/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.7204657]

ULA Vulcan launcher will return to Earth by helicopter

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) has entered the reusable launcher race with its Next Generation Launch System (NGLS), also known as the Vulcan rocket. This replacement for the current generation of launch systems will incorporate a rocket engine assembly that jettisons from the first stage and is snared in mid-air by a helicopter after reentering the Earth's atmosphere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=emmeil-0u5k#t=0

[Anonymous No.7204661]

Unveiled at the 31st Space Symposium, the Vulcan was named by popular vote last month that garnered one million entries. According to ULA, the new launch system will be able to deliver payloads to low-Earth orbit and deep space at reduced cost.

[Anonymous No.7204662]

At the heart of the Vulcan is ULA's Sensible, Modular, Autonomous Return Technology (SMART) initiative. Unlike the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is designed to fly back to the launch site, the SMART initiative involves developing an engine assembly that reuses the booster main engines. The assembly uses twin BE-4 engines burning methane and liquid oxygen, producing 1.1 million lb of thrust. The BE-4 was developed by Blue Origin, which is providing the engines to ULA in a partnership to replace the Russian-made RD-180.

[Anonymous No.7204666]

In flight, the Vulcan lifts off like a conventional system, but after releasing its payload, the first-stage booster engine assembly detaches and re-enters atmosphere using an inflatable heat shield. After parachute deployment, the booster engine assembly is hooked and captured by a Chinook helicopter. The assembly is then recertified and reattached to a new Vulcan first stage. ULA says that this results in a 90 percent savings in propulsion costs because the engine assembly makes up 25 percent of the booster weight and 65 percent of the booster cost.

[Anonymous No.7204671]

The American-made Vulcan is based on the Atlas and Delta launch vehicles and will use ULA's Centaur second stage with either a 4- or 5-m (13/16 ft) payload fairing and four to strap-on solid boosters on the first stage. In the Stage Two version, the Centaur will be replaced by a new, more powerful Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES); giving the Vulcan the lift capability of the Delta IV Heavy rocket. ULA says that the ACES can make almost unlimited burns, so its on-orbit time extends from hours to weeks

[Anonymous No.7204673]

"More capabilities in space mean more capabilities here on Earth," says Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance. "Because the Next Generation Launch System will be the highest-performing, most cost-efficient rocket on the market, it will open up new opportunities for the nation’s use of space. Whether it is scientific missions, medical advancements, national security or new economic opportunities for businesses, ULA’s new Vulcan rocket is a game-changer in terms of creating endless possibilities in space."

[Anonymous No.7204696]

>3 minute video
>10 seconds of technical talk, the rest is marketing bullshit and American circlejerking

[Anonymous No.7204700]

>>7204696
>American circlejerking

Any US made product

[Anonymous No.7204708]

>>7204661
I still like flyback boosters better.

[Anonymous No.7204734]

>>7204671
This is the only impressive part of the whole set up, and it's the bit they'll be working on last.

[Anonymous No.7204923]

>>7204734
The new upper stage is supposed to be coming before partial booster reusability.

>>7204708
Basically, in the mid-2020s, they're hoping to make something about one-tenth as good as what SpaceX is hoping to have in the next year or two.

A soft-landed intact booster isn't going to need to be "refurbished" after each flight any more than an airliner does. SpaceX is aiming for real, airliner-like reusability. In routine operation, they're going to land, return it to the hangar, inspect it, restack it, refill propellant and other fluids, and relaunch (the first few recoveries won't be routine; they're planning to use at least the first recovered stage for flight testing in New Mexico, like Grasshopper but with no ceiling).

ULA is aming for space-shuttle-like partial recovery and rebuildability. They're going to recover the engines with expensive expendable hardware and an expensive recovery system involving a huge helicopter, pull them apart, overhaul them, and stick them on a new rocket.

By their own estimates, this will only break even after five or six flights, and given their history of underestimating costs, it will most likely not save money at all. Look at this bullshit math:
>>7204661
>engines are 65% of booster cost
>recovering them will reduce "booster propulsion cost" by 90%
Apparently, they've weasel-worded this "booster propulsion cost" to mean the cost of the engines, not the cost of the propulsion the booster provides (i.e. total booster cost). So a 90% reduction of 65% of the cost, or a 58.5% reduction of the booster cost.

