Antares (Taurus II)

[Salo]

Orbital Sciences aims for August test launch of Antares:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/antares/120420update/

[Salo]

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/orbital-sciences-development-costs-increase-371291/

Orbital Sciences development costs increase

[Salo]

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2012/05/04/antares-aj26-engine-completes-hot-fire-test/

Antares AJ26 Engine Completes Hot Fire Test

Posted by Doug Messier
on May 4, 2012, at 11:32 am
SACRAMENTO, Calif., May 4, 2012 (Aerojet PR) – Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE:GY – News) company, announced today that its AJ26 engine successfully completed a hot-fire test yesterday at NASA's Stennis Space Center.

Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital), Aerojet and NASA monitored the full-duration test in support of the Antares(R) rocket program. This is the eighth AJ26 engine to be tested at Stennis.

"This test demonstrates our 70-year legacy of propulsion performance," said Executive Director of Space and Launch Systems, Pete Cova. "This is what we come to work for every day."

Following review of the test data, the AJ26 will be shipped to Wallops Flight Facility for integration with Orbital's Antares rocket.

Aerojet's AJ26 engine is an oxidizer-rich, staged-combustion LO2/Kerosene engine that achieves very high performance in a lightweight compact package. Based on the NK-33 engine originally designed and produced in Russia for the Russian N1 lunar launch vehicle, the liquid-fuel AJ26 will provide boost for the first stage of the Antares rocket.

Aerojet originally purchased approximately 40 NK-33 engines in the mid-1990s and, under contract with Orbital, the company has modified the engines specifically for its Antares rocket. Throughout the years, more than 200 NK-33 engines were built and 575 engine tests conducted, totaling more than 100,000 seconds of test time. Aerojet has been developing design modifications to the NK-33 since that time to ensure that the AJ26 is suitable for commercial launchers.

In addition to the AJ26 certification testing, each AJ26 engine to be used on Antares rocket will come through the Stennis facility for pre-launch acceptance testing prior to being integrated with the rocket.

Aerojet is a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader principally serving the missile and space propulsion, defense and armaments markets. GenCorp is a leading technology-based manufacturer of aerospace and defense products and systems with a real estate segment that includes activities related to the entitlement, sale, and leasing of the company's excess real estate assets. Additional information about Aerojet and GenCorp can be obtained by visiting the companies' websites at http://www.aerojet.com and http://www.gencorp.com.

About Antares

The Antares rocket vehicle is being developed to boost payloads into a variety of low-Earth and geosynchronous transfer orbits and to Earth escape trajectories. Antares incorporates proven technologies from Orbital's Pegasus(R), Taurus(R) and Minotaur rockets, and is supported by a "best-in-class" network of suppliers from the U.S. and around the world. The Antares rocket will also be available to civil government and U.S. military customers for dedicated launch services for medium-class scientific and national security satellites.

[Salo]

https://twitter.com/#/Lori_Garver/media/slideshow?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitpic.com%2F9gxn2b

[SFN]

Aerojet's AJ26 Flight Engine Successfully Hot-Fire Tested for Orbital's Antares Rocket
http://www.comspacewatch.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=36945

[АниКей]

[SFN]

хороший кроп твиттерного фото ))) http://twitpic.com/9gxn2b/full

[Salo]

Этот кроп можно было получить кликом. :wink:

[SFN]

Этот кроп можно было получить кликом. :wink:

всетаки двумя ))
Я про то что comspacewatch.com кропил фото из твиттера))
в твиттере рядом еще есть NASAStennis & Aerojet test team in the control room after AJ-26 engine test http://twitpic.com/9gxx0v

[Salo]

Дмитрий В. пишет:

Дим, где взял? :wink:

[Дмитрий В.]

Дим, где взял? :wink:

http://www.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=940965#940965
 :wink:

[Apollo13]

Интересно чем им РД-180 или РД-191 не угодили?

[Bell]

Интересно чем им РД-180 или РД-191 не угодили?

РД-180 нельзя по соглашению о поставке на Атласы. А РД-191 такое удолбище, что никому не нужно.

[Apollo13]

Интересно чем им РД-180 или РД-191 не угодили?

РД-180 нельзя по соглашению о поставке на Атласы. А РД-191 такое удолбище, что никому не нужно.

Это как? У локхида эксклюзив и они больше никому в америке рд-180 не дают?

интересно что у рд-181 и рд-191 может отличаться. тяга нужна близкая, производитель тот же.

[Петр Зайцев]

интересно что у рд-181 и рд-191 может отличаться. тяга нужна близкая, производитель тот же.

