US Army MNMS Nanomissle Launch System

[Damon Hill]

Somehow, this new system hasn't shown up in discussion here, so I'm kicking off in the commercial launch section even though it's a military system.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/08/10/army-wants-nanomissiles-launch-small-satellites/

Basically a very simple, very modular launch system that in it's full-up version can put 10kg (22 lbs) into orbit.  Built around a self-pressurizing liquid fuel/oxidizer scheme using ethane and nitrous oxide, that can be used to throw everything from smart rocks to tiny recon sats.  It could be the smallest satellite launcher yet (how small can a fully self-contained launch system get?)

Video here:



Don't know if a two stage core could be launched into orbit underneath a F-15 lofting it to Mach 2 and high altitude.   

I'm wondering why a simple system like this wasn't available decades ago, or was it?  Seems like a good sounding rocket system, or commercial tinysat launcher, as well as the obvious military applications.

[kevin-rf]

Google the N.O.T.S. system from the late 50's, all solid air launched system weighted 900kg + aircraft, payload 1kg

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/propilot.htm

[kch]

Google the N.O.T.S. system from the late 50's, all solid air launched system weighted 900kg + aircraft, payload 1kg

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/propilot.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTS-EV-1_Pilot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTS-EV-2_Caleb

[neilh]

The low-cost pressure-fed modules remind me a lot of the ill-fated OTRAG project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTRAG_(rocket)

[jongoff]

This is a project that my friends at Orion Propulsion (now part of Dynetics) have been working on for a while.  I'm definitely a fan of nanosat launch, and think Tim Pickens' team is great.  Not to mention that Col London literally wrote one of the books on low-cost launch (LEO On The Cheap).  Their idea of launching constellations of nanosats for Army use is pretty clever IMO.  While MNMS isn't exactly the technical approach I would take for nanosat launch (I'm more of a very simple RLV first stage combined with an expendable upper stage sort of guy), it seems to be a reasonable and feasible approach to solving the problem.

What I'm curious if anyone knows how secure their funding situation is.  Last I heard this was initially funded by an earmark from Shelby to a company run by a friend of his (COLSA), and that the earmark for the project had run out earlier this year.  Does anyone have any more recent info?  In one of the articles on this that I saw recently, they mentioned that in addition to the $7M they had already recieved, that they need to raise another $17M to complete the project.  Does anyone know if they're actually actively funded right now, or are they in a fundraising mode?  I guess I could probably ask Tim, I was just curious if anyone on here had more recent info they could share.

~Jon

[Jim]

This is the basic issue, what are the benefits of "constellations of nanosats" to the warfighter.  There is very little a constellations of nanosats can do for a warfighter aside from comm. and there are many other spacecraft than can do that.

Optics are too small for reconn
Aperture too small and orbit too low for sigint.

[Robotbeat]

This is the basic issue, what are the benefits of "constellations of nanosats" to the warfighter.  There is very little a constellations of nanosats can do for a warfighter aside from comm. and there are many other spacecraft than can do that.

Optics are too small for reconn
Aperture too small and orbit too low for sigint.

Agreed, however this sort of capability might be useful for putting up a rudimentary sat comm network if other spacecraft have been taken out by anti-sat weapons. A strategic capability, not a tactical one.

[IsaacKuo]

Comms might be reason enough.  It's not just a question of whether you have comms, but how much you have.  When every soldier, vehicle, drone, and camera has realtime video, the bandwidth requirements would be mindnumbing.

[Idol Revolver]

Also seems similar to Scorpius, but on a much smaller scale.
EDIT: There have been two similar projects before: OTRAG and Scorpius. Both got nowhere (admittedly at least partially through lack of funding). Just an observation.

[Jim]

Comms might be reason enough.  It's not just a question of whether you have comms, but how much you have.  When every soldier, vehicle, drone, and camera has realtime video, the bandwidth requirements would be mindnumbing.

And nanosats aren't going to be able to help.  They are low power, low bandwith.  Also how many nanosats would be required for a constellation?  Probably too many to use this method of launch.

[Robotbeat]

Comms might be reason enough.  It's not just a question of whether you have comms, but how much you have.  When every soldier, vehicle, drone, and camera has realtime video, the bandwidth requirements would be mindnumbing.

And nanosats aren't going to be able to help.  They are low power, low bandwith.  Also how many nanosats would be required for a constellation?  Probably too many to use this method of launch.

Certainly low-bandwidth, no better than something like Orbcomm. You'd need lots of these things, for sure... But the idea would be that they'd be much cheaper, perhaps as cheap or cheaper than an antisatellite weapon system.

A telegraph wire is just about infinitely better than nothing.

[Sparky]

A couple of thoughts:

1)Nanosats could be used for safely deorbiting other sats. The military might find this useful after the situation involving the deorbit of USA193. The debris left in orbit after that delayed the launch of another DOD sat, so I can see how they might have learned their lesson on that one.

