Stratolaunch and Orbital - The Height of Air Launch

[Robotbeat]

It does occur to me that going all hydrogen/oxygen is the main way that performance could increase to the Atlas V territory, supposing they even care about more performance... Is this on the table? It's not like they can exactly increase the carrier's size...

[Lar]

As a potential investor, I would be scared off. Profits do not outweigh the risks, IMO.

There are no outside investors.

Same would apply to Spacex

Unsubstantiated. SpaceX has VC money behind it. Now, I suspect that this VC money is more patient than the average VC tends to be (given how fan boi ish Steve Jurvetson is about SpaceX ) but still.

The implication that SpaceX has no outside investors is... wrong.

[renclod]

Superb article !

All well until it start talking of a cryogenic third stage...
The idea of hydrogen leaking from the umbilicals of a six engine aircraft sitting on ground makes me nervous.
When one adds the image of an aborted take-off followed by de-tanking tons of liquid H2, it becomes even more interesting.

[Jim]

As a potential investor, I would be scared off. Profits do not outweigh the risks, IMO.

There are no outside investors.

Same would apply to Spacex

Unsubstantiated. SpaceX has VC money behind it. Now, I suspect that this VC money is more patient than the average VC tends to be (given how fan boi ish Steve Jurvetson is about SpaceX ) but still.

The implication that SpaceX has no outside investors is... wrong.

Wrong on two points.  Again.

The VC's roles have reduced in SpaceX and don't really matter at this point.

And the point about outside investors is true.  Stratolaunch is Allen and OSC.

[a_langwich]

Here are my thoughts on "Pegasus II".

1.  Stages 1 and 2 interest me more than Stage 3.  These represent an important expansion of ATK's catalog.  Motors of this family will have uses ranging far beyond this application.

Hmm, these motors might be somewhat related to ATK's ideas for advanced SLS boosters, might they not?  Hmm, on second thought, maybe just the composite casing and sizing...different nozzle, no segments, and different burn characteristics and desired thrust profile. 

2.  A properly placed launch base will be able to handle every orbit possibility - from one site.  No need to build costly launch pads on both coasts, etc.  There is your business case.

What are the safety arrangements?  The article mentioned a 1000-mile round-trip capability, but it seems like a very dangerous, live cargo to be flying over populated areas.  Let's see, two very large solids packaged with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen...what could possibly go wrong?  Even after launch, a lot of the existing range safety calcs still apply, right?  Is the mitigating factor the ability to go 1000 miles away out to sea?   
 

5.  The Stratolaunch aircraft will likely have other uses.  Perhaps it will become the ultimate Mother Ship.  Perhaps it will be able to haul cargo.  Any such use will augment the business case.

Agreed.  Not sure how limiting the needed airport capability is.

I wonder how big a diameter payload it would support.  Maybe an alternative to a SuperGuppy or Beluga carrier?  Could you lengthen the landing gear or mod it to squeeze in 5m or 8m stages?  (* squints eyes at pictures *)  5m looks doable if the rear end of the PegII shown is 3.71m.  8m looks like it would need some stretch.  Very handy that the runway at the Cape supports it...

(I'm just throwing out those sizes since larger than ~3.7m has been said to be practically non-road-transportable.)  It looks like Stratolaunch could already carry, from a diameter standpoint, Falcon 9 and Atlas V stages.

[Lee Jay]

The idea of hydrogen leaking from the umbilicals of a six engine aircraft sitting on ground makes me nervous.

Okay, why?

[Elmar Moelzer]

I dont get how this is supposed to change anything. What exactly is their business mode? Why do they think they will attract paying customers for their manned version? It is obviously not going to be cheaper than alternatives for manned missions, but rather it is going to be more expensive. The added flexibility and responsiveness, the main improvement offered by the giant airplane wont really matter that much for manned launches either. That would be more relevant for military missions, I would presume. So I dont see how this is ever going to get them their investment back.

[robertross]

It does occur to me that going all hydrogen/oxygen is the main way that performance could increase to the Atlas V territory, supposing they even care about more performance... Is this on the table? It's not like they can exactly increase the carrier's size...