Картинки заметно отличачаются. Какая-то фигня присобачена к ТНА сбоку-сверху. Я уж с испугу подумал то-ли такой газогенератор, то-ли стартер. Для стартера великовата. И вся систем качания другая, такое впечатление, что сильфона больше нет. В обсчем судя по картинке, которую предоставил Вадим Лукашевич, двигатель совсем другой. Почему - нужно инсайдеров спросить.

[Дмитрий В.]

интересно что у рд-181 и рд-191 может отличаться. тяга нужна близкая, производитель тот же.

Например компоновкой агрегатов, разводкой трубопроводов и конструктивным оформлением карданного подвеса и силовых приводов УВТ.

[Salo]

http://www.orbital.com/Antares/

Orbital Begins Cryoshock Testing at MARS Launch Pad
May 2012

 Orbital recently completed two incremental steps leading to the certification of the launch pad at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, Virginia. In early May, an Orbital and MARS team completed a review of all construction documentation related to the design, development and construction of the launch pad infrastructure, including the pad itself and the surrounding propellant handling systems and tank farm. While this isn't a step that can be "seen" it is nonetheless important as it allows the certification process to proceed to a more "operational" level.

 The second step recently accomplished certainly falls into the "operational" category, with the completion of the liquid nitrogen cryogenic pumping tests accomplished over a several day period. The extreme cold temperatures of the liquid nitrogen provide an environment where the robustness of the system can be tested at cryogenic temperatures. These extreme temperatures cause material contraction that stress the piping support systems and the valve systems, and they also introduce icing on exterior surfaces that can cause leaks and other issues. Orbital and MARS are intent on finding any problems using liquid nitrogen before Liquid Oxygen is introduced to the launch facility, which is the next planned testing milestone in the certification process. The introduction of liquid oxygen is the final step required before the beginning of end-to-end performance testing of the liquid fueling facility.

[Salo]

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15457.msg914622#msg914622

mr. mark пишет:

Hotfire scheduled for June 26th.

mr. mark пишет:

Correction Hotfire June 25th looking forward to this test and getting the Antares launch vehicle underway.

[Salo]

http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/120615-orbital-books-order-sat-platform.html

Pierce also said Orbital now plans to test-fire the first stage of its Antares rocket in late July or early August at the new Wallops Island, Va., spaceport — a month later than the schedule announced in late April.

A successful test-firing will be followed by a demonstration flight of the two-stage Antares vehicle, without the Cygnus cargo module, in August or September.

The first Antares-Cygnus flight, designed to carry cargo to the international space station, then would occur in November or December.

Antares and Cygnus would begin regular cargo deliveries to the station, under Orbital's Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA, at a rate of two flights per year starting in 2013.

Orbital's CRS contract, valued at about $1.9 billion, calls for eight flights carrying a total of 20,000 kilograms of cargo to the space station.

Pierce said the international space station's demand for cargo is big enough to give both Orbital and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., business beyond that covered by the current CRS contract.

SpaceX, which successfully concluded its demonstration flight of its Dragon capsule to the space station in May, has its own CRS contract with NASA valued at $1.6 billion.

"There is plenty of room to deliver cargo to the international space station," Pierce said. "I don't think there is going to be a winner and a loser, or that anybody is going to eat anybody else's lunch."

Pierce said Orbital's cargo resupply contract with NASA was signed nearly three years after SpaceX's contract, and that Orbital is currently six or seven months behind SpaceX, "so we've caught up," he said. Both companies are about two years behind their station cargo-supply contract schedules.

With development work on the GeoStar 3 platform now about finished, and the company's station logistics development program also winding down as Orbital moves toward regular production, the company expects to enter a period of higher profitability, Pierce said.

Orbital is forecasting that its revenue will increase by an average of between 7 and 9 percent per year between 2012 and 2014, with 2012 revenue to be up 9 percent over the 2011 total of $1.35 billion.

Operating profit will be between 6.5 percent and 7 percent of revenue in 2012 and is expected to increase in 2013 and 2014 as the company enters full CRS operations and revenue generation. Capital spending will drop "precipitously" starting next year, Pierce said, further fueling profitability.

[Salo]

По поводу малой численности персонала SpaceX:
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/1206-demise-gems-cost-orbital-jobs.html

WASHINGTON — The cancellation of NASA's Gravity and Extreme Magnetism Small Explorer (GEMS) X-ray telescope mission could cost up to 150 Orbital Sciences Corp. employees their jobs and may force the Dulles, Va.-based satellite and launch vehicle manufacturer to retire its reliable but underbooked Pegasus XL rocket.

"The jobs are at risk," Orbital spokesman Barron Beneski said June 13. "We'll definitely try to roll people onto other programs, but [layoffs are] definitely one possibility."

The 150 vulnerable jobs amount to 9 percent of Orbital's 1,700-person Northern Virginia work force. Orbital employs 3,800 nationwide, including a large Arizona presence.