РН Вулкан - Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift launch vehicle (Планов громадье в ULA)

[Дмитрий В.]

napalm пишет:
Т.е. МакКейн голосовал за?    
И все-таки забавно..
-"Закупка РД-180 угрожает национальной безопасности!"
-"Отказ от закупки РД-180 угрожает национальной безопасности!"

Компромисс: "РД-180 угрожает национальной безопасности"

[Василий Ратников]

Бизнесмены от бюджета и прикормленные ими чиновники вечно отождествляют национальную безопасность и свой карман )
только если у нас альтернативы нет, то США повезло у них она есть.

а так конечно смешно смотреть на этот балаган в попытках не лишить ULA бюджетной кормушки.

[Apollo13]

А вы говорите Маск фантазер. Тут целая ULA Центавр на колесиках рисует.    

Inside ULA's Plan to Have 1,000 People Working in Space by 2045

[Seerndv]

Спасибо, надо статью в тему по заправкам

[Apollo13]

Seerndv пишет:
Спасибо, надо статью в тему по заправкам

Было уже

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Commercial_Space/SSP_12_15_sowers.pdf

[Not]

Василий Ратников пишет:
Бизнесмены от бюджета и прикормленные ими чиновники вечно отождествляют национальную безопасность и свой карман )
только если у нас альтернативы нет, то США повезло у них она есть.

Конечно есть! Идее не покупать РД-180 есть альтернатива - покупать РД-180  
А старичку МкКейну показали на место. Пошумел, бабки отработал - свободен. У сенаторов тоже есть иерархия.

[Alex_II]

Not пишет:
Идее не покупать РД-180 есть альтернатива - покупать РД-180

Ничто не вечно... Интересно - переживет ли РД-180 Атлас-5? И сколько им еще осталось...

[Not]

Alex_II пишет:

Not пишет:
Идее не покупать РД-180 есть альтернатива - покупать РД-180    

Ничто не вечно... Интересно - п ереживет ли РД-180 Атлас-5? И сколько им еще осталось...

Ровно столько, сколько потребуется для создания замены, если такая замена конечно появится. В американском правительстве решения принимают прожженые материалисты, для которых отказаться от международных обязательств - раз плюнуть, если это ухудшает национальную безопасность США. Принятие решения о закупке продукта в нарушение санкций как раз из этой области.

[silentpom]

замена называется фалкон-9. и ULA с ее проституцией с дельтой нагнут

[vlad7308]

Not пишет:
В американском правительстве решения принимают прожженые материалисты, для которых отказаться от международных обязательств - раз плюнуть, если это ухудшает национальную безопасность США. Принятие решения о закупке продукта в нарушение санкций как раз из этой области.

ЕМНИП закон о санкциях предполагает не полный и безусловный запрет, а специальный разрешительный режим.

[Apollo13]

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39827.0

I think ULA can only be successful if SpaceX does fail. The opposite isn't true. SpaceX controls their own destiny. They can be successful regardless of what ULA does.

If Falcon Heavy launches successfully, and SpaceX can perfect booster reuse to bring launch costs down even further, and they can increase their launch tempo, it will be very hard for ULA to compete with that. ULA is lowering costs, but they aren't even trying to achieve anything close to a $60 million price point per launch.

Also, SpaceX can shrug off a few launch failures here and there. ULA can't even really afford one. And it is unrealistic to think that ULA can maintain a 100% successful launch rate forever. Eventually an Atlas, Delta, or Vulcan is going to fail. 

ULA is going to be losing a lot of knowledge and experience with the upcoming voluntary  and involuntary layoffs. Decades-worth of knowledge transfer can't happen overnight. So ULA will be left with a lot of young engineers who dont really know that much about launching rockets.  With the younger generation of workers, I get the feeling that they currently take for granted how fragile a rocket really is. They feel that the Atlas is invincible. That's the impression that I get anyway. The older generation knows better. They've been through launch failures. There is no complacency with them. I already am seeing lapses in discipline, lack of adherence to process, and a general absence of technical rigor with the younger engineers. Who will mentor them?

