ULA launch and discussion thread

[YNM]

"to the Moon" ? What do they have in manifest ?

[RealKerbal3x]

21 minutes ago, YNM said:

"to the Moon" ? What do they have in manifest ?

Isn't the Dynetics lander able to launch on Vulcan?

[YNM]

From nasaspaceflight.com it's apparently the Peregrine lander from Astrobotics which will carry various smaller scientific payloads/missions.

But yeah, I'll give them the credit, Vulcan will replace Delta IV as well so it'll be able to loft some hefty things up there. Vulcan Heavy would be a sight to behold...

Edited January 22, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

 

[tater]

Vulcan pathfinder to the Cape:

 

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Making new fairing

 

[StrandedonEarth]

 

[RealKerbal3x]

Methalox FTW.

[tater]

 

[sevenperforce]

I got @torybruno to retweet me!

 

[tater]

I envisage robots stamp and go around the capstan on... Atlas. LOL

 

[StrandedonEarth]

33 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

got @torybruno to retweet me!

Aaand I’m outta likes for today; gee (gee? Like 7gee down to 0.38gee? Hmm) gee, I wonder why.... 

[sevenperforce]

20 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Aaand I’m outta likes for today; gee (gee? Like 7gee down to 0.38gee? Hmm) gee, I wonder why.... 

Me too

[Spaceception]

4 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I got @torybruno to retweet me!

 

That was really catchy

[sevenperforce]

Tory comments (not very convincingly) on a true Vulcan Heavy render:

Of course I had to make an observation:

 

[tater]

That gets Orion to LEO, anyway. Vulcan with no SRBs only gets 10.6t to LEO, about half of F9, so I assume that it doesn't do much better than half FHe.

[mikegarrison]

LOL at this. Musk learned that you can't just strap three single boosters together and call it a "Heavy". I assume ULA is already well aware of this. Loads and dynamics are substantially different.

[tater]

28 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL at this. Musk learned that you can't just strap three single boosters together and call it a "Heavy". I assume ULA is already well aware of this. Loads and dynamics are substantially different.

 

 

[wumpus]

17 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

LOL at this. Musk learned that you can't just strap three single boosters together and call it a "Heavy". I assume ULA is already well aware of this. Loads and dynamics are substantially different.

But it works in KSP!  I think it even works in Realism Overhaul.

And there were plenty of wagging tongues claiming (with certainty) that it couldn't  be done at all.  But after scrapping asparagus staging and an order of money more magnitude (at least) of time and money than originally planned it was made.  Two fairly recent contracts also are paying for a new fairing design to unlock much more of Falcon Heavy's potential (it is currently painfully limited to cargoes no larger in volume than Falcon9).  Falcon Heavy has enough capability that it is sad that they plan to obsolete it so soon. 

I think that Musk has shown drawings of three booster Starship, although no plans have ever been mentioned.  If I were to start designing a followup Super Heavy Booster, I'd certainly look at including side boosters, preferably air-augmented (cost of fuel isn't a consideration *now*, but the way SpaceX is moving, they  could well be there in 20 years or so when such a booster would be flown), this should give delta-v similar to the reused Falcon booster (which is supposed to be similar to the Super Heavy Booster).  The center booster would then be expected to provide considerable more delta-v,  have less thrust, and probably a nozzle design similar to SSME (for sea-level to vacuum operation).  It would be limited to whatever delta-v they could get and still allow a Starship-style return, but without the fancy open-loop cooling. I.e. just fall in a "skydiver position" (preferably a rolling one for uniform heating) that doesn't exceed the max temperature of stainless steel.  Long cross range travel might be needed, or possibly multiple launch sites by then.

17 hours ago, tater said:

Since ULA (like any good military-industrial complex company) never pays for the R&D for the capacity of something like this itself (even SpaceX waited for someone to fund Falcon Heavy fairing redesign mentioned above) it wouldn't be ULA's problem.  It would be NASA's, or more like DoD, Space Force, etc.

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, wumpus said:

I think that Musk has shown drawings of three booster Starship, although no plans have ever been mentioned.

There have been fan renders but I think Musk pretty much responded 'we have no plans to do that'. They're developing orbital refuelling, if they can pull that off they have no need for a 'Starship Heavy'.

Edited February 24, 2021 by RealKerbal3x

[tater]

28 minutes ago, wumpus said:

But it works in KSP!  I think it even works in Realism Overhaul.

The point is that Bruno said it is actually possible, but they don't have a use case.

3 core boosters is not new to ULA, they have launched such a rocket for years. Vulcan is actually probably strong enough for this anyway, as the structure is designed for multiple SRBs already.

Vulcan core thrust is 4900 kN.

Each SRB thrust is 2200 kN.

It can have 2, 4, or 6 SRBs, and they are grouped together on each side. So a cluster of 3 is 6600 kN transmitted into the core. More than the stress from another core stage, in fact.

 

(ULA image)

[sevenperforce]

2 hours ago, tater said:

The point is that Bruno said it is actually possible, but they don't have a use case.

3 core boosters is not new to ULA, they have launched such a rocket for years. Vulcan is actually probably strong enough for this anyway, as the structure is designed for multiple SRBs already.

Vulcan core thrust is 4900 kN.

Each SRB thrust is 2200 kN.

It can have 2, 4, or 6 SRBs, and they are grouped together on each side. So a cluster of 3 is 6600 kN transmitted into the core. More than the stress from another core stage, in fact.

Yep, two extra cores would be the same stress as about four and a half SRBs, so there wouldn't be any problems on launch.

There might be issues before burnout, though. The SRBs have a nominal burn time of 90 seconds, while an additional Vulcan core at full throttle the whole way would burn for much, much longer. I don't know what the propellant load of the first stage is but I'm guessing that the gee-loading on the core at side-booster burnout would be ridiculous.

[tater]

They could possibly throttle down the core or even not start it until some point after liftoff, as Be-4 can start/restart whenever.

Or start all cores, then shut the center core down at some point. Actually, they could shut down 1 Be-4 on each side booster as well if needed to reducing loading.

[Flavio hc16]

42 minutes ago, tater said:

They could possibly throttle down the core or even not start it until some point after liftoff, as Be-4 can start/restart whenever.

Or start all cores, then shut the center core down at some point. Actually, they could shut down 1 Be-4 on each side booster as well if needed to reducing loading.

the problem is the exact opposite, you have very low twr, unless you start doing some monsttruosity and even attach some srbs

Quote

 

 

[sevenperforce]

18 hours ago, tater said:

They could possibly throttle down the core or even not start it until some point after liftoff, as Be-4 can start/restart whenever.

Or start all cores, then shut the center core down at some point. Actually, they could shut down 1 Be-4 on each side booster as well if needed to reducing loading.

Tangentially, I wonder what the BE-4 uses for startups. I believe the BE-3 uses a set of sacrificial solid igniters that have to be replaced after each flight.