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

[Петр Зайцев]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwczm9ScBzE

А вот какое любопытное видео. В том числе мелькают чертежи их поршневого моторчика, который будет работать на водороде-кислороде. Типа дренаж все равно уходит, а мы его будем в мотор с генератором... вместо аккумуляторов.

[Floppy Disk]

[Salo]

Источник: http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/31/stats-delta-4-history-and-backlog-updated-march-30/

А чего ж на полпути остановились?
http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/19/4925/

[Salo]

Tory Bruno responds to launch cost calculations brought up in Congressional testimony with an infographic.

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/01/same-day-rollouts-and-launches-returning-to-atlas-5-program/

Same day rollouts and launches could return to Atlas 5 program       
Posted on April 1, 2015 by Justin Ray

Credit: James Murati/Bionetics Photo Services
 
CAPE CANAVERAL — Returning to the days of rollouts and launches in a span of only a few hours, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 program is looking to resume this whirlwind experience.
It was a procedure used in the early days of the program a decade ago, moving the vehicles from the Vertical Integration Facility to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral's Complex 41 mere hours before liftoff.
Five Atlas 5 missions followed this schedule. The first was the second flight of Atlas 5 with the Hellas Sat satellite in 2003 and the most recent was NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter launch in August 2005.
Since then, Atlas rockets have been rolled out the day before, even two days prior to liftoff.
It is called the "clean pad" approach of working on the rocket within the confines of a building and keeping the vehicle's stay on the pad to a bare minimum. The pad features no service gantry.

Credit: James Murati/Bionetics Photo Services
 
A pair of specially-made "trackmobiles" push the Atlas 5 rocket's 1.4-million pound mobile launching platform along rail tracks for an 1,800-foot trip.
Once at the launch pad, autocouplers engage to feed the rocket from the ground and crews will power up the Atlas-Centaur to begin carrying out a prescribed test schedule on various equipment. RP-1 kerosene fuel is loaded into the first stage shortly after arriving at the pad and cryogenic fueling operations start two-hours before liftoff time.
The change could go into practice later this summer, as officials evaluate several missions to implement the roll-and-launch in the same day strategy.

[Salo]

[che wi]

ULA working to reduce five launch pads to two
http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/09/ula-working-to-reduce-five-launch-pads-to-two/

CAPE CANAVERAL — The nation's existing Atlas and Delta launch sites are vying for a future when United Launch Alliance completes its modernization with a new rocket system and downsizing to one pad on each coast.

The rocket operator, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, currently uses five launch complexes at Cape Canaveral in Florida and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. That number will fall to just two in the coming years.

At the Cape, there is Complex 41 used by the Atlas 5 and Complex 37 that is used to launch the Delta 4 rocket. At Vandenberg, there is Space Launch Complexes 2-West, 3-East and 6, homes to the Delta 2, Atlas 5 and Delta 4, respectively.

Ongoing analysis will determine which site is best to keep open on each coast and which ones will be eliminated.

"Have we decided exactly which pads? No, not yet," Tory Bruno, the United Launch Alliance president and CEO, said in an interview this week.

"We are going to do a separate announcement for that in a couple of months when we've finished up our trades. We are getting pretty close, we think we know, we have a pretty good idea which they'll be. But these things are never done till they are done."

Спойлер

The Delta 2 will be the first to retire in 2017, pending future sale of one leftover vehicle. Only Vandenberg's SLC-2 West remains in service of the rocket today.

The medium-class versions of the Delta 4 rocket will go away in 2019, leaving only the infrequently-flying Heavy vehicles needing Complex 37 on the East Coast and SLC-6 on the West Coast. Heavy will continue to fly as long as the Air Force requires it.

"The reason we are downsizing launch pads, first of all, it's because the launch facilities are the single biggest element of our fixed costs and facility costs," Bruno says.

"We have five pads. We had six just a short time ago. The reason we have so many pads because we fly on two coasts, you're never going to have less than two pads, right there, and we fly two completely separate and redundant launch vehicle families — the Atlas and the Delta — and there are pads more or less unique to each one."

Bruno sees the pads of the future will be modernized with new philosophies.

"The pads were constructed a number of years ago with the philosophy and technology available to launch pads at the time. So I want to take the opportunity to modernize the design of the pads to make them very, very flexible so they can accommodate whatever rocket we are going to bring there and whatever payload configuration. So it won't matter if the hatchway on the payload is in a different place, it won't matter if we are doing cargo or crew, the pad will be very flexible and allow very quick turnaround times," he said.

