[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[tater]

16 minutes ago, Barzon said:

a. SLS has higher thrust than the Saturn V

Thrust doesn't matter much, honestly.

16 minutes ago, Barzon said:

b. It has only a few tons less than the Saturn V with BOLE and EUS.

1. BOLE doesn't exist.

2. EUS doesn't exist.

3. Even with both of those, the Orion CSM, while lighter than the Apollo CSM, is considerably less capable dv wise (CM is much heavier, SM is lighter).

As a result of 3, it can have a throw to TLI that rivals or beats Apollo, and still not be capable of Apollo level missions.

 

That said, a possible solution is to add IVF to the EUS. Doing so would allow extra props to be loaded on it (in place of cargo) and Orion could be sent to most any lunar orbit, with the EUS doing the LOI burn. Helps, but still not capable of Apollo style missions. Another place to look for inspiration would be the follow-on concepts for Apollo. Ie: if you have BOLE, and you have EUS , the latter ideally with IVF added, then you dump SLS as the LV for Orion, and use it as a full fairing cargo launcher. You still need to somehow get Orion to the Moon (so again, it's not beating Apollo at any comparable mission), but you can send a HUGE vehicle to TLI, and possibly even do some of the burn on the other end with the EUS. Minus crew, you could skip LOI, and use residual props in the EUS for a crasher. Maybe your cargo is a large hab and a rover?

[dave1904]

16 minutes ago, Barzon said:

SLS has higher thrust than the Saturn V

the shuttle had more thrust than the saturnv. Stats mean nothing anyway. It doesnt matter if the SLS can fly 1000 tons to leo. What matters is that saturn DID its job.

5 minutes ago, tater said:

Thrust doesn't matter much, honestly.

1. BOLE doesn't exist.

2. EUS doesn't exist.

3. Even with both of those, the Orion CSM, while lighter than the Apollo CSM, is considerably less capable dv wise (CM is much heavier, SM is lighter).

As a result of 3, it can have a throw to TLI that rivals or beats Apollo, and still not be capable of Apollo level missions.

 

That said, a possible solution is to add IVF to the EUS. Doing so would allow extra props to be loaded on it (in place of cargo) and Orion could be sent to most any lunar orbit, with the EUS doing the LOI burn. Helps, but still not capable of Apollo style missions. Another place to look for inspiration would be the follow-on concepts for Apollo. Ie: if you have BOLE, and you have EUS , the latter ideally with IVF added, then you dump SLS as the LV for Orion, and use it as a full fairing cargo launcher. You still need to somehow get Orion to the Moon (so again, it's not beating Apollo at any comparable mission), but you can send a HUGE vehicle to TLI, and possibly even do some of the burn on the other end with the EUS. Minus crew, you could skip LOI, and use residual props in the EUS for a crasher. Maybe your cargo is a large hab and a rover?

You reckon Artemis will land people on the moon or die?

[tater]

6 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

the shuttle had more thrust than the saturnv. Stats mean nothing anyway. It doesnt matter if the SLS can fly 1000 tons to leo. What matters is that saturn DID its job.

1000 tons to LEO would be a great "general purpose" capability. At 5 billion a flight, that would be $5000/kg, and would enable any mission we could imagine in the near term, actually.

The difference between 100, and 200 tons to LEO makes a huge difference in capability, however (that would include any TLI stage).

9 minutes ago, dave1904 said:

You reckon Artemis will land people on the moon or die?

Artemis != SLS. Much of the work for Artemis MUST be done by other vehicles because of the shortfall in SLS capability (including cadence). It is what it is. SLS/Orion will get funded until it looks dumb because of other LVs. Until then, 50 states get money, it remains popular with the people writing the checks in Congress.

 

[Vanamonde]

Overlapping threads have been consolidated. 

[tater]

Well, sorry SLS fans, a thread that was bound to become an anti-SLS thread got dumped in here.

Here's some update content to make up for it:

 

[jadebenn]

Sweet Jesus I am not touching any of the posts up there with a 40 foot pole.

Edited January 24, 2020 by jadebenn

[tater]

1 hour ago, jadebenn said:

Sweet Jesus I am not touching any of the posts up there with a 40 foot pole.

That’s why I was glad it was in another thread. Nothing I haven’t said here, though. Notably SLS should get IVF for EUS, and be used for cargo (come up with another way to fly Orion).

