DocM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Now that NASA has (unwisely IMO - too expensive) been given clearance by Congress to build the Space Launch System launcher and the Orion MPCV (multi-purpose crew vehicle) capsule this can be an updates thread. Space Launch System will be built in 2 scalable blocks; Block 1: Payload to low Earth orbit: 70 metric tons (150,000 lb) Block 2: Payload to low Earth orbit: 129,000 kg (280,000 lb) First stage Core diameter:8.4 meters (27.56 ft) Liquid engines: 3 to 5 RS-25D/E (disposable Shuttle engines) Sea level thrust (each): 1,817,400 newtons (408,600 lbf) Vacuum thrust (each): 2,278,000 newtons (512,000 lbf) Fuel/oxidizer: LH2/LOX Solid rocket boosters (SRBs): 2 five-segment Sea level thrust (each) 12,500,000 newtons (2,800,000 lbf) Fuel/oxidizer (by weight): 16% aluminum, 12.04% PBAN (polymer), 1.96% epoxy, 0.4% iron oxide/69.6% ammonium perchlorate (a competition will be held later to either keep the SRBs or replace them with liquid side boosters) Second stage Core diameter: 8.4 meters (27.56 ft) Liquid engines: 1 or 2 Rocketdyne J-2X (upgraded Saturn V J2 2nd stage) Vacuum thrust: 1,310,000 newtons (294,000 lbf) Fuel/oxidizer: LH2/LOX The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is a conical capsule build with the same mold line as Apollo, but larger. Crew: 4 Diameter: 5 meters (16.5 ft) Pressurized volume: 19.56 m3 (691 cu ft) Habitable Volume: 8.95 m3 (316 cu ft) Mass: 8,913 kg (19,650 lb) Service Module Mass: 12,337 kg (27,198 lb) Service Module Propellant Mass: 7,907 kg (17,433 lb) Endurance: 21.1 days Penciled-in flight manifest: Here's is a huge weakness - the SLS & Orion are so expensive the funds for flying it will be very short - Pics: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 Doc, you know i don't share in your antagonism of these platforms...yes, they're not the greatest but if they're one more option then that's OK. However, you are right that the timeline is depressing unless they accelerate it. No manned missions to the moon before 2021? what? we can go to the moon tomorrow, why wait so long? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 No long term goal makes for poor decisionmaking. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows fuel depots and an exploration vehicle like Nautilus is a better way to go than using big, brute force boosters, but there is little common sense in the Senate committee chambers where SLS's basic parameters were defined. This isn't a partisan thing as key members of both parties are complicit; Harry Reid, Bill Nelson, Orrin Hatch, Richard Shelby etc. To their credit the Tea Party Coalition and many space-oriented Dems in the House have come up with a well structured way forward that includes fuel depots etc., but without Senate cooperation all that can be done is to wait for SLS to run its course to cancellation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 then if you had to pick one reason why this is being backed, what would it be? and i don't think it's just corrupt members of congress looking out for their districts (which in a way would make them not so corrupt, because it is their job to look out for their districts). also, if SLS can co-exist alongside other platforms, is it that bad then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted October 2, 2011 Author Share Posted October 2, 2011 then if you had to pick one reason why this is being backed, what would it be? and i don't think it's just corrupt members of congress looking out for their districts (which in a way would make them not so corrupt, because it is their job to look out for their districts). also, if SLS can co-exist alongside other platforms, is it that bad then? That's precisely what it is. Sen. Orrin Hatch is looking after ATK (SRB makers) which is in Utah; Sen. Richard Shelby is looking out for NASA Huntsville, Ala. where it'll be headquartered; Sen. Bill Nelson is looking out for KSC staff in Florida; Sen. Mary Landrieu is looking out for NASA Michoud in Louisiana where the tankage would be made, and so on. About an even split party wise. SLS is going to be like JWST - such a budget hawg that it's near impossible for other major projects to co-exist with it unless the budget gets bumped, which in this deficit laden environment is unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 then we need to pressure them to raise the budget and make the money available instead of giving it to Wall Street again. i wouldn't want to scrap SLS, i'd like us to overcome the challenge of having these big projects co exist with other smaller ones and with private industry intitiatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 Latest Aviation Week update (ling), and pics of Orion with its launch cover and launch escape tower and in its cruise configuration. One of the problems in the cancelled Constellation program was the inability of the Ares I launcher to get Orion, its service module, the launch cover and that very heavy solid rocket launch escape tower off the ground and still get the Orion + service module stack to orbit. Even now it'll take Delta IV Heavy, the largest and most expensive ($400M) launcher in the US inventory (until Falcon Heavy). After that they'll need to use the $1.5B per launch SLS to go beyond Earth orbit. Aviation Week.... What's Next For Deep Space Crew VehicleDeveloping the Orion multi-purpose crew vehicle will generate some smoke and fire fairly soon, even as the work is deliberately slowed to avoid the ?unsustainable? cost growth that scuttled NASA?s plans to use it to send astronauts to an outpost on the Moon. One of the few surviving elements of NASA?s Constellation program of human exploration spacecraft, Orion is now recast as a multi-destination deep-space crew vehicle with an asteroid tentatively tapped as its first target. The U.S. space agency already has spent more than $5 billion on the