DocM Posted April 17, 2018 Share Posted April 17, 2018 (edited) Orbital ATK's "next generation launcher" has a new name, and a new thread. OmegA and its liquid hydrogen upper stage engine will be the Aerojet-Rocketdyne RL-10C. 2 points 1) no common bulkhead on the RL-10C stage. There goes the mass fraction, but.... 2a) dual R-10C's, so plenty of power but at what cost? Historically RL-10 has been a very expensive upper stage engine, upwards of $30 million each. 2b) this RL-10C has been re-done to he largely 3D printed. We'll see.... Original NGL thread.... Space News.... Quote Orbital ATK selects Aerojet Rocketdynes RL10C for newly christened OmegA rocket COLORADO SPRINGS Orbital ATK on Monday revealed new details about the rocket it has been developing over the last three years in an effort to take U.S. Air Force launch contracts away from United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. With the Air Force expected to select up to three companies this summer to build and test rockets capable of launching intermediate to heavy-class national security payloads, Orbital ATK executives announced at the 34th Space Symposium here that they have picked Aerojet Rocketdynes RL10C engine to power the upper stage of a next-generation launch vehicle they are now calling OmegA. OmegAs solid-fuel lower stages, as previously disclosed, are based on space shuttle solid rocket motor segments developed by Orbital ATK, and solid strap-on boosters used on ULAs rockets. OmegA was developed under a three-year, $250 million cost-sharing partnership with the Air Force. At a news conference, Orbital ATK spokesman Barron Beneski said OmegA is the number one priority for growth initiatives in the company, and is projected to be the largest discretionary spending item in the company over the next couple of years. > Edited April 17, 2018 by DocM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unobscured Vision Posted April 17, 2018 Share Posted April 17, 2018 No new capability at all. It's taken them THIS long simply to catch up to what Falcon-9 FT was doing without trying, and it's taking them three stages to do it in, with off-the-shelf parts (pretty much) and essentially 1970's engineering with updates to keep 'em conformant. Yeesh ... talk about crawling, walking, running and then crawling again because it's easier to do/can't be bothered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 23, 2018 Author Share Posted May 23, 2018 @Jeff_Foust Michael Laidley, Orbital ATK: we have about 500 people working on our OmegA rocket right now; expect that to ramp up to about 1,000. Ground testing of first stage to begin next year. #SpaceTechExpo | Laidley: on schedule for first flight of intermediate version of OmegA in 2021, with USAF certification in 2022. Heavy version first launch 2024. #SpaceTechExpo |Laidley: if we dont win Launch Services Award from USAF for OmegA, we would not proceed with the vehicle as currently defined. It would be some other design that doesnt address all EELV requirements. #SpaceTechExpo Unobscured Vision 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unobscured Vision Posted May 23, 2018 Share Posted May 23, 2018 Honestly I hope they do proceed. Barring the usual guff from me in the vein of "technical this, OldSpace that, blah blah" ... I won't do that here. Competition is always what drives innovation. Innovation is what pushes industries forward. I, for one, love innovation; therefore, I love competition. It forces the players to perform at their very, very best. So, in this instance, I wish Orbital the best of luck and success in their endeavours. I really do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beittil Posted May 23, 2018 Share Posted May 23, 2018 In other words... if Uncle Sam won't buy our stuff we're going to either cut corners and hope the commercial sector won't gripe about it or (which i personally find infinitely more likely) eventually just cancel the thing because we don't like to spend money. bguy_1986, DocM and Unobscured Vision 3 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 30, 2019 Author Share Posted May 30, 2019 Now a Northrop Grumman launcher, OmegA's solid first stage was test fired today. Looks like at T+120 seconds there was a nozzle failure, or a chunk of propellant broke free and hit/clogged the nozzle causing it to fail. So much for OmegA making the USAF deadline 😵 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beittil Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Guess they got lucky with only the nozzle vaporizing... Solids like that can easily entirely go kaboom when stuff like that happens. DocM 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted May 30, 2019 Author Share Posted May 30, 2019 N-G is spinning the test as a "success," and there was an "observation" 🙄 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beittil Posted May 30, 2019 Share Posted May 30, 2019 Guess their Zuma payload adapter also worked perfectly with only an observation eh... DocM and SteveL 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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