Now, the wacky thing about ULA is that their upper stages cost more than their boosters. And engine reusability can't affect the SRB prices, either.

So this plan can *maybe* reduce total launch costs by 15-20%, if all goes perfectly. In the mid-2020s.

[Anonymous No.7204950]

>>7204708
>I like flyback boosters better
still a possibility for Angara's A5 side cores.

>>7204657
the funny thing is that detachable engines is going back to the Atlas ICBM roots. The original Atlas had three engines at launch, and the two side engines were jettisoned, leaving the tanks and the center sustainer engine.

This would be the first time trying to recover those engines. The effort would be similar to recovering the old Stardust probe and Corona spy satellites. But really, ULA is announcing this just to keep up with the Joneses, since SpaceX is making such a big deal of their own reusability plans.

[Anonymous No.7204953]

>>7204666
This is so dishonest.

>350% more lift
Currently, Atlas V 552 can put up over 20 tons to LEO, and Delta IV Heavy can take nearly 30 tons. They've admitted that Vulcan will not be able to replace the Delta IV Heavy until the new upper stage is ready, and when it is ready, it will only slightly outperform Delta IV Heavy.

[Anonymous No.7204957]

>>7204953
>lift
>on a rocket
Can we get off the ride yet?

[Anonymous No.7204990]

>>7204957
Everything is worded in a strange, ambiguous way, avoiding the standard clear language of orbital launch, so they can mislead everyone but claim that this isn't outright fraud.

[Anonymous No.7205004]

>>7204953
They mean lift as in dynamical lift, thrust. These are the same numbers SpaceX threw about with falcon heavy.

[Anonymous No.7205024]

>>7205004
But Falcon Heavy has three times the thrust than Falcon 9, and this translates to more than three times the payload capacity.

It's not at all clear what the image is referring to. 350% more "lift" than what? Will six SRBs add 350% of the thrust of the main booster engine? It's sure as fuck not 350% more thrust than the current Atlas V with its maximum 5 SRBs.

The really stupid thing is that these are, at best, numbers they are asking for, from subcontractors. They haven't chosen the supplier for any of their engines, or the SRBs, on this. None of the engines or SRBs they might use for the new booster or the new upper stage exist yet, unless they stick with the RL-10 on their upper stage.

The most generous interpretation of any of their figures is as a wishlist.

[Anonymous No.7205052]

Reminder: the god Vulcan was lame. He became a craftsman because, with a crippled leg, he wasn't very mobile.

[Anonymous No.7205105]

>>7205052

He did get some sweet Venus ass, though. Even if she did tend to step out on him with Mars.

>doesn't matter, had sex

[Anonymous No.7205243]

I just can't put this plan into a context where it could seem sane.

It's like they heard that there was going to be a big expansion of launches, because of upcoming drastically lowered prices from newspace companies like SpaceX, and therefore this would mean they could sell dramatically more flights on their own still-very-expensive rockets, as if they wouldn't be competing with the same low prices that cause the higher launch rate.

It's just fucking schizophrenic.

This half-assed reuse plan would not save them money at today's launch rates. It won't lower their prices into a range where they're competitive with SpaceX, or other truly reusable vehicle, so they could tempt customers into buying more frequent launches from them.

These are the same jokers who made the Atlas V and Delta IV in the first place, investing their own money, and then failing to compete in the market.

ULA was created as a BAILOUT of LM and Boeing, because they're "too big to fail", and they went on a commercial rocket adventure like they're proposing now. They're doing it again. They can only be anticipating another bailout.

[Anonymous No.7205299]

>>7205243
It's worse than that. Boeing illegally spied on Lockheed's operations to underbid them. The law says that Boeing should have been barred from bidding on government contracts. To bail them out, the space operations of Boeing and Lockheed were consolidated into United Launch Alliance, which created redundancy and stopped the Atlas and Delta line from competing with each other for launch contracts.

