Atlas V Heavy Needs to be Revived

[fredinno]

I think Atlas V needs to be revived, and replace the Delta IV Heavy.

There are numerous reasons I feel this way:

1. Delta IV Heavy costs a fortune, and using the cheaper Atlas CCB as the base for the Atlas V Heavy could reduce costs.

2. There is significant interest in using Delta IV Heavy-class payloads to 2020- with 5 launches scheduled for 2016-2020, and are probably also been contracted.

3. 95% of Atlas V Heavy's hardware has already been flown, and it was supposed to be able to be developed in 30 months, or 2 years and a half. With development starting in January 2016, that would allow for 4 missions for Atlas V Heavy already contracted for Delta IV Heavy.

4. Under the current timeline, Delta IV Heavy has to fly until at least 2023, as that is when ACES comes into existence and allows Vulcan to replace Delta IV Heavy. If we assume there is 1 launch a year for these payloads (which is the average for the Delta IV Heavy so far) then Atlas V Heavy would have a total of 7 launches from 2018 through to its assumed retirement of 2023. This excludes Mars 2020, which is supposed to launch on a Delta V Heavy due to its larger size, but is not yet contracted, and the robotic portion of ARM, which is also supposed to launch on a Delta IV Heavy on the same year. <http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/sls-manifest-phobos-mars-2039/> This would increase the total number of launches to 9.

5. Though Delta IV is only intended remain flying until 2019 by ULA, assuming Vulcan is online on schedule, Atlas V will likely exist for a little longer, at least so that ULA can human-rate the Vulcan for the CST-100 (like the Soyuz-FG vs Soyuz-2). Atlas V Heavy would make use of this extended Atlas V lifetime, that Delta would not have (nominally).

6. Atlas V Heavy is intended to have the same payload capacity as Delta IV Heavy, and is able to act as a drop-in replacement- Falcon Heavy is overpowered for these payloads, as Delta IV Heavy has a payload capacity of 23T, and Falcon Heavy Reusable has a capacity of 29T.

Of course, there is one GAPING problem in this, which is RD-180 consumption. Some of the launches I listed above that Atlas V Heavy could launch are NASA payloads (3 out of 9), but the other 6 would be NROL payloads, which would consume a total of 18 RD-180s. That might be infeasible, but ULA can begin producing those engines at their rocket plants under license, at least until 2023, when their contract expires. Building these engines in the US would also give ULA more time to finish Vulcan, giving them extra breathing room, and allow AR-1 to be a possible decision to be used for Vulcan, rather than BE-4. Not to mention the expensive Delta IV would be able to be completely retired by 2019, allowing large amounts of infrastructure to be shut down and staff be let go, lowering ULA's prices, and making them more competitive.

Edited November 9, 2015 by fredinno

[Kryten]

Almost all Delta IVH launches are national security launches, so this is a complete non-starter.

[fredinno]

Almost all Delta IVH launches are national security launches, so this is a complete non-starter.

I said that the number of Atlas V engines required would be enough to validate building US-made RD-180s, which would solve that problem.

[Kryten]

How? You're talking maybe ten missions before Atlas V retirement, many of which have already been assigned to D-IVH.

[fredinno]

How? You're talking maybe ten missions before Atlas V retirement, many of which have already been assigned to D-IVH.

Did you even read the 1st post I made?

[PB666]

Seriously, and you started a poll also. There are a half a dozen past threads this could have gone under. The general consensus, in a nutshell is no.

[Kryten]

Yes, it didn't change that in any way. You want many many more launches than that to justify a new engine production line, and presumably new design. There's no reason to assume this would even be any faster than BE-4, making the whole thing pointless.

[Bill Phil]

Hmm...

Atlas V is already on death row. And it would just increase the rate of loss of RD-180s.

I don't think it's that good of an idea. Not now.

[fredinno]

Seriously, and you started a poll also. There are a half a dozen past threads this could have gone under. The general consensus, in a nutshell is no.

Well, sorry then.

[fredinno]

Yes, it didn't change that in any way. You want many many more launches than that to justify a new engine production line, and presumably new design. There's no reason to assume this would even be any faster than BE-4, making the whole thing pointless.

Well, my estimates for future Delta-IV Heavy class payloads means that there would be 18 RD-180s that would need to be domestically produced. That would exclude the additional RD-180s needed after 2019 in the case that Vulcan is delayed (which is a very real possibility), if there are more than anticipated required RD-180s- or if Delta IV Medium is retired early, on the introduction of the RD-180 production line in 2018. If we estimate the number of Delta IV Launches for 2018 and 2019 is 2.6- the average of launches for the Delta IV Medium variants since 2010, there would be 5-6 launches for the Delta IV. If we move these from Delta to Atlas, retiring Delta in 2017, that's another 5-6 engines for the RD-180 production line, for a total of 23 engines for an RD-180 production line, at least.

Additionally, for each year Vulcan is delayed (in case something bad happens), 11.5 launches would be needed for a single-core Atlas V, and 1 for the Atlas V Heavy, going by current Atlas V engine consumption patterns, meaning a total of 14-15 engines a year would be needed. However, 2 of the single core rockets are generally civilian, so only 12 would be required in total.

[Sanic]

Falcon 9 Heavy is cheaper by a large fraction, at least that's what's projected. We don't need the Atlas V revived.