Commercial Super Heavy Lift Launchers?

[Downix]

It is feasible to lift more than one satellite with a 50MT lifter but it can be hard to find two satellites with compatible orbits.  Anyway in the case of FH it competes with Delta. It can lift 53MT to LEO but only lifts like about 19MT to GTO. Delta lifts 12 to GTO but only about 25ish to LEO.  i.e. In terms of GTO where many communications satellites go not much difference in performance(but big difference in price..FH is offered as cheaper).  It is an example of a heavy that has commercial applications. i.e. It can lift a lot to LEO while still being useful for other purposes.

A more extreme exmaple would be Atlas Phase II. It would be a system capable of lifting 10MT and up to 100+MT.

There may be no other users for supper heavy lift than NASA, but a rocket system capable of being a supper heavy or heavy does not have to be designed in such a way that it is useless to other users.

The SpaceX website only gives a ~12 metric ton payload of FH to GTO now:

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

Mass to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO):   12,000 kg (26,460 lb)
Inclination   27 degree

[jongoff]

There is not a commercial market for 100mt payloads. Yet. That's why they aren't being developed. Yet.

don't tell that to Bieglow.

I know he showed some pretty concept art for a bigger module, but do you know if there is any actual engineering/development going on? Or was it just marketing eye-candy?

~Jon

[Prober]

There is not a commercial market for 100mt payloads. Yet. That's why they aren't being developed. Yet.

don't tell that to Bieglow.

I know he showed some pretty concept art for a bigger module, but do you know if there is any actual engineering/development going on? Or was it just marketing eye-candy?

~Jon

He built and flew the test units.   But the space to make the much larger stations.  Just needs the launchers as the final pieces.   

[baldusi]

There is not a commercial market for 100mt payloads. Yet. That's why they aren't being developed. Yet.

don't tell that to Bieglow.

I know he showed some pretty concept art for a bigger module, but do you know if there is any actual engineering/development going on? Or was it just marketing eye-candy?

~Jon

He built and flew the test units.   But the space to make the much larger stations.  Just needs the launchers as the final pieces.   

From what Orbital Debris has written, it would seem that the Genesis were technology demonstrators. But making a full space station requires a lot more development. Things like ECLSS (which Bigelow appears to be far from having one), station keeping, prox ops, and even the folding and transport of a module are on it's infancy. I got the impression that he was about SRR or even farther.
With some investment, it can be done. But the question is if there's an actual market. I believe, that the possible extension of the ISS would be "bad", from that POV. If full utilization actually happens by 2015 to 2020, then it might happen that a lot of science and industry research get's used to have a microgravity lab. Then a Bigelow might have a market. Before that, it seems very difficult. I could see him supplying parts and modules, but that sort of goes against the spirit. Since they would have to do everything the NASA way.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Actually, I had in mind http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/500393main_TA01-LaunchPropulsion-DRAFT-Nov2010-A.pdf where they say:
Small - up to 2t IMLEO
Medium - 2-20t IMELO
Heavy - 20-50t IMLEO
Super-Heavy - 50t+ IMLEO
But I agree that "50t+" is too wide a range and some intermediate lines would be helpful for the discussion.

To recap the two opening questions:
1. is there a technical or programatic reason for NASA to engage in driving the design of their own super heavy lift launcher? - from the comments it seems that there aren't many (if any) such reasons.
2. Is there enough non-NASA demand for such launchers? - here it's much more murky (but also more important)...

1) The reason why NASA is driving the development of SLS appears completely political.  Indeed, it is my impression that the political wing forced NASA to commence work on the SLS when the agency (at its highest level anyway) was generally unwilling to do so.

2) 50t IMLEO/20t+ GTO is pretty excessive for most commercial payloads, although it would open the way for commercial support for human missions to cis-Lunar space and even the lunar surface.

In terms of pure commercial payloads, a FH/EELV Phase-1-class launcher would be mostly doing dual-payload launches of the most heavyweight comsats and Earth Resources sats.  This may change should Bigelow get their business off the ground but I certainly wouldn't fund launcher development on the basis of a 'if' of that scale.

Falcon Heavy seems to have been largely driven by these repeated hints of a >25t IMLEO payload requirement from DoD about which the DIRECT team often laid heavy hints.  The fact that EELV Phase 1 is not in serious development does suggest that either ULA does not take these hints as seriously as others or, possibly, development has been blocked by those higher up the chain in Boeing and Lockheed to prevent it (wrongly) being perceived as being in competition with SLS.

