Ariane 5 launching Orion

[Canopus]

Before most Threads got deleted i came up with the idea to use Ariane 5 as an optional launch vehicle for the Orion MPCV and

it turns out that someone had the exact same thought!

I think its good idea not only for international collaboration, but it would also allow the Ariane 5 to finally complete on of its original goals, to send humans into space!

Though in guiana they would have to build a launchpad near the ocean in the case of a launch abort.

[BossSquirrelz]

Ariane 5 would get Orion into LEO. But the space launch system is designed for deep space missions. Sorry to stop your party.

[Canopus]

The Ariane 5 me that is in development is able to send the Orion on a translunar trajectory.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Canopus

[K^2]

Ariane 5 falls just short of delivering Orion to LEO, actually. Ariane 5 ES does 21T to LEO. Orion is almost 22T. Of course, Orion has its own reserve of delta-V, more than sufficient to make up for the difference, but having seen last launch of the Dragon, I would not really trust a launch system that can't put you into a stable parking orbit. So then you'd have to dump some of the fuel out of the Orion to make it light enough to make LEO on Ariane 5 ES. Again, there will still be enough fuel left to rendevous with ISS and deorbit, but only just.

So the big question is why? Do we really need ability to launch Orion to ISS on Ariane 5 this badly? I can understand if this was the only way to get to ISS, but the SLS is specifically being designed so that lighter versions can be used as backup vehicles to ISS, and Soyuz and Falcon will continue commercial operations.

Edit: 5 ME has already been delayed more than once, and even without other delays it will take a long while before it is ready for manned flights.

[Canopus]

Are you sure? I mean its not the current version of the Ariane and why would they conduct such a study then?

I have still hope for a manned Ariane 5 maybe with the Crew Transfer Vehicle.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Canopus

[BossSquirrelz]

Once again, Orion MPCV and SLS are planned for asteriods, mars, and the moon.

[Canopus]

I know that but still thank you.

[Rune]

Orion could be lofted to space on a number of launchers, actually Arianne V might not be the best. Mainly, because it is launched from french Guiana, and that's not designed for astronauts. We could sell you some to launch from the cape, but I think it would be easier to use an Atlas/Delta, those pads are already built and the rockets are capable enough.

As to launching Orion farther... well, I wouldn't launch it anywhere else unless it is part of a stack with decent living space, and then why wouldn't you use a proper in-space stage? Ideally, a refuelable one so you can reuse most of the hardware in the next mission. No matter what NASA tries to sell you, Orion is a pretty standard capsule, and that's no way to head into deep space. A decent return vehicle and LEO taxi, but not a proper deep space vehicle.

Rune. Dragon would make a better Orion than Orion anyhow.

[Canopus]

Of course they would have to build a special launchpad but that can't be that hard.

[Temstar]

Sending an Orion to the ISS would be a tremendous waste of money and only something to be done on last resort. The reason why Orion is so expensive, both to develop and to fly is because it's a spacecraft specifically designed for long duration deep space missions. Sending one up just for a LEO mission would waste all that already-paid-for deep space capability.

In fact after the Moon landings NASA looked at the Apollo CSM and decided that was inappropriate to continue to fly this moon capable spacecraft just for LEO missions and was considering developing a Block III CSM optimised for LEO. Instead of that huge SPS the new SM would use much smaller engines derived from LEM engines with the extra weight used for cargo. The only reason Block III didn't go ahead was because they couldn't even get the funding for that and all they could do was use up their stockpile of Block II CSMs and Saturns.

[Canopus]

Sorry but i'm not talking about sending it to the ISS.

Tough a smaller and more lightweight Orion for LEO sounds interesting too.

[Rune]

Sending an Orion to the ISS would be a tremendous waste of money and only something to be done on last resort. The reason why Orion is so expensive, both to develop and to fly is because it's a spacecraft specifically designed for long duration deep space missions. Sending one up just for a LEO mission would waste all that already-paid-for deep space capability.

In fact after the Moon landings NASA looked at the Apollo CSM and decided that was inappropriate to continue to fly this moon capable spacecraft just for LEO missions and was considering developing a Block III CSM optimised for LEO. Instead of that huge SPS the new SM would use much smaller engines derived from LEM engines with the extra weight used for cargo. The only reason Block III didn't go ahead was because they couldn't even get the funding for that and all they could do was use up their stockpile of Block II CSMs and Saturns.