Thanks, I appreciate that.  Given my salary grade there's a decent chance I will be caught up in the RIF.  A lot of good, knowledgeable, experienced people will be RIF'd either involuntarily or by choice.

I can go on a long rant about how our parent companies have stifled innovation for the sake of easy profit.  Maybe some other time.

I wouldn't work at SpaceX simply because I have three kids and the standard work week there is >80 hours, so I would never see my family.  Also the cost of living is much higher in L.A. and SpaceX pays considerably less.  But that's just me.  I imagine some others might consider it, but probably not too many.  Realistic options near Denver would be Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ball, or going into a different industry. I don't know what the situation is like at other sites.

Tory is not concerned with work-life balance.  Many engineers in Denver have been on mandatory overtime for 1-2 years now.  With the shrinking workforce, the work load will only go up.  It will be difficult to maintain reliability with so many experienced people being shown the door.

Tory is not doing it gradually, he's doing it in two major RIF cycles.  And then he's going out and hiring young, inexperienced workers.  He is not trying to keep the most talented and valuable of the older employees.  The older employees are the ones being targeted.  I myself know of several who were given notice the other day.  Since they were involuntarily laid off, they do not have to complete any kind of transition plan for their jobs.  So, their knowledge and experience are just going out the door.  The new, younger employees will need guidance and mentoring and they aren't going to get it.  Also, the really talented college graduates are going to SpaceX, who are much more selective in who they hire.

Morale is higher for those working on Vulcan and advanced programs.  However, morale overall (especially for those working on Atlas and Delta) is at an all-time low for ULA.  People are openly expressing their displeasure with ULA and with senior leadership, and even doing so in front of the summer interns (who are taking notice and commenting on the low morale and depressing work environment).  The honeymoon for Tory has worn off and a lot of people have lost faith in him.

Jun 25, 2016

"I was looking forward to this internship this summer, it's been sadly disappointing. It's a toxic work environment."
Current Intern - enguneering in Denver, CO
Doesn't Recommend
Negative Outlook
Disapproves of CEO

I have been working at United Launch Alliance as an intern (Less than a year)

Pros

Every other Friday is off, Denver is a great city...that's all I can think of. Staff members are smart individuals.

Cons

They're laying off senior engineers and hiring at the entry level. 25 % of the work force is getting laid off the next two years. Everything this company does is second rate and 3-5 years behind space x (Vulcan will not launch till late 2019 at best...falcon 9 is currently getting certified for defense launches and falcon heavy is launching later this year). If you want to work in this industry work for space x.

Morale is incredibly low...everyone is looking over their shoulder. Even though they're hiring most of the interns there is no way I would ever work here. It has been very strange only being here for a month and seeing people who have been here for decades bring fired or forced into retirement.

Advice to Management

Stop firing your engineers and replacing them with entry levels...that isn't the right way to save money.

The mood in Galileo is really depressing.  Fr om what I can tell, things are even worse in Newton wh ere most of the engineers work.  As for me, my morale has been low for quite a while and I just don't see things getting any better.  I'm leaving ULA soon, so hopefully my situation will improve.  It's worth noting that there are still some people who are content to work here, they believe in Tory and have hope that things will get better.

[frigate]

Apollo13 пишет:

Seerndv пишет:
Спасибо, надо статью в тему по заправкам

Было уже

 http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Commercial_Space/SSP_12_15_sowers.pdf

У Локхида-Мартина до отмены Сonstellation было нечто похожее, смахивающее на огромную СТРЕКОЗУ!

