the Cygnus payload. Complete the obligation to NASA, then let Firefly go off and finish the more capable all-liquid rocket on its own to fly out of the Cape.
Will be interesting to see what happens.
- Ed Kyle
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On the other hand, Northrop might only be doing Antares 330 out of necessity, since the CRS profits are likely in the Cygnus payload. Complete the obligation to NASA, then let Firefly go off and finish the more capable all-liquid rocket on its own to fly out of the Cape.
Given the degree of competition in the launch market, both current and upcoming (even ignoring things like Starship), this seems by far the most likely - It seems like a lot of companies are willing to burn money trying to get in right now. I can't imagine NG wanting in on that.
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On the other hand, Northrop might only be doing Antares 330 out of necessity, since the CRS profits are likely in the Cygnus payload. Complete the obligation to NASA, then let Firefly go off and finish the more capable all-liquid rocket on its own to fly out of the Cape.
Given the degree of competition in the launch market, both current and upcoming (even ignoring things like Starship), this seems by far the most likely - It seems like a lot of companies are willing to burn money trying to get in right now. I can't imagine NG wanting in on that.
Hasn't NG said that they will be working with Firefly to develop the MLV (neé Beta) vehicle? So there's definitely no reason NG would build a separate Antares evolution using the Antares 330 first stage: MLV is the evolution that NG is working on.
This close and continued collaboration between the two companies is part of why I have a hard time imagining them still being separate in five years.
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<snip>
This close and continued collaboration between the two companies is part of why I have a hard time imagining them still being separate in five years.
Who will be still be around after the next 5 years as a launch provider? Northrop Grumman could let Firefly take over the launch business and concentrated on the more profitable payload side of the business.
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<snip>
This close and continued collaboration between the two companies is part of why I have a hard time imagining them still being separate in five years.
Who will be still be around after the next 5 years as a launch provider? Northrop Grumman could let Firefly take over the launch business and concentrated on the more profitable payload side of the business.
My general speculation is that Northrop will purchase Firefly and then use their successor organization (perhaps merged with parts of Northrop Grumman Space Systems) for all launch services. Although come to think of it, Northrop could also spin out NGSS (which is presumably what will be working on MLV along with Firefly) and sell that to Firefly. I don't know if Firefly will be in a position to make such a purchase, though, hence my belief that merger is more likely.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
Hmm, there's certainly some allure to the notion of a reusable booster with solids strapped on. Maybe it could make sense for some subset of launch missions. What would the strap-ons do to the downrange location and velocity of stage 1 / stage 2 separation, or put differently, what's the stage 1 "recovery penalty" they incur?
If the subset of missions for which the solution makes sense gets small enough, then the per-mission cost associated with developing the solution gets larger, and that spirals towards a potential mission subset almost indistinguishable from the empty set.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
It seems to me like Antares 330 will only fly twice a year for ISS missions, but the exact same first stage from that will be used on the MLV, which will (hopefully) compete for commercial missions as well as Cygnus cargo. Thus work on first-stage reuse will pay off eventually.
I do have questions about whether expendable SRBs push the first stage past the envelope for reusability, but IANARS, so I'll defer to the calculations of those who are. Plus, having the option to pay extra to expend the first stage and also get a massive payload boost with SRBs may be attractive enough (at least to the military) to justify building it out.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
However Firefly could have more launches with the Beta booster with possibly different upper stage(s).
Also using the GEM 63XL or any strapped-on boosters requires the vehicle be stacked at a vertical integration facility on a launch platform. AIUI.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
It seems to me like Antares 330 will only fly twice a year for ISS missions, but the exact same first stage from that will be used on the MLV, which will (hopefully) compete for commercial missions as well as Cygnus cargo. Thus work on first-stage reuse will pay off eventually.
I do have questions about whether expendable SRBs push the first stage past the envelope for reusability, but IANARS, so I'll defer to the calculations of those who are. Plus, having the option to pay extra to expend the first stage and also get a massive payload boost with SRBs may be attractive enough (at least to the military) to justify building it out.
I was thinking expendable with SRBs but maybe able recover booster downrange if not too many SRBs used. FH core is recovered in some situations.
The booster may be basis of quite few variations.
Solid US for Cygnus
Liquid US and RTL or downrange recovery.
Downrange recovery with 2x SRBs.
Expendable with 4-6 SRBs.
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<snip>
I was thinking expendable with SRBs but maybe able recover booster downrange if not too many SRBs used. FH core is recovered in some situations.
The booster may be basis of quite few variations.
Solid US for Cygnus
Liquid US and RTL or downrange recovery.
Downrange recovery with 2x SRBs.
Expendable with 4-6 SRBs.
For high energy launches. Maybe a Titanized 3 stage expendable version with a pair of strapped-on Castor 120 SRB and air lite core stage with a hammerhead upper stage powered by either MethoLox or HydroLox engines. ;)
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Or, just build the rocket to handle its payloads from the outset (as Northrop Grumman plans) so no augmentation is needed. Augmentation only increases costs. If this launch vehicle needs an upgrade in the future, there is plenty of capability-gain available in upper stage improvements.
- Ed Kyle
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Mechanical loads and load paths: the engineers always seem highly concerned about them. (As if the propulsion thrust were going to crush the vehicle, or rip it apart, or something.) My hunch? The engineers' concern is why they get paid to design launch systems, and those of us with LEGO sets don't.
Still, if someone had an appropriately scaled LEGO set, or the CAD equivalent, it would be interesting to see where an optional inter-tank thrust beam (like in the STS/SLS design) would be located on the Neutron first stage.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
It’s quite possible NG wants more launches per year than just 2. Launch pads are expensive infrastructure, both capital costs and upkeep. NG also makes satellites and offers satellite reboost/refuel/augmentation services which presumably they’d want to expand (and ability to do launch in-house is presumably partially what they were hoping to get out of buying OrbitalATK). If they want 10-20 launches per year, reuse does make sense. If nothing else, having such a capability would increase their bargaining power with SpaceX and Blue Origin and others.
If they had such a capability right now, I guarantee they’d get plenty of business from folks like Kuiper, OneWeb, and anyone else who wanted to diversify from just Falcon 9.
NG bought Orbital’s satellite business, too, remember… which included Leostar (JPSS-2,3,4, etc) and Geostar buses (SES 18,19, etc), plus NG’s own military satcoms.
I agree adding side boosters probably doesn’t make sense. Reuse makes sense if Firefly wants to develop it anyway for Beta. Side boosters means an expensive redesign. Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
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Cargo transport to the moon should be the goal for a reusable beta. Next 20 years, the moon stations will require a lot of support. How to develop a lander into a Cygnus type Cargo transport should be designed into the second stage.
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Cargo transport to the moon should be the goal for a reusable beta. Next 20 years, the moon stations will require a lot of support. How to develop a lander into a Cygnus type Cargo transport should be designed into the second stage.
NG are supporting Dynetics with their lander plus Firefly are doing CLPS lander so no need to duplicate their efforts. In space transport is missing at present so maybe where NG invests. NB were supplying Transfer Element for original National Team proposal, I suspect they will use that work to help Dynetics.
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Booster needs to be reuseable if they want a competitive LV which means liquid US. Add few Gem63XL SRBs that NG make and they have heavy ELV.
If they are only flying twice a year for ISS missions, reuse won't pay.
- Ed Kyle
It’s quite possible NG wants more launches per year than just 2. Launch pads are expensive infrastructure, both capital costs and upkeep. NG also makes satellites and offers satellite reboost/refuel/augmentation services which presumably they’d want to expand (and ability to do launch in-house is presumably partially what they were hoping to get out of buying OrbitalATK). If they want 10-20 launches per year, reuse does make sense. If nothing else, having such a capability would increase their bargaining power with SpaceX and Blue Origin and others.
If they had such a capability right now, I guarantee they’d get plenty of business from folks like Kuiper, OneWeb, and anyone else who wanted to diversify from just Falcon 9.
NG bought Orbital’s satellite business, too, remember… which included Leostar (JPSS-2,3,4, etc) and Geostar buses (SES 18,19, etc), plus NG’s own military satcoms.
I agree adding side boosters probably doesn’t make sense. Reuse makes sense if Firefly wants to develop it anyway for Beta. Side boosters means an expensive redesign. Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Third stages are pretty scary from a reliability perspective, I think. Not that they couldn’t…
But the entire thing NG ‘thing’ seems like such an odd and specialized cul-de-sac of vehicle development and expenditure. I guess hence cooperation with Firefly.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
Yeah, but not a huge improvement over an optimized NG-developed solid stage.
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Third stages are pretty scary from a reliability perspective, I think. Not that they couldn’t…
With the resurgence of bus-stages (upper stages that also act as intra-orbit tugs as well as hosting payloads) a hybrid Cygnus-stage - Cygnus service module mated to enlarged propellant tankage rather than the cargo module - may be an attractive development option for NG to produce a versatile upper stage from a flight proven platform.
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Yeah, analogous to Rocketlab’s Photon which acts like a precision third stage. Or the fourth stage of Pegasus, the Hydrazine monoprop 3 axis controlled final stage that bulls out all the errors caused by the fact that solids don’t have a thrust tail off that is as controllable as a liquid rocket.
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_stage/haps.htm
I can see them using like a Super-Duper-HAPS stage. Or maybe a Mega-Photon bus derived from Cygnus or their servicing vehicles.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
Yeah, but not a huge improvement over an optimized NG-developed solid stage.
Even if we presuppose that 30-ish seconds of isp is not on its own enough to make a switch from solids to RP1 worthwhile, and that's far from clear to me, the increase in final orbit accuracy of switching to a liquid upper stage would probably still make the change worthwhile for everything but Cygnus flights.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
Yeah, but not a huge improvement over an optimized NG-developed solid stage.
Even if we presuppose that 30-ish seconds of isp is not on its own enough to make a switch from solids to RP1 worthwhile, and that's far from clear to me, the increase in final orbit accuracy of switching to a liquid upper stage would probably still make the change worthwhile for everything but Cygnus flights.
Agreed… with the caveat that, at that point, it’s literally just Firefly’s Beta without any changes.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
Yeah, but not a huge improvement over an optimized NG-developed solid stage.
Even if we presuppose that 30-ish seconds of isp is not on its own enough to make a switch from solids to RP1 worthwhile, and that's far from clear to me, the increase in final orbit accuracy of switching to a liquid upper stage would probably still make the change worthwhile for everything but Cygnus flights.
Agreed… with the caveat that, at that point, it’s literally just Firefly’s Beta without any changes.
Agreed. I've been looking at this moreso as NG becoming Beta's anchor customer, plus providing a pad and investment.
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Upperstage improvements make more sense, but would require some other vendor to supply the engine, probably at least methalox, if not hydrolox, to be worth it. Otherwise just optimize their own solid upper stage or add a third stage.
Firefly have RP1 US engine called Virandax in development.
Yeah, but not a huge improvement over an optimized NG-developed solid stage.
Not to LEO, but probably would offer useful improvement for beyond-LEO missions. Plus, a restartable liquid stage would mean only flying one upper stage versus at least two if solid propellant.
- Ed Kyle
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https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-completes-risk-reduction-testing-for-critical-miranda-engine-components/
March 22, 2023
Firefly Aerospace Completes Risk Reduction Testing for Critical Miranda Engine Components
Cedar Park, Texas, March 22, 2023 – Firefly Aerospace, Inc., an end-to-end space transportation company, recently completed risk reduction testing for critical Miranda engine components ahead of the first hot fire scheduled this summer. As a larger, scaled-up version of the company’s Reaver engines, Miranda will power the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) Firefly is co-developing with Northrop Grumman.
“We are making significant progress in the development of our Miranda engines that started less than a year ago,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “By leveraging our flight-proven engine architecture and our team’s propulsion expertise, we are conducting a hot fire test in just a few months.”
The risk reduction testing was successfully completed for Miranda’s main fuel valve and the throttle valve hot seal design. The hot seal was tested several times during routine Reaver engine hot fires. Due to the commonalty of Firefly’s engine designs, the team can conduct robust flight-like testing and validate performance for both Alpha and MLV.
“We built prototypes and successfully tested Miranda’s most complicated components first, and now we’re in the final stages of building the first development engines,” said Brigette Oakes, Ph.D., Director of Propulsion at Firefly. “Our engines are designed to allow for the natural evolution to considerably higher thrust.”
With 230,000 pounds of thrust (lbf), Miranda is building on the success of Lightning (15,759 lbf) and Reaver (45,000 lbf) with proven engine scalability. Miranda uses the same engine architecture, injector design, and patented tap-off cycle as the Reaver and Lightning engines that power Firefly’s orbital Alpha vehicle. Miranda also incorporates a scaled-up version of Reaver’s turbopump, fluid systems, and valve technology. The company used extensive data from more than 500 Reaver and Lightning engine tests, accounting for more than two hours of run-time, to scale the Miranda engines and improve reliability.
Following Miranda’s first hot fire test this summer, Firefly will start engine qualification this fall. The company’s culture of rapid design, iteration, and agility further enables Firefly to meet MLV’s schedule with a cost-effective, high-performing solution.
Photo caption:
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Relativity, Firefly and RL all seem to be developing their new 200-300klbs class engines at record pace. Typically its 5 years they are all targetting 2-3years. See Relativity and RL threads for their progress.
All 3 engines are expected to be on test stand in 2023.
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Relativity, Firefly and RL all seem to be developing their new 200-300klbs class engines at record pace. Typically its 5 years they are all targetting 2-3years. See Relativity and RL threads for their progress.
All 3 engines are expected to be on test stand in 2023.
Modern manufacturing methodology and technologies coupled with rapid iteration prototyping are only part of recipe to make it increasingly possible.
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Relativity, Firefly and RL all seem to be developing their new 200-300klbs class engines at record pace. Typically its 5 years they are all targetting 2-3years. See Relativity and RL threads for their progress.
All 3 engines are expected to be on test stand in 2023.
Modern manufacturing methodology and technologies coupled with rapid iteration prototyping make it increasingly possible.