The three Delta sites are "classic pads" with mobile service gantries and umbilical towers. The Atlas complexes are vastly different in approach, with SLC-3 East a "classic pad" and the Complex 41 a "clean pad" that sees the fully-stacked rocket rolled out from an assembly building shortly before liftoff time.

[свернуть]

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/ula-execs-say-rd-180-engine-ban-blocks-path-to-next-gen-rocket/#sthash.LR63FhBN.dpuf

ULA Execs Say RD-180 Engine Ban Blocks Path to Next-gen Rocket
by Warren Ferster — May 22, 2015
 
"It is currently unclear whether we will be allowed to use the RD-180 to continue flying the Atlas long enough to reach the new American engine, and that in itself is a significant impediment to making the investment," ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno said. Credit: Tom Kimmell for Space Foundation
 
WASHINGTON — The willingness of United Launch Alliance's parent companies to fund a next-generation rocket hinges on winning relief from the ban on the Russian-made engine that powers its current government workhorse, the Atlas 5, ULA executives say.
In separate appearances, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno and Chairman Craig Cooning tied investment in ULA's planned Vulcan rocket to the congressionally imposed ban on the future use of Russian-made engines to launch military payloads. The Atlas 5 is used today to launch most U.S. military payloads and virtually all of the nation's scientific satellites.
The ban, imposed in the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015, permits ULA to use just five RD-180 engines for upcoming competitive phases of the U.S. Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. The initial round, in which Denver-based ULA will square off against emerging rival SpaceX, gets underway this year and includes nine launches.
ULA, which is phasing out its Delta 4 rocket because of its high cost, expects the Vulcan, featuring a main engine developed and funded by the privately held Blue Origin venture, to debut in 2019 and win certification to launch military payloads in 2022. ULA says that to stay in the game until then, it needs to have at least 14 RD-180s available for the upcoming competitions.
The House and Senate have drafted different versions of the 2016 defense authorization bill that relax the ban. But while the House version permits ULA to use the 14 engines it says it needs for the near-term competitions — of which there are two — the Senate version clears no more than nine.
Developing the Vulcan, essentially an Atlas 5 with a new first stage in its initial version, will require an unspecified but substantial investment from ULA's parent companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. ULA's board of directors, composed of Boeing and Lockheed Martin executives, has yet to approve that full investment.
During a speech at Boeing media event May 19 in Los Angeles, Cooning said the RD-180 ban in its current form undermines the business case for investing in new launch capabilities. Cooning is president of Boeing Network and Space Systems and currently holds the ULA chairmanship, a position that rotates between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
 
ULA Chairman Craig Cooning said the RD-180 ban in its current form undermines the business case for investing in new launch capabilities. Credit: Chuck Bigger photo

Cooning's remarks were quoted by Flightglobal.com and confirmed by Boeing spokesman Robert Sterling.
The board has approved ULA's target Vulcan milestones for the year, but for now will only commit investment funds on a quarterly basis.
In an emailed statement, Sterling said part of the business case for that investment is RD-180 availability. "Those engines must be available until a new launch vehicle is ready," he said. "The Air Force has told Congress that the plan for phasing out the RD-180 needs to be modified. We fully support that position."
Lockheed Martin spokesman Matthew Kramer confirmed that Sterling's statement represents the board's position.
In a luncheon speech here May 21, Bruno seconded the board's motion. "It is currently unclear whether we will be allowed to use the RD-180 to continue flying the Atlas long enough to reach the new American engine, and that in itself is a significant impediment to making the investment," he said. "When I talked about how important it was for the country to introduce the next generation of engine technology — it could be either the AR1 or the BE-4 — it is essential for Congress to allow us to cross that valley until the new engine is ready or it's not going to happen."
The BE-4, being developed by Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin, is ULA's primary choice for an RD-180 replacement. Should Blue Origin falter, ULA has a backup option in the AR1 being developed by Aerojet Rocketdyne of Canoga Park, California.
Bruno cited the RD-180 as one of a number of market uncertainties facing ULA. Another is an expected decline in military demand — a "slump," as he described it — from the current number of 10-12 missions annually to around five in the next couple of years.
 
