LauncherOne - Virgin Galactic's satellite launching rocket

[avmich]

Я говорю лишь о том что появляются некотрые признаки краха. Не обязательно они закончатся крахом.

Они, Володь, почти всегда есть... даже в самом начале. Странно было бы, если бы их не было, когда впервые делается такая система, коммерческим образом. Другое дело, когда - и, самое главное, почему - начинать беспокоиться.

[Старый]

Они, Володь, почти всегда есть... даже в самом начале.  

Нет, не было их в самом начале. Точнее был но один - торговля "билетами в космос" среди Лёней Голубковых. А теперь появляются новые признаки.

[frigate]

То что я предлагал для "Воздушного старта" пару лет тому назад, на базе 2-х Русланов с 6-ю криогенными ВРД.

[Dude]

Инвестиции - дело рисковое. Иридиум всё же существует - можно было бы пытаться отыграть часть потерь за годы. Многие инвесторы решили не связываться. Тем не менее сейчас Иридиум как-то поддерживается.

Этот аргумент не годится, ибо их спасло гос-во, в виде военных анлимов для группировок в Ираке/Афгане. Это вообще американская специфика, что военные загребают большую долю пусковых услуг и косм. связи и тем поддерживают иначе убыточные проекты.
Что бы определить коммерческую составляющую надо смотреть на инвестиции в эти проекты из других не столь милитаризированных стран. А то, ещё по Китаю\Индии тенденции мерить придется.

[avmich]

Инвестиции - дело рисковое. Иридиум всё же существует - можно было бы пытаться отыграть часть потерь за годы. Многие инвесторы решили не связываться. Тем не менее сейчас Иридиум как-то поддерживается.

Этот аргумент не годится, ибо их спасло гос-во, в виде военных анлимов для группировок в Ираке/Афгане. Это вообще американская специфика, что военные загребают большую долю пусковых услуг и косм. связи и тем поддерживают иначе убыточные проекты.
Что бы определить коммерческую составляющую надо смотреть на инвестиции в эти проекты из других не столь милитаризированных стран. А то, ещё по Китаю\Индии тенденции мерить придется. ;)

Их государство один раз спасло или всё время спасает?

Государству тоже иногда нужны услуги - даже по высоким ценам, если иначе услуги не получить. С точки зрения Штатов это несколько больше "поддержание индустрии", чем "кормление неудачников деньгами налогоплательщиков". Поддержание индустрии, конечно, должно заканчиваться - но вроде бы частники демонстрируют растущие возможности. Вон уже НАСА может себе позволить не строить пилотируемые корабли.

[avmich]

Они, Володь, почти всегда есть... даже в самом начале.  

Нет, не было их в самом начале. Точнее был но один - торговля "билетами в космос" среди Лёней Голубковых. А теперь появляются новые признаки.

Что-то не верю я, что ты не видел проблем с проектом в самом начале. Проблемы - не имеется в виду, что проект был невозможным; но трудным - был, изначально, по ряду различных причин. Какие-то из них реализуются - задержки из-за взрыва, за время проекта экономика успела в депрессию нырнуть... Но проект, на мой взгляд, несомненно, движется. Другое дело, что предсказывать - как и всегда - с большой точностью трудно.

[Dude]

Их государство один раз спасло или всё время спасает?

Государству тоже иногда нужны услуги - даже по высоким ценам, если иначе услуги не получить. С точки зрения Штатов это несколько больше "поддержание индустрии", чем "кормление неудачников деньгами налогоплательщиков". Поддержание индустрии, конечно, должно заканчиваться - но вроде бы частники демонстрируют растущие возможности. Вон уже НАСА может себе позволить не строить пилотируемые корабли.

Пока идет война и солдатам с FOB'ов надо звонить домой, у них дела будут идти хорошо.

Ну, конечно, гос. бюджет тоже не резиновый, даже военным хочется покупать услуги дешевле нынешних. Поэтому новые проекты и поддерживаются, но суть вопроса в том, уменьшится ли только сумма гос. затрат или они станут прибыльными на коммерческом рынке.

[Антикосмит]

То что я предлагал для "Воздушного старта" пару лет тому назад, на базе 2-х Русланов с 6-ю криогенными ВРД.

Кошмар! Самолет на орбите!

[Boris R]

Кошмар! Самолет на орбите!

Ракетоноситель.  

[Дмитрий В.]

Кошмар! Самолет на орбите!

Ракетоноситель.  

Ракетоносец, вообще-то :wink:

[Fed]

То что я предлагал для "Воздушного старта" пару лет тому назад, на базе 2-х Русланов с 6-ю криогенными ВРД.