capsule, and is on track to run its first orbital flight test early in 2014. If all goes as planned, a Delta IV heavy rocket will send a high-fidelity test article on a two-orbit mission designed to simulate loads the capsule will encounter returning from the Moon or points beyond, and to exercise techniques for recovering it at sea. That first ?Exploration Flight Test? (EFT-1) will be followed by an ascent-abort test similar to the Little Joe tests of the Mercury and Apollo capsules. ?We don?t have the money every year to do every system,? says Mark Geyer, NASA?s Orion program manager. ?So EFT-1 is a great example. We decided to focus our money on the high-risk things, TPS [thermal protection system], crew module structure, parachutes, entry, navigation and guidance. So that?s where we?re putting our money in ?11 and ?12.? Left for a later date will be detailed development of the service module that will fly behind the capsule until shortly before reentry, a task that may see the European Space Agency getting involved. Also on hold are the life-support systems for the crew who will spend up to three weeks in the capsule?s cramped interior on early missions beyond low Earth orbit. The nation?s economic and political circumstances have left NASA facing at best a flat budget as of now, forcing the agency to ?meter? development of Orion and the heavy-lift Space Launch System intended to carry it deeper into space than the space shuttle ever went (AW&ST Oct. 24, 2011, p. 40). But with $1.2 billion available in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, there is plenty of work going on. > EFT-1 will carry aloft the flight-version capsule now at Michoud. Between the launch vehicle?s upper stage and the capsule?s heat shield will be a dummy service module equipped with test fairings. This will be dropped after the first stage is jettisoned to shed the mass needed for structural reasons at liftoff. That part of the flight will validate the shared load path to ensure the fairing design is stiff enough to help support the crew module and LAS during the highest load condition, Price says. The Delta IV Heavy will put the vehicle into a 100 X 500-nm initial orbit, and on the second orbit its upper stage will raise the apogee to 3,000-5,000 nm, with the perigee dipping back into the atmosphere. The upper stage and service module will separate, and the capsule will plunge into the atmosphere at something like 84% of a lunar-return velocity. The Avcoat ablative heat shield will protect the capsule as it plunges through the upper atmosphere at more than 20,000 mph, using its reaction control system, slightly asymmetrical heat-shield shape and off-center center of gravity to steer as it slows to the point that its parachutes begin opening. > The simulated return from deep space reflects NASA?s new emphasis on using Orion to carry crews beyond low Earth orbit, with its original role as the first post-shuttle route to the International Space Station (ISS) shifted to private-sector crew vehicles. While it still will be able to carry out that mission as a backup in case there are problems with the commercial crew approach, the reconstituted program will focus on deep space. So far, that hasn?t required much of a change in the plans originally drafted for the Constellation version of Orion, according to Price, who says vehicle requirements for both missions are ?mostly identical.? ?A lot of the structure is designed to be able to get out of low Earth orbit and return,? he says. ?Micrometeoroid debris shielding is a little different, and radiation is a little different, but when the program began we were kitting those differences, so we could have a vehicle that was optimized for each, and if there were some pieces that weren?t common, you could carry a kit that would accommodate that requirement.? Even before Constellation was canceled, NASA reduced the Orion crew size to four from six for the station mission to save money on adapting the vehicle for four-person deep-space flights. And Lockheed Martin designed distinctive circular solar arrays from the beginning for deep-space flights that will require the vehicle to function much longer than its look-alike predecessor, the Apollo command module. > > Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 10, 2012 Share Posted January 10, 2012 perhaps it won't really be $1.5 billion per launch by the time all is said and done? besides, you keep forgetting that SLS and Orion are supposed to be developed alongside other platforms and private space...they're not really the villains you make them out to be :blush: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 10, 2012 Author Share Posted January 10, 2012 $1.5B is the cost/flight when you use the 75 MT SLS and xadd in the infrastructure that has to be maintained between flights - and if extra hardware is added to the mission and the 130 mt SLS is required it goes up. There is a project for long ranger transit vehicles that would be used with Orion - but the funding is so low as to generate nothing mkuch more than models, structural mockups (with no systems) and PowerPoints. There is a real feeling that after $billions of sunk costs Orion won't survive, especially if SpaceX pulls a circumlunar Apollo 8 style mission with Dragon, proving its deep space capabilities. Falcon Heavy could do it easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 14, 2012 Author Share Posted January 14, 2012 New NASA rah-rah video about Orion. Lockheed Martin is the main contractor, having won the 2006 initial contract of $3.9 billion. Funding has been in doubt ever since the Constellation moon project was canceled a couple years ago. Orion has been guesstimated at $5 billion, but history shows it'll be considerably more (see JWST etc) and it received $1.2 billion in December 2011. NASA also announced that it will add another $375 million to Lockheed's contract for the purchase of a Delta IV Heavy launcher for an unmanned test flight in 2014. Do the math: $3.9B + $1.2B + $375M = $5.475 billion - overbudget already and it won't see a crew until ~2020, if then, and it can only fly 3-4 crewmembers. Anyhow, here's the promo - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 heck you're right, Orion isn't worth that much money. didn't NASA themselves say they can build the Nautilus X for like four billion? why is Orion so much? how many vehicles are we getting for this price? how many launches? how many people on Mars? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 17, 2012 Author Share Posted January 17, 2012 For Mars a larger transfer shop with habs, a lander, engines etc. would have to be built and Orion would just be a crew return vehicle to get them back on Earth. Crew: 4 tops. For astetoids or a Deimos mission a hab would be attached with a crew of 2-3. Orion costs that much because its development is being done the traditional way, not the way CCDev and COTS have been where the contractor gets paid incrementally based on hard milestones. This multiplies costs by 3-5 times, but getting some parts of NASA to change is like pulling teeth. Not a lot of bang-buck IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 22, 2012 Share Posted January 22, 2012 on a rating of 1-10, how much are these two slowing us down compared to just paying private contactors to do everything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 22, 2012 Author Share Posted January 22, 2012 8 In order to support this the commercial budget for 2012was cut from the requested $850M to $400M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 For me that's not necessarily a problem, as I will always reiterate that commercial space means fully self funded space to me. However, if you believe it's 8/10 then that's a problem, as I trust your judgment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 There's a lot involved, including some NASA centers that traditionally handle crewed missions (Marshall in Alabama) to companies like ATK trying to keep a solid booster conteact for SLS. And others. They push for Ares-V II (SLS) via their Congressional reps (both parties) rather than go competative commercial for the whole system which would lower costs a LOT and have the side effect of speeding up the related projects via redirected funding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocM Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 A Houston Chronicle article that gets down & dirty about the SLS problem. Bottom line: if you build it there will be no funds left to mount exploration missions. If you don't you could use fuel depots and current/near future launchers to do exploration missions. Link.... Expensive NASA rocket draws skepticism"When these capabilities are ready to be used for a mission," Dumbacher said, "that loss of buying power is holding us up from the ability to be able to go execute a mission based on today's budget." Necessary first step? Nevertheless, Dumbacher insisted that building a new heavy-lift rocket was the cheapest, quickest way to get American astronauts where they haven't been for nearly four decades - back out beyond Earth's orbit. For any exploration strategy, he said, having a heavy-lift capability is a necessary first step. Others within and outside NASA disagree. One alternative is building a system in which a spacecraft need not launch with all of the fuel required for a mission. A six-month NASA study, completed in July, concluded that using existing launch vehicles to place fuel depots in space would cost billions less than building a massive rocket to launch everything at once. NASA has not publicized the study, however. When U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., asked Bolden about the depot study at a congressional hearing last summer, the administrator replied, "It turned out that was not as economical, nor as reliable." Promise unfulfilled He promised to share the study with Rohrabacher, but six months later NASA has yet to make good on the promise. "We have been trying to arrange a briefing with NASA on the specific study about cost that I asked about in July, but they seem insistent on trying to provide a briefing about why depots aren't needed instead," Rohrabacher said. "At this point, I'm not even sure that (Bolden) was given the relevant depot study with the cost comparison to a heavy-lift architecture before he made his decision." Use what's on the shelf There are other options, as well. Some analyses have shown that it would have been cheaper and quicker to develop a heavy-lift rocket using space shuttle technology, and there are those who advocate using one of several existing launch rockets, such as the Atlas V or Delta IV, to launch spaceship components into orbit, and build a vehicle there. Using existing launch vehicles, proponents say, would save tens of billions of dollars in development costs, not to mention the high operations costs of an ongoing heavy-lift rocket. They note that the Saturn V rocket, which blasted astronauts to the moon, was canceled because it was too expensive to maintain. These approaches would also leave more room for participation by the international partners who helped build the International Space Station. "Everyone knows there is a train wreck on the horizon, and sooner or later it will become apparent we can't afford SLS," said Virginia-based space consultant James Muncy. "It's eating all the money we should be spending actually exploring." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neoadorable Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 The core problem remains funding. We have more than enough to give NASA ten tines their current budget, but space and the future are not priorities. SLS could easily coexist with leaner projects if space was taken seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts