X-37B

[tater]

59 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Hard to come up with a workable abort system for a spaceplane, though.

Yeah, pulling it off the stack and not having aero forces tear it apart is nontrivial. Unsure what Sierra Nevada Corp is planning.

[Beccab]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, pulling it off the stack and not having aero forces tear it apart is nontrivial. Unsure what Sierra Nevada Corp is planning.

Iirc, they want to put the abort system on the Shooting Star module

[tater]

20 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Iirc, they want to put the abort system on the Shooting Star module

Putting an abort system under it accomplishes the off the stack bit, and could be used with a crew X-37 derivative in a similar fashion, I think the issue is what happens aerodynamically during that event. It has to stay in controlled flight at transonic/supersonic speeds while also being pulled away (lateral as well, I assume) from the launch vehicle.

And just saw this image on twitter:

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by tater

[magnemoe]

50 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, pulling it off the stack and not having aero forces tear it apart is nontrivial. Unsure what Sierra Nevada Corp is planning.

Who is plausible, now avoiding the fairing to rip off your wings ejecting it at max q is harder. 

[Beccab]

26 minutes ago, tater said:

Putting an abort system under it accomplishes the off the stack bit, and could be used with a crew X-37 derivative in a similar fashion, I think the issue is what happens aerodynamically during that event. It has to stay in controlled flight at transonic/supersonic speeds while also being pulled away (lateral as well, I assume) from the launch vehicle.

And just saw this image on twitter:

 

It has the same wrong shade of blue on the USAF logo that Starliner had on its meatball...

[mikegarrison]

Maybe there is a connection there. Maybe that color of blue is used because the pigment is approved for space or something.

[tater]

52 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Maybe there is a connection there. Maybe that color of blue is used because the pigment is approved for space or something.

It's the Boeing shade in both cases I think.

https://brandpalettes.com/boeing-blue-colors/

The official color of Boeing Blue is egyptian blue.

vs the US flag:

 

[DDE]

43 minutes ago, tater said:

It's the Boeing shade in both cases I think.

https://brandpalettes.com/boeing-blue-colors/

The official color of Boeing Blue is egyptian blue.

vs the US flag:

 

And here I was wondering whether model enthusiasts bother with twenty different shades of blue.

Turns out the big boys definitely don't.

[Codraroll]

17 hours ago, tater said:

It really is a pretty remarkable vehicle.

I'd love to see a crew version of it (might need to be bigger).

It'd probably be too big to be attached to the nose of a rocket booster, instead having to ride attached to its side. Maybe even a couple of SRBs would have to be used to give some extra oomph to get it off the pad. But on the positive side, you could put the main booster engines on the spaceplane instead of the main rocket, and recover them after the flight. The "main rocket" would then just be a big empty tank, which could be ditched after every flight without representing too much of an expense.

I think we're really onto something here.

[tater]

The X-37B fits fully inside a F9 fairing, and apparently masses something like 5400kg.  A larger verson could ride on top of F9 or Vulcan easily.

[sevenperforce]

5 hours ago, tater said:

6 hours ago, Beccab said:

Iirc, they want to put the abort system on the Shooting Star module

Putting an abort system under it accomplishes the off the stack bit, and could be used with a crew X-37 derivative in a similar fashion, I think the issue is what happens aerodynamically during that event. It has to stay in controlled flight at transonic/supersonic speeds while also being pulled away (lateral as well, I assume) from the launch vehicle.

In theory you could have a ring of hypergolic abort engines plumbed to the vehicle OMS propellants but mounted on the PAF, and attach the PAF to the upper stage with pyro bolts. Then, in a nominal launch, the fairings are jettisoned at the normal time and the vehicle separates (cutting the plumbing lines) after SECO. In an abort, the pyro bolts all fire to separate the PAF from the upper stage and the hypergolic abort engines push the entire PAF and fairing assembly free of the upper stage.

[kerbiloid]

The plane-like Clipper project and a ring of eight SRB below the "plane".
Normally, they were for the orbit finalization, in abort mode they were a normal pushing SRBooster.

***

The Spiral project had a (single-pilot) capsule and hettisonable mini-doors in the nose top (in the shadow of the nose heat protection, so it's normal).
4 SRB on the heatshield below, two extendable trusses with mini-fins in the ends, and a parachiute to land,

***

As I desctibed before, a radially-jettisonnable cabin seems for me looking good.

Tu-144 has a double window. The cabin front window inside a shroud with its own window, so the pilot is looking through two windows at once.

Spoiler

1. Take a Soyuz-like capsule. Make front windows on top.

2. Put it horizontally. It's a plane cabin.

3. Place the seats inside, looking forward.
Place the chute box at feet (so, occupying the front-down quarter of the cabin).

4. Cut a door below (in in the wall which is now a floor) to access the cabin from the fuselage.

5. (Optional) Cut a hatch in the heatshield to access the cabin from fuselage, too.

6. Attach to the heatshield a ring of SRB. It's the main LES engine.
It's horizontal, coaxial to the cabin.
Leave a tunnel inside to the heatshield hatch.

7. Make a nose shroud with front windows (like on the picture).
Make it conform to the fuselage and streamlined.

8. Inside the shroud and in the SRB ring put two sets of rapid-turn SRBs (like on the vertically launched cruise missiles).

9.  Put it all on a rectangular pod. Put the pod on the floor of the plane.
The pod should have two sets of small SRB engines. One to push it radially up, an opposite one to stop it.

10. Attach tunnels to the hatches.

***

On ejection:

1. The crrew gets fixed in seats.

2. The shroud and the pod get unlocked and prepared for separation.

3. The first set of the pod engines get fired and push the pod radially from the fuselage, together with the cabin, with shroud, and with teh booster.

4. Once the cabin got left the fuselage. the pod separates from it.

5. The second set of the pod engines get fired and push the pod back to its fuselage room, to release the cabin.

Forget the pod.

6. The computer analyzes the cabin orientation and computes the overturn maneuver to rotate it into retrograde position.

7. The first set of the quick-turn engines get ignited and rotate the cabin into the retrograde position.

8. The second set of the quick-turn engines get ignited and stop the cabin rotation in the retrograde position.

9. The LES booster behind the cabin gets ignited and is pushing the capsule up.

10. The LES booster is out of fuel. Separation, retroengines.

The cabin and the shroud are flying up.

11. On top of the trajectory (in zero-G) unlock the shroud and ignite powder charge to push out the cabin.

The cabin slides back from the shroud.

12. Wait.

13, Chute.

14. Land.

Should work in any case from launch to landing, including the hanging in LEO, from the overturned plane falling at maximum speed on minimal altitude.

Edited October 26, 2022 by kerbiloid

[mikegarrison]

22 hours ago, tater said:

The X-37B fits fully inside a F9 fairing, and apparently masses something like 5400kg.  A larger verson could ride on top of F9 or Vulcan easily.

Not sure what year this graphic dates from, but it says the Dream Chaser is planned to be launched to the ISS "in 2021", which now seems a bit unlikely.

[tater]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Not sure what year this graphic dates from, but it says the Dream Chaser is planned to be launched to the ISS "in 2021", which now seems a bit unlikely.

Yeah, I thought it was a useful sense of scale, I wanted a diagram with X-37B and other vehicles to give a sense of how big they might need to make one to be a crew vehicle.

[DDE]

17 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Not sure what year this graphic dates from, but it says the Dream Chaser is planned to be launched to the ISS "in 2021", which now seems a bit unlikely.

One moment, please.

Spoiler

 

[kerbiloid]

If remember, how many years were declared to be the last year of the ISS...

[tater]

 

 

 

[kerbiloid]

Exactly 2.5 years = 30 months.

A round number again.

They are exposing something.

And definitely not metal plates.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

 

 

USAF markings...

How long before SpaceFarce tags it? 

Edited November 12, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mikegarrison]

I think it came back because I told it that we missed it.

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

USAF markings...

How long before SpaceFarce tags it? 

On Wikipedia it says that USAF has retained ownership of the spaceplanes, but USSF is operating the missions.

[mikegarrison]

Quote

One of the experiments, in partnership with the Naval Research Laboratory, involved converting solar power into microwave energy. Another aimed to test the durability of certain materials exposed to space conditions. A third experiment was designed to study the long-term effects of space radiation on seeds, in order to explore crop production and "the establishment of permanently inhabited bases in space."

From a news article on NPR. My emphasis. I continue to believe this is likely the main purpose of these flights.

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Another aimed to test the durability of certain materials exposed to space conditions.

M - Materials.