Also knowledge base of engineers involved. Lot have worked for Blue and SpaceX plus developed smaller engines for small LVs. SW simulation tools have also become lot more powerful.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1649047405621542913
MLV hardware and testing is underway for our engines, propellant tanks, and more, as we concurrently more than double the size of our facilities and test stands in Texas.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1649047405621542913
MLV hardware and testing is underway for our engines, propellant tanks, and more, as we concurrently more than double the size of our facilities and test stands in Texas.
Great news! But I hope they fix the fairing...
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1677014648350990367
Sneak peek of our Miranda chamber standing more than 7 feet tall. More to come as we get closer to our first engine hot fire for the medium launch vehicle we're co-developing with @northropgrumman.
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https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1685770418211196928
NG-19 will also be the last launch of the Antares 230+ launch as Northrop works with Firefly on the Antares 330 with a new first stage. First launch of that has slipped from late 2024 to summer 2025.
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Article covering the history of Cygnus launch vehicles, why the switch to Antares 330 and current state of the collaboration with Firefly:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/07/end-of-the-line-for-russia-and-ukraines-partnership-in-rocketry/
End of the line for Russia and Ukraine’s partnership in rocketry
Northrop Grumman just can't seem to settle on a rocket for its Cygnus supply ships.
by Stephen Clark - Jul 31, 2023 10:31pm GMT
95
A last gasp in a long-standing link between Russia and Ukraine in the field of rocketry could come this week in an unlikely place—the rural wetlands of eastern Virginia—halfway around the world from the battlefields where the nations' military forces are locked in a deadly conflict.
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From that article:
The new Antares 330 rocket will be able to loft heavier payloads into orbit, nearly 30 percent more than the soon-to-be-retired Antares 230 rocket. Ultimately, Northrop and Firefly want to evolve the Antares rocket into a still-unnamed medium-lift launch vehicle with a more powerful upper stage. The goal is to field a launch vehicle that can compete for military and commercial launch contracts with medium to large rockets being developed by Relativity Space and Rocket Lab.
"That’s going to really crank up the capability to around 16,000 kilograms (about 35,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, so that’s a doubling of the capability of the rocket that we’re currently flying," Eberly said.
Firefly has said the medium-lift rocket it's developing with Northrop Grumman "will evolve into a reusable vehicle" after initial flights as an expendable launcher.
It struck me as odd that Northrop and Firefly were developing two similar launch vehicles, Antares and Firefly's MTV, with the same first stage engine. The text I quoted suggests that Northrop and Firefly may have combined their efforts and now be planning a single reusable launch vehicle. If true that's nice news. However I'm a little skeptical that there will be enough business to make both this vehicle and Neutron viable since they're too small for the main national security business (NSSL lane 2), large LEO constellations will probably be more cost effective launching fewer times on larger launchers such as New Glenn and Starship, and there isn't much other launch business. I'm glad that only private money, not taxpayer money, is at risk here.
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From that article:
The new Antares 330 rocket will be able to loft heavier payloads into orbit, nearly 30 percent more than the soon-to-be-retired Antares 230 rocket. Ultimately, Northrop and Firefly want to evolve the Antares rocket into a still-unnamed medium-lift launch vehicle with a more powerful upper stage. The goal is to field a launch vehicle that can compete for military and commercial launch contracts with medium to large rockets being developed by Relativity Space and Rocket Lab.
"That’s going to really crank up the capability to around 16,000 kilograms (about 35,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, so that’s a doubling of the capability of the rocket that we’re currently flying," Eberly said.
Firefly has said the medium-lift rocket it's developing with Northrop Grumman "will evolve into a reusable vehicle" after initial flights as an expendable launcher.
It struck me as odd that Northrop and Firefly were developing two similar launch vehicles, Antares and Firefly's MTV, with the same first stage engine. The text I quoted suggests that Northrop and Firefly may have combined their efforts and now be planning a single reusable launch vehicle. If true that's nice news. However I'm a little skeptical that there will be enough business to make both this vehicle and Neutron viable since they're too small for the main national security business (NSSL lane 2), large LEO constellations will probably be more cost effective launching fewer times on larger launchers such as New Glenn and Starship, and there isn't much other launch business. I'm glad that only private money, not taxpayer money, is at risk here.
I always interpreted Antares 330 as a stepping-stone towards MLV. The plan wouldn't be to operate Antares 330 and MLV concurrently: rather, it is believed that Antares 330 can be brought online faster (since it's "just" replacing the first stage while using the same second stage as Antares 230+), but once Firefly is ready to build the second stage as well, MLV would completely take over.
Whether the "not-SpaceX" launch market has room for Vulcan, Neutron, New Glenn, Ariane 6, Terran R, and MLV is a separate question. It certainly seems like both Neutron and MLV would be directly competing in the "medium but not heavy lift" lane.
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https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1689330614581743616
Following the final flight of the Antares 230+, Northrop Grumman (NG) and Firefly Aerospace are moving towards the readiness of the Antares 330/Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV), set to debut in 2025.
nasaspaceflight.com/2023/08/northr… - by Justin Davenport.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/08/northrop-grumman-mlv/
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Wallops is going to become rather busy between MLV, Neutron and Electron.
I like Firefly and NG staged approached to MLV development.
Using Antare's Castor US, avionics, pad and fairing greatly reduces development time. Firefly only need to concentrate on booster engines and stage.
By time MLV US is ready booster should have some flight heritance and maybe some practice landing in the ocean. Repurposing Alpha US as 3rd stage is also nice feature.
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Fantastic article. I was particularly interested in this paragraph:
The MLV is also set to be offered with an optional third stage based on one Firefly Lightning-based engine. Lightning has been successfully used on the Firefly Alpha rocket, while work that had gone into the Firefly Beta concept will now be used with MLV. NG had offered three optional third stage choices for earlier Antares vehicles, but those vehicles never saw other customers besides NASA for anything more than small CubeSats.
A kick stage! You love to see it.
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From that article:
The new Antares 330 rocket will be able to loft heavier payloads into orbit, nearly 30 percent more than the soon-to-be-retired Antares 230 rocket. Ultimately, Northrop and Firefly want to evolve the Antares rocket into a still-unnamed medium-lift launch vehicle with a more powerful upper stage. The goal is to field a launch vehicle that can compete for military and commercial launch contracts with medium to large rockets being developed by Relativity Space and Rocket Lab.
"That’s going to really crank up the capability to around 16,000 kilograms (about 35,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, so that’s a doubling of the capability of the rocket that we’re currently flying," Eberly said.
Firefly has said the medium-lift rocket it's developing with Northrop Grumman "will evolve into a reusable vehicle" after initial flights as an expendable launcher.
It struck me as odd that Northrop and Firefly were developing two similar launch vehicles, Antares and Firefly's MTV, with the same first stage engine. The text I quoted suggests that Northrop and Firefly may have combined their efforts and now be planning a single reusable launch vehicle. If true that's nice news. However I'm a little skeptical that there will be enough business to make both this vehicle and Neutron viable since they're too small for the main national security business (NSSL lane 2), large LEO constellations will probably be more cost effective launching fewer times on larger launchers such as New Glenn and Starship, and there isn't much other launch business. I'm glad that only private money, not taxpayer money, is at risk here.
I always interpreted Antares 330 as a stepping-stone towards MLV. The plan wouldn't be to operate Antares 330 and MLV concurrently: rather, it is believed that Antares 330 can be brought online faster (since it's "just" replacing the first stage while using the same second stage as Antares 230+), but once Firefly is ready to build the second stage as well, MLV would completely take over.
Whether the "not-SpaceX" launch market has room for Vulcan, Neutron, New Glenn, Ariane 6, Terran R, and MLV is a separate question. It certainly seems like both Neutron and MLV would be directly competing in the "medium but not heavy lift" lane.
The medium and heavy launch markets are huge, though. Over 100 launches per year.
15 to 20ton payload doesn’t make a huge difference because most payloads are megaconstellation satellites. What matters is cost per kg.
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From that article:
The new Antares 330 rocket will be able to loft heavier payloads into orbit, nearly 30 percent more than the soon-to-be-retired Antares 230 rocket. Ultimately, Northrop and Firefly want to evolve the Antares rocket into a still-unnamed medium-lift launch vehicle with a more powerful upper stage. The goal is to field a launch vehicle that can compete for military and commercial launch contracts with medium to large rockets being developed by Relativity Space and Rocket Lab.
"That’s going to really crank up the capability to around 16,000 kilograms (about 35,000 pounds) to low-Earth orbit, so that’s a doubling of the capability of the rocket that we’re currently flying," Eberly said.
Firefly has said the medium-lift rocket it's developing with Northrop Grumman "will evolve into a reusable vehicle" after initial flights as an expendable launcher.
It struck me as odd that Northrop and Firefly were developing two similar launch vehicles, Antares and Firefly's MTV, with the same first stage engine. The text I quoted suggests that Northrop and Firefly may have combined their efforts and now be planning a single reusable launch vehicle. If true that's nice news. However I'm a little skeptical that there will be enough business to make both this vehicle and Neutron viable since they're too small for the main national security business (NSSL lane 2), large LEO constellations will probably be more cost effective launching fewer times on larger launchers such as New Glenn and Starship, and there isn't much other launch business. I'm glad that only private money, not taxpayer money, is at risk here.
I always interpreted Antares 330 as a stepping-stone towards MLV. The plan wouldn't be to operate Antares 330 and MLV concurrently: rather, it is believed that Antares 330 can be brought online faster (since it's "just" replacing the first stage while using the same second stage as Antares 230+), but once Firefly is ready to build the second stage as well, MLV would completely take over.
Whether the "not-SpaceX" launch market has room for Vulcan, Neutron, New Glenn, Ariane 6, Terran R, and MLV is a separate question. It certainly seems like both Neutron and MLV would be directly competing in the "medium but not heavy lift" lane.
The medium and heavy launch markets are huge, though. Over 100 launches per year.
15 to 20ton payload doesn’t make a huge difference because most payloads are megaconstellation satellites. What matters is cost per kg.
Most payloads currently are few tons. While mega constellations will require 100s of tons to orbit, most won't require that tonnage to a particular orbit.
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
I don't think Firefly and/or Antares is in this business, but if SpaceX is launching Starship at a high cadence, it's incremental cost per launch is likely to be low, and that is what the rest of the pack will be competing against. If you want an immediate launch or an exclusive launch, you must buy the whole thing, but the cost of the whole thing is not very high. (This assumes that SpaceX can actually achieve its Starship goals, of course.)
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
I don't think Firefly and/or Antares is in this business, but if SpaceX is launching Starship at a high cadence, it's incremental cost per launch is likely to be low, and that is what the rest of the pack will be competing against. If you want an immediate launch or an exclusive launch, you must buy the whole thing, but the cost of the whole thing is not very high. (This assumes that SpaceX can actually achieve its Starship goals, of course.)
Which introduces a new cost metric into the mix, time to customer payload revenue. Because Starship running "light" (as in a single sub-5m fairing class traditional big GEO bus) also potentially has the capability to go beyond GTO to direct GEO insertion. All those big electric GEO birds with their electric thrusters spiraling up from GTO suddenly no longer have to blow a big wad of propellant for the spiral if using a design as-is (increasing lifetime/agility), and that's with a "unmodified" non-Starship specific bus. That's a tough act to follow.
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Antares exists to give Northrop Grumman bargaining power with SpaceX& other launch providers.
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Antares was designed by Orbital to launch Cygnus to ISS. F9 was never an option as LV then as both COTS needed to use different LVs for redundancy. Orbital had hoped to sell a few Antares launches but it wasn't to be.
Not keeping Antares after its failure meant flying on Atlas into foreseeable future.
There maybe a case now for using F9 as its so reliable but that means NG exiting LV business at time when launch demand has never been higher.
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Antares was designed by Orbital to launch Cygnus to ISS. F9 was never an option as LV then as both COTS needed to use different LVs for redundancy. Orbital had hoped to sell a few Antares launches but it wasn't to be.
Not keeping Antares after its failure meant flying on Atlas into foreseeable future.
There maybe a case now for using F9 as its so reliable but that means NG exiting LV business at time when launch demand has never been higher.
”& other launch providers.”
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive. And it still is sort of, but now mostly again serving as a way to give better bargaining power.
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Hopefully if there is going to be a new Northrop Grumman launcher, they should spec it to be more capable in the orbital destinations that it can reach.
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Hopefully if there is going to be a new Northrop Grumman launcher, they should spec it to be more capable in the orbital destinations that it can reach.
By total coincidence, that's a perfect description of MLV: take the Antares 330 and replace its solid-motor upper stage with a new liquid stage based on the same engine used for the first stage. And even throw in a third "kick" stage, for especially unusual orbital destinations!
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
IIRC Orbital Science got the state of Virginia to contributed to the setup of pad LP-OA and a payload processing facility at Wallops.
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The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
They use MMH in the Cygnus SM, so not much of a difference
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
IIRC Orbital Science got the state of Virginia to contributed to the setup of pad LP-OA and a payload processing facility at Wallops.
An RL-10 upper stage was in the design trade for Antares for quite a while. There were plans for a liquid upper stage upgrade at various times, that was shelved after the Orb-3 failure and again more recently when the first stage needed to be replaced.
There is some really great historical info in this Q&A thread with Antonio Elias, who was the GM of advanced projects at Orbital and CTO at Orbital ATK: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=3911.0
He's a pretty cool guy - I got to chat with him once about rockets and the design trades that went into Cygnus/Antares. Unfortunately, he said the lawyers made him stop posting on NSF after the merger with ATK.
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
Recall thinking that anyone requiring the extra Delta-V that comes with an add-on kick stage to the Antares be better off buying an Atlas V or an Ariane 5 ECA ride to begin with.
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
Recall thinking that anyone requiring the extra Delta-V that comes with an add-on kick stage to the Antares be better off buying an Atlas V or an Ariane 5 ECA ride to begin with.