[Prober]

There is not a commercial market for 100mt payloads. Yet. That's why they aren't being developed. Yet.

don't tell that to Bieglow.

I know he showed some pretty concept art for a bigger module, but do you know if there is any actual engineering/development going on? Or was it just marketing eye-candy?

~Jon

He built and flew the test units.   But the space to make the much larger stations.  Just needs the launchers as the final pieces.   

From what Orbital Debris has written, it would seem that the Genesis were technology demonstrators. But making a full space station requires a lot more development. Things like ECLSS (which Bigelow appears to be far from having one), station keeping, prox ops, and even the folding and transport of a module are on it's infancy. I got the impression that he was about SRR or even farther.
With some investment, it can be done. But the question is if there's an actual market. I believe, that the possible extension of the ISS would be "bad", from that POV. If full utilization actually happens by 2015 to 2020, then it might happen that a lot of science and industry research get's used to have a microgravity lab. Then a Bigelow might have a market. Before that, it seems very difficult. I could see him supplying parts and modules, but that sort of goes against the spirit. Since they would have to do everything the NASA way.

Guess my point got lost......Bigelow has put his own funds into this project.  His money where his mouth is so to speak.

[ArbitraryConstant]

Personally, if, and this is a big if, SpaceX can find customers for Falcon Heavy

They won't find anyone trying to launch 53 ton payloads to LEO for a while, but I doubt most customers would mind so long as it meets whatever their requirements are at the right price.

Eg, the first customer for Falcon Heavy appears to be a GTO launch from Vandenberg. This is grossly inefficient, but that's where SpaceX has a hanger and pad, the performance is adequate to do the job, so as long as it's a competitive price and they do the launch on time it doesn't matter.

The 53 ton number seems to be determined not by any particular anticipated payload, but rather by implementing everything that could be done quickly and cheaply, the low hanging fruit.

So the payload is lower than it could have been for a more ambitious upgrade (eg a hydrogen US), but OTOH the price is low enough that it's competitive even when not being used to anywhere near its potential.

[Jason1701]

Personally, if, and this is a big if, SpaceX can find customers for Falcon Heavy

They won't find anyone trying to launch 53 ton payloads to LEO for a while, but I doubt most customers would mind so long as it meets whatever their requirements are at the right price.

Eg, the first customer for Falcon Heavy appears to be a GTO launch from Vandenberg. This is grossly inefficient, but that's where SpaceX has a hanger and pad, the performance is adequate to do the job, so as long as it's a competitive price and they do the launch on time it doesn't matter.

The 53 ton number seems to be determined not by any particular anticipated payload, but rather by implementing everything that could be done quickly and cheaply, without requiring anything exotic like a hydrogen US.

Sorry for this side note, but that Falcon Heavy flight is now manifested from the Cape.

[ArbitraryConstant]

Ah - thank you for the correction.

[Lobo]

It is heavy enough that you could do a lunar landing with about 2 flights. If you lift a stage and your lunar eqiument.

Which makes it a medium lift vehicle if you are including actual heavy lift vehicles like Saturn V and technically STS (even though it's delivered payload was only medium lift-class.)

If you are comparing FH to EELV's, then it could be considered HEavy, bcause that scale is different.  But I don't know about "super-heavy" even on the lower EELV scale. 

It's all a relative scale I suppose, but typically I think something about 60mt to Saturn V class is "Heavy" lift, anything over would be "super heavy" lift or "Nova class".  19-50ish mt is medium lift.  And under 19mt is "light"lift.
At least, those are the ranges I hear refered to most. 

So FH would really be a medium lift vehicle, or perhaps a "Medium-heavy" lift vehicle.
Fh will be interesting though, as it will be the first LV (that I am aware of) that will get into that 40-50mt range.  That's beed a big donut hole in LV's.  We've gone above it with INT-21/Skylab, Saturn V, STS (if you include the orbiter as payload), N-1, and Energyia, but on the other end, about 23mt is about the max that's been done with Proton, DVH, and Titan IV (And STS if you don't count the orbiter as paylaod).  So there really hasn't been anything from 23mt to about 75mt.  FH will be the first that actually gets in there.

[edkyle99]

If you are comparing FH to EELV's, then it could be considered HEavy, bcause that scale is different. 

I've never liked the "Delta IV Heavy" moniker.  It really is a much different launch vehicle than "Delta IV Medium".  Personally, I would have preferred "Delta IV" for the "Medium" versions and "Delta V" (or maybe "Epsilon" or some other name) for the "Heavy".  Or follow the Titan IIIA, IIIB, IIIC, IIID, IIIE naming approach.