• delta-phase plutonium-239-gallium alloy (inner sparkplug layer)
  + its plutonium-240/241 and americium parasite impurities
• uranium-233 deuteride (outer sparkplug layer)
  + its uranium-232 parasite impurities
• highly-enriched uranium-235 (tamper/pusher)
• reactor-grade uranium-238/235 (radiation case liner)
• deuterized polyethylene (sparkplug laying and shock barrier)
• metal tritide-deuteride (DT-boosting and neutron tube)
• cesium (neutron source, maybe)
• germanium-impregnated FOGBANK plastic/"aerogel" (radiation channel filler)
• beryllium (pusher/reflector)
• lithium-6 deuteride (fusion fuel, but probably already tested before, cuz just salt)
• tungsten, titanium, stainless steel - in assortment, just as a part of the assembly in whole
• carbon fiber, silicon carbide (cuz spysat film capsules didn't need it for heatshield)
• hafnium carbide, tantalum carbide (as an improvement of the previous item)
• nickel, copper, gold, rhenium (liners, plutonium insulation, tamper admixture)
• PBX-blah-blah-digits super-fine safe explosive (implosive sphere and initiation layer)

Probably, missed something.

In the assembly the materials are shielding each other, so it's not enough to just expose the plates.
And there are no evil Russkies with radiation detectors onboard.

For everything other there is ISS.

Edited November 13, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Scotius]

Meanwhile inside the processing facility door of the cargo bay slowly open, while someone shouts: "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!"

Edited November 13, 2022 by Scotius

[kerbiloid]

... with mad laughter in earphones.

[kerbiloid]

Just some shower thoughts.

 

X-37B flights

Flight	Vehicle	Launch date	Landing date	Launcher	Mission[62]	Duration	Notes
OTV-1	1	22 April 2010 23:52 UTC	3 December 2010 09:16 UTC	Atlas V 501	USA-212	224 days, 9 hours, 24 minutes	First launch of Atlas V 501 configuration First American autonomous orbital runway landing First X-37B flight Landed at Vandenberg
OTV-2	2	5 March 2011 22:46 UTC	16 June 2012 12:48 UTC	Atlas V 501	USA-226	468 days, 14 hours, 2 minutes	First flight of second X-37B Landed at Vandenberg
OTV-3	1	11 December 2012 18:03 UTC	17 October 2014 16:24 UTC	Atlas V 501	USA-240	674 days, 22 hours, 21 minutes	Second flight of first X-37B Landed at Vandenberg
OTV-4	2	20 May 2015 15:05 UTC	7 May 2017 11:47 UTC	Atlas V 501	USA-261	717 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes	Second flight of second X-37B First landing on the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center
OTV-5	2	7 September 2017 14:00 UTC	27 October 2019 07:51 UTC	Falcon 9 Block 4	USA-277	779 days, 17 hours, 51 minutes	First launch of an X-37B on SpaceX's Falcon 9 vehicle
OTV-6	1	17 May 2020 13:14 UTC	12 November 2022 10:22 UTC	Atlas V 501	USA-299	908 days, 21 hours, 8 minutes	Carried most experiments to date First X-37B launch by USSF Longest X-37B mission Landed at Kennedy Space Center

 

Duration sequence.

	days	months			days	months
flight	225	7.5
				rest	92	3
flight	469	15.5
				rest	178	6
flight	675	22.2
				rest	215	7
flight	718	23.6
				rest	123	4
flight	780	25.6
				rest	203	6.8 (7?)
flight	909	30.0

(It was told above about the obviously exposure tests, no need to repeat this here).

We can see a duration pattern.

Flight durations: 7.5 : 15.5 : 23.8 _{(average of 22.2, 23.6, 25.6)} : 30.0 months ~= 1:2:3:4

It looks like they started from ~7.5 month value, and then were adding 8 months on each step.

7.5 + 8 → 15.5 (~= 2 x 7.5) → 23.5 (~= 3 x 7.5) → 30.0 (exactly 4 x 7.5)

The rest time between the first two fights was exactly 3 months long, then it grew up twice, exactly 6 months long.

***

These exact values of the rest (not just the flights) may tell about a continuous series of measurements of the same sample, running not only in flight but also on ground.
Say, a residual radiation or so. 

Twice longer it was exposed in space, twice longer it was exposed and studied on ground, to return it back to orbit in exact time to keep the measurement series uniform.