One of the main recurring reasons they decided to stick with solid motor options for upper stages is the Russian geopolitical conflicts and desabilisation efforts in former Soviet territories and countries and other efforts in the West to destabilise the EU and related organisations. the most noteworthy conflicts have involved Republic of Ukraine and Republic of Georgia have resulted in sanctions. The idea of a Russian provided liquid second stage was dropped due to Sanctions of the Georgian conflicts resulting in them considering a Ukrainian built Zenit Derived second stage with Russian engines to be sourced separately. Then the first Ukrianian conflict killed that powerpoint plan. Then the multiple mergers and geopolitics sealed the design of high energy stages and traditional liquid second stages.
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https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
They also offered a high-precision monopropellant hydrazine kickstage, which nobody purchased either. I'll guess the issue was cost. It wasn't enough cheaper than the Atlas V to overcome the Atlas's proven reliability, and for the cost sensitive Falcon-9 was cheaper, more capable, and didn't have a politically sensitive Russian engine.
If Antares 231 never flew when Atlas V was the proven reliable rocket and Falcon was the new low bidder then I'm not feeling good about MLV's chances when F9 is the proven reliable rocket and Neutron is the new low bidder.
https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
So far two different vehicles seems to be the plan. It is also possible MLV will have a schedule slip into 2026.
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https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
A330 has not been canceled.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1720455188949991676
Our Miranda dev engine is officially on the test stand. This hardworking team has worked diligently to achieve this milestone and is making the final preparations for the first hot fire.
Once qualified, 7 Miranda engines - capable of producing 1.6 million pounds of thrust - will power the first stage of Antares 330 and the medium launch vehicle we're co-developing with @northropgrumman.
Stay tuned as we get ready to light this engine up!
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why is the firefly work being posted in NG?
EDIT: I know in the technical sense I was just pointing out that Firefly employees building a Firefly engine was being posted in an NG space.
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why is the firefly work being posted in NG?
Carefully read the post previous to your post for the answer to your query. ::)
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DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
This is where the "bigger is always better" theory kind of breaks down.
When GEO commsat mass was nudging up to (and just beyond) half A5's payload to GEO 2 sat rideshare was quite viable.
SX say 21t to GTO. Modern commsats that's what 3, 4 needed for a full launch? I'm guessing without on-orbit refuelling due to the logistics hassle. What price (not cost) SX will offer for a less than full launch is anybodies guess.
It gets more interesting if SS flights become more reliable and commsat operators trade three-string for single-string systems and rely on consistant on-demand replacement of failed units (the dream of Shuttle operations, along with on-orbit repair by replacing LRU's)
And of course it's been 6 months since SX's last SS launch attempt.
I'll wish NG luck.
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DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
This is where the "bigger is always better" theory kind of breaks down.
When GEO commsat mass was nudging up to (and just beyond) half A5's payload to GEO 2 sat rideshare was quite viable.
SX say 21t to GTO. Modern commsats that's what 3, 4 needed for a full launch? I'm guessing without on-orbit refuelling due to the logistics hassle. What price (not cost) SX will offer for a less than full launch is anybodies guess.
It gets more interesting if SS flights become more reliable and commsat operators trade three-string for single-string systems and rely on consistant on-demand replacement of failed units (the dream of Shuttle operations, along with on-orbit repair by replacing LRU's)
And of course it's been 6 months since SX's last SS launch attempt.
I'll wish NG luck.
That's the thing isn't it? An open architecture bus with LRU's and refueling means less mass headed to GEO, assuming a servicing regime via commercial servicers and propellant depots in GEO becomes a thing.
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That's the thing isn't it? An open architecture bus with LRU's and refueling means less mass headed to GEO, assuming a servicing regime via commercial servicers and propellant depots in GEO becomes a thing.
You're getting quite a bit ahead of the market. :(
IIRC We're just at having OTV's that can boost a dead commsat to the graveyard orbit, allowing they to avoid budgeting fuel.
In principle arranging for on-orbit refuelling if the propellants are storable should be fairly simple, given the ISS has been doing it for decades. Xenon is IIRC much higher pressurized.
As for "open source" well the LRU's (the NASA conferences in the 70's called them "Orbit Replaceable Units" but I think that's confusing) might be interchangeable if 2 payloads are built by the same mfg, but any LRU in any similar payload from any mfg? Very doubtful :(
That kind of seamless plug-n-play interoperability takes a lot of inter-company discussion and cooperation. :(
Not impossible, and the customers would like it, but sadly I don't think it'll be happening any time soon. There has to be at least one carrot, or one stick to move the market in that direction. Ideally several sticks and carrots, all encouraging mfgs to think in that direction.
Actually the obvious move is to go from 3 string to 1 string and triple the capacity of the payload on orbit. :)
As always it's about do you trust someone (not you) to jump in when you need them and replace the on-orbit spare you just used up (or for the really daring not to have an on-orbit spare and launch the replacement within X(units of time, might be days. Might be hours))
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Crosspost:
https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1729504909261742435
The Firefly crew completed our 1st Miranda hot fire! 7 of these 230,000 lbf engines will power the 1st stage of @northropgrumman's Antares 330 & the Medium Launch Vehicle we're developing together. More to come as we work towards a full-duration hot fire.
https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-completes-first-miranda-engine-hot-fire-test/
November 28, 2023
Firefly Aerospace Completes First Miranda Engine Hot Fire Test
Firefly Aerospace Miranda engine hot fire
Company designs, builds, and tests fully assembled Miranda engine in just over 12 months for Antares 330 and new Medium Launch Vehicle
Cedar Park, Texas, November 28, 2023 – Firefly Aerospace, Inc., an end-to-end space transportation company, completed the first hot fire test for its Miranda engine that will power the first stage of Northrop Grumman’s Antares 330 and the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) the companies are co-developing together. The critical milestone was completed just over a year after signing the initial contract.
The turbopump-fed engine test further validates the design of Miranda’s startup sequence, transient conditions, and tap-off engine architecture at a larger scale. As a next step, the Firefly team will build up to a full-duration, 206-second Miranda hot fire. Once qualified, seven Miranda engines (each capable of producing 230,000 lbf or 1.6 million lbf in total) will power the first stage of Antares 330 and MLV. One Miranda vacuum engine will also power MLV’s second stage with 200,000 lbf.
“The incredible progress on our Miranda engines – designed, built, and tested in house in just over a year – is another example of Firefly setting a new standard in the industry,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “Building on the legacy of Firefly’s rapidly developed Reaver and Lightning engines, Miranda is the fastest propulsion system we’ve built and tested to date. This achievement reflects our rapid, iterative culture and our vertically integrated approach that allows us to quickly scale up the flight-proven engine architecture from our small launch vehicle, Alpha, to our Medium Launch Vehicle.”
In addition to the Miranda engines, Firefly is designing, manufacturing, and testing the first stage structures for Antares 330 as well as the structures and fluids systems for both MLV stages. To support vehicle production, Firefly is doubling the size of its facilities at its rocket test and production site in Briggs, Texas, and utilizing new automated manufacturing equipment. Now operational, Firefly’s Automated Fiber Placement machine will allow Firefly to produce the carbon composite barrels in a matter of days versus weeks.
