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#200 by ulm_atms on 23 Oct, 2019 16:27
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So that LEO is not even to 200km. I thought that is standard height for LEO numbers? I get ~185km with the 100 nautical miles on the slide.
I am also confused that the LEO rating is so small between the medium and heavy, but the other specs are not. How can you only get 1,200kg more mass to LEO orbit but 7,000kg more to Mars? -
#201 by whitelancer64 on 23 Oct, 2019 16:35
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So that LEO is not even to 200km. I thought that is standard height for LEO numbers? I get ~185km with the 100 nautical miles on the slide.
I am also confused that the LEO rating is so small between the medium and heavy, but the other specs are not. How can you only get 1,200kg more mass to LEO orbit but 7,000kg more to Mars?
Hydrolox upper stage performance. Same reason the Delta IV Heavy outperforms the Falcon Heavy (reusable) to higher orbits in spite of being similar in throw weight to LEO. -
#202 by russianhalo117 on 23 Oct, 2019 16:38
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That "Medium" is formidable all by itself. 1.67 times more payload to GTO than a Falcon 9 with reuse. 1.15 times more than Falcon Heavy full reuse. 1.37 times more than Vulcan Centaur 522. More than any Atlas 5.
I assume that both are with 8 GEM-63XL/T's attached.
- Ed Kyle -
#203 by ncb1397 on 23 Oct, 2019 16:40
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It isn't exactly that weird. SLS Block 1B gets more to LEO than block 1 but less to very high energy orbits. So, going from Block 1B and "upgrading" to Block 1 would simultaneously decrease your payload to LEO but increase it to certain other trajectories.
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#204 by TrevorMonty on 23 Oct, 2019 16:57
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They've designed LV for BLEO payloads not heavy LEO payloads. No demand for +20t LEO payloads but lot for 6t to GTO and GEO.
The TLI performance will be useful for supporting lunar missions especially National Team.
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#205 by ulm_atms on 23 Oct, 2019 17:02
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So that LEO is not even to 200km. I thought that is standard height for LEO numbers? I get ~185km with the 100 nautical miles on the slide.
I am also confused that the LEO rating is so small between the medium and heavy, but the other specs are not. How can you only get 1,200kg more mass to LEO orbit but 7,000kg more to Mars?
Hydrolox upper stage performance. Same reason the Delta IV Heavy outperforms the Falcon Heavy (reusable) to higher orbits in spite of being similar in throw weight to LEO.
I got that part....The upper stage makes all the difference for higher energy orbits (higher ISP).
It's the such tiny difference to LEO that is confusing. The (F9 is 22K/kg to LEO and the FH is 63K/kg to LEO) or (DIV is 13K/kg LEO and the DIV-H is 28K/kg LEO) for examples. The difference between medium and heavy for OmegA is almost non-existent to LEO...which is not what I have seen with other rockets. You would think a "heavy" could push more then 1.2K/kg more then the medium to LEO anyways.
As I said....no other medium to heavy comparison I have ever seen has such a small LEO difference....but such a large BEO difference. Just struck me as odd.
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#206 by edkyle99 on 23 Oct, 2019 17:19
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Six, I believe, is the maximum, and I would expect that these numbers represent that SRM configuration for the Medium. I'm not sure about the Heavy. If they're not adding SRMs to the Heavy, that could explain part of the relatively small difference in LEO capability between the max SRM Medium and the "straight" Heavy.That "Medium" is formidable all by itself. 1.67 times more payload to GTO than a Falcon 9 with reuse. 1.15 times more than Falcon Heavy full reuse. 1.37 times more than Vulcan Centaur 522. More than any Atlas 5.
I assume that both are with 8 GEM-63XL/T's attached.
- Ed Kyle
- Ed Kyle -
#207 by ZachS09 on 23 Oct, 2019 18:31
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Ed, are you certain that OmegA will actually be flying as soon as it's rendered "flight-ready", or will all the payloads within OmegA's performance be launched by either Vulcan or Starship (maybe F9 and/or FH if they're still flying)?
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#208 by JEF_300 on 23 Oct, 2019 18:33
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Ed, are you certain that OmegA will actually be flying as soon as it's rendered "flight-ready", or will all the payloads within OmegA's performance be launched by either Vulcan or Starship?