As for Medium, Heavy, Super-Heavy, etc., I would drop all of that and just talk about LEO mass category (10t, 20t, 50t, 100t, etc.). 

As for the idea of a commercial biggie (100t plus), I don't see any single single company wanting to want to spend its own R&D on such a massive project.  NASA is going to have to pony up the development money, or much of it, up front, which is what it is doing with SLS.  Fair to note, however, that SLS has become, more and more, a Boeing rocket, which is a change from prior NASA practice.

 - Ed Kyle

[GalacticIntruder]

The only theoretical customer I know that is asking for medium lift is Bigelow Aerospace. BA330 is 20mT. The BA2100 65mT.

Also, Elon Musk has said many times, if is there is no demand, you create demand. Many things in space are not done because it is too damn expensive. 

[Lobo]

With shuttle derived (like the Saturn V), you maintain an entire separate supply chain for that one vehicle that makes those vehicles extra costly because no one else besides NASA uses them in anyway shape or form.  If on the other hand you do something like Atlas phase II then others could use it. 

Or they could have done something like clustering Atlas 5 CCB's around a D4 core to get heavy lift.  They probably couldn't get feasibly super heavy lift like CxP or SLS Block 2 out of that in a single launch, but such an LV could probably get something like 60-70mt per LV, and then just have went with a two launch architecture for lunar programs, which is what CxP really was anyway.  So they wouldn't have lost anything by doing that.

Atlas V Phase 2 could have been an option to study vs. clusterd existing AV/D4 CCB's, but I think the reason AVP2 hasn't been developed is becuase there wouldn't be any non-NASA customers for it or it's variants.  AVH could push up about 29mt without SRB's, which is about what a single stick AVP2 would do.  AVP2 would be a little more efficient than AVH, but you'd have those extra development costs.
A clustered AV/D4 LV would be more off-the-shelf.  The D4 core would probably have to be modified to mount more than two other CCB's, and maybe some barrel strengthening for the larger payload capacity. 
Would probably need a new upper stage too, but that would have been a good reason for ACES.   Maybe the ACES-71 could be the US for the AV/D4 LV. 
As NASA would be the only customer for the custlered LV's, they could have modified a MLP and the VAB to process and launch them at LC-39, where all other EELV launches would still be done as normal from LC-41 and LC-37. 
The RD-180 (or an American made replacement) and the RS-68 could be man-rated then.
I think that would have just been a fraction of the cost of CxP, and cheaper than Direct over the long run. 

And maybe AVP2 and/or AVP3a could be developed for a future Mars mission.

[Lobo]

The only rocket that still uses high thrust hyrdolox is Delta IV and it's hardly the most competitive launch vehicle on the market.

Energia, SII, SIV-B, Shuttle all cancelled.

If it was possible to find exact prices on the engines I would post them.

take a look at this.....the 7 body looks like a Proton to me.

Ahh...similar to the post I just did. 
So, if a 7-body D4 could do 100mt to LEO, what would a 7-body D4/AV do?  As in a central D4 core with 6 AV boosters aroundged around the same way?
How about a central D4 CCB, with 4 AV CCB's around it?

[go4mars]

Though it's name disagrees, I don't consider FH to be "heavy lift" which means over 100 tonnes (to me). 

In that context, I don't think it is likely that current companies will spend much of their own money on heavy lift.  Except for SpaceX.  And I don't think that they have enough money yet to do it so their money is better spent on the smaller systems for now.  The SpaceX eventual goal is super heavy.  But until they have a reusable rocket, or Tesla has sold about 300,000 model X cars, with bluestar production underway, or a customer shows up with a big bag of money, then they'll be stuck doing smaller-scale development programs;  Reusability, raptor, etc.  But none of the other launch companies expect tens of thousands will want to go to Mars (which will need reusable super-heavy).  To me, super heavy means roughly 400+ tonnes.

[spectre9]

The only rocket that still uses high thrust hyrdolox is Delta IV and it's hardly the most competitive launch vehicle on the market.

Energia, SII, SIV-B, Shuttle all cancelled.

If it was possible to find exact prices on the engines I would post them.

take a look at this.....the 7 body looks like a Proton to me.

Ahh...similar to the post I just did. 
So, if a 7-body D4 could do 100mt to LEO, what would a 7-body D4/AV do?  As in a central D4 core with 6 AV boosters aroundged around the same way?
How about a central D4 CCB, with 4 AV CCB's around it?

L2 link to RAC3 cards.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27645.0

[Robotbeat]

There is nothing magic about the 100 ton number.