“Together, we have developed a solution that will help change the trajectory of space launch, from commercial to national security and civil space,” said Scott Lehr, vice president and general manager, launch and missile defense systems, Northrop Grumman. “Upgrading the first stage of Antares in parallel with developing the Medium Launch Vehicle enables our two companies to bring a new launch vehicle to market more rapidly while also reducing risk in the design process.”
Antares 330 will be able to launch more than 10,000 kg to the International Space Station with the first flight scheduled for mid-2025. As the evolutionary successor to the Antares launch vehicle, MLV will first launch in late 2025 and can carry more than 16,000 kg to low Earth orbit with a 5-meter class payload fairing that can be customized based on customer needs.
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Nice thing about using TEA/TEB for starting is it provides plausible alternative explanation for what might otherwise look like engine-rich exhaust… ;)
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https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-completes-first-miranda-engine-hot-fire-test/
Antares 330 will be able to launch more than 10,000 kg to the International Space Station with the first flight scheduled for mid-2025.
I'm having trouble parsing this. Will Antares 330 really fly no test or certification missions before flying the Cygnus NG-23 mission? They did something similar with the first Antares 230 carrying the OA-5 Cygnus, but that wasn't an entirely new first stage from a new supplier!
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https://fireflyspace.com/news/firefly-aerospace-completes-first-miranda-engine-hot-fire-test/
Antares 330 will be able to launch more than 10,000 kg to the International Space Station with the first flight scheduled for mid-2025.
I'm having trouble parsing this. Will Antares 330 really fly no test or certification missions before flying the Cygnus NG-23 mission? They did something similar with the first Antares 230 carrying the OA-5 Cygnus, but that wasn't an entirely new first stage from a new supplier!
A Cygnus full of low-value payload (e.g., laundry and food) is probably as cheap as just about any other test payload. May as well try it, it just might work. If not, launch another one the next week on a Falcon 9.
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A Cygnus full of low-value payload (e.g., laundry and food) <snip>
Jim, probably: "Toilet paper, T-shirts, and Tang."
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Fresh off our new Auto Fiber Placement machine, our first MLV test article stands over 14 feet in diameter!
https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1744751637464318455
This carbon composite structure is more than twice the size of Alpha’s. Stay tuned for more hardware and testing developments - 2024 is geared to be a big year for our medium launch vehicle!
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Firefly MLV seems to be flying under radar compared to Neutron and Terran R. There is good chance it will fly first as when it comes to engine development the Miranda is ahead of Archimedes. Firefly also has functional launch pad as they are using Antares's pad.
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Firefly MLV seems to be flying under radar compared to Neutron and Terran R. There is good chance it will fly first as when it comes to engine development the Miranda is ahead of Archimedes. Firefly also has functional launch pad as they are using Antares's pad.
Well, Antares 330 may fly first. MLV is that with a new second stage. (So it makes sense that first-stage work is common to both vehicles.)
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Firefly MLV seems to be flying under radar compared to Neutron and Terran R.
Firefly MLV probably attracts less attention because it's not reusable.
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Firefly MLV seems to be flying under radar compared to Neutron and Terran R.
Firefly MLV probably attracts less attention because it's not reusable.
The MLV webpage as of June 5th, 2023 (https://web.archive.org/web/20230605204152/https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/) said MLV "will evolve into a reusable vehicle." However, the next available date in the archive, September 6th, 2023 (https://web.archive.org/web/20230906132113/https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/), had that language removed. Make of that what you will.
Personally, I have to imagine that reusability is at least in the back of their minds, but it's not the priority for the moment, and probably not for a while.
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Firefly MLV seems to be flying under radar compared to Neutron and Terran R. There is good chance it will fly first as when it comes to engine development the Miranda is ahead of Archimedes. Firefly also has functional launch pad as they are using Antares's pad.
And MLV is smaller than Terran-R...big advantage...
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And MLV is smaller than Terran-R...big advantage...
Why do you say that? Terran R's larger size comes with two big advantages: it can compete for NSSL lane 2 and it will probably have better economies of scale when launching large constellations.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1755694541317755115
More progress on the MLV front! Our second composite tank barrel is off the automated fiber placement machine and on its way to the oven. These structures further validate our design as we ramp up manufacturing and testing for the first stage of Antares 330 and our Medium Launch Vehicle.
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The information made openly available by Firefly is commendable! Is it reasonable to assume the thickness of the skin is roughly the same as the thickness of the orthogrid structure, or is there some "standard" ratio for that?
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The information made openly available by Firefly is commendable! Is it reasonable to assume the thickness of the skin is roughly the same as the thickness of the orthogrid structure, or is there some "standard" ratio for that?
That's a mandrel for the carbon fiber composite to be wrapped on.
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https://twitter.com/jackkuhr/status/1762962288019948018
Pics from the Firefly ribbon cutting ceremony today
Alpha rocket, Blue Ghost lander, & the next-gen Medium Launch Vehicle. Story coming tomorrow
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1770495311867261096
We're pumped to share our latest Miranda hot fire that successfully tested our proprietary tap-off combustion cycle.! This development engine features a truncated nozzle to enable rapid iteration while characterizing engine performance. Stay tuned for more updates as we gear up for our next big milestone: the first Miranda hot fire on our brand-new multi-bay engine test stand.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1770495311867261096
We're pumped to share our latest Miranda hot fire that successfully tested our proprietary tap-off combustion cycle.! This development engine features a truncated nozzle to enable rapid iteration while characterizing engine performance. Stay tuned for more updates as we gear up for our next big milestone: the first Miranda hot fire on our brand-new multi-bay engine test stand.
So that's a test fire with the turbopumps, if I'm understanding the tweet correctly.
Although it also seems to imply that they've patented the tap-off cycle, which they obviously cannot, so I will not begrudge anyone that doesn't take the tweet at it's word.
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Although it also seems to imply that they've patented the tap-off cycle, which they obviously cannot, so I will not begrudge anyone that doesn't take the tweet at it's word.
In Everyday Astronaut's interview with Tom Markusic a couple years ago, Tom mentioned that they are doing something special with the injector/chamber design to allow tapping off combustion gasses to run the turbopump, without needing to inject additional fuel to lower the temperature. I bet that is the "proprietary" bit that the tweet is referencing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac-V8mO0lWo
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1770495311867261096
We're pumped to share our latest Miranda hot fire that successfully tested our proprietary tap-off combustion cycle.! This development engine features a truncated nozzle to enable rapid iteration while characterizing engine performance. Stay tuned for more updates as we gear up for our next big milestone: the first Miranda hot fire on our brand-new multi-bay engine test stand.
So that's a test fire with the turbopumps, if I'm understanding the tweet correctly.
Although it also seems to imply that they've patented the tap-off cycle, which they obviously cannot, so I will not begrudge anyone that doesn't take the tweet at it's word.
Pretty sure this is the patent in question https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220268239A1/
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1773072691102183682
Test Stand 1, home of our Reaver and Lightning engines, got our Miranda engine through its initial development testing. As we send Miranda off to its brand new, multi-bay test stand (Test Stand 5), check out our engines in all their glory. These engines have quickly scaled up using the same flight-proven architecture.