It's probable also, that the first rest time was shorter just because the sample was not significantly irradiated yet, so it was a calibration experiment and proof of concept.

Though, the sample still looks being the same, and the measurement series continuing.

***

It looks like the third flight should be 23.5 months long (following the numeric sequence, and because the next flight was exactly 23.5), but by the end of the flight something went wrong, so it returned earlier than it was planned.

The rest took exactly 7 months, so the measurements were being continued, but they needed to unplannedly repeat the experiment with 23.5 months.
And they did it, even for the cost of a month-long delay (exactly 7 months of rest instead of exactly 6).

Maybe even the sample has been replaced with a new one, so it took exactly 6 months to ensure that the previous one is not appropriate for further experiments, and a month of a new sample calibration tests.
Maybe just they decided to extend the interflight pause by one month, idk.

After the 23.5 month long flight finished, the next rest was exactly 4 months long.
Probably, the 22.5 and 23.5 months flights brought enough data to avoid repeating the whole interflight measurements again, but in any case the rest time was again exactly integer number of months, 4.

It looks like the problems with the 22.5 months flight were enough significant, so they needed to repeat the 23.5 months test once again, to be sure, and with some extent.

So, the next flight was two months longer (25.6 months), and then they returned to the 7 months rest.

Probably, the problem was considered solved, and the last flight took exactly 30.0 months, so we can presume that the nearly-integer month duration accuracy is a requirement.

***

Now we can presume that the next flight should happen on 12.11.2022 + 7 months ~= in the beginning of Jun 2023, and last for 30 + 7.5 = 37.5 months, so last till late Jul 2026.

If everything goes OK with it, the next flight will happen in Feb..Mar of 2027, and last for 45 months, till 28.11.2030.

Considering the triple-flight 3x22.5 months delay unplanned, we can expect at least a 60 months (i.e. exactly 5 years) flight, and maybe but not necessary a 52.5 month long flight in between.
Though, due to the unplanned delay, the 52.5 will be probably skipped.

So, the end of the experiment can be estimated on 01.07.2031 + 60 months = 01.07.2036.

In July of 2036 the X-37B will finish exposing the thing it carries.

***

And what a strange coincidence:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W93

Quote

W93

 

The W93 is an American nuclear warhead planned to replace the W76 and W88 warheads on United States Navy submarines from 2034. The warhead will be carried on the new Columbia-class submarines^[1] and will use a new aeroshell, the Mark 7 reentry body (RB).^[2] The warhead will be designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory.^[3]

The Mark 7 RB will also used to house the United Kingdom's new warhead, designed in parallel to the W93 and sharing some non-nuclear components.^[4]

Design[edit]

The warhead is expected to incorporate improved safety features such as insensitive high explosives.^[1] The design will be based on previously tested nuclear components and will not require nuclear testing.^[5]

https://armscontrolcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/W93-.pdf

***

So, we can presume that X-37B is exposing a prototype of the future unified W93 warhead, its orbital storage campaign is estimated as 5 years (twice shorter than on the planet, probably due to intensive irradiation and fast fissile degradation).

As it probably weights about 200..300 kg and doesn't have any maneuvering capability, probably a future modification of X-37B (or its ancestor) will be equipped with a sixpack rotary launcher to release the warheads after crosswind maneuver.

Every five years it will be returning to the Earth for servicing and the nuke replacement.

***

This also means that SLS should be ready for active use by 2035, when the military orbital infrastructure will start being built.

The same about Orion and CST-100 as its supply ships (CST for LEO, Orion for HEO stations).

P.S.
Sorries, forgot about the Moon.

To Moon the SLS can fly, too. If have an excessive one.

Upd.
P.P.S.
Of course, they may start using double intervals (especially after reading the KSP forum and realizing that their sneaky plan is revealed), and add 15 months every time, i.e. skip immediately to the 45, then to the 60 month flights.
This will exclude the 37.5 month flight, and finish the studies by  October, 2032.
I.e. again by the 2034 year planned for the W93.

P/P.P.S.
So, it again ensures that all those next-gen "lunar" tech will get actual after 2030, and to the date it's just drifting.
This explains the rather slow progress of lunar tech.
The same about LOP-G. No need in LOP-G-based military modules before the W93 is tested.

Edited December 2, 2022 by kerbiloid