[sh1pman]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

come up with another way to fly Orion

Don’t see any other way in the foreseeable future. The FH-DCSS-Orion Frankenstein stack would be even less capable than SLS-Orion. 
On the other hand, if they ditch the idea of comanifested payload entirely and send landers/station parts/resupply/etc on commercial rockets or cargo SLS, and send just Orion on FH, it may actually be a better option. But why then would they need SLS? A super expensive cargo rocket that can fly once or twice a year to deliver up to 45t to TLI. Equivalent of 2 FH, but massively more expensive. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, sh1pman said:

Don’t see any other way in the foreseeable future. The FH-DCSS-Orion Frankenstein stack would be even less capable than SLS-Orion. 
On the other hand, if they ditch the idea of comanifested payload entirely and send landers/station parts/resupply/etc on commercial rockets or cargo SLS, and send just Orion on FH, it may actually be a better option. But why then would they need SLS? A super expensive cargo rocket that can fly once or twice a year to deliver up to 45t to TLI. Equivalent of 2 FH, but massively more expensive. 

The obvious choice will be NG.

It's completely capable of putting Orion in LEO with maybe 20 tons of residual propellants or comanifested cargo. They could then send a second NG, "naked". Dock Orion, and go to TLI (part of the margin on the Orion launch could include a small orbital module for increased crew comfort, and supplies (that later get transferred to the lander)).

Also, it's crew rated from the start, that's always been the plan for it, and BO is already working with Lockheed on their lunar lander, so assuming that partnership is good, the two will be a good fit.

[Ultimate Steve]

47 minutes ago, tater said:

The obvious choice will be NG.

It's completely capable of putting Orion in LEO with maybe 20 tons of residual propellants or comanifested cargo. They could then send a second NG, "naked". Dock Orion, and go to TLI (part of the margin on the Orion launch could include a small orbital module for increased crew comfort, and supplies (that later get transferred to the lander)).

Also, it's crew rated from the start, that's always been the plan for it, and BO is already working with Lockheed on their lunar lander, so assuming that partnership is good, the two will be a good fit.

Interesting idea but I don't see NASA trusting the job of launching Orion on board a rocket built by a company that has never built an orbital rocket before. If it flies several times with no or few problems before they put Orion on it, then that would be fine, but in that time it probably would have flown at least once, probably twice on SLS.

[tater]

2 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Interesting idea but I don't see NASA trusting the job of launching Orion on board a rocket built by a company that has never built an orbital rocket before. If it flies several times with no or few problems before they put Orion on it, then that would be fine, but in that time it probably would have flown at least once, probably twice on SLS.

The point is that it is being built to be man rated out of the gate, the same way that Atlas V with 2 engine Centaur was man rated out of the gate, and SLS is as well. The old school test everything before hand (gradatim, lol). It;s not a matter of "trust," if the rocket ticks the boxes for man-rated, it's man-rated.

Note that ULA's Vulcan is similar (though much lower mass to LEO).

[tater]

Nice pic:

 

[tater]

  

On 11/15/2019 at 3:41 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

Developing an SLS core and EUS is completely different. The core has to handle massively greater thrust, atmospheric heating, vastly higher accelerations, atmospheric pressure, atmospheric drag- EUS only deploys once in space, where most of the stresses on the core are absent. I return to my earlier comment- if such dumb boosters are so simple, why is NASA the only one with a completed lunar capable vehicle in 2020? 

Erm, 2021. NET.

[Barzon]

The only reason Artemis 1 is in April 2021 is due to there being no daylight launch windows in Spring 2021, but SLS will be at KSC by December this year. Green run is going faster than expected, meaning that they have more time margin for any possible repairs needed after Green run, and ensuring CS-1 delivery to KSC by December 2020.

[tater]

36 minutes ago, Barzon said:

The only reason Artemis 1 is in April 2021 is due to there being no daylight launch windows in Spring 2021, but SLS will be at KSC by December this year. Green run is going faster than expected, meaning that they have more time margin for any possible repairs needed after Green run, and ensuring CS-1 delivery to KSC by December 2020.

The orbital mechanics has not changed over the years, so they must already know where all the actual windows are (and it's a wide window since there are no lunar surface requirements). The could have said in previous communications, that windows exist in the following ranges... then list likely groups. So you hit one, and if you can't make that date, you KNOW it has to move all the way to the next window.