Also, "heavy" is an intrinsically relative adjective, arguing about this or that launch vehicle being "heavy" or not is a complete waste of time except to clarify what we're talking about.

[Lobo]

L2 link to RAC3 cards.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27645.0

Thanks, but the RAC3 cards don't give that information.  They look at variants like that, but with SRB's.   I'm curious about it without SRB's, and a config withonly 4 Atlas V CCB's. 

They also look at RS25E on the central core instead of RS68, which would be the point of "off-the-shelf" had these been looked at prior to CxP. Base heating could have been looked at, and a regen version of RS-68 jointly developed between NASA and DoD if necessary, or stick with ablative if not.  Either way, it'd need man-rated.  But then you have just one engine used by both which is the point.  The RS-68 would throttle down after lift off, then throttle up after booster separation and take the payload to disposable orbit as a sustainer stage.
Then a kick stage could put the payload in LEO, or an upperstage would do a circ burn, then the EDS burn. 

Like I said before RAC-3 was hamstrung by trying to come up with configurations of EELV's that could grow to 130mt to LEO in a single launch with a big upper stage on that per NAA2010.  And you just really can't without making it some monstrosity with a zillion SRB's and various reinforcements to support those big loads on top.  So it was the quintessentially square peg into a round hole scenario.  Of course Shuttle Derived looked better than RAC-3.  However, rewind back before RAC-3, and NAA2010, and CxP, and even ESAS in a sense, since it sort of seemed ESAS was looking not at the most efficient way forward post-shuttle, but different ways to get a preset mass to orbit with as few launches as possible, hence why 1.5 won out over 2 launch Direct-like.  Atlas Phase 3a and 3b were looked at, but those required new development too and those vehicles really weren't needed for non NASA launches, so they might not have been saving much vs. Shuttle derived, and still needed multiple launches.  (although they'd have more commonality in engines, obviously).
You go back, and you change the question to what can we do with existing EELV assets with the least amount of new modification or development? And then we'll plan our missions around that capability.  (which should have been done in the 70’s en leu of STS)  It doesn’t seem like ESAS looked at it like that. 

The upper stage could have been something with commonality with EELV, like ACES, and then a wide 8m-ish PLF on top of that. 
So if there’d been a modified D4 core, that was modified to take 2, 4, or 6 Atlas V LRB’s, then it could even be configured depending on the mission, almost like Atlas V SRB’s. 
 

[Patchouli]

The SpaceX website only gives a ~12 metric ton payload of FH to GTO now:

http://www.spacex.com/falcon_heavy.php

Mass to Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO):   12,000 kg (26,460 lb)
Inclination   27 degree

The poor GTO payload of Falcon Heavy relative to it's LEO payload suggests the vehicle could really use a high energy upper stage eg Raptor or even just the addition of some sort of third stage.
Even just something derived from the F1 second stage or a solid upper stage probably would greatly increase those GTO numbers.

[ArbitraryConstant]

As for Medium, Heavy, Super-Heavy, etc., I would drop all of that and just talk about LEO mass category (10t, 20t, 50t, 100t, etc.).

It's interesting that there's so few data points in the 25-100 ton range, though this seems like the most fruitful area for commercial to expand into.

SpaceX appears to have implemented all their low hanging fruit upgrades to get up to 53 tons. There's that chart of Delta IV growth options that suggests a similar payload is reachable by implementing the low hanging fruit for that vehicle (cross-feed, upgraded engine, a very similar story AFAICT).

The implication I get from this is that the core booster size these companies have ended up with is well chosen for basic satellite work and is similar across multiple companies. Easily accessible Heavy configurations based on those core boosters are pretty similar too.

The implication from that is that under present circumstances, commercial (either oldspace or newspace) is not going to get up into the 100+ ton range, but could very well produce extremely economical launchers in the 50 ton range using the existing manufacturing base and technology.

Exploration architectures able to use multiple of these smaller (but still not "small") launchers may well find themselves at a considerable advantage.

The poor GTO payload of Falcon Heavy relative to it's LEO payload suggests the vehicle could really use a high energy upper stage eg Raptor or even just the addition of some sort of third stage.

It probably would benefit from such, but it's not even consistent with the Falcon 9 GTO payload. There's some other limitation at work here. The most likely candidate I'm aware of is that they want the flexibility to change launch sites, and are advertising considerably less than the best they could do with a KSC launch with an instantaneous launch window so they have sufficient margin to do this.

As there are no GTO launches requiring 19 tons, saving a slot at KSC in exchange for payload they would not have used is a good trade.