я о чем-то подобном тоже думал, но фюзеляжи несколько поближе друг к другу хотелось бы. дабы заякорить ракету на них, бо сильно высокие поперечные нагрузки. ну и заправка ракеты топливом в полете.

[ronatu]

Ох сколько желающих быть Великими и Гениальными и Прозорливыми....


Проект М-3М2-2, Мясищев
1958 год[/size]

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-opens-launcherone-facility-in-long-beach/

Virgin Galactic Opens LauncherOne Facility in Long Beach
by Jeff Foust — February 12, 2015

Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne. Credit: Virgin Galactic  
 
WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic announced Feb. 12 that the company is opening a new facility in Long Beach, California, devoted to development of its small satellite launch vehicle.
Virgin Galactic said that it is leasing a 13,900-square-meter building at the Long Beach Airport that it will use for the design and manufacturing of LauncherOne. The company did not disclose the terms of the lease.
"The technical progress our team has made designing and testing LauncherOne has enabled a move into a dedicated facility to produce the rocket at quantity," Virgin Galactic chief executive George Whitesides said in a statement announcing the new facility. LauncherOne work has been based to date in Mojave, California.
LauncherOne is an air-launch system for satellites weighing up to 225 kilograms. The system will use the same aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, as the company's SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, but replaces SpaceShipTwo with a two-stage launch vehicle using engines fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene.
At the Federal Aviation Administration Commercial Space Transportation Conference Feb. 4, William Pomerantz, vice president of special projects for Virgin Galactic, said the company has already tested engines and other "core infrastructure" of LauncherOne. "We are a fairly vertically-integrated team," he said. "We really do control a lot of the production in house."
Pomerantz said that about 60 of the 450 employees of Virgin Galactic and its wholly-owned subsidiary, The Spaceship Company, are currently dedicated to the LauncherOne program.
Virgin Galactic said it will hold a job fair at its new Long Beach facility March 7, but did not disclose how many people it plans to hire there. The Virgin Galactic website lists approximately 20 job opening related to the LauncherOne program as of Feb. 12.
When Virgin Galactic announced the LauncherOne program in 2012, it said it had signed up several companies as initial customers, including Planetary Resources, GeoOptics, Spaceflight Inc., and Skybox Imaging, since acquired by Google.
In January, the Virgin Group announced it was investing in OneWeb, a venture that plans a constellation of nearly 650 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide broadband communications, with at least some of those satellites to be launched by LauncherOne.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/meet-will-pomerantz-virgin-galactics-launcherone-point-man/

Q&A | Will Pomerantz, Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne Point Man
by Leonard David — February 17, 2015

William Pomerantz, once a self-admitted skeptic of the small-satellite market, has been charged with bringing Virgin Galactic headlong into it. Credit: Virgin Galactic
Profile | Will Pomerantz
 Vice President, Special Projects, Virgin Galactic

A New Day for Smallsat Launchers?
As if trying to establish the world's first suborbital space tourism business weren't enough of a technical and market challenge, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture also wants to get in the game of launching small satellites.
The tourism side naturally commands the most attention — that was the case even before last year's fatal crash of Virgin's SpaceShipTwo rocketship during a test flight. But the company, whose backers include Aabar Investments of the United Arab Emirates, also has been plugging away quietly on a dedicated air-launched rocket that would deliver small satellites to low Earth orbit for $10 million or less.
LauncherOne is a two-stage expendable rocket powered by liquid-oxygen/kerosene engines. It would be carried aloft by the same WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft that takes SpaceShipTwo to its launching altitude and released at an altitude of 13,500 to 15,000 meters.
Recent history is littered with failed attempts to develop commercially focused small-satellite launchers, not only because of the technical challenges and investment required but also because past projections of market demand haven't quite panned out. Yet today Virgin Galactic is one of several entrepreneurial companies having a go at this very same market, which has been re-energized in recent years by advances in small-satellite technology and a flood of investment capital, much of it from technology hotbeds like Silicon Valley.
Branson is doing his part on that front. The serial entrepreneur's Virgin Group is making an unspecified, but presumably large, investment in OneWeb, which plans to deploy a 650-satellite constellation to deliver Internet connectivity to the underserved masses. Chipmaker Qualcomm is also investing, despite the fact that these broadband mega-constellations have their own unhappy history.
Will Pomerantz, Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne point man, admits to having come to the business with some skepticism. But he now counts himself squarely among the ranks of those who say, in effect, that this time it's different.
 Pomerantz spoke recently with veteran SpaceNews correspondent Leonard David just before Virgin Galactic announced plans to establish a LauncherOne manufacturing facility in Los Angeles.

Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne spacecraft shown in low Earth orbit after payload separation. Credit: Virgin Galactic

How would you describe your job at Virgin Galactic?
 It has been four years that I've been working with Virgin Galactic, so it's a little bit of everything now. Broadly speaking, it means for a startup I help out wherever we need help. I've done everything from helping to start up the flying of research payloads on our suborbital SpaceShipTwo to helping start up our new satellite launch vehicle, the LauncherOne.

Given all the failed attempts over the years to develop commercial small-satellite launchers, what drove Virgin Galactic to try and enter this market?
 I must admit that I started out somewhat skeptical about the small-satellite market when I first got tasked to look at it. A lot of very smart people have tried their hand at it and haven't had the success that they might desire. My big question when we started looking at it internally was, "What's different now and what makes us different?"

And?
 The time is quite different now and the time is really ripe for this. We've got some special things that I think give us a unique flavor that will allow us to address this market. In terms of timing, particularly in the last month or so — but even more broadly over the last couple of years — there is a huge amount of global interest in smallsats. It's not only from technology players but also from some of the really savvy investment and business players. When I say small satellites, I mean 500 pounds (225 kilograms) or less. What we saw were a lot of companies springing up and doing technology demonstrations, usually using ride shares. That's a great way for them to get their technology in space and to show their staff and investors that, yes, it works. But it's not a great way to scale up a business plan.

Is there enough of a market out there to close a business case?
 For the moment we've focused our efforts on engaging just with the U.S.-based commercial community and particularly with constellation customers. Those are customers that are not just looking for a one-off launch but for a routine cadence of launches. A lot of the initial interest in this did come from Aabar Investments. That was one of the items that they were most excited about. That region of the world is one that has been looking at smaller satellites. The United Arab Emirates has flown a couple of smaller satellites and is starting to build an in-country capacity to build them. Aabar has been plugged into that community for a while and recognized it as a growing business.

When would LauncherOne be ready for business?
 For LauncherOne we're aiming to have initial flights to orbit in the later part of 2016, so relatively soon now. We start to ramp up into regular and routine commercial service immediately thereafter. We have been making a lot of progress in our facilities in Southern California. There's been a lot of advanced hardware testing of the engines and tankage, avionics, and tests of structures. We will certainly have test flights, but I think that we will have commercial customers even on the test flights. The contractual structures for those will be reflective of the fact that it is an unproven vehicle and doesn't have a long track record until you've got a few under your belt.

For a user of LauncherOne, what's the cost?
 We have committed to a price that is below $10 million. The $10 million covers a single full launch of LauncherOne. Some of our customers will carry only one satellite per launch, others will carry a large number. What we're working now is how far below that $10 million can we get. Our market is very price sensitive. So the lower we can turn that dial the more business we can get. Not only the more launches we get for each one of our customers, but the more new customers that all of a sudden can play in this field.

Would LauncherOne operate out of just one site?
 No. We're going to make the most out of the benefit of being an air-launched system. WhiteKnightTwo, from a technical level, is capable of going almost everywhere. So in the near-term, we're looking at various options on both the East and West coasts of the continental United States. Initially we will likely be operating with a single WhiteKnightTwo but it's always been the intention to have a fleet of WhiteKnightTwos. Ultimately, we want to be able to fly from a lot of different locations.

Who is building LauncherOne?
 It is essentially being built all in-house. We have more than 50 people now dedicated to the program. We are developer of the rocket, the engines, tanks — it really is us. By the way, we're on the lookout for senior people in the field as well as the fresh outs that are looking to transfer to a new industry. We are aggressively out there looking for the best and brightest, for people who have shown they care about what things cost, not just how they work.

How much has been invested in LauncherOne?
 It's been a pretty significant amount of money put in by the Virgin Group and it shows a serious commitment to seeing this project through to fruition.

What does the mid-January announcement by OneWeb of plans to deploy a large constellation of low-orbiting satellites to provide high-speed Internet to underserved areas around the globe mean for LauncherOne?

OneWeb plans to build a 650-satellite constellation to provide global Internet access. Credit: OneWeb Ltd.

The Virgin Group put money into them. OneWeb is talking about a very large constellation and, yes, I think we're going to have a very substantial role there as one of their launch providers. The social mission of OneWeb is pretty clear and also shows us this is a serious part of the industry, a serious business.

