Lockheed Martin's "Jupiter" reusable space tug, CRS-2 bid

[fgonella]

About disposal, if I understand correctly Hohmann transfer orbits, in order to go from ISS orbit to delivery orbit you need (simplifying it) a deorbit backburn to lower orbit and a new burn to stabilize on the rendevouz orbit. If the discarded PCM would be jettisoned before the last burn, wouldn't it safely deorbit and burn up even before you reach the Centaur? On the other hand, swapping PCMs would indeed allow for a more controlled deorbit.

[guckyfan]

It looks to me that Jupiter cannot do any burns without Exoliner attached, because the fuel is there. Probably they can do attitude control without it but no more.

[Jimmy Murdok]

Jupiter looks like it can carry much more cargo than Cygnus, so proportionally less involvement per ton.

(Edit & Corrected) I did a rough estimation of the pressurized volume. It gives me somewhere around 55-58m3 of presurized volume (4.26m long x 4.26m wide) VS 27m3 for Cygnus. If Cygnus does not implement an unpressurized cargo bay they are probably in serious disadvantage. Specially assuming all the possibilities of this amazing spacecraft as a multipurpose tug and the capacity to boost the station to higher orbit.

[TrevorMonty]

Pressurized volume is more like 4.5m (14ft Dia) x 4.5m(14ft L) = 70m3
See LM website for scaled picture.

[Jimmy Murdok]

Pressurized volume is more like 4.5m (14ft Dia) x 4.5m(14ft L) = 70m3
See LM website for scaled picture.

Uuups, yes even better. And the centaur picture was not updated. Actual one is 12.68m long

So 4.26m diam x 4.26m -> 56-58m3 of pressurized volume and 5000kg + 1500kg of unpressurized.

[Robotbeat]

It looks to me that Jupiter cannot do any burns without Exoliner attached, because the fuel is there. Probably they can do attitude control without it but no more.

No, Exoliner just has the refueling tanks. Jupiter has its own tanks of course.

[GuessWho]

No. The tug would decelerate the container to a reentry and fly back to a stable orbit

The trash container is de-orbited by Centaur not the tug.

[Nilof]

The infographic on lockheeds website says that the pressure vessel is 14' by 14'(with a drawing of an elephant standing inside to drive home their point). That translates into a volume of about 60 cubic meters, or three times the pressurized volume and six times the habitable volume of an Orion if used for deep space.

It also means it has roughly twice the pressurized payload of the Cygnus in both mass and volume. That's some really good numbers and Orbital may have a tough time competing with that.

If I understood Lockheed's statement here correctly, the Exoliner with no Jupiter tug needs no SRB's on the Atlas to launch? That would imply a launch mass of about ten tonnes if it goes on an Atlas 401, meaning it could launch on a Falcon 9 if necessary, maybe even with first stage reuse.

[joek]

This might provide a bit more detail on the dimensions... (can't find the link to it on the LM site any longer)

[Razvan]

I welcome Lockheed Martin initiative as this brings some innovations to the "same all same all" capsule designs ever since Apollo design.
However, I cannot help ,myself noticing how crowded is this area compared to the Launching one. Everybody is looking to send "taxis" to the sky but their imagination becomes so poor when dealing with the Rocket, big exception, though, for SpaceX.
So, I will again have to say about this: same all same all russian engine business. Therefore, I realize that, although probably of great perspective, Lokheed initiative based upon building on a dead support (Congress banned russian engines) is looking like a giant with clay legs.
And, coming to this point, I am afraid that this is just another scheme of imposing NASA selecting two bids for CRS2: Boeing and Lockheed - same ULA story under different cover.

[arachnitect]

The infographic on lockheeds website says that the pressure vessel is 14' by 14'. That translates into a volume of about 60 cubic meters, or three times the pressurized volume and six times the habitable volume of an Orion if used for deep space.

It also means it has roughly twice the pressurized payload of the Cygnus in both mass and volume. That's some really good numbers and Orbital may have a tough time competing with that.
[...]

I'm not entirely convinced the space tug will pay for itself, but I think LM has done one thing very much right by offering such a big vehicle.

I think Orbital is going to be hard pressed to squeeze enough capacity out of their system to address NASA's "more upmass/less flights" desires.

[...]
If I understood Lockheed's statement here correctly, the Exoliner with no Jupiter tug needs no SRB's on the Atlas to launch? That would imply a launch mass of about ten tonnes if it goes on an Atlas 401, meaning it could launch on a Falcon 9 if necessary, maybe even with first stage reuse.

They need the 5m. fairing, so Atlas 501. Is there a stretched Falcon fairing available? Because the (old) dimensions I've found would be a very tight fit for "exoliner" and it's adapter.

I'm guessing their CRS2 bid is all Atlas, all the time.

[yg1968]

NASA needs a capability like this. ISS could have been built this way (or at least finished). Jim has a thread on the topic somewhere on this site. It's essentially a robotic and FAR cheaper version of what Shuttle did with logistics flights to ISS, just with a shorter version of MPLM (although there's no reason in principle they couldn't use a whole MPLM sized container, especially once the tug is placed in orbit).

The CRS-2 evaluation criteria does not care about fuzzy NASA future or potential needs; it cares only about meeting CRS-2 requirements at the lowest cost and risk, as spelled out in the CRS-2 RFP.

If LM can make a competitive bid that addresses CRS-2 requirements and is competitive, wonderful and more power to them.  If LM cannot make a competitive bid that addresses CRS-2 requirements and which is competitive, its ability to meet future or potential NASA needs is irrelevant with respect to CRS-2.

While I agree that LM's proposal has great potential, I have doubts that it will competitive for CRS-2.  In any case, I look forward to reading the CRS-2 selection statement.

I completely agree wit that. I was disapointed when NASA said in the CCtCap selection statement that the fact that the CST-100 could carry more cargo than other companies was a positive. It should have been a negative. If you provide stuff that NASA didn't require, it increases the cost of a mission for no reason. Plus, it isn't really fair. If NASA wants a space tug, it should allow all commercial companies to bid for it. Cygnus could also easily be turned into a tug. Hopefully, NASA will look at prices for CRS-2 and not what is the "best value" for the government (which is a very subjective criteria).

[Robotbeat]

Yeah, If this concept used F9R (the upgraded version), it'd be the cheapest way to get payload to ISS, period.

[kdhilliard]

... the Exoliner ... could launch on a Falcon 9 if necessary ...

The plan calls for the Centaur to deorbit the old Exoliner.  Would a F9 US be able to do the same?  How long after launch are the Centaur and F9 US rated for restart?

[HIP2BSQRE]

Please remember companies were told the general requirements, how they meet them was up to them.

[arachnitect]

NASA needs a capability like this. ISS could have been built this way (or at least finished). Jim has a thread on the topic somewhere on this site. It's essentially a robotic and FAR cheaper version of what Shuttle did with logistics flights to ISS, just with a shorter version of MPLM (although there's no reason in principle they couldn't use a whole MPLM sized container, especially once the tug is placed in orbit).

The CRS-2 evaluation criteria does not care about fuzzy NASA future or potential needs; it cares only about meeting CRS-2 requirements at the lowest cost and risk, as spelled out in the CRS-2 RFP.

If LM can make a competitive bid that addresses CRS-2 requirements and is competitive, wonderful and more power to them.  If LM cannot make a competitive bid that addresses CRS-2 requirements and which is competitive, its ability to meet future or potential NASA needs is irrelevant with respect to CRS-2.

While I agree that LM's proposal has great potential, I have doubts that it will competitive for CRS-2.  In any case, I look forward to reading the CRS-2 selection statement.

I completely agree wit that. I was disapointed when NASA said in the CCtCap selection statement that the fact that the CST-100 could carry more cargo than other companies was a positive. It should have been a negative. If you provide stuff that NASA didn't require, it increases cost of a mission for no reason. Plus, it isn't really fair. If NASA wants a space tug, it should allow all commercial companies to bid for it. Cygnus could also easily be turned into a tug. Hopefully, NASA will look at prices for CRS-2 and not what is the "best value" for the government (which is a very subjective criteria).

I'll have to go reread the source selection document but I don't think the advantage for CST-100 was so much "more cargo" as just having a really specific plan for how they were going to accommodate it. I may have missed it, but I haven't seen a rendering or mockup of Dragon2 or Dreamchaser in an ISS mission configuration, but well before the CCtCap bids went in there were renderings and mockups of CST in its ISS configuration showing exactly where all the lockers and freezers were, how they would be accessed, etc.

[Carl G]

Two pages of nothing but general CRS2 were in here. We have a thread for that. Members even said "this probably belongs in the CRS2 thread" and still posted in this one.

Split and merged.

We do not have separate threads for the separate options yet. This thread will be completely merged into the CRS2 thread if we get one more post that isn't specific to this proposal and we may just do that anyway as there's Jupiter posts in the CRS2 thread.

The CRS2 thread covers all the proposals at this stage anyway, so this thread is somewhat pointless if no one can control their fingers by keeping in the correct thread.

[dror]

Specifically, if the Jupiter gets 1 mission a year,  it has to either:
stay docked to ISS for almost the whole year,  or
travel in orbit with a can full of trash for many months, possibly doing other missions ,  or
meet a third centaur with a diffrent mission specific module and perform an unrelated mission in between the two crs flights.

Right?

[Chris Bergin]

It is right there should be standalone threads.

We'll add more standalone threads for other concepts - such as SNCs - as they are announced.

As you were

[ChrisWilson68]

I was disapointed when NASA said in the CCtCap selection statement that the fact that the CST-100 could carry more cargo than other companies was a positive. It should have been a negative. If you provide stuff that NASA didn't require, it increases the cost of a mission for no reason.

Any impact on cost *was* taken as a negative, but that was in a different part of the selection statement.  The cost as a whole was compared with the cost of the competitors.

Plus, it isn't really fair. If NASA wants a space tug, it should allow all commercial companies to bid for it.

Everyone was allowed to bid for it.  IIRC there was some language in CCtCap saying that bids could include other benefits to NASA that weren't explicitly mentioned in NASA's solicitation, and NASA could take that into account to a certain extent, though it wasn't as important as the other criteria.  So everyone knew they were allowed to offer other kinds of value to NASA.  I'm not sure if CRS-2 includes similar language, but, in my opinion, it should.

Cygnus could also easily be turned into a tug.

I don't think that's true.  LM has a flight-proven bus for interplanetary probes, OrbitATK doesn't.  It's non-trivial to develop one.