ATK/EADS: Liberty Launch Vehicle Update Thread

[edkyle99]

Because they want to compete for missions that would otherwise go to Delta IV?

In order to do that, Liberty would also have to have a West Coast launch site.

But I do agree with the sentiment that Liberty only makes sense if its real mission is something beyond ISS/CCDev.

 - Ed Kyle

[Jason1701]

ATK said they want to compete for Cape NRO and USAF missions.

[Jim]

ATK said they want to compete for Cape NRO and USAF missions.

Need an upperstage for that.

[edkyle99]

ATK said they want to compete for Cape NRO and USAF missions.

Assuming Liberty adds an upperstage, as was suggested in one presentation, that would put them more in competition with Atlas than Delta.  Liberty wouldn't have Delta 4 Heavy capability and would not compete for Vandenberg missions.  Of the 16 EELV launches performed during the past two years, Liberty would have been able to perform only 11 at most, and only four of those would have been Delta 4 launches.   On many of the 11 missions, Liberty would have been substantial overkill, capability-wise.

 - Ed Kyle

[Jim]

  Of the 16 EELV launches performed during the past two years, Liberty would have been able to perform only 11 at most, and only four of those would have been Delta 4 launches.   On many of the 11 missions, Liberty would have been substantial overkill, capability-wise.

 - Ed Kyle

What upperstage is assumed in those 11 missions?  I don't see Liberty being able to do any non LEO Atlas V missions that use 3 or more solids or Delta with 4. 
So I would say 8.

[edkyle99]

  Of the 16 EELV launches performed during the past two years, Liberty would have been able to perform only 11 at most, and only four of those would have been Delta 4 launches.   On many of the 11 missions, Liberty would have been substantial overkill, capability-wise.

 - Ed Kyle

What upperstage is assumed in those 11 missions?  I don't see Liberty being able to do any non LEO Atlas V missions that use 3 or more solids or Delta with 4. 
So I would say 8.

ATK/EADS gave a presentation last year that suggested Liberty with an upper stage could lift 8.85 tonnes to GTO.  Neither the upper stage nor the GTO energy were provided, which leaves uncertainty, but even an 1,800 m/s GTO assumption would give Liberty full Atlas V capability according to that number.

My guess is that the upper stage would have to be an Ariane 5 ESC-B with a restartable Vinci, since HM-7B doesn't restart.

 - Ed Kyle

[pippin]

Hey, Liberty's 2ns stage is an Ariane 5 1st stage, in the end, they could just add an ESC-A to the stack and end up with a kind of an in-line-version of Ariane 5.

I mean, I didn't say this makes sense, but...

[pippin]

They won't have an ESC-B by 2015 or even close to that, won't they?

[edkyle99]

They won't have an ESC-B by 2015 or even close to that, won't they?

No, but then Liberty itself would, under the best of circumstances, just be starting to fly as a two-stage LEO rocket by then. 

 - Ed Kyle

[alexw]

    What about EPS?  Granted, we'd all rather see Vinci since we ain't got RL-60, but EPS is entering new production.
              -Alex

[Jim]

My guess is that the upper stage would have to be an Ariane 5 ESC-B with a restartable Vinci, since HM-7B doesn't restart.

It won't be able to compete cost-wise with 3 stages.

[alexw]

My guess is that the upper stage would have to be an Ariane 5 ESC-B with a restartable Vinci, since HM-7B doesn't restart.

It won't be able to compete cost-wise with 3 stages.

    Do you really think it will with two?   (Rather, does it depend entirely on the accounting?)
            -Alex

[pippin]

It won't be able to compete cost-wise with 3 stages.

Well, at least developemnt costs would probably be moderate if they just put an existing Ariane 5 upper stage on top of it, I mean, all _these_ interfaces exist today (ESC-A or EPS).

But what confuses me is: how would they operate this thing? They'd have to fly it out of KSC, using Pad 39 and VAB, right?

_That_ can't be competitive to, say Kourou, or even Atlas or Delta, given there's no real payload advantage.

[edkyle99]

My guess is that the upper stage would have to be an Ariane 5 ESC-B with a restartable Vinci, since HM-7B doesn't restart.

It won't be able to compete cost-wise with 3 stages.

It clearly shouldn't be able to compete with, say, and Atlas 5-401 and similar, because it would be too much rocket for the smaller payloads.  I'm not so sure about the heavier payloads.  On stage count alone, for example, it would be three stages versus four sizable propulsion units for Ariane 5 or two stages plus multiple strap-on solids for the EELVs, etc. 

Comparison would be easier if EELV's costs weren't higher than we would like them to be, but that has little to do with how many stages there are.

 - Ed Kyle

[Jason1701]

ATK said that Liberty would mostly be for LEO government payloads.

[Robotbeat]

ATK said that Liberty would mostly be for LEO government payloads.

And which of those (non-ISS) don't go into a polar orbit?

[edkyle99]

ATK said that Liberty would mostly be for LEO government payloads.

And which of those (non-ISS) don't go into a polar orbit?

The occasional IR telescope, space test experiment, and things like X-37B. 

 - Ed Kyle

[mmeijeri]

EPS is entering new production.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Do you know why and / or do you have a link?

[douglas100]

EPS is entering new production.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Do you know why and / or do you have a link?

Would it have anything to do with launching  for the Galileo system?

[Kaputnik]

EPS is entering new production.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Do you know why and / or do you have a link?

Would it have anything to do with launching  for the Galileo system?

I thought Galileo was going up on Soyuz from Kourou?