A good analysis as always Space Ghost. But I think you hit on it there about 3.7m wide new composite solids. Unless and until SLS is cancelled, it seems like ATK Advanced solids are going to be a given for SLS after the first couple of launches. That means NASA money flowing into OrbATK to develop them. A big booster segment will be different than a stand along monolithic 3.7m wide booster for an Antares replacement. But the NASA money would pay for the tooling required to make those 3.7m wide casings, and after that tooling exists, they really wouldn't be dependant on NASA so not sure that Wallstreet would care much.
Thank you Lobo. Rare to hear any encouragement here to speak more about anything.
Yes big solids are on "keep alive" with SLS, but as with any politically "too big to fail", fiat driven product of the arsenal system, they drag along baggage with the benefit of funding. You see, once you turn down the path of such development, things creep in, either as expedients "to make it go" somehow (but not for the right reason), or as "acceptants" (good enough for govt work but not acceptable fora business). Once in, they are difficult and tedious to remove.
The greatness of the EELV program was to weed out many of these, and transition to an almost rational business. (Aside, think that competition from SpaceX is reinvigorating what had become a stolid pace or retreat from same - hope for a committed, stable, balanced, evolving, multiple launch service provider market).
Lobo, I know you've really wanted to see something "useful" come out of the big solids side. Hate to rain on that parade, but the time for that was during STS and it past. And I can't bring it up again here, because the same abject blindness is omnipresent. If you want to understand this area more, study Europe's large solids in detail - they have gone further than America in rational economics for big solids, but are hobbled by political division, funding, and geo return.
Yes SLS can underwrite a "fast start" and parallel funding. But even with that, the incremental part of fixed costs is more than Antares. And, any threat to SLS, or postponement of developments/launches/missions would cause short selling and "death watch" mania that no rational business wants.
Then it's just a matter of getting the propellant pour and throat correct to make a monolithic booster out of those segment lengths. Should be much easier than a mult-segment configuration I'd imagine.
As long as the transport and handling costs are mitigated, yes. But they have never been for STS, so won't be for SLS, where govt would rather spend the money elsewhere, because the improvement to a "infrequent flyer" makes no sense to them - see above.
As you said, RD-181 gets Antares flying again with the least amount of investment and the fastest time. But it's hard to see a long term business model for that for OrbATK especially if they want USAF/DoD business as they say they do.
Agreed. It's a pipe dream OrbATK doing nat sec launches.
Big solids solve both the Russian engine issue and the Ukrainian core issue, -and- brings it all in-house which SpaceX has shown is advantageous. And the infrastructure to get them to CCAFS is already in place. (unsure about VAFB, but obviously they had a way to get STS solid segments there back in the 80's, so there must be rail access from Utah to there?)
It can be brought back, but since it's been gone for far longer, much more costly. May be better ways to do so, but these (and this) are irrelevant to govt interests like discussed above.
As Ed has referenced in the past, a two SLS booster segment sized monolithic motors stacked on each other with a large hydrolox upper stage. ... I'd think between ATK and OSC, they could develop their own upper stage in-house, if they have an engine for it.
He was talking about lower incremental cost solids derived from existing projects, in the same theme as how the second stage was done - ATK's best area.
They have done work on LRE second stages, but Orb is hesitant about too much change too fast. It would appear that history proved Antares 130 was apparently that.
For heavier payloads, three 1st stage solid motors are put together in parallell. (This all assumes new CCAFS and VAFB pads anyway, they'd build them to handle a tri-core configuration)
Who underwrites the pad like MARS was? Who is trusted not to screw it up again in like kind?
Otherwise, I don't see much of a long term business model for them with Antares launching from only Wallops as arachnitect said. Maybe limited commercial comsat business assuming there's no interruptions in Russian engines and Ukrainian cores would be about all they could compete for aside from CRS I believe?
Antares was to be a Delta-II replacement. WFF is fine for that. As a "gap filler". F9/AV are in contrast "frequent flyers".
But F9 is getting the Delta II payloads now. To survive, Antares 2 will have to steal payloads. It will be seen as an unproven LV, and they cannot afford to test LV/LRE like F9, so they may not have the reliability of AV or F9.
The military will always need solid motors due to the launch immediately requirement. How much of space launch should/could take advantage of that requirement? A sober business analysis would be good here.
The next platform for the military will either/both be hypersonic cruise missiles (see Russian treaty violations), or son of Midgetman - from where we get the GEM line of Delta solids (actually the GEMS are much bigger). Super Strypi is an example of a single launch LV platform from same. The analysis currently accepted, which has a rather large thumb on the scale, does not look promising (turnover rate of weapons upgrade is too little, dev sched too long as well). Typical impedance mismatch between use models for each application.
Is there any way at all that Antares in its current, as antonioe called it, upside down Isp configuration can compete with Falcon 9 for cost and reliability? I think its days are numbered. My consideration of an all-solid version would only be negligibly more sanguine.
Original choices were to minimize cost and amount of novel propulsion systems. Next investment was meant to be uprating the second stage.
Too much needs to change and be new, thus cost/risk doesn't have the prior platform(s) to leverage off of.
Too much of a miracle to pull off, at a point when rivals are better proven.
I'm not sure I agree with throwing all of AR under the "no LOX/RP competence bus." Canoga entered the stage long after Sacramento and Dulles made that dubious decision.
Didn't mean that. Meant they have to prove themselves now, can't ride on past laurels as before.
They can do a kerolox LRE. But then, they should have done more of a kerolox LRE already. "Put up or shut up" time?
Here's the thing about Antares. When it returns to flight, it will have the highest performing hydrocarbon engine in the U.S., and will be the newest engine in the U.S..
Lovely aerospace romanticism Ed.
Unproven LV. And the payload/performance benefits delivered by that engine to the LV against more proven competition aren't significant enough to matter.
It will occupy a payload category all by itself.
F9R? Might likely be reflown by that time. What if its economic? What if you've been wrong all along and too pessimistic on reuse? We both know they'd get creamed.
It will continue to be conservatively run by one of the better managed companies in this business, while its competitors are all spending aggressively right now to develop new systems.
That is yet to be seen in regards to LV. Want to talk about OCO and other sins?
...The engine will share production overhead costs with Russia's new primary rocket, Angara, so it will be both "low cost" and will benefit from Angara development and flight experience.
The flight-rate of Antares, at least for the near term, will be higher than that of Angara. If anything, Antares will not benefit from Angara related flight experience for RD-181. It will be the other way around: The RD-191 of Angara will benefit from the Antares related flight experience of RD-181. I can see why Energomash was so anxious to sell RD-181 to Orbital.
Absolutely. And am not keen on the means to prove this LV given current experience. Nor in the geopolitical environment hastening this process.
Orbital and good management? When you look at the results of Orbital and SpaceX, the difference is obvious! Both of them started their rocket developments with COTS and what did they archieve?
Falcon 9 - 15 performed launches, 1 semi failure, lots of commercial/government payloads waiting to be launched
Antares - 5 performed launches, 1 failure, no non-CRS launch contracts so far...
A more correct take on it is that the Antares started development 5 years later than Falcon 9.
Pardon me, but Orbital has done more LV's, and over a much longer time. Expect more from them as well as shorter time to prove a new LV. Also, company has been around much, much longer.
Same is even more true for ULA.
GenCorp earned money because they are going to redevelop Canoga Park. It was actually a real estate transaction. The removal of the president has probably to do with normal business issues. The ULA NGLV propulsion loss might have had a lot more to do with it. They still have SLS's RS-25D.
... And the RS-25 will only be about 2 engines per year, at best. Even at inflated prices, that's not a lot to run your business on. And doesn't ULA currently have a stockpile of RL-10's they are going through. Not a lot of business at the moment.
Current plan is 4 RS-25s per year once production starts again.
Not yet authorized. Clouds on the horizon.
Yes, some RL-10s exist but the majority are being converted to RL-10C so that is some revenue. More will be needed for the SLS EUS and most likely ULA's new upper stage.
I am skeptical.
Still probably not enough orders after losing RS-68 eventually though.
Absolutely.