Beyond OneWeb, what other customers have you identified?
 We've announced a few customers early on: Skybox Imaging, GeoOptics, Planetary Resources and Spaceflight Inc. In addition, we've gone out to a lot of the manufacturers of small satellites. They are not the end-customer necessarily, but are working directly with the end-customer. A few of those we've already announced publicly: the U.S. division of Surrey Satellite and Sierra Nevada. The government market is something that we'll happily serve, but it's not our primary focus. We're developing this launcher for the commercial market. There are a lot of well-established businesses that have been around for a long time and are not space businesses. They have started to take a closer and are asking themselves if space could be part of the portfolio of what they do.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants to deploy thousands of satellites into Earth orbit for a global Internet project. Are we seeing an entrepreneurial space race here?
 No, I don't think so. We at Virgin Galactic are big fans of what SpaceX has done and the results that they've achieved. I know Richard Branson and Elon Musk have a personal relationship. Both like a little competition. But mainly we see ourselves in neighboring spaces with similar philosophies. With LauncherOne, we're not getting Falcon 9 bigger. That's not our sweet spot.

If the various plans for new small launchers and satellites come to fruition, won't that exacerbate an already serious orbital debris problem?
 It is certainly a field in which we are engaged, taking a close look. Between us and our customer base, it's sort of a shared responsibility. But we're cognizant of the issue. We need to help solve the problem, not help contribute to the problem to the greatest extent possible.

What concerns you the most in getting LauncherOne off the ground and running as a commercial business?
 I think for us, both we and our customers have to remain incredibly vigilant about price. If we allow requirements creep to drive up our prices, every dollar we increase our price tag, it's taking away from our market.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/virgin-galactics-launcherone-on-schedule-for-2016-first-launch/

Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne on Schedule for 2016 First Launch
by Jeff Foust — March 16, 2015

The Newton 3, developed by Virgin Galactic as the first stage of LauncherOne (above) will be capable of generating 265,000 to 335,000 newtons of thrust, uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. Credit: Virgin Galactic
 
WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic is on schedule to begin flights of its small-satellite launch vehicle by the end of 2016, hoping to tap into what the company's chief executive believes is a lucrative and growing market.
In a speech at the Satellite 2015 conference here, George Whitesides said the success of some small-satellite ventures in recent years, and the emergence of a number of new ones planning in some cases hundreds of satellites, offered a promising market for his company.
"There's several key trends converging now in the small space sector that have the potential to reshape our industry," he said. Those trends include an "insatiable demand" for communications and other data services, the application of mass production techniques to small satellites, and an influx of funding into the industry.
That potential, he argued, can't be fully realized if companies have to rely on secondary payload accommodations on other launches or deployment fr om the International Space Station, as many smallsats are currently launched. "With those secondary opportunities, you hardly get any choice of where and when you can fly," he said.
Whitesides hopes that Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne, first announced in 2012, can solve that by providing dedicated launches of small satellites, weighing up to about 225 kilograms, for less than $10 million. "As time has gone by, I've only gotten more and more excited about it," he said.
 
Virgin Galactic Newton 3 hot-fire test. Credit: Virgin Galactic

The company recently started hot-fire tests of an engine called Newton 3 developed by Virgin Galactic for the first stage of LauncherOne, Whitesides said. That engine, capable of generating 265,000 to 335,000 newtons of thrust, uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants.
"We're now to the point wh ere we're very confident that we can build a very affordable rocket," Whitesides said. After his speech, he said the company was on schedule to begin flights by the end of 2016, with even initial test flights likely carrying some satellites.
When Virgin Galactic unveiled LauncherOne in July 2012, the company announced several initial customers, including Skybox Imaging, GeoOptics, Spaceflight, Inc. and Planetary Resources. The company has signed up several additional customers since then, Whitesides said, but has not disclosed them publicly.
Virgin Galactic has also moved LauncherOne operations from the company's main facility in Mojave, California, to a new one in Long Beach, California, that the company announced in February. In addition to existing staff that moved to Long Beach, a job fair held March 7 at the Long Beach site attracted between 5,000 and 6,000 job applicants, Whitesides said, seeking about 100 open positions.
The decision to move LauncherOne work to Long Beach was based on a desire to access a larger potential workforce than possible in Mojave, a small town about 150 kilometers from Los Angeles. Unlike the development of SpaceShipTwo, which was done in conjunction with Scaled Composites in Mojave, Whitesides said Virgin Galactic was free with LauncherOne to find other locations in southern California with a larger pool of qualified workers to draw from.
Work continues on Mojave on a second SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle, replacing the one lost in a fatal crash in October 2014. "We're probably as much as 90-percent structurally complete" on that vehicle, he said, although he said there were "several months" of work remaining on the vehicle's other systems before flight tests could begin.
That work is in progress even as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation into the accident. "We're a party in the investigation, so we can get a sense of what their findings are and, to the extent any are safety-related, we can act on them before the report comes out," he said, adding that he could not discuss any specific steps while the investigation is ongoing.

