NASA Announces New RLV Technology Program

[vulture4]

Hot Dog! NASA is doing something right! Supporting reusable launch vehicle technology! Working with industry, and asking for industry to propose goals and strategies! Developing the building blocks rather than jumping directly to an arbitrary mission goal! Multiple NASA centers working together! Anyone involved in this please tell us more!

http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archiv ... ap_SAS.pdf

 

[rockett]

Hot Dog! NASA is doing something right! Supporting reusable launch vehicle technology! Working with industry, and asking for industry to propose goals and strategies! Developing the building blocks rather than jumping directly to an arbitrary mission goal! Multiple NASA centers working together! Anyone involved in this please tell us more!

http://www.hobbyspace.com/AAdmin/archiv ... ap_SAS.pdf

That was based on the Obama 2011 proposed budget, however, there is hefty support in the Nelson Bill also. It answers something that puzzled me a bit at first (why the hefty funding for aeronautics -this looks like funding is going to come from that kitty):
SEC. 101. FISCAL YEAR 2011
(4) For Aeronautics, $804,600,000, of which—
(A) $579,600,000 shall be for Aeronautics Research; and
(B) $225,000,000 shall be for Space Technology.

SEC. 102. FISCAL YEAR 2012
(4) For Aeronautics, $934,700,000, of which—
(A) $584,700,000 shall be for Aeronautics Research; and
(B) $450,000,000 shall be for Space Technology.

SEC. 103. FISCAL YEAR 2013
(4) For Aeronautics, $1,340,400,000, of which—
(A) $590,400,000 shall be for Aeronautics Research; and
(B) $500,000,000 shall be for Space Technology.

 

[SteveCNC]

in Sec.103 Fiscal year 2013 , where did the other 250,000,000 go ?

 

[rockett]

in Sec.103 Fiscal year 2013 , where did the other 250,000,000 go ?

Good question. I only have a working draft of the Bill and would love to see the version sent to the Senate if anybody has one.

 

[stevekk]

I don't see much coming out of this. How many of these companies are really interested in building a true "RE-USABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE" ? That's not the current vision of Space X or Orbital, right ?

No-one else (other than Boeing / Lockhead) even gets a vehicle into orbit.

From what I can see of SpaceX, then found a way to build cheaper rockets using the current technology. The Merlin engine wasn't even their original design, they just improved on an existing engine design.

Orbital is more of an integrator.

Who is really going to do the basic research of what can be built, other than the guys at Skunk Works ? Even then, Boeing has shown that they aren't going to invest too much of their own money in a project unless it's guarenteed to be successful.

 

[rockett]

I don't see much coming out of this. How many of these companies are really interested in building a true "RE-USABLE LAUNCH VEHICLE" ? That's not the current vision of Space X or Orbital, right ?

Incorrect, I don't know about Orbital, but Elon Musk has always maintained reusable as his goal.

Who is really going to do the basic research of what can be built, other than the guys at Skunk Works ? Even then, Boeing has shown that they aren't going to invest too much of their own money in a project unless it's guarenteed to be successful.

You haven't read a lot about this have you? The Air Force released an RFP for demonstrators back in April. So yes there are players in the field. Here's a little bit about it, there's a lot more.

Air Force Wants Its Rockets Back
A new prototype rocket could give the Air Force a round-trip ticket to space by 2013.
At least two companies hold patents for fly-back boosters: Lockheed Martin, which in 2008 quietly tested a sub-scale reusable fly-back rocket prototype and a firm known as Starcraft Boosters, founded by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin to develop low-cost alternative launchers.
http://news.discovery.com/space/air-force-reusable-rockets.html

 

[vulture4]

The fundamental problem with human spaceflight isn't that it's too dangerous, it's that it is much too expensive, by at least a factor of ten, to be practical for anything beyond 1-2 joyrides a year for billionairs. The Shuttle was intended to solve that problem. It is much more expensive to fly than predicted, not because it is reusable, but because it was built to a design spec without evolutionary prototypes, and as a result there was no hand-on flight experience with the critical new technologies and no way to accurately predict the reliability and operational cost. This led to desgn decisions that, in hindsight, were costly in many ways.

The traditional prime government contractor approach is not a good match for true R&D since it assumes the government can specify the final design at the start and is often mired in arbitrary and costly requirements. The experience of existing contractors can contribute to the development of RLVs, but it is not the central issue, since many design elements must be created by visionaries and built and tested by craftsmen. Having some experienced people around who remember the errors of the past is important, but engineering vision that includes an appreciation of the overall operating cost and market goals and the imagination to try new approaches are also essential, so a mix of small companies in lead roles and larger companies and NASA in supporting roles is a good one.

 

[stevekk]

I suppose if we are just looking to re-use certain components of the vehicle, then it's possible more than just a one or two of these vendors could be interested. Silly me was thinking that the purpose of the exercise was to build a completely re-usable launch vehicle. This research doesn't put a millenium falcon in every garage...

How much can be saved by re-using the Stage 1 engines ?

I know SpaceX wants to recover the first stage eventually, and re-use the Merlins, assuming they aren't trashed after floating in the ocean for several hours. For a comparison, how much time and effort goes into re-conditioning the SSME's after each flight ? It's obviously a much more complex engine design. Is it 1/10th the cost of building a new SSME ? Could we use this same cost model for the engines used in the Atlas / Delta rockets (RS-68 / 180) ?

I saw ATK in the list, but the Atlas / Delta strap-on solids aren't designed as re-usable like the Shuttle solids, right ?

 

[nimbus]

IIRC SpaceX stage 1 reusability is a sine qua non for profitability and satisfying those goals Musk has mentioned: bringing $/kg near 1000 and colonizing space.

Re-using engines after salt water immersion has been done. It's not impossible. So now the question is whether it's feasible, profitable.

The fundamental problem with human space flight is that the public is too scared or disinterested to pay it more than lip service. Hopefully these recent developments in sub orbital tourism will start to significantly deconstruct this status quo.

 

[vulture4]

Ocean recovery is just a transient stage to evaluate costs and provide SpaceX with experience in reuse. The experience with ocean-recovered drones and the SRBs is that offshore recovery is expensive and considerable maintenance or even complete overhaul is required after saltwater immersion. The eventual approach (as the Vehicle Analysis Branch at Langley has long proposed) is for the booster to have small wings (sufficient to glide when empty) and to retain enough residual fuel at staging to pitchover and do a brief retrograde burn, starting it back toward the launch site where it will land autonomously on a runway.

 

[rockett]

The eventual approach (as the Vehicle Analysis Branch at Langley has long proposed) is for the booster to have small wings (sufficient to glide when empty) and to retain enough residual fuel at staging to pitchover and do a brief retrograde burn, starting it back toward the launch site where it will land autonomously on a runway.

You mean like this?

http://www.starbooster.com/
Star Boosters Inc.

Or this?

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyper ... first.html
Lockheed Martin

Or how about this?

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/launcher-russia-01j.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikal.html
Baikal - Russia

 

[EarthlingX]

nasawatch.com : House Wants To Kill CRuSR

By Keith Cowing

on July 20, 2010 10:29 AM

Full Draft Text of House NASA Authorization Legislation

Keith's note: One thing that the House version of the NASA Authorization Act does is to cut further into proposed commercial activity - specifically, CRuSR (Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research).

In this draft House Legislation, funding for CRuSR is cut in FY 2011 and FY 2012 from the President's and Senate's mark at $15M per year year down to just $1M per year, with funding unspecified in later years. In addition, according to the draft language, CRuSR's funding in FY 2011 may not be used to buy flights or build payloads. Instead it can be used only to fund studies.

If you look at Sec. 906 (page 94) you will see that this proposed draft adds onerous restrictions before NASA can spend money on CRuSR, using identical language to restrictions placed on Commercial Crew in the same legislation, e.g., NASA may not proceed with a CRuSR RFP until all indemnification and liability issues are settled and a report has been sent to Congress.

More than 300 researchers and educators, specializing in fields ranging from microgravity and life sciences to astronomy and atmospheric sciences, from all over the U.S. showed up at a conference in February wanting to use this program. It would seem that anti-suborbital research and anti-commercial forces from within and outside of the agency are at work once again. SMD AA Ed Weiler has long been opposed to suborbital research and has clearly been working behind the scenes to take yet another run at killing this sort of activity. Just look where the CRuSR money is going (if the House gets its way): sounding rockets launched out of Wallops.

 

[vulture4]

You mean like this? (pics) Or this? (more pics) Or how about this? (more pics)

Yeah, that's it!!

 

[rockett]

You mean like this? (pics) Or this? (more pics) Or how about this? (more pics)

Yeah, that's it!!

Thought you might like that.

 

[nimbus]

There's a Russian design with (the detail that I remember specifically) legs on the first stage, so that one (not mentioned above) probably VTVLs under power.

...

 

[vulture4]

The cost of recovering, inspecting, repairing and repacking the parachutes for the SRBs is significant, and even such heavy constuction occasionally is damaged. Target drones were once recovered by parachute, but in general the process is more expensive than runway recovery. In addition the booster lands about 150km downrange and has to be shipped back. Generally the process is similar to that for the SRBs. The wings allow a gliding return back to the launch site and a runway landing, which seems more practical. Subscale suborbital stage-one-only versions could demonstrate the technology, as the Lockheed project (I assume for DOD) did a few years ago, so development could be very evolutionary and low-risk.