The BE-4, being developed by Kent, Washington-based Blue Origin, is ULA's primary choice for an RD-180 replacement. Credit: Blue Origin
 
That smaller number likely would be divvied up with SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, which is poised to end ULA's current monopoly in the national security market when it wins certification, expected in June, for its Falcon 9 rocket. That means ULA will have to win substantial civil and commercial business — currently it is barely a bit player in the commercial market — to be viable.
Aerojet Rocketdyne, meanwhile, is part of a three-company consortium that has inquired about obtaining the production rights to the Atlas 5, which Bruno said are jointly owned by ULA and Lockheed Martin. Kramer said Lockheed Martin owns the elements of the Atlas 5 design created prior to ULA's 2006 establishment and, like ULA, has no intention of transferring that intellectual property.
ULA also confirmed that 12 members, or 30 percent, of its executive-level staff had accepted buyouts and would be leaving the company. "It is important for ULA to move forward early in the process with our leadership selections to ensure a seamless transition and our continued focus on mission success," ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said in a statement.

[Salo]

Мысли о конуренции ULA и SpaceX:
http://selenianboondocks.com/2015/05/random-ula-thoughts/

[Sam Grey]

del

[Air]

Сделал картинку по существующему проекту поставки РД-180 для "Атлас 5". Я правильно понимаю, что это скоро будет историей? После 2019 года американские ракеты будут стартовать на двигателях собственной разработки?

[Apollo13]

Air пишет:
Я правильно понимаю, чтоэто скоро будет историей?

Не так уж скоро. За 4 года многое может измениться.

Air пишет:
После 2019 года американские ракеты будут стартовать на двигателях собственной разработки?

РД-180 будет летать, пока Вулкан (или AR-1) не сертифицируют для пилотируемых полетов. Вряд ли это случится до 2021. Скорее где-то в районе 2023.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/air-force-confirms-ula-position-on-atlas-5-production-rights/

Air Force Confirms ULA Position on Atlas 5 Production Rights
by Mike Gruss — June 19, 2015
  Rollout of an Atlas 5 rocket from the vehicle assembly building to the launchpad. Credit: ULA/Pat Corkery  
 
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Defense Department has told a consortium of three companies, including propulsion provider Aerojet Rocketdyne, that the government does not own the design or production rights to United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, a ruling that would appear to thwart an early effort to add another competitor to the launch business.
In May, the consortium asked the Secretary of Defense about the possibility of obtaining production rights to the rocket, a military workhorse that ULA plans to replace by the end of the decade.
In theory, the consortium would use the Aerojet-designed AR1 engine to replace the controversial Russian-made RD-180 engine used on the Atlas 5 today.
But the Defense Department said it did not own the design or production rights for the rocket, nor did it own the intellectual property rights, according to a June 19 statement from Capt. Annmarie Annicelli, an Air Force spokeswoman.
Lockheed Martin and ULA say they own different elements of the Atlas 5 design. According to Annicelli, ULA also owns the Atlas 5 production facility in Decatur, Alabama, and the launch pads and towers at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
ULA officials had previously said the company has "no intention of selling or transferring" Atlas 5 production rights.
Besides Aerojet Rocketdyne, the consortium that inquired about Atlas 5 production rights includes Dynetics, of Huntsville, Alabama, and Shafer Corp. of Arlington, Virginia, which is led by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/hearing-on-u-s-space-launch-strategy-could-get-testy/

Hearing on U.S. Space Launch Strategy Could Get Testy
by Warren Ferster and Mike Gruss — June 22, 2015
  "I will not allow the resources Congress has made available for this purpose to be wasted or misused," said U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.). Credit: C-SPAN video capture  
 
WASHINGTON – The chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee on June 22 set the stage for a scheduled June 26 hearing on national security space launch by declaring that Congress meant it when it directed the U.S. Air Force to end its reliance on Russian rocket engines by 2019.
"It is not the time to fund new launch vehicles, or new infrastructure, or rely on unproven technologies," Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a press release announcing the hearing.  "It is the time for the Pentagon to harness the power of the American industrial base, and move with purpose and clarity in order to swiftly develop an American rocket propulsion system that ends our reliance on Russia as soon as possible."
The hearing, the panel's second on the topic in four months, will focus on U.S. efforts to end reliance on the Russian-built RD-180 engine that powers the U.S. military's main workhorse, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5. Congress late last year ordered the Air Force to immediately begin working on an American-built replacement engine and appropriated $225 million for the effort.
"I will not allow the resources Congress has made available for this purpose to be wasted or misused," Rogers said.
The Air Force and White House agree that the liquid-oxygen/kerosene-fueled RD-180 should be phased but disagree with Congress on the one-for-one replacement approach, instead advocating broader program of investment in various launch vehicle technologies. Denver-based ULA, meanwhile, is pursuing an Atlas 5 replacement vehicle featuring a methane-fueled engine built and funded by rocket venture Blue Origin.
Rogers' statement appears to be a shot across the bow not only of the Air Force but also of ULA, whose main rocket making facility is in Decatur, Alabama. Some industry experts view ULA's strategy as risky and believe the surest and quickest way to wean the Air Force off the RD-180 is to immediately begin developing a replacement that, unlike Blue Origin's BE-4, can plug into the aft end of the Atlas 5.
The upcoming hearing, entitled "Assuring National Security Space: Investing in American Industry to End Reliance on Russian Rocket Engines," will feature a panel of government witnesses followed by one from industry.
The government panel will include: Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command; Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, which acquires space hardware; Katrina McFarland, assistant secretary of defense for acquisition; and Mike Griffin, the former NASA administrator who co-authored a study last year that advocated replacing the RD-180 as soon as feasible.
The industry panel will include Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA; Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin; Julie Van Kleek, vice president of advanced systems and launch programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne, which is developing the LOX/kerosene-fuled AR1 that could replace the RD-180 on the Atlas 5; Jeff Thornburg, senior director of propulsion engineering at SpaceX, ULA's new competitor in the national security launch market; and Frank Culberson, president of the space systems group at Orbital ATK.

[Seerndv]

Aerojet Rocketdyne Targets $25 Million Per Pair For AR-1 Engines
Amy Butler
 



Aerojet Rocketdyne is targeting a cost of $20-25 million for each pair of new AR-1 engines as the company continues to lobby the government to fund an all-new, U.S.-sourced rocket propulsion system, says Scott Seymour, president and CEO of the company's parent, GenCorp.
Including legacy systems and various risk-reduction projects, Aerojet Rocketdyne has spent roughly $300 million working on technologies that will feed into the AR-1, Seymour said during a June 3 roundtable with Aviation Week editors. The effort to build a new, 500,000-lb. thrust liquid oxygen/kerosene propulsion system would take about four years from contract award and cost roughly $800 million to $1 billion.
Such an engine is eyed for United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket as well as Orbital's Antares and, possibly, Space Exploration Technology's Falcon 9 v1.1.
This is roughly the same price cited for the cost of standing up U.S. co-production of the RD-180 engine, which is manufactured by NPO Energomash of Russia and sold to ULA for the Atlas V through a joint venture with Pratt & Whitney.
"We certainly believe [the AR-1 will be] on a par – if not better – than the performance of the RD-180. We also believe it is going to be more affordable," Seymour said. "With each launch vehicle having it its own engine, trying to get any kind of economic buy quantity has been a struggle for us. We really believe with the AR-1 approach, we have a multitude of applications for the engine."
SpaceX's Falcon 9v1.1 is powered by the company's own Merlin 1D engine, but Seymour says he hopes the AR-1 is competitive enough in pricing to earn a place even on this platform. SpaceX founder Elon Musk has focused his company on vertical integration to support quick development timelines.
ULA would not release the per-unit cost of the RD-180 for the Atlas V. SpaceX did not reply to requests on its Merlin engine price; nine Merlin 1Ds are used per Falcon 9 v1.1 launch.
Seymour says the company envisions an engine that can mate with multiple boosters, helping to increase the production volume and, eventually, keep pricing and sourcing stable. "I believe it brings the engines in the space industry more toward the model of aircraft engines ... the destination for those engines are any multitude of aircraft applications," he said.
Eventually, Seymour envisions this engine could be a foundation for NASA's Space Launch System rocket bound for Mars, though he did not give details on the path to get there.
Aerojet Rocketdyne has put its own internal research and development funding toward pieces of the system, but is awaiting funding for a government project, likely to come in fiscal 2016, Seymour said. Despite a tight fiscal environment in Washington, momentum for a new hydrocarbon engine has grown substantially in recent weeks due largely to an aversion of lawmakers to continue buying Russian-made engines in light of Russia's annexation of Crimea.

http://aviationweek.com/defense/aerojet-rocketdyne-targets-25-million-pair-ar-1-engines




 

- each pair - смущает  :oops:

[Apollo13]

AR-1 всегда предлагали парой на замену РД-180.

[Seerndv]

Apollo13 пишет:
AR-1 всегда предлагали парой на замену РД-180.