[Александр Ч.]

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  35 мин.35 минут назад

Barry Matsumori is latest SpaceXer to join Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne startup. http://spacenews.com/former-spacexer-joins-virgin-galactics-launcherone/ ...

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  3 ч.3 часа назад

Former SpaceX commercial launch mgr Barry Matsumori joins Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne start-up, which counts multiple SpaceX alumni.

Peter B. de Selding ‏@pbdes  15 авг.

Industry officials: SpaceX now a recruiting grnd for Virgin Galactic VirginOne launcher prgram. What % of LauncherOne staff is from SpaceX?

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/virgin-galactic-claims-progress-on-smallsat-launch-vehicle/#sthash.ULhugAFc.dpuf

Virgin Galactic Claims Progress on Smallsat Launch Vehicle
by Jeff Foust — September 28, 2015
  LauncherOne, in its latest configuration, will be able to place more than 400 kilograms into Earth orbit, including 200 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit. Credit: Virgin Galactic  
 
WASHINGTON — Virgin Galactic announced Sept. 28 that it has made "significant progress" on the engines that it will use on its LauncherOne small satellite launch vehicle, two weeks after the company said it was increasing the vehicle's performance.
In a statement, Virgin Galactic said it had successfully carried out a 20-second test firing of one engine that will be used in the first stage of the air-launched rocket and tested the a key component of the vehicle's second stage engine. Those tests took place at the company's test site in Mojave, California.
In a Sept. 25 test, Virgin Galactic fired the NewtonThree engine for approximately 20 seconds on a test stand. The pump-fed engine, which uses liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants, is designed to produce up to 73,500 pounds-force of thrust in LauncherOne's first stage. The test, according to the company, produced "high quality data about the engine during start-up, operation, and safe shutdown."
The company has also tested the gas generator for the smaller NewtonFour engine that will go on LauncherOne's upper stage. The gas generator, which burns a small amount of propellant to power the engine's pumps, fired for more than six minutes in each of the "full-duration" engine tests.

Virgin Galactic conducts a test of the NewtonThree engine it plans to use on the first stage of its LauncherOne smallsat launch vehicle. Credit: Virgin Galactic

"There is much work yet to be done, but the NewtonThree and NewtonFour test results are strongly encouraging," George Whitesides, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, said in the statement. "Thanks to our team, our test stands, and our manufacturing facilities, we are making steady progress on all of the key components of LauncherOne."
The engine tests come after Virgin Galactic announced Sept. 14 that it was increasing the payload capability of LauncherOne. When first introduced in 2012, the company said the vehicle could launch payloads of up to 225 kilograms into orbit. With the upgrade, the vehicle will be able to place more than 400 kilograms into a generic low Earth orbit, and 200 kilograms into the sun-synchronous orbit commonly used by remote sensing satellites.
Part of that increased performance comes from the additional thrust that the NewtonThree and NewtonFour engines produce over engines that the company originally developed for LauncherOne, NewtonOne and NewtonTwo, which the company now considers "demonstrator engines." The earlier engines used a simpler pressure-fed design, while the new ones use turbopumps that Virgin Galactic designed in cooperation with Barber Nichols Inc., a company that has built turbopumps for government and commercial customers.
LauncherOne will also use a different aircraft as a launch platform. Original plans called for the rocket to be deployed from WhiteKnightTwo, the aircraft Virgin Galactic developed for its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle. Virgin Galactic said Sept. 14 that it is in "the final stages of acquiring a commercial aircraft" that will help enable that increased capacity. The company has not disclosed the specific make of aircraft it plans to use.

[NK]

до конца десятилетия что только не полетит, прямо, расцвет космонавтики - 2, какой то

[Alex_II]

KR пишет:
до конца десятилетия что только не полетит, прямо, расцвет космонавтики - 2, какой то

При этом проектов, оплаченных государствами - не так уж и много...

[NK]

Alex_II пишет:

KR пишет:
до конца десятилетия что только не полетит, прямо, расцвет космонавтики - 2, какой то

При этом проектов, оплаченных государствами - не так уж и много...

да. частники наше все. Видимо действительно массовые технологии доросли.
осталось найти какой нибудь золотой астероид.