The reason Orion is so expensive is because it is 90% pork, and has been in development for a long, long time. It is NOT designed for a deep space mission, because it has no radiation shelter and very limited living space. The size of the propulsion system has nothing to do with it. Apollo used that big engine because that big engine was designed to push a much bigger spacecraft from the surface of the moon on a direct return, and that's what they had at the time (time was an important factor).

Orion is meant for a short one-week jaunt to the moon, and optionally as return vehicle on larger interplanetary stacks. That's not deep space, that's Apollo redux.

Rune. Don't drink the coolaid.

[Kryten]

I think you'll find that's the definition of deep space. The main source of the cost of orion is the very high designed lifespan for most of the systems; even while inactive and hooked to external power, existing craft can only do a few months safely.

[Rune]

I think you'll find that's the definition of deep space. The main source of the cost of orion is the very high designed lifespan for most of the systems; even while inactive and hooked to external power, existing craft can only do a few months safely.

Well, Soyuz has managed six months for a few decades now. So will Dragon. So does pretty much every vehicle that docks or has ever docked to the ISS, some even more (how long do ATV's stay docked providing propulsion? It's slipped my mind at the moment). And going to the moon... maybe NASA calls that deep space, but to me it's the backyard, and only requires a few days' travel. And the endurance is mostly limited by how long you can store hypergolics safely, not the "lifetime of the systems". Commercial sats manage to run their systems for decades, and those are off-the-shelf. Yeah, they are currently resizing the life support for longer flights. Big deal, where is the radiation shelter for when a flare comes your way? Where is the living and storage space to actually perform a long-duration missions? Those are the marks of a deep-space vehicle.

And the HUGE cost of Orion (what is it, 5 billion and counting in the most optimistic accounting?) comes from it starting to pay engineer's salaries at Lockheed way back when the Constellation program was started in the Bush administration. So far they have a structural test article to show for it, some mockups and little else. Lots of paper and video, though. Should I tell you how much has SpaceX (for example) designed and built in the meantime, and at what cost?

Rune. Pork, I tell you.

[Aladran]

Falcon Heavy 9, will surely be able to do the job better, and it's almost ready for service!

[Kryten]

The Moon is for one, single, test flight. Whether that's far enough into space for you is irrelevant, it's never intended to go back there. Six months is nowhere near enough for the operational missions orion will be doing, and in all likelihood it'll have much less e.g. power available than something docked at the iss.

[Nibb31]

Of course they would have to build a special launchpad but that can't be that hard.

It is immensely costly. Not only a launchpad, but either a whole new VAB or a lot of conversions to the VAB, which might not be compatible with SLS. It would also need with new fuel handling and storage facilities, because Ariane doesn't use the same rocket fuel as US launchers, and a new crew escape infrastructure... Why would they do all those conversions? What would the flight rate be for an Orion on Ariane that would justify the investment?

If they really wanted to launch Orion to LEO on something else than SLS, then there is Delta IV Heavy. The installations already exist and it will have been tested during the OFT-1 flight.

But ultimately, there is no reason to launch an Orion to LEO, except for maybe a single emergency contingency flight where lives are at risk and for which cost is irrelevant. In that case, they will launch it with whatever they have available, which would be an SLS.

So your idea might look cool on a powerpoint slide, but it has absolutely no merit and serves no actual purpose.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Nibb31

[Canopus]

Sorry Nibb but the article said nothing about going into LEO only and it would also be launched from Guiana, but i understand your point.

May i ask what the crew escape infrastructure is?

Edited April 29, 2013 by Canopus

[Nibb31]

Well, Soyuz has managed six months for a few decades now. So will Dragon. So does pretty much every vehicle that docks or has ever docked to the ISS, some even more (how long do ATV's stay docked providing propulsion? It's slipped my mind at the moment). And going to the moon... maybe NASA calls that deep space, but to me it's the backyard, and only requires a few days' travel. And the endurance is mostly limited by how long you can store hypergolics safely, not the "lifetime of the systems". Commercial sats manage to run their systems for decades, and those are off-the-shelf. Yeah, they are currently resizing the life support for longer flights. Big deal, where is the radiation shelter for when a flare comes your way? Where is the living and storage space to actually perform a long-duration missions? Those are the marks of a deep-space vehicle.

And the HUGE cost of Orion (what is it, 5 billion and counting in the most optimistic accounting?) comes from it starting to pay engineer's salaries at Lockheed way back when the Constellation program was started in the Bush administration. So far they have a structural test article to show for it, some mockups and little else. Lots of paper and video, though. Should I tell you how much has SpaceX (for example) designed and built in the meantime, and at what cost?