That got me thinking: can someone comment as to the engine type & variant on the 747-400s purchased? GE or P&W?

Reason I'm thinking this is that, like the C-5 Galaxy (and other military aircraft), the frames & pylons can (sometimes) be strengthened to accept a more powerful engine. Is there perhaps structural margin (or perhaps in a second Stratolaunch plane variant) to increase lift capacity?

[Kharkov]

Shouldn't someone say something about the economics?

I'm sure they can do the engineering for this & it's not impossibe to find the development money but what's this rocket for?

In my opinion, it's for the direct-to-GTO market. Unless it costs less than existing launchers, it probably won't see many customers for inclined orbits. So that leaves direct insertion into GTO.

A couple of the existing players in the GTO business are, SeaLaunch, which for approx 100 million dollars a pop, is able to do 6 tonnes direct to GTO. SpaceX, which for around 54 million dollars a pop, is able to do about 4 tonnes to GTO, launching from about 29 degrees north.

Both exist now, both are operating now, and come 2018 when this rocket is set to enter service, they (Falcon 9 certainly) are likely to be launching frequently. So to make any headway in the market, this rocket would have to cost less than 100 million dollars to put 4-6 tonnes into GTO, and less than 54 million to put less than 4 tonnes into GTO.

Call me Mr. Negative on this but is it really likely to go anywhere?

[ClaytonBirchenough]

I dont get how this is supposed to change anything. What exactly is their business mode? Why do they think they will attract paying customers for their manned version? It is obviously not going to be cheaper than alternatives for manned missions, but rather it is going to be more expensive. The added flexibility and responsiveness, the main improvement offered by the giant airplane wont really matter that much for manned launches either. That would be more relevant for military missions, I would presume. So I dont see how this is ever going to get them their investment back.

Exactly. Stratolaunch is a dead end.

[Robotbeat]

I dont get how this is supposed to change anything. What exactly is their business mode? Why do they think they will attract paying customers for their manned version? It is obviously not going to be cheaper than alternatives for manned missions, but rather it is going to be more expensive. The added flexibility and responsiveness, the main improvement offered by the giant airplane wont really matter that much for manned launches either. That would be more relevant for military missions, I would presume. So I dont see how this is ever going to get them their investment back.

Exactly. Stratolaunch is a dead end.

I disagree. There is some real possibility for quite interesting concepts... I kind of think they're not strongly partnering, but XCOR's two-stage fully reusable orbital rocket concept seems very well-suited to using something like the Stratolaunch carrier.

[Avron]

ditto .. "Exactly. Stratolaunch is a dead end."

[Robotbeat]

ditto .. "Exactly. Stratolaunch is a dead end."

If Jim, Blackstar, and folks like that were saying so, I'd agree. But they are sort of defending this.

Skepticism from experts counts more to me than that from armchair engineers (like myself... for now).

[RocketmanUS]

Shouldn't someone say something about the economics?

I'm sure they can do the engineering for this & it's not impossibe to find the development money but what's this rocket for?

In my opinion, it's for the direct-to-GTO market. Unless it costs less than existing launchers, it probably won't see many customers for inclined orbits. So that leaves direct insertion into GTO.

A couple of the existing players in the GTO business are, SeaLaunch, which for approx 100 million dollars a pop, is able to do 6 tonnes direct to GTO. SpaceX, which for around 54 million dollars a pop, is able to do about 4 tonnes to GTO, launching from about 29 degrees north.

Both exist now, both are operating now, and come 2018 when this rocket is set to enter service, they (Falcon 9 certainly) are likely to be launching frequently. So to make any headway in the market, this rocket would have to cost less than 100 million dollars to put 4-6 tonnes into GTO, and less than 54 million to put less than 4 tonnes into GTO.

Call me Mr. Negative on this but is it really likely to go anywhere?

I dont get how this is supposed to change anything. What exactly is their business mode? Why do they think they will attract paying customers for their manned version? It is obviously not going to be cheaper than alternatives for manned missions, but rather it is going to be more expensive. The added flexibility and responsiveness, the main improvement offered by the giant airplane wont really matter that much for manned launches either. That would be more relevant for military missions, I would presume. So I dont see how this is ever going to get them their investment back.