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NG now has MLV information on their webpage, probably been there for a while.
https://www.northropgrumman.com/space/medium-launch-vehicle
In performance there isn't anything between MLV and Neutron if flown as ELVs and both will use same launch site.
MLV seems to fly under radar a lot on this forum even through its direct competitor to Neutron and could fly before it as development seems to be going well. Operational reuse is likely to take longer than Neutron as it is being flown as ELV first.
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I guess I missed a beat. The MLV is now an all-liquid propulsion vehicle.
I thought NG was going to keep using solid upper stages. But I guess there is now one vehicle branded MLV under both NG and Firefly.
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I guess I missed a beat. The MLV is now an all-liquid propulsion vehicle.
I thought NG was going to keep using solid upper stages. But I guess there is now one vehicle branded MLV under both NG and Firefly.
Plan was to use Antares solid US for Cygnus missions. Before moving go liquid US. Not sure what plan is now.
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My understanding has always been that Antares 330 is a vehicle with a liquid-propelled first stage (built by Firefly, using their Miranda engines) and the same solid second stage (built by Northrop Grumman) as previous Antares rockets. MLV uses the same first stage as Antares 330, but with a second stage that's basically just a shorter version of that first stage (and with one of Firefly's engines). So "MLV" has been the all-liquid version all along, but initial flights would be the Antares 330 configuration (e.g., using Northrop's solid second stage, not Firefly's liquid second stage).
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If Firefly MLV ends up to be named Antares, I think it would be called Antares 340.
And I hope there are also 34x, versions coming available, when in orbit / kick stages are added.
The Antares launcher family has number designations for the first, second and third stages.
The first digit indicates the first stage. With 1 for 2x AJ26-62 engines, 2 for 2x RD-181 engines and 3 for the MLV first stage.
The second digit indicates the second stage. 1 = Castor 30A, 2=Castor 30B & 3= Castor 30XL
I think the MLV second stage with Vira engine could get designated to the number 4.
The third digit indicates the third stage, this hasn't been used jet. 0 indicates no third stage.
1=BTS, bipropallent third stage, 2=STAR48BV and 3= Orion38, hopefully several non toxic bipropallent third stage options are added. And possibly
So the Antares 330 has the firefly MLV first stage and a Castor 3XL second stage.
The Firefly MLV, with the first stage and second stage could get named Antares 340.
The last digit changes from 0 to another number when a kick-stage is added.
But Antares is a launcher brand used by NGIS. Firefly could chose not to use the Antares name for their MLV.
Hopefully the NGIS Antares 330 and Firefly MLV get other launch sites than Wallops LP-0A.
So also a launch pad at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB.
Possibly they could design two transporter, erector & launcher structures for, one for Alpha and the other for MLV/Antares 330. AFAIK the flame trench for Delta II is large enough for MLV/Antares 3xx.
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NG's PDF on MLV makes it clear: it's not a new Antares but a successor, and Antares will get one last variant (Antares 330 with a Firefly first stage) before replacement.
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NG's PDF on MLV makes it clear: it's not a new Antares but a successor, and Antares will get one last variant (Antares 330 with a Firefly first stage) before replacement.
We'll see, I'm kind of in agreement with Rik ISS-fan on this that "MLV" is a placeholder name (it's literally just "Medium Launch Vehicle"), and once Northrop finalizes the acquisition of Firefly and integrates their launch services team into Northrop Grumman Space Systems, the vehicle will be renamed Antares 340. Or possibly 344, when using the Elytra kick stage.
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NG's PDF on MLV makes it clear: it's not a new Antares but a successor, and Antares will get one last variant (Antares 330 with a Firefly first stage) before replacement.
We'll see, I'm kind of in agreement with Rik ISS-fan on this that "MLV" is a placeholder name (it's literally just "Medium Launch Vehicle"), and once Northrop finalizes the acquisition of Firefly and integrates their launch services team into Northrop Grumman Space Systems, the vehicle will be renamed Antares 340. Or possibly 344, when using the Elytra kick stage.
AFAIU: NG have strongly hinted through wording choices and PR spin, since the Antares-300 series/MLV codevelopment joint venture was created, that NG intends on retiring and moving on from their Antares product family and name upon existing/long lead procurement inventory depletion and completion of their currently contracted USOS commercial cargo manifest. MLV will receive an official name at a later date.
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NG's PDF on MLV makes it clear: it's not a new Antares but a successor, and Antares will get one last variant (Antares 330 with a Firefly first stage) before replacement.
We'll see, I'm kind of in agreement with Rik ISS-fan on this that "MLV" is a placeholder name (it's literally just "Medium Launch Vehicle"), and once Northrop finalizes the acquisition of Firefly and integrates their launch services team into Northrop Grumman Space Systems, the vehicle will be renamed Antares 340. Or possibly 344, when using the Elytra kick stage.
AFAIU: NG have strongly hinted through wording choices and PR spin, since the Antares-300 series/MLV codevelopment joint venture was created, that NG intends on retiring and moving on from their Antares product family and name upon existing/long lead procurement inventory depletion and completion of their currently contracted USOS commercial cargo manifest. MLV will receive an official name at a later date.
We'll see. It depends if they want to emphasize heritage or innovation, and in the end it's just a name.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/firefly-aerospace-backers-said-to-explore-1-5-billion-sale?srnd=homepage-americas
Firefly Aerospace Inc. investors are considering a sale that could value the closely held rocket and moon lander maker at about $1.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/firefly-aerospace-backers-said-to-explore-1-5-billion-sale?srnd=homepage-americas
Firefly Aerospace Inc. investors are considering a sale that could value the closely held rocket and moon lander maker at about $1.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
Considering the close involvement of Firefly and Northrop Grumman's rocket programs, it would seem even risker to let some other company take control of Firefly. Especially if they ended up being a competitor of Northrop's.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-05-22/firefly-aerospace-backers-said-to-explore-1-5-billion-sale?srnd=homepage-americas
Firefly Aerospace Inc. investors are considering a sale that could value the closely held rocket and moon lander maker at about $1.5 billion, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
Considering the close involvement of Firefly and Northrop Grumman's rocket programs, it would seem even risker to let some other company take control of Firefly. Especially if they ended up being a competitor of Northrop's.
NG hasn't really been competing in launch industry for few years, so losing to competitor isn't big deal. Antares only flys Cygnus once year and Pegagus hasn't flown for years with last mission it should've won going to F9R, thanks to SpaceX heavily discounting it.
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NG hasn't really been competing in launch industry for few years, so losing to competitor isn't big deal. Antares only flys Cygnus once year and Pegagus hasn't flown for years with last mission it should've won going to F9R, thanks to SpaceX heavily discounting it.
Perhaps, but as you pointed out in the other thread, if someone like Sierra Space bought Firefly, their cargo vehicle would be a competitor to Cygnus. Not exactly comfortable to buy your payload's ride from someone building a competing payload (as all the commsat constellations buying rides on Falcon 9 can attest).