2)Such a deorbiting system might even double as specific kind of antisat weapon, taking out enemy comms while leaving the orbital environment clean for future US sats.

[jongoff]

Comms might be reason enough.  It's not just a question of whether you have comms, but how much you have.  When every soldier, vehicle, drone, and camera has realtime video, the bandwidth requirements would be mindnumbing.

And nanosats aren't going to be able to help.  They are low power, low bandwith.  Also how many nanosats would be required for a constellation?  Probably too many to use this method of launch.

You'd be surprised.  I knew some of the guys on the Army side working on this at the time.  They were pretty convinced that they had uses for sats in the 1-10kg range.  The big thing for them is getting something that isn't crumbs left over from the Air Force.  Same reason why the Army is doing so much with UAVs (since they can't own fixed-wing combat aircraft), why they did the Sky Warrior variant on the Predator, etc.  Most of the people I've talked with this on the demand side could understand the picture.

~Jon

[jimvela]

1)Nanosats could be used for safely deorbiting other sats. The military might find this useful after the situation involving the deorbit of USA193.

Delightfully ironic.

[Sparky]

Another thought: If the Nano sats are small enough, they might be able to escape tracking by enemy nations. This advantage alone might be able to justify recon sats of that size.

[A_M_Swallow]

At 10 kg (estimated) the Kestrel Eye reconnaissance satellite may just fit on a MNMS launch vehicle.

Fact sheet

http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/KestrelEye.pdf

Video (launched on something else)

[Jim]

At 10 kg (estimated) the Kestrel Eye reconnaissance satellite may just fit on a MNMS launch vehicle.

Fact sheet

http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/KestrelEye.pdf

There are some basic holes. 

How many spacecraft will it take to be "on demand"?  Tdon't know the answer but it will be too many to be launched by MNWS

What if there is multiple users wanting to task a satellite?

How does one know when a satellite is available?

Small spacecraft aren't going to have the power and bandwith to push the data to the user.

The 10 minute cycle is too fast for the spacecraft to react.

[kevin-rf]

Though it sounds pie in the sky, I think the big diff between these sats (you will need hundreds) and most imaging sats is they have a narrow field of view and can only look at one object at a time. Basically a fancy iphone inspace, not a landsat...

The questions will be,

How fast can they be assigned a target.
How fast can they get you the data you need. 10 Minutes is a very long time to wait to for an image in ground combat.

I think multiple users is a non issue... It is a matter of juggling priorities.
I also feel if you are taking single snapshots you you are not going to be running into much of a bandwidth issue. Especially if it is transmitting directly to the ground station.

I do agree, it would be better to use a "larger" launcher to deliver multiple payloads, but then you get into the sat needing fuel for station keeping, extra comm for station keeping, ect. The thing will snowball in weight. It always amazes me when someone mentions the weight of a sensor on an earth observing sat and then you notice it is only a small fraction of the weight of actual bus.

[jongoff]

At 10 kg (estimated) the Kestrel Eye reconnaissance satellite may just fit on a MNMS launch vehicle.

Fact sheet

http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/KestrelEye.pdf

There are some basic holes. 

How many spacecraft will it take to be "on demand"?  Tdon't know the answer but it will be too many to be launched by MNWS

What if there is multiple users wanting to task a satellite?

How does one know when a satellite is available?

Small spacecraft aren't going to have the power and bandwith to push the data to the user.

The 10 minute cycle is too fast for the spacecraft to react.

I think they were talking about a reasonable sized constellation.  Something like six planes with 5-12 satellites per plane.  Put up over about a 1-2wk period during the run-up to a conflict.  At a reasonable altitude, that should be able to get you something that has a decent view on a pretty frequent basis.  Nowhere near as good as the AF birds when they're actually overhead, but having 30-72 satellites in the constellation means you're a lot more likely to get intelligence on demand a lot better. 

But your other point, about whether MNMS could really put up that many satellites that quick is a good question.

One of the challenges here is that because you want several different planes, and you can't afford to spend months letting the satellites phase into the right plane, and you can't afford multiple plane change burns to get stuff into the right plane, you're looking at at least six launches to service the need.  With Pegasus/Taurus/Minotaur that would be *way* too expensive.  With Falcon 1, I don't think they could handle that fast of a surge rate.

Definitely leaves the door open for a high-surge-rate capable nanosat launchers, IMO.

~Jon

[Jim]

I think multiple users is a non issue... It is a matter of juggling priorities.
I also feel if you are taking single snapshots you you are not going to be running into much of a bandwidth issue. Especially if it is transmitting directly to the ground station.

I don't think it is going to transmit directly to ground station, that would require maneuvering and a directional antenna.  If it is omni directional, then there will be bandwidth issues.  Cell phone don't transmit that far.