Odd they haven't done that.

In the previous thread that got axed, some were talking about 2020 launch dates. Then this clearly slipped to 2021, and then it became possible for summer 2021. Some of us saw that slipping to late 2021/early 2022, so kudos to them if they manage to fly this thing in mid-2021, that's better than I would have expected.

 

[ZooNamedGames]

On 2/21/2020 at 1:21 PM, tater said:

  

Erm, 2021. NET.

Point remains that its the only one ready by 2021. 

[tater]

5 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Point remains that its the only one ready by 2021. 

A bunch of uncrewed vehicles can do free return trajectories now, much less 2021.

If this was an all-up test, that'd be different, but it's not an all up test. When does the flight article stack launch? 2023?

[ZooNamedGames]

Just now, tater said:

A bunch of uncrewed vehicles can do free return trajectories now, much less 2021.

If this was an all-up test, that'd be different, but it's not an all up test. When does the flight article stack launch? 2023?

This contains all the same hardware as the final version that will fly on Artemis 2. Only difference is the EUS, which is still a step beyond what others can do. Moreover, no crewable vehicles exist that can make the journey. 

@David Willis 

[tater]

12 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

This contains all the same hardware as the final version that will fly on Artemis 2. Only difference is the EUS, which is still a step beyond what others can do. Moreover, no crewable vehicles exist that can make the journey. 

Artemis II will not have EUS, either. Unlikely III would, actually.

So Artemis changed EM-1 to a flight article vehicle that could bring crew, but is not (to test it, obviously)? EM-1 had no life support stuff aboard, it's cool to hear that the Orion prepping for flight has every single flight system that will be aboard for Artemis II.

Edited February 22, 2020 by tater

[ZooNamedGames]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Artemis II will not have EUS, either. Unlikely III would, actually.

So Artemis changed EM-1 to a flight article vehicle that could bring crew, but is not (to test it, obviously)? EM-1 had no life support stuff aboard, it's cool to hear that the Orion prepping for flight has every single flight system that will be aboard for Artemis II.

A3 is required to have a EUS, but seeing as the EUS has finally past the final phase in RnD there can't be much more delays.

I've also heard a dummy will be aboard to record the radiation levels in the capsule during its flight.

[tater]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

A3 is required to have a EUS, but seeing as the EUS has finally past the final phase in RnD there can't be much more delays.

No, it doesn't require EUS unless they settle on a mission profile that requires a comanifested payload.

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

I've also heard a dummy will be aboard to record the radiation levels in the capsule during its flight.

There are to be 2 dummies, one with a rad vest, one without to measure exposures.

Huh:

So Orion didn't have life support in October, but they added it since then?

(if it doesn't have flight ready life support running, it's not "all up.")

[ZooNamedGames]

On 2/22/2020 at 6:39 PM, tater said:

No, it doesn't require EUS unless they settle on a mission profile that requires a comanifested payload.

There are to be 2 dummies, one with a rad vest, one without to measure exposures.

Huh:

So Orion didn't have life support in October, but they added it since then?

(if it doesn't have flight ready life support running, it's not "all up.")

The current plan is to use a comanifested cargo, the use of a different platform is undecided.

As far as I'm aware, there will be a functional life support.

[tater]

3 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

The current plan is to use a comanifested cargo, the use of a different platform is undecided.

As far as I'm aware, there will be a functional life support.

NSF seems to think otherwise, and it matches everything I had read before—but again, maybe it changed, though I can't find any reference to such a change being reported.

There is no "current plan" for Artemis III, other than it being for a notional lunar landing. If you claim there is a plan, show us a link to it. What lander are they planning on using? Which component is being carried with Orion as comanifested cargo?

[Barzon]

I'm pretty sure Artemis III is Block 1...

[tater]

4 hours ago, Barzon said:

I'm pretty sure Artemis III is Block 1...

Yeah, I think you are right here. At the very least, there is not a concrete plan yet for any particular use of Block 1B, contrary to what @ZooNamedGames is saying. I'm not saying they could never use it, I'm saying they have no specific plans yet for any cargo it might carry (and if they were talking 20204, they better start bending metal soon, and stop with the powerpoints).