[Apollo13]

http://www.satellitetoday.com/publications/st/2016/07/20/ula-ceo-path-vulcan-clear/

ULA CEO: the Path to Vulcan is Clear

By Caleb Henry | July 20, 2016



Digital rendering of the Vulcan Centaur rocket. Photo: ULA


Following approval by the United States Congress earlier this month of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), United Launch Alliance (ULA) President and CEO Tory Bruno now feels the company will have a sufficient number of RD-180 engines to transition smoothly to a domestic alternative. The current NDAA going into conference allows for 18 additional engines — amended up from an initial nine engines — which, combined with ULA's previous allotment, brings the total number of approved additional engines to 22.
Bruno told Via Satellite that this supply of engines is enough for the company to move forward with its transition plan in confidence. The company's flagship launch vehicle, the Atlas 5, flies about twice as often as the lesser used and more expensive Delta family, but its Russian-built engine has been the source of controversy for nearly two years after the U.S. introduced sanctions on Russia for it's bellicose annexation of Crimea. The path to Vulcan, ULA's American-made successor to both the Atlas 5 and Delta family, was obfuscated by disagreements over how many RD-180 engines the company should need before a U.S. alternative would be available. Now, Bruno said that path is clear.


"We are very pleased with the Senate and the House taking the time to understand it and to do the right thing," said Bruno. "This bridge will get us there. We are doing this very fast — this engine and rocket development that we are now in the middle of is going to be done in about half the normal span, and allow us to get off the venerable RD-180 rocket engine and onto an all-American solution."
ULA has been pursuing Vulcan in the midst of this ambiguity, completing the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in December 2015. The next major milestone is determining what engine will replace the RD-180. Washington-based Blue Origin is developing the BE-4, a privately funded Liquid Oxygen (Lox) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) engine capable of 550,000 pounds of thrust (lbf); and California-based Aerojet Rocketdyne is creating the AR1, a government-supported Lox/Kerosene (RP-1) engine capable of 500,000lbf. Either replacement will require two engines to match the power of the RD-180. Blue Origin claims its engine, already four years into development, will be flight qualified by 2017, while Aerojet Rocketdyne, having started its development later, says the AR1 will be flight qualified by 2019. Bruno said ULA would make its decision soon.
"Sometime close to the end of the year we are going to down-select, and then move into our Critical Design Review (CDR) and start manufacturing the rocket," he said.
Beyond just creating a new launch system, with Vulcan ULA intends to halve its cost of launching, based on the Atlas 5 price point. This tactic is not only to enable ULA to be more competitive in launches for National Security Space (NSS) missions, now that SpaceX is a competitor, but to also tap into the commercial market. Bruno said the majority of ULA's missions today are for the U.S. Air Force, followed by NASA, and then the commercial sector. He declined to say how many commercial missions ULA hopes to launch per year in the future. This year the company has 14 missions in total, four of which — two for Orbital ATK, one for DigitalGlobe and one for EchoStar— are commercial.
Bruno said fielding one launch system instead of two dissimilar rockets will lower prices by making the company more efficient. Two other big steps ULA is taking now are reducing span times — how long it takes to assemble a rocket, integrate it with the payload and launch — and supply chain expenses. Bruno said ULA has reduced the amount of time needed at a launch site from 50 days to 20, and similarly streamlined the manufacturing days needed from about 500 to around 225. Furthermore, the company has dropped more than a third of its supply chain costs.
"A little less than two thirds of our cost is in supply chain," explained Bruno. "We have gone out and done deals with our suppliers, consolidated, and really worked that supply chain to the point that today we have taken 36 percent of cost out of our supply chain. I expect to take more than 40 percent out by the time we are done and actually offering the Vulcan Centaur and later Vulcan Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES) configurations."

Vulcan Centaur, the first configuration of Vulcan, is designed more similarly to the Atlas 5, replacing the RD-180 with the BE-4s or AR1s and using the Aerojet Rocketdyne-supplied Centaur upper stage. Up to four or six Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) can augment the 4-meter and 5-meter diameter payload fairing versions of Vulcan, respectively, depending on mission needs. Vulcan Centaur's maiden flight is planned for 2019, while the next iteration, Vulcan ACES is scheduled for 2023. Vulcan ACES is ULA's replacement for the Delta 4 Heavy, which lifts the U.S. government's largest spacecraft. However, while the transition from Atlas 5 to Vulcan Centaur is feeling the pressure of government urgency, the shift from Delta 4 Heavy to Vulcan ACES is pending long-lead government needs.

"I have promised the government that we are going to do an orderly transition because [Delta 4 Heavy] carries very special satellites for the government that don't come around that often. They are very unique, typically high value, and it would be pretty disruptive in the middle of their development to ask them to redesign and be able to be hosted on a different rocket. We are working with them on exactly the timing for when we will transition that to our Vulcan ACES solution," said Bruno.
He added that ULA will likely end up building the cores for the Delta 4 Heavy out early at the same time as the last of the Delta Medium cores, and then store them for when the government needs them, but this is subject to change.
ACES, unlike a typical upper stage, can operate in space for a week or more and, with refueling, could potentially last years. Bruno said the stage will enable a myriad of new and different space missions.

"Because of the ultra-long duration operating time of ACES, it makes it practical to shatter this paradigm of one completely self-contained satellite on one rocket fitting under its nose faring," he said. "We can actually do more complicated things in space. With distributed lift, we can take a payload up that is so heavy, we can barely get to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with our biggest Vulcan-ACES rocket — even though that's not it's ultimate destination — and then we can lift up another rocket that's nothing but fuel, transfer that fuel to the ACES, since it's reusable and refuelable in space, and then at that point, once you're in LEO, you're pretty much two thirds to anywhere in the Solar System. So then we can take that gigantic spacecraft and take it anywhere else."
Once the stages are launched, he said ULA plans to keep them in orbit, building out a fleet of "space trucks" on orbit that could do missions such as repairing, refueling and relocating satellites. Bruno said ULA has a long-term vision for a self-sustaining cis-lunar economy that includes commercial habitats, space mining, manufacturing and other future businesses that ACES would play a critical role in enabling.

[Salo]

Tory Bruno Подлинная учетная запись ‏@torybruno  
Interesting InfoGraphic showing Mighty Atlas' gestation period
 

[Salo]

Stephen Clark ‏@StephenClark1  
NASA's Jim Green: Atlas 5 rocket selected for Mars rover launch in summer of 2020.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/u-s-air-force-plans-to-buy-2-delta-4-heavy-rockets-for-nro-missions/

No complaint from SpaceX as Air Force skips competition for pair of NRO missions
by Mike Gruss — August 8, 2016
 
A Delta 4 Heavy rocket carrying a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office lifts off June 11 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. (Screen grab: United Launch Alliance.)  
 
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Air Force said it plans to award United Launch Alliance a sole-source contract to build and launch two Delta 4 Heavy rockets for National Reconnaissance Office between 2020 and 2023, according to an Aug. 4 announcement,
The launches appear to be the first sole-source awards outside of ULA's $11 billion block buy deal with the Air Force, sources said. That contract, which was awarded in 2013, includes production of 36 new Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rocket cores and launch services for vehicles ordered as long ago as 1998.
The Air Force did not announce a contract value, but ULA previously has said a Delta 4 Heavy rocket costs about $350 million, suggesting the contract could be worth roughly $700 million.
The announcement comes as the Air Force is working to re-introduce competition into the national security launch industry. In April, SpaceX won the first of nine launch contracts the Defense Department intends to put out for bid in the next three years.
But in this case, in a pre-solicitation notice posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website Aug. 4, the Air Force said it opted for a sole-source contract for classified National Reconnaissance Office missions slated to launch in 2020 and 2023. The NRO builds and operates the country's spy satellites.
The Air Force said it chose ULA due to the timing and complexity of the integration of the satellites to the rockets, unique requirements, and the need to have a certified launch vehicle by the award date.
ULA is "currently the only responsible source," the notice said.
The conventional wisdom within industry and within the Defense Department has been that ULA's Delta 4 Heavy rocket would compete against SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket for such launches. The Falcon Heavy is expected to make its long-awaited maiden launch later this year and could earn certification from the Air Force to launch national security payloads as early as 2017.
But SpaceX, which sued the Air Force in federal court in 2014 for the right to compete for national security missions, said it understood the Air Force's decision.
"These particular missions had very specific technical requirements," John Taylor, a SpaceX spokesman said in an email to SpaceNews. "We worked closely with the DoD and the USAF on this action and decided jointly it was the right approach."
Jessica Rye, a ULA spokeswoman, referred questions to the NRO.
In its announcement, the Defense Department said it plans to award a formal contract for the first mission, known as NROL-82, later this year for a 2020 launch. It also plans to award a contract for the second mission, known as NROL-91, in late 2017 with a tentative launch date of 2023. Because NRO payloads are classified, very few details about the launch is publicly released.

[Salo]

James Dean ‏@flatoday_jdean  1 ч1 час назад  
NASA awards ULA $243 million contract to launch the Mars 2020 rover on an Atlas V 541 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

[Salo]

Tory Bruno Подлинная учетная запись ‏@torybruno
Fun InfoGraphic on ULA's Navy
 
  10:07 - 29 авг. 2016 г.  

[Salo]

Все 65 пусков Atlas V:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsBejxqWEAA2J51.jpg

[Salo]

http://www.ulalaunch.com/ula-announces-rapidlaunch.aspx

United Launch Alliance Announces RapidLaunch™, the Industry's Fastest Order to Launch Service
RapidLaunch™ Offers Launch in as Little as Three Months

Centennial, Colo. (Sept. 13, 2016) – United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced a new, revolutionary service called RapidLaunch™ which provides the customer the fastest schedule from the initial order to launch service in the industry today.

"The priorities of all of our customers include ensuring their spacecraft launches on schedule, securing the soonest possible manifest date and completing the mission with 100 percent success," said Tory Bruno, ULA CEO and president. "To address these priorities, we have been working on this offering for more than a year, which allows our customers to launch in as few as three months from placing their order."

RapidLaunch™ is designed to transform the nature of launch acquisition, contracting, and integration. More importantly, it provides the power to transform satellite operators' fleet management and operations.

"We have availability on our Atlas V manifest in 2017," said Kent Lietzau, ULA's vice president of Business Development. "This service is fast and comprehensive. Our experience base launching all major platforms means confidence for your mission."

ULA offers schedule certainty allowing on time on-orbit revenue, unmatched reliability with the lowest insurance in the industry, and orbit optimization to extend the lifetime of your spacecraft. In addition to the contracted launch date for your mission, ULA can also assign your spacecraft as a backup to an earlier mission in the event that the earlier mission needs to move, your spacecraft can be pulled forward into that launch slot.

"To accommodate our RapidLaunch™ customers, we have added additional hardware to the production line, so that we can offer additional vehicles without an impact to our existing customers," said Lietzau. "We have also moved customization for any particular launch to the last three months of production."

"ULA is transforming the future of space launch, making it more affordable and accessible for our customers," said Bruno. "New, innovative services like RapidLaunch™ are just one way that we are making that future vision a reality."  

With more than a century of combined heritage, United Launch Alliance is the nation's most experienced and reliable launch service provider. ULA has successfully delivered more than 100 satellites to orbit that provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, enable personal device-based GPS navigation and unlock the mysteries of our solar system.

For more information on ULA, visit the ULA website at www.ulalaunch.com, or call the ULA Launch Hotline at 1-877-ULA-4321 (852-4321). Join the conversation at www.facebook.com/ulalaunch, twitter.com/ulalaunch and instagram.com/ulalaunch.