Rune. Pork, I tell you.

I agree that it's pork, but at least it keeps the engineering capability alive. With no manned space program, you would have thousands of unemployed aerospace engineers, and after a few years, you will have lost the skills and the technological edge to restart a manned program even if you wanted to.

Compared to a LEO crew taxi, Orion has extra shielding and a beefier heatshield which is capable of Mars return velocities. It is designed for longer flights (21 days) and longer in space storage (Soyuz is rated for 6 months docked at the ISS, which makes it unsuitable for a Mars flight for example). The long duration flights are made possible because of consumable storage space, but also mundane things like a toilet or a galley, which the COTS taxis don't have.

It can't perform any missions on its own though. It is designed to be attached to a Deep Space Habitat for anything worthwhile. Unfortunately, there probably won't be any budget left for a DSH once SLS is up and running.

[Nibb31]

Sorry Nibb but the article said nothing about going into LEO only and it would also be launched from Guiana, but i understand your point.

May i ask what the crew escape infrastructure is?

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/09/future-pad-escape-options-slidewires-roller-coasters/

Guiana doesn't have the infrastructure to support manned flight. You would have to redesign the existing pad (interrupting the current launch schedule) or build a new pad for the manned launches. You need a new launch tower, crew preparation facilities (accomodation, medical infrastructure, suit preparation infrastructure...), and the aforementioned launch escape systems.

You would also need to man-rate the Ariane. Although early designs were for manned vehicles, Hermes was cancelled in 1992 and Ariane design turned towards unmanned commercial flights. The redundant systems and safety provisions for manned launches were removed and would have to be redesigned from scratch.

Ariane V doesn't have the payload capability to launch Orion to anywhere else than LEO. I don't know how you figured that Ariane could launch an Orion to the Moon. The future Ariane 5 ME will have a LEO payload of 23.5 tons, which is approximately the mass of a fully-fueled Orion, so it won't be going anywhere without a second launch and a rendez-vous in LEO with an EDS and a third launch with a mission module.

Edited April 29, 2013 by Nibb31

[Canopus]

You mean like this?

[Nibb31]

Yeah, I guess that's pretty much what it would look like.

[Rune]

The Moon is for one, single, test flight. Whether that's far enough into space for you is irrelevant, it's never intended to go back there. Six months is nowhere near enough for the operational missions orion will be doing, and in all likelihood it'll have much less e.g. power available than something docked at the iss.

Actually, Orion was intended to perform two lunar flights a year, and that drove the whole design process. Remember Constellation? Changing the name to MPCV does not change the design. And as I already told you, endurance is a matter of rating, and mainly driven by the endurance of the hypergolic fuel lines. Power is completely irrelevant, since you switch everything off when you turn it into dormant mode. Not that any deep-space vehicle would lack power anyway, each person needs about 2 kW in life support for long flights.

It can't perform any missions on its own though. It is designed to be attached to a Deep Space Habitat for anything worthwhile. Unfortunately, there probably won't be any budget left for a DSH once SLS is up and running.

There. That's my whole point. Orion is not a deep space vehicle. It hasn't got the consumables, it hasn't got the liveable space, it hasn't got the radiation protection for it. It depends on some "yet-to-be-designed" actual deep space vehicle (hab+propulsion stage, bonus points if you have enough heatshield for aerocapture), and only serves the purpose of crew delivery and crew return. Dragon can do that, since its heatshield is also capable of high velocity reentry. Rating a Dragon for long endurance in space is pretty much trivial if you manage to get fuel lines that don't corrode over the desired time, and the toilets aren't going into the capsule anyway. And Dragon weights half as much. Same goes for Soyuz, or Shenzhou, only the crew numbers and weights are different, which is the only reason I'm comparing it with Dragon mainly. Never forget Soyuz was also designed for lunar missions, BTW.

Rune. And if you plan to do regular flights to interplanetary space, you'd better stop the whole thing back in LEO and then you don't need the heatshield (or, in fact, the whole capsule) anyway.

[Nibb31]

Deep Space in NASA-speak is anything beyond the Van Allen belt. The Moon is Deep Space, and Orion is designed to go there. Dragon or the Shuttle were not.

Your Deep Space exploration vehicle is the DSH. The Orion is needed as a lifeboat for the DSH.

But yeah, I agree with you that the whole SLS/Orion project is wonky. I would have rather preferred to see a reusable exploration vessel (DSH attached to a SