ULA wants to upgrade Vulcan Centaur rocket into a 'space interceptor' to defend satellites

Sep 8, 2023
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Jeeze!
Talk of a solution in search of a problem.
The DOD already has this "problem" under control without throwing billions at a failing company a decade behind the times.

To clarify: the issue isn't about the vulnerability of a single satellite but rather the vulnerability of the system. And the answer isn't to further weaponize space but to reduce the military value of attacking the system. The answer already exists and has a name: STARSHIELD. Supplementing the existing space resources with an extra layer of attritable LEO satellites in a reinforcing constellation reduces the likelihood of an attack (a certified casus belli) because it reduces the value of destroying an asset that would be replaced in minutes by another orbiting asset. And if such an attack is unlikely to provide a useful return there is little value in even attempting it.

Even here, ULA is behind the times, thinking in terms of individual assets (single satellites or at most a couple dozen, like GPS) instead of swarms and constellations of hundreds if not thousands of smaller, cheaper, easily *replaceable* satellites.

As the old saying goes, quantity is a quality all its own and it is no accident that as STARLINK went live DOD promptly launched STARSHIELD.


One underappreciated feature of STARLINK (and doubtlessly of STARSHIELD)
is that among the swarm of orbiting satellites a significant fraction are dormant spares flying in formation ready to replace older units that fail, are de-orbitted, or damaged, ready to activate and replace them. Redundancy is better and cheaper than armor or (really?) orbiting drone warships.

Simple, elegant, and cheap. And about to get cheaper once STARSHIP is operational for cargo (sometime this year most likely) and once satellite production ramps up. At that point STARSHIELD won't be growing by 17 satellites at a time but by a hundred per launch. It already features a hundred or so. Reaching a thousand won't take long.

It's the 21st century out there but ULA apparently hasn't noticed.

And it looks like the attempt to sell off ULA as-is is going nowhere so they are floating "growth potential" paper products like a triple booster "VULCAN HEAVY" to double payload capacity from 27 to 60 Tons to compete with or more likely replace FALCON HEAVY, which only launches a couple times per year and not for much longer.

Desperate much?

At least ARIANE and China, inc have nationalistic pride and government funding to stay afloat but ULA can't count on government support much longer with BLUE ORIGIN and ROCKET LAB looking to squeeze out VULCAN in the post-FALCON era. And, not to be discounted if STARSHIP fully develops, DOD buying its own customized "fleet" of launchers. (To date, STARSHIP+STARBASE development costs are reported to be in the $3-5B range. A turnkey equivalent for DOD is unlikely to cost much more even including a handful of rockets.)

Not a good time to be ULA and lose their outed White House connection in the age of DOGE.
 
Sep 8, 2023
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Only computers(and smartphones) like noticed that we are in 21st century. All other high tech is almost same as in 20st century.
At ULA, Old Space in general, or the world outside the Beltway?

'Cause pretty much elsewhere things are radically different and not just in tech.
It would take the better part of the day to list the things--political, social, economical, medical, and technological that have changed in the last generation.
To say nothing of geopolitics which is several books' worth by itself. Just the last year has upended generations worth of status quo in europe, the mid-east, south america, and asia.

The return of history is but a starting point.
 
Jan 28, 2023
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Well, this is a space forum. Rockets are still chemical fueled, just like they have been since their invention in ancient China. There's nothing new, including reusing flight stages.
 
Sep 8, 2023
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Well, this is a space forum. Rockets are still chemical fueled, just like they have been since their invention in ancient China. There's nothing new, including reusing flight stages.
Yes, it is a space forum.
But today's launch vehicles aren't, strictly speaking, rockets like the chinese or katyushas but more properly guided missiles and, more specific to the latest generations, they are robots. And reusing fly stages was not a production technique until recently, DC-X Delta Clipper notwithstanding.

Today's New Space rockets are designed, built, and fly using technologies unexistent in the last century. At most they were conceived and explored but none were in production until recently. Metal sintering is old, laser metal sintering isn't, neither is using it for production component. (Have you see the videos of the Relativity Space robots "printing" unitary metal rocket parts?) Using "ai" software to design unitary structures for additive manufacturing, all new. Figuring out how to build stable full flow staged combustion methalox engines is new tech. Newer still is building them in 48 hours for hundreds of thousands instead of millions of dollars. (Look it up, the entire STARSHIP Program, from ground facilities to launched prototypes has cost less than *one* SLS mission.

Bear in mind, I am talking production line technology, not one of a kind hand-crafted laboratory experiments or demonstrators like DCX which onlh flew a few times before crashing. As opposed to and entire fleet of production boosters being refurbished in a couple of weeks and each flying over 20 times, to date.

I'm talking engineering, not science. And economically viable production engineering.
Whole different ball of wax.

For all the focus on Musk, his rockets are the children of Shotwell and his engineerinh staff, not his loud mouth. He merely brought them together, gave them a mission, and the hardware-rich resources to do it. Hard to compete with that package. (Unless you're ROCKET LAB and, maybe, RELATIVITY SPACE.

ULA has none of the above. Which is why nobody seems particularly interested in buying it.
 
Jan 28, 2023
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Yes, as I already wrote, computers have developed quite a bit, which allowed for higher complexity and somewhat greater autonomy of spacecraft. Although in the last century most of them were robots. I don't know why you think they only became robotic in the 21st century?
 

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