[Anonymous No.7205394]

>>7205299
LM wouldn't have agreed just to help Boeing.

The Atlas V was also not capable of competing on the commercial launch market.

But I guess this explains why almost everything flies on Atlas V, even though Boeing initially underbid LM's Atlas V with their Delta IV, and why, in response to political pressure to replace the Atlas V's Russian engines, ULA is discontinuing the Delta IV (except for the Heavy variant), and flying *everything* on Atlas V for, probably, as long as ULA is going to survive.

[Anonymous No.7205483]

>>7205299
Thx. As a eurofag i had no idea where ULA came from.

[Anonymous No.7205526]

>>7205394
Lockheed doesn't need to love Boeing to have a reason to help them. At the time this was all going down, the F-22 Raptor was in full production, and Boeing was one of the largest subcontractors for the aircraft. After the merger with Douglas, Boeing also became the source of the F-18 and the C-17. The Government probably pushed the combined operations heavily to make sure defense projects, current and future, would not be compromised by Boeing's inconvenient behavior.

[Anonymous No.7205593]

>>7205526
Boeing's a mind-bogglingly huge company. I don't think that eating the loss on Delta IV would have had any effect on their other activities. It would have just got them out of the space rocket business.

[Anonymous No.7205646]

>>7205593
A ban on government bids wouldn't be limited to the launch business.

[Anonymous No.7205699]

>>7205646
I don't see what that has to do with the formation of ULA.

It's not like the government came to LM and said, "Hey, your competitor has committed a serious offense in competition against you. If you don't want them put out of business, you have to combine your two offerings into one company which you'll own jointly." What sense would that make?

This whole corporate espionage drama can't be the reason for ULA to be formed. It's because both EELVs were going to be money-losers. So both companies were motivated to join in forming an anticompetitive cartel.

[Anonymous No.7205768]

>>7205699
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100301365.html

You're speaking as though collusion isn't rife in the aerospace industry and the department of defense.

[Anonymous No.7206558]

OP...here, Has anyone ever tried to put a second set of thrusters at the top of a rocket???

[Anonymous No.7206562]

Gimbaled thrust

[Anonymous No.7206565]

[Anonymous No.7206568]

Rotary Rocket Roton, I remember these guys anyone knows what happened to them?

[Anonymous No.7206569]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp63-an2ts

[Anonymous No.7206641]

>>7204657

Compared to SpaceX's quite elegant concept this one looks awfully jumbled and unnecessarily complicated.

This 90%-marketing-speak is not helping, either.

[Anonymous No.7206758]

>>7206568
Well, they built a tall helicopter instead of a space rocket, then went out of business.

Some of the people started XCOR, and they built a rocket-pushed kitplane instead of an orbital space rocket.

They are currently building an upgraded rocket-pushed kitplane instead of an orbital space rocket. It was supposed to be done a few years ago. But they tell us we should be very excited about the "strakes" anyway, and their rocket-pushed kitplane will go to space Real Soon Now.

[Anonymous No.7206763]

that's some kerbal tier bullshit

[Anonymous No.7206791]

>>7206758
THNX

[Anonymous No.7206809]

>>7206758
March, 2008: "XCOR AEROSPACE SUBORBITAL VEHICLE TO FLY WITHIN TWO YEARS (New vehicle called the Lynx)"
http://www.xcor.com/press/2008/08-03-26_Lynx_suborbital_vehicle.html

December,2008: "RocketShip Tours, has announced that his company will immediately begin selling rides to the edge of space for $95,000 per flight"
"In fact, prior to signing this agreement with RocketShip Tours, XCOR had already taken paid reservations for approximately 20 flights."
http://www.xcor.com/press/2008/08-12-02_RocketShip_Tours_to_sell_rides_on_XCOR_Lynx.html

December, 2014: "XCOR announces Further Progress on XCOR Lynx Spacecraft" (pic related)
http://www.xcor.com/press/2014/14-12-18_Lynx_development_in_pictures_carry_through_spar.html

Tall helicopters.

[Anonymous No.7206944]

angara-a5

[Anonymous No.7206952]

>>7206558
This is what I am thinking of.