Exactly. Stratolaunch is a dead end.

Launch when needed. less chance of weather problems. No problems with the range being tide up or a problem with the launch pad.

Given the amount of flight they will most likely need for their per launch they would most likely have an extra or two rockets on hand for the last minute customer.

For crew, who wants to pay for a launch to LEO and then have it delayed. If it is a tourist then they loose out do to bad weather and if they need to return to work can't get a new launch date. For commercial they don't want down time on a station. For some examples.

Like for mail you can pay for same day, next day, or three day ( 1st class ). It is a matter of when it is needed and how much that time is worth.

Right now it is only the Russians that can bring crew to ISS. If this was flying and other American options were still not this could be a good deal for American crew to ISS. Given it will not be ready for some years we will have to see.

Edit:
Given the LEO expected performance and the use of SEP this system could launch the Sat and then have fueled ( Argon ) in LEO. Then take it's self to Geosynchronous orbit.
The Argon could already be in LEO and could be the SEP and just need to attach it's self to the Sat.

[edkyle99]

Shouldn't someone say something about the economics?
...
A couple of the existing players in the GTO business are, SeaLaunch, which for approx 100 million dollars a pop, is able to do 6 tonnes direct to GTO. SpaceX, which for around 54 million dollars a pop, is able to do about 4 tonnes to GTO, launching from about 29 degrees north.

Both exist now, both are operating now, and come 2018 when this rocket is set to enter service, they (Falcon 9 certainly) are likely to be launching frequently. So to make any headway in the market, this rocket would have to cost less than 100 million dollars to put 4-6 tonnes into GTO, and less than 54 million to put less than 4 tonnes into GTO.

SeaLaunch has lost four very expensive satellites in 35 tries and gone bankrupt, leaving Boeing with something like $1 billion in unpaid invoices.  That $100 million number is outdated.  SpaceX doesn't have a rocket right now, or a launch pad, and it has never put anything into GTO.  If and when it gets back into business, it won't be launching GTO satellites for $54 million.   $154 million, or $254 million maybe. 

The average EELV launch is costing the U.S. government $468-ish million, according to the DoD yesterday.  That provides plenty of headroom for new entrants.

 - Ed Kyle

[edkyle99]

I dont get how this is supposed to change anything. What exactly is their business mode? Why do they think they will attract paying customers for their manned version? It is obviously not going to be cheaper than alternatives for manned missions, but rather it is going to be more expensive. The added flexibility and responsiveness, the main improvement offered by the giant airplane wont really matter that much for manned launches either. That would be more relevant for military missions, I would presume. So I dont see how this is ever going to get them their investment back.

I can't figure what the manned spacecraft could be.  If it only weighs 6 tonnes, it would be lighter than Soyuz and Shenzhou, so it seems to me unlikely to be a manned orbital winged spacecraft. 

On the other hand, X-37B weighs less than 6 tonnes.

Meanwhile, Boeing, for one, has announced plans to build all-electric thruster based GTO satellites.  Their plan would result in powerful, long-lived comsats weighing less than 2 tonnes.  Orbital, of course, already builds lots of 3 tonne GTO sats.  An all-electric Orbital GeoStar should easily weigh less than 2 tonnes.  Notice that Pegasus 2 would send 2 tonnes to GTO?

 - Ed Kyle

[DavisSTS]

Very nice article about this. Such an impressive looking system.

[Prober]

Because Falcon 9 V1.1 or F9R are not givens.

Well, v1.1 physically exists and F9R is at least as far along in development as Pegasus II, so that's not it.

Falcon 9 V1.1 or F9R viability is not givens

interesting, would the word "unproven" work?

[Prober]

Thanks for the nice words chaps. Had a LOT of help with that one!

any idea how many G's a payload would get with this design?

[Prober]

Heh, you were thinking Dream Chaser as well... 

Atlas 412 (the planned LV for Dream Chaser) seems to have about twice the LEO payload capacity of this vehicle, so I don't see how this one could get DC to orbit.

they could re-engine the aircraft.  I noted that they are using old 747 engines.   New engines might do the trick.