Тогда берём:

sing an advanced oxidizer-rich staged combustion engine cycle, the liquid oxygen/kerosene AR1 will generate 500,000 lbf of thrust at sea level. The thrust class enables the engine to be easily configured for use on multiple launch vehicles, including the Atlas V and the Advanced Boosters being considered for NASA's Space Launch System.

500000х 0.453х2= 453000
Итого 453 т тяги sea level.
Атлас 5 наращивать не надо?  

[silentpom]

а зачем? там богатый набор бустеров. Кто нить из любителей знает, на какие именно атласы  хотят потратить оставшиеся запасы РД-180? Там вроде самый популярный был 401, а теперь смысла в нем нет, он слабее фалкон-9

[Salo]

В свете крайней аварии F9 смысл просматривается?

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/falcon-9-failure-strengthens-assured-access-arguments/

Falcon 9 Failure Strengthens Assured Access Arguments
by Mike Gruss — June 29, 2015
The June 28 explosion of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has amplified calls for the Defense Department to have assured access to space. Credit: NASA TV.  
 
WASHINGTON — The June 28 explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just two minutes after liftoff fr om Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, undercuts the hard-charging company just as it appeared ready to grab a share of the lucrative U.S. military launch market.
Up until the failure, which destroyed a capsule filled with supplies for the International Space Station, Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX had compiled a nearly flawless track record over 18 Falcon 9 missions for government and commercial customers. In June, after a sometimes contentious process that lasted nearly two years, the Air Force certified the Falcon 9 to launch national security satellites.
Meanwhile, United Launch Alliance, which has had the military market all to itself since 2006, faces questions about the future availability of its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket. Congress has directed the U.S. Air Force to stop using the Russian-built RD-180, that powers the main stage of the Atlas 5.
These developments have SpaceX well positioned to win hundreds of millions of dollars of Air Force launch contracts. The service plans award the first of those competitive contracts – to launch one of its next-generation GPS 3 navigation satellites-  later this year.
The failure, whose cause is under investigation, won't help SpaceX's cause. John Taylor, a SpaceX spokesman, declined to comment.
"We're lucky that all we lost yesterday is supplies," Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said in a June 29 email to SpaceNews. "It could have been the lives of astronauts or a multi-billion national security payload that our warfighters rely on.
"We've been reminded of the importance of Assured Access to Space.  We can't allow the United States to be put into a position wh ere it has only one means of launching national security payloads, because it can be lost in a moment."
Despite having been a monopoly, Denver-based ULA fulfilled the assured access requirement for all but the heaviest payloads by virtue of having two vehicles, the Atlas 5 and Delta 4. But the company is phasing out all but the largest variant of Delta 4 — the Air Force has no alternative for launching some of its most critical national security satellites — because the vehicle is too expensive.
Once that happens, the Air Force will have assured access through the combination of the Falcon 9 and Atlas 5, which ULA plans to replace after 2020 with a new rocket called Vulcan. To stay competitive while developing Vulcan, ULA is counting on continued access to the RD-180. The company says it needs 14 of the Russian-made engines to stay in business until Vulcan, to be powered by a U.S.-made engine, is ready. The House version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 grants that number, but the Senate version allows only nine.
Air Force officials have expressed concern that the Senate version of the bill could effectively knock Atlas 5 out of the national security market, leaving the Air Force with only one rocket at its disposal: Falcon 9. The failure would appear to lend strength to those concerns.
Just two days before the Falcon 9 exploded, assured access was the focus of a hearing of the House strategic forces subcommittee that included testimony from Air Force and industry witnesses.
"With the Nation's deep reliance on space capabilities, assured access to space remains one of our highest priorities," Gen. John Hyten, commander of Air Force Space Command, said in written testimony. "It is essential we sustain a reliable capability to deliver national security satellites to space."
In a statement to SpaceNews provided June 29, the Air Force said "it's too early to assess any impact that the Space X launch failure has on future DoD launch missions.  The Department is firmly committed to smoothly transitioning our launch enterprise with a continued strong focus on maintaining assured access to space for National Security Space missions."
In the week before the Falcon 9 failure, House and Senate leaders began negotiating differences between the House and Senate version of the defense authorization bill for 2016. Congressional sources have said for months that a group known as the Big Four, the chairmen and ranking members, of the House and Senate armed services committees, will decide how many engines to give ULA and the Air Force. Or, viewed another way, how much trust the Defense Department should put in SpaceX.
A final decision could come by the end of July.