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To put it another way: Peter Beck often speaks of the virtues of holding the "keys to space" (that is, access to your own in-house launch vehicles) while also being an "end-to-end space company" (which is to say, building your own payloads and operating them directly to make a profit). A Northrop Grumman which owns Firefly Alpha, MLV, Elytra, and Blue Ghost -- not to mention products they acquired from Orbital ATK, like Cygnus and MEV -- would be well-positioned to compete in this manner.
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To put it another way: Peter Beck often speaks of the virtues of holding the "keys to space" (that is, access to your own in-house launch vehicles) while also being an "end-to-end space company" (which is to say, building your own payloads and operating them directly to make a profit). A Northrop Grumman which owns Firefly Alpha, MLV, Elytra, and Blue Ghost -- not to mention products they acquired from Orbital ATK, like Cygnus and MEV -- would be well-positioned to compete in this manner.
The implication is in the (new)space business, being an integrated vertical with mostly in-house stuff may be a competitive advantage, though that is still slightly orthogonal to industry consolidation issues. Customers actually want payloads in orbit, so anyone that can roll up launch and spacecraft bus and ops as a complete service solution is in theory superior.
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You're right that the military (among other customers) probably doesn't want too much industry consolidation, lest we end up in a monopoly or even duopoly situation, but between SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman (in this hypothetical), and Blue Origin (likely having purchased ULA) pursuing this sort of vertically-integrated strategy, I think there will be enough competitors. Especially if Lockheed Martin buys ABL and they actually build a medium-or-larger vehicle, but that's a bit more speculative than Northrop buying Firefly.
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With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
Lockheed Martin is extremely heavily invested in ABL, and I think a few other new-space small-sat launcher companies. So it seems like this is probably not too risky for a defense prime. Of course, LM haven't outright bought ABL, so maybe this is riskier. On the other hand, ABL doesn't have any in-space projects to make money aside from their launcher, and Firefly does.
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With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
Lockheed Martin is extremely heavily invested in ABL, and I think a few other new-space small-sat launcher companies. So it seems like this is probably not too risky for a defense prime. Of course, LM haven't outright bought ABL, so maybe this is riskier. On the other hand, ABL doesn't have any in-space projects to make money aside from their launcher, and Firefly does.
LM throwing a huge order to Firefly today. Maybe they are actively thinking about this now.
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With Firefly on sale. Will NG just buy it?
Or this is too risky for defense prime?
Lockheed Martin is extremely heavily invested in ABL, and I think a few other new-space small-sat launcher companies. So it seems like this is probably not too risky for a defense prime. Of course, LM haven't outright bought ABL, so maybe this is riskier. On the other hand, ABL doesn't have any in-space projects to make money aside from their launcher, and Firefly does.
LM throwing a huge order to Firefly today. Maybe they are actively thinking about this now.
Alternately, it could be that LM had a bunch of launches that were supposed to fly on ABL's RS1, but that rocket has been significantly delayed, and so LM has payloads on the ground in desperate need of a launch vehicle. And Firefly Alpha is the only even partially-available vehicle which meets their requirements.
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Alternately, it could be that LM had a bunch of launches that were supposed to fly on ABL's RS1, but that rocket has been significantly delayed, and so LM has payloads on the ground in desperate need of a launch vehicle. And Firefly Alpha is the only even partially-available vehicle which meets their requirements.
If this is true, and it seems plausible to me, I wonder if we'll see more launch customers making moves like this. Just a couple years ago it looked like we'd have a bunch of 1-ton-to-LEO LVs coming online, and only one has actually materialized. That's got to have left some payloads in limbo somewhere.
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Alternately, it could be that LM had a bunch of launches that were supposed to fly on ABL's RS1, but that rocket has been significantly delayed, and so LM has payloads on the ground in desperate need of a launch vehicle. And Firefly Alpha is the only even partially-available vehicle which meets their requirements.
If this is true, and it seems plausible to me, I wonder if we'll see more launch customers making moves like this. Just a couple years ago it looked like we'd have a bunch of 1-ton-to-LEO LVs coming online, and only one has actually materialized. That's got to have left some payloads in limbo somewhere.
I know that Rocket Lab talked about picking up payloads from other companies which failed to launch (like Astra and Virgin Orbit), and it wouldn't surprise me if Firefly is seeing (and continues to see) a similar boon with payloads that don't fit on Electron.
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If this is true, and it seems plausible to me, I wonder if we'll see more launch customers making moves like this. Just a couple years ago it looked like we'd have a bunch of 1-ton-to-LEO LVs coming online, and only one has actually materialized. That's got to have left some payloads in limbo somewhere.
ABSL's RS1 will do 1350 kg to LEO and is supposed to launch this month. Stoke Space's Nova will do ~2 tonnes to LEO fully reusable starting in ~2026. (There's also Minotaur-C and Minotaur IV but they don't seem to be priced competitively enough to actually launch much so who cares.) So Firefly Alpha is the only American launch vehicle in its class that's had a successful flight right now but it won't stay that way for long.
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Stoke's Nova is a lot more than 2 tonnes now. More like 3-5 tonnes reusable.
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Stoke's Nova is a lot more than 2 tonnes now. More like 3-5 tonnes reusable.
You're right, I misremembered. Here's the best info on Nova that I'm aware of:
I had a copy of their PUG. They're stating for three different conditions: 3mT fully reusable, 5mT with first stage reuse but upper stage expended, and 7mT fully expendable.
Nova is ~3x bigger than Firefly Alpha but with full re-usability Nova has a good chance of being cheaper per launch and eating Alpha's lunch.
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Stoke's Nova is a lot more than 2 tonnes now. More like 3-5 tonnes reusable.
You're right, I misremembered. Here's the best info on Nova that I'm aware of:
I had a copy of their PUG. They're stating for three different conditions: 3mT fully reusable, 5mT with first stage reuse but upper stage expended, and 7mT fully expendable.
Nova is ~3x bigger than Firefly Alpha but with full re-usability Nova has a good chance of being cheaper per launch and eating Alpha's lunch.
Nova has to fly first.
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1800575018448846914
After 14 hot fires on stubby engines, a full length Miranda engine is up next! Thanks to the co-located manufacturing and test facilities at our Rocket Ranch, we can test and iterate rapidly to accelerate development for our MLV engines and structures. @NorthropGrumman #PartnersInSpace
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1812868752326680808
Miranda is making moves! Just 24 hours after completing a 60 second hot fire on our full length engine, the team nailed mission duty cycle at 206 seconds, matching the longest engine burn during flight. With this milestone behind us, we're setting the pace in bringing the new medium class of launch vehicles to market. @northropgrumman
How long have you been on the test stand? Thats awesome!
https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1812871692764532991
We broke ground on the test stand 5 in January 2023 and began testing our full chamber Miranda a month ago.
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YT version:
https://youtu.be/SO-7QluWSBM
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I was very pleased to see this. The first full duration hot-fire is really the moment when vehicle starts to feel real to me. They still have a long way to go before they get Antares 330 flying, but with this, they've definitively overcome what was probably the biggest hurdle.