If OmegA finishes development, it will be launching payloads. If they don't win the Air Force contract, and they don't get a bunch of launches from somewhere else, I'm pretty confident they will just shut the program down. -
#209 by Zed_Noir on 23 Oct, 2019 18:54
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So that LEO is not even to 200km. I thought that is standard height for LEO numbers? I get ~185km with the 100 nautical miles on the slide.
I am also confused that the LEO rating is so small between the medium and heavy, but the other specs are not. How can you only get 1,200kg more mass to LEO orbit but 7,000kg more to Mars?
Hydrolox upper stage performance. Same reason the Delta IV Heavy outperforms the Falcon Heavy (reusable) to higher orbits in spite of being similar in throw weight to LEO.
I got that part....The upper stage makes all the difference for higher energy orbits (higher ISP).
It's the such tiny difference to LEO that is confusing. The (F9 is 22K/kg to LEO and the FH is 63K/kg to LEO) or (DIV is 13K/kg LEO and the DIV-H is 28K/kg LEO) for examples. The difference between medium and heavy for OmegA is almost non-existent to LEO...which is not what I have seen with other rockets. You would think a "heavy" could push more then 1.2K/kg more then the medium to LEO anyways.
As I said....no other medium to heavy comparison I have ever seen has such a small LEO difference....but such a large BEO difference. Just struck me as odd.
Maybe the payload adapter have a maximum limit of 23k kg due to possible higher acceleration with the OmegA Heavy. I am guessing, NG is probably using the Delta IV heavy payload adapter. -
#210 by russianhalo117 on 23 Oct, 2019 19:13
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At the MLP handover ceremony Chris-G's videos clearly state 8 GEM's at least twice especially in the video actually next to the MLP. Could be an error but I haven't found any corrective statements saying otherwise.
Six, I believe, is the maximum, and I would expect that these numbers represent that SRM configuration for the Medium. I'm not sure about the Heavy. If they're not adding SRMs to the Heavy, that could explain part of the relatively small difference in LEO capability between the max SRM Medium and the "straight" Heavy.That "Medium" is formidable all by itself. 1.67 times more payload to GTO than a Falcon 9 with reuse. 1.15 times more than Falcon Heavy full reuse. 1.37 times more than Vulcan Centaur 522. More than any Atlas 5.
I assume that both are with 8 GEM-63XL/T's attached.
- Ed Kyle
- Ed Kyle -
#211 by gemmy0I on 23 Oct, 2019 19:33
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If OmegA finishes development, it will be launching payloads. If they don't win the Air Force contract, and they don't get a bunch of launches from somewhere else, I'm pretty confident they will just shut the program down.
Interestingly enough, OmegA - of all the rockets in development right now - might not need a whole lot of "other" business to close its business case if it doesn't get the Air Force contract.
I seem to remember that one of the key "advantages" NG sold in its bid for OmegA is that it requires only (IIRC) 2-4 launches a year to be worth keeping the production line open. That's due to the extensive commonality with other NG solid rocket products, such as ICBMs and SLS boosters.
It's worth keeping in mind that NG somehow - astoundingly - manages to keep Antares "profitable" despite it having had absolutely zero commercial customers. They have only used it to launch Cygnus missions for CRS, which are no more than 1-3 a year. My guess is that this works for them because even though their costs to build and operate Antares are too high to be able to sell it at a low enough price for commercial viability, when they sell it to themselves, they can still turn some profit, or at the very least break even. Sure, their profit margin wouldn't be great compared to competitors, but when they're buying from themselves, whatever profit they get is theirs to keep. If they were launching Cygnus on a Falcon 9 or Atlas V, they'd have to pay not only the cost of production and operation, but the profit margin to someone else. Even at break-even, it's business going to their factories and their workers instead of someone else's.
With the commonality across all of NG's solid rocket products, I would not be surprised if using Antares for Cygnus would be worthwhile to them even if they're just breaking even on it, simply due to improving economies of scale across the board. I am convinced that every Antares they "sell" to themselves is little more than an excuse to sell a Castor 30 for the second stage. The first stage, after all, was designed and is manufactured in Ukraine as a derivative of Zenit, so I doubt NG is taking much profit on that. The Castor is basically the only thing they're bringing to the table (besides Cygnus of course which is orthogonal to the choice of launch vehicle).
A similar rationale could justify keeping OmegA alive without Air Force support. They could retire Antares and use the smallest OmegA to launch Cygnus missions to the ISS (with more cargo per flight as a bonus, similar to the Atlas V option now) - which, right there, gives them 1-3 missions a year. Add in a couple Cygnus missions to the Gateway each year, which would go on OmegA Heavy, and they've easily got the "2-4 launches a year" they claim they need to make the business case close. And since OmegA is supposed to be more competitive on price (relative to capability) and a better fit to the private market's needs than Antares, they might be able to sell one or two launches to private customers (GEO comsats, etc.) on top of that. Again, they don't need to make much profit on the overall rocket - as long as they break even and can improve economies of scale for their solids business, it's a win.
The big hurdle, I think, is going to be funding to finish development of OmegA. A barely-profitable rocket might be a win if the development is already paid for, but if they have to invest a lot of their own money to finish it and amortize that over launch profits, it could take a long time to pay that off, breaking the business case.
If they're counting on NSSL Phase 2 funding to get to a minimum viable product (OmegA Medium to replace Antares) then OmegA will probably die on the vine. The Phase 1 funding is supposed to be enough to cover development and the initial test launches. At that point the rocket is in production and they can keep it alive with (at minimum) their own business from Cygnus and Artemis stuff. The tricky part is that, under the original NSSL wording, the Phase 1 funding - which is paid out gradually - is terminated once they lose the Phase 2 (block buy) bid. I know they lobbied to get that changed, but I don't know if they succeeded or not.
The interesting thing is that, even if their Phase 1 funding were to be cut off by losing Phase 2, they might be close enough to the finish line already to get the rest of the way without the Air Force funding. They've already done a ground static fire of an OmegA first stage, which was mostly successful (aside from the nozzle snafu, but they didn't seem too concerned about that). The second stage is basically the same as the first stage, just half as long. And the boosters (GEM-63) are already being developed for Vulcan. The main missing piece is the upper stage, which is itself a straightforward design based on the extremely proven RL-10 engine. (I'll bet they're contracting out nearly all the hard parts of that to people who have already solved those problems, just like they did with Antares's first stage.)
Besides Vulcan funding coming in for GEM-63, OmegA's first and second stages are basically variants of the same solid rocket design that they're working on for the SLS Block 2 SRBs. Now, of course, SLS Block 2 is kind of laughable at this point, but I think they got some money already to develop that, right? That should defray the remaining development costs of OmegA even further. The convenient thing about having such commonality across their product lines is that they can effectively take funding they receive from all of their programs and use it as a slush fund for developing their "big solid rocket thing", whatever form the customer wants to see it in (OmegA, SLS Advanced Boosters, etc.) -
#212 by TrevorMonty on 23 Oct, 2019 19:40
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If US can handle multiple restarts then gives them lots of surplus performance for rideshares when launching Cygnus.
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#213 by russianhalo117 on 23 Oct, 2019 22:58
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AFAIU Upper stage is being built at MAF with Boeing as a contractor.If OmegA finishes development, it will be launching payloads. If they don't win the Air Force contract, and they don't get a bunch of launches from somewhere else, I'm pretty confident they will just shut the program down.
Interestingly enough, OmegA - of all the rockets in development right now - might not need a whole lot of "other" business to close its business case if it doesn't get the Air Force contract.
I seem to remember that one of the key "advantages" NG sold in its bid for OmegA is that it requires only (IIRC) 2-4 launches a year to be worth keeping the production line open. That's due to the extensive commonality with other NG solid rocket products, such as ICBMs and SLS boosters.
It's worth keeping in mind that NG somehow - astoundingly - manages to keep Antares "profitable" despite it having had absolutely zero commercial customers. They have only used it to launch Cygnus missions for CRS, which are no more than 1-3 a year. My guess is that this works for them because even though their costs to build and operate Antares are too high to be able to sell it at a low enough price for commercial viability, when they sell it to themselves, they can still turn some profit, or at the very least break even. Sure, their profit margin wouldn't be great compared to competitors, but when they're buying from themselves, whatever profit they get is theirs to keep. If they were launching Cygnus on a Falcon 9 or Atlas V, they'd have to pay not only the cost of production and operation, but the profit margin to someone else. Even at break-even, it's business going to their factories and their workers instead of someone else's.
With the commonality across all of NG's solid rocket products, I would not be surprised if using Antares for Cygnus would be worthwhile to them even if they're just breaking even on it, simply due to improving economies of scale across the board. I am convinced that every Antares they "sell" to themselves is little more than an excuse to sell a Castor 30 for the second stage. The first stage, after all, was designed and is manufactured in Ukraine as a derivative of Zenit, so I doubt NG is taking much profit on that. The Castor is basically the only thing they're bringing to the table (besides Cygnus of course which is orthogonal to the choice of launch vehicle).
A similar rationale could justify keeping OmegA alive without Air Force support. They could retire Antares and use the smallest OmegA to launch Cygnus missions to the ISS (with more cargo per flight as a bonus, similar to the Atlas V option now) - which, right there, gives them 1-3 missions a year. Add in a couple Cygnus missions to the Gateway each year, which would go on OmegA Heavy, and they've easily got the "2-4 launches a year" they claim they need to make the business case close. And since OmegA is supposed to be more competitive on price (relative to capability) and a better fit to the private market's needs than Antares, they might be able to sell one or two launches to private customers (GEO comsats, etc.) on top of that. Again, they don't need to make much profit on the overall rocket - as long as they break even and can improve economies of scale for their solids business, it's a win.
The big hurdle, I think, is going to be funding to finish development of OmegA. A barely-profitable rocket might be a win if the development is already paid for, but if they have to invest a lot of their own money to finish it and amortize that over launch profits, it could take a long time to pay that off, breaking the business case.
If they're counting on NSSL Phase 2 funding to get to a minimum viable product (OmegA Medium to replace Antares) then OmegA will probably die on the vine. The Phase 1 funding is supposed to be enough to cover development and the initial test launches. At that point the rocket is in production and they can keep it alive with (at minimum) their own business from Cygnus and Artemis stuff. The tricky part is that, under the original NSSL wording, the Phase 1 funding - which is paid out gradually - is terminated once they lose the Phase 2 (block buy) bid. I know they lobbied to get that changed, but I don't know if they succeeded or not.
The interesting thing is that, even if their Phase 1 funding were to be cut off by losing Phase 2, they might be close enough to the finish line already to get the rest of the way without the Air Force funding. They've already done a ground static fire of an OmegA first stage, which was mostly successful (aside from the nozzle snafu, but they didn't seem too concerned about that). The second stage is basically the same as the first stage, just half as long. And the boosters (GEM-63) are already being developed for Vulcan. The main missing piece is the upper stage, which is itself a straightforward design based on the extremely proven RL-10 engine. (I'll bet they're contracting out nearly all the hard parts of that to people who have already solved those problems, just like they did with Antares's first stage.)
Besides Vulcan funding coming in for GEM-63, OmegA's first and second stages are basically variants of the same solid rocket design that they're working on for the SLS Block 2 SRBs. Now, of course, SLS Block 2 is kind of laughable at this point, but I think they got some money already to develop that, right? That should defray the remaining development costs of OmegA even further. The convenient thing about having such commonality across their product lines is that they can effectively take funding they receive from all of their programs and use it as a slush fund for developing their "big solid rocket thing", whatever form the customer wants to see it in (OmegA, SLS Advanced Boosters, etc.) -
#214 by ncb1397 on 23 Oct, 2019 23:02
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If US can handle multiple restarts then gives them lots of surplus performance for rideshares when launching Cygnus.
Not to mention you could haul a lot of cargo on a cargo version of the 4 segment Cygnus they are building for gateway with the expanded lift capacity. The fact that ISS is in the orbits list suggests they are thinking in those terms. When they adjusted the launch vehicles for Cygnus, they were able to negotiate with NASA for less flights to meet their contract as each flight carried a bit more on Atlas and the upgraded Antares. This would bring most of the launch vehicle in house rather than just the upper stage as well. The other potential curve ball is the super sized Cygnus based propulsion module for the Blue Origin lander. -
#215 by envy887 on 24 Oct, 2019 01:38
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That "Medium" is formidable all by itself. 1.67 times more payload to GTO than a Falcon 9 with reuse. 1.15 times more than Falcon Heavy full reuse. 1.37 times more than Vulcan Centaur 522. More than any Atlas 5.
- Ed Kyle
Omega Intermediate has at least 1 full stage more than any of those, and is heavier on the pad than any except FH. Also, it's nice to have performance data, but price is also important. If that performance costs $200M it's not going to get a lot of use.
Any idea why performance to Mars is higher than to Escape? I'm not aware of any ways to reach Mars without reaching Earth escape... -
#216 by edkyle99 on 24 Oct, 2019 01:40
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AFAIU Upper stage is being built at MAF with Boeing as a contractor.
I've read about Michoud assembly, but I've not seen anything specifically mentioning Boeing. For that matter, I've seen no images of or read any news about upper stage assembly work at all, except for photos of a couple of RL10 engines on hand. This for a rocket that is supposed to fly in 2021. Omega's upper stage will likely be the pacing item for this launch vehicle.
- Ed Kyle -
#217 by edkyle99 on 24 Oct, 2019 01:44
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Any idea why performance to Mars is higher than to Escape? I'm not aware of any ways to reach Mars without reaching Earth escape...
Probably a typo on the slide. Doesn't make sense otherwise. A guess.
- Ed Kyle -
#218 by JEF_300 on 24 Oct, 2019 03:17
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If OmegA finishes development, it will be launching payloads. If they don't win the Air Force contract, and they don't get a bunch of launches from somewhere else, I'm pretty confident they will just shut the program down.
Interestingly enough, OmegA - of all the rockets in development right now - might not need a whole lot of "other" business to close its business case if it doesn't get the Air Force contract.
I seem to remember that one of the key "advantages" NG sold in its bid for OmegA is that it requires only (IIRC) 2-4 launches a year to be worth keeping the production line open. That's due to the extensive commonality with other NG solid rocket products, such as ICBMs and SLS boosters.
This was an excellent post. I believe I was aware of all of that, though I recalled it being 2-6 launches.
Bellow is the only thing I'd dispute.A similar rationale could justify keeping OmegA alive without Air Force support. They could retire Antares and use the smallest OmegA to launch Cygnus missions to the ISS (with more cargo per flight as a bonus, similar to the Atlas V option now) - which, right there, gives them 1-3 missions a year. Add in a couple Cygnus missions to the Gateway each year, which would go on OmegA Heavy, and they've easily got the "2-4 launches a year" they claim they need to make the business case close. And since OmegA is supposed to be more competitive on price (relative to capability) and a better fit to the private market's needs than Antares, they might be able to sell one or two launches to private customers (GEO comsats, etc.) on top of that. Again, they don't need to make much profit on the overall rocket - as long as they break even and can improve economies of scale for their solids business, it's a win.
It's true that if they moved the CRS flights over to OmegA, they would gain an extra 1-3 OmegA medium flights per year. However, NGIS have stated numerous times that they have no intention of moving the CRS flights off of Antares, and they're in fact working on upgrading Antares further.
That said, the newly announced "Team America" (aka Blue Origin) lander might be able to cover 2-4 launches.
If you assume 1 Cygnus mission to resupply Gateway and 1 mission to launch the Northrop Grumman transfer stage of the lander, you already get up to 2 heavy launches a year. If Lockheed Martin's ascent stage also launches on OmegA you get 3.
Honestly, at around 5 launches a year you have to start wondering if they'd run schedule conflicts with SLS, which we should remember launches from the same pad. So maybe 3 or so launches is about perfect. -
#219 by gemmy0I on 24 Oct, 2019 05:00
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It's true that if they moved the CRS flights over to OmegA, they would gain an extra 1-3 OmegA medium flights per year. However, NGIS have stated numerous times that they have no intention of moving the CRS flights off of Antares, and they're in fact working on upgrading Antares further.
Yeah, I remember reading that too. My guess is that if those 1-3 extra flights per year made the difference between OmegA being viable or not, they would pick OmegA over Antares since it's the one more likely to garner additional business. Plus, under the working theory that "Antares is just an excuse to sell a Castor", OmegA would be even better, because it's an excuse to sell two bigger Castors.
I do find it interesting that they are so keen to keep Antares around even in a (hypothetical) world with OmegA in operation. I'm sure Antares is cheaper per-launch than OmegA in terms of raw cost (which of course is what they're paying), but one would think that the cost of having to maintain a whole separate pad infrastructure for it (at a different location no less) is something they'd be keen to avoid. ULA has been eager to streamline its own stable to one rocket family for exactly that reason. (Although in fairness, their pad overheads are doubled due to having to maintain Vandenberg facilities, something Antares doesn't.)
Wikipedia cites a GAO report (PDF) from 2017 which quotes Antares' commercial per-launch price at $80-$85 million. Although we don't know the actual cost to NGIS internally, I suspect it can't be much less than $50 million or so, because if it were, they could cut the price and take a good chunk of Falcon 9's market for small-ish LEO satellites - particularly West Coast flights going to SSO, most of which are well under Antares's 8-tonne capacity. (Their profit margin wouldn't be great, but since they're operating the rocket anyway, commercial missions would help economies of scale as long as they can break even.) (This of course hand-waves away the cost of a West Coast pad. For all we know that's the only thing standing in the way of them having done this already.)
I don't think we've seen any public numbers on OmegA's targeted commercial prices yet, but they've said they're aiming for it to be viable on the commercial market, which means they can't get away with (at most) charging more than a comparable Vulcan. They've indicated they're intending to go after the same "boutique" segment of the market as Vulcan, i.e. payloads to mostly high orbits where the satellite itself and its operational value largely outweigh the cost of launch. IIRC Vulcan is aiming for a $90-$100 million price tag in the base configuration, with the hope that they'll be able to compete with a $50-$60 million Falcon 9 by offering lower insurance premiums (due to expected reliability) and a quicker ultimate trip to GEO (which in SpaceX world would typically require a $90 million Falcon Heavy). OmegA offers similar high-orbit performance but won't start out with a built-in reliability advantage, so my guesstimate would be that they'll have to aim for the $70-$80 million range in the base configuration.
That already undercuts Antares on sticker price (or at least matches it at much better capability), which suggests internal cost isn't too far behind.
I wonder if their publicly stated plans to keep Antares alongside OmegA might be politically focused. "Please give us a share of the block buy because we need 2-6 launches a year to keep the production line viable and don't expect to get that without NSSL" was a cornerstone of NGIS's NSSL bid. If they were saying "we plan to retire Antares and shift Cygnus to OmegA" out of the other side of their mouth, it would undercut their "NSSL will make or break OmegA" angle. Whereas after the fact, if they end of losing in the block buy (or even if they win), that is no longer a factor and they can make the decision based solely on the numbers.QuoteThat said, the newly announced "Team America" (aka Blue Origin) lander might be able to cover 2-4 launches.
I've started calling them "The Blue Team", it works on so many levels. (Although I think none of the partners involved would much like that moniker.)QuoteIf you assume 1 Cygnus mission to resupply Gateway and 1 mission to launch the Northrop Grumman transfer stage of the lander, you already get up to 2 heavy launches a year. If Lockheed Martin's ascent stage also launches on OmegA you get 3.
That's a very good point. Choosing Pad 39B could prove to be short-sighted on their part. Even if they (as is likely) don't win in the block buy and end up only doing a few launches per year for Artemis, scheduling could get tricky because Artemis support launches will have explicit schedule dependencies with the few SLS launches that will be competing for the pad. SLS is certainly not designed for rapid pad workflow and will be sitting on the pad for likely months prior to launch, which could force any Artemis components launching on OmegA to support that SLS crew flight to be ready for launch substantially earlier than if they were on a different rocket.
Honestly, at around 5 launches a year you have to start wondering if they'd run schedule conflicts with SLS, which we should remember launches from the same pad. So maybe 3 or so launches is about perfect.
I do wonder how much work it would take to make a separate pad for OmegA (e.g. retrofitting some other idle pad at the Cape), considering that it launches from a "clean pad" using a mobile launcher that could (in theory) be rolled to some other location at the Cape. Obviously GSE is needed beyond the mobile launcher, but with the upper stage being the only liquid part, they should only need a fraction of what 39B is designed to support. (Building a pad at Wallops for OmegA is probably not an attractive option since they are relying on the VAB for integration, and the mobile launcher can't exactly be rolled to Virginia. I suppose they could barge it though.)
