Virgin Galactic and SpaceShipTwo Master Thread (1)

[Robotbeat]

UP Aerospace has been doing vertical launches from Spaceport America of spaceplane prototypes for Lockheed Martin's flyback/rocketback reusable boosters.

The prototype is nowhere near the size or energy of a real booster. The Army flew Bumper rockets out of White sands, but later had to move out to the Cape for higher performing rockets.  The issue of overflight of population is even more relevant today.

If they become airplane-like in reliability and tempo, overflight won't be a problem. If they don't achieve airplane-like reliability and tempo, their plan falls apart anyway. Airplanes fly over my house all the time, even though I would be just as dead if one landed on my house as if I got hit by a wayward launch vehicle.

My actual point was that it doesn't necessarily have to take off vertically in order to launch from Spaceport America, even though some people in this thread seemed to be making horizontal-takeoff an implicit assumption for any reusable spacecraft that would launch from Spaceport America.

[mr. mark]

Burt Rutan to Retire in 2011. Seems he won't personally be involved with SS3. This may mean that Virgin Galactic will most likely go with Spacex or Sierra Nevada for orbital.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39995740/ns/technology_and_science-space/

[Cinder]

On a personal sense, he's more than earned it.  In an industrial sense, it's a real shame.  We'll have to see how well things carry on without him

[docmordrid]

One would think the larger of the two would be the most comercially viable.  Any word on Dream Chasers passenger compliment v. Dragon?

[ChefPat]

One would think the larger of the two would be the most comercially viable.  Any word on Dream Chasers passenger compliment v. Dragon?

From Wiki.
Dream Chaser (spacecraft)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser_(spacecraft)

Description
Role: Under development to be used to supply the International Space Station after 2010
Crew: 7[1]
Dimensions[2]
Height:  ?? m  ?? ft
Length: 9.00 m 29.50 ft
Wing Span: 7.00 m 22.90 ft
Volume: 16.00 m3  ?? cu ft
Mass: 9,000 kg 19,800 lb
Payload:  ?? kg  ?? lb

[Chandonn]

One would think the larger of the two would be the most comercially viable.  Any word on Dream Chasers passenger compliment v. Dragon?

From Wiki.
Dream Chaser (spacecraft)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser_(spacecraft)

...Crew: 7...

Actually, some of the diagrams I've seen depict anywhere from 6-8 crew.

[Lars_J]

One would think the larger of the two would be the most comercially viable.  Any word on Dream Chasers passenger compliment v. Dragon?

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

[kraisee]

My understanding is that Burt Rutan is leaving behind him a legacy, not just of what he has achieved already, but a series of plans for Scaled to continue without him.   I hear that he has laid down the conceptual drawings for a whole range of future vehicles capable of going orbital and eventually also reaching all the way to the surface of the moon and back again.

His legacy is certain to continue for many years to come, regardless of whether he retires or not.

Ross.

[docmordrid]

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

Actually, Sierra Nevada announced the start of aeroshell fab Oct. 11, and the presser had a pic of an engine housing and that a flight-profile firing of an engine had been done.  I was wondering if details on its actual size/capacity had leaked yet.

[Crispy]

His legacy to aviation is unarguable, but when did he learn how to build orbital vehicles and moon landers? They're quite different problems!

[kraisee]

Scaled started working on SS1 back around 2002/2003, and I'd bet a beer that Rutan started working the orbital problems at that point!

Given how talented an engineer he is, and how quickly he works, if he has been considering these problems for 7+ year already, I would not be at all surprised if his conceptual plans are pretty "well rounded" by now

Ross.

[ChefPat]

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/HL-20.html
HL-20 PLS Missions

Delivery of passengers to Space Station Freedom would be the primary mission of a PLS. For the baseline space station mission, the crew size would be eight passengers (a space station crew) and two flight crew members.

[docmordrid]

So a total of 10, 8 of them paying customers if Virgin goes that route.

[Comga]

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/HL-20.html
HL-20 PLS Missions

Delivery of passengers to Space Station Freedom would be the primary mission of a PLS. For the baseline space station mission, the crew size would be eight passengers (a space station crew) and two flight crew members.

Besides being WAY Off Topic.....   that's almost funny.  Is it supposed to be a rebuttal to the charge of Dreamchaser being vapor-ware that the Personnel  Launch System HL-20 derivative will be flying to Space Station Freedom?   That's a 1992 web page with an obsolete configuration of a space station that has evolved differently and sketches of hypothetical vehicles of which one shares heritage with Dreamchaser. 

Can we get back to our topic now?  Doesn't the discussion of DC belong elsewhere?

[pathfinder_01]

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

Actually, Sierra Nevada announced the start of aeroshell fab Oct. 11, and the presser had a pic of an engine housing and that a flight-profile firing of an engine had been done.  I was wondering if details on its actual size/capacity had leaked yet.

From the cots overview, what is under construction is supposed to be an engineering test article. They plan to fit it for atmospheric flight but at the moment it is like Enterprise or STA99 before it become Challenger(OV 99).

[ChefPat]

Dreamchaser is still vapor-ware, so it could be any size. People quoting crew/passenger size are just using old HL-20 material.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/HL-20.html
HL-20 PLS Missions

Delivery of passengers to Space Station Freedom would be the primary mission of a PLS. For the baseline space station mission, the crew size would be eight passengers (a space station crew) and two flight crew members.

Besides being WAY Off Topic.....   that's almost funny.  Is it supposed to be a rebuttal to the charge of Dreamchaser being vapor-ware that the Personnel  Launch System HL-20 derivative will be flying to Space Station Freedom?   That's a 1992 web page with an obsolete configuration of a space station that has evolved differently and sketches of hypothetical vehicles of which one shares heritage with Dreamchaser. 

Can we get back to our topic now?  Doesn't the discussion of DC belong elsewhere?

No, it's a rebuttal of HL-20 only holding 7.

[yg1968]

Here is a December 16, 2010 press release by Virgin Galactic announcing its partnerships with Orbital's and Sierra Nevada's CCDev-2 proposals:
http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/virgin-galactic/

[simonbp]

So, essentially, they paired up with the two serious CCDEV proposals that have runway landings (and thus could theoretically be dropped from WK2). Makes sense.

Frankly, the Orbital design sounds more likely to fly, as it's a lot further along in aero analysis (OSC started from HL-20 and evolved from there), and could use Cygnus-heritage systems for most of the avionics, RCS, etc. The fact that the airframe contractor (Northrup Grumman) is also the owner of Scaled Composites probably didn'r hurt either. So, VG probably included DreamChaser as more of a backup plan than anything else...

[jabe]

worth a little chuckle..
@VGalacticPR

jb

[Danderman]

So, essentially, they paired up with the two serious CCDEV proposals that have runway landings (and thus could theoretically be dropped from WK2). Makes sense.

With the implication that VG's role would be the contribution of WK2 for landing tests.

With the further implication that, since WK2 has much less capacity than the ORB L-1011, that what will be carried by WK2 will be subscale models.

Unless, of course, the plan is to build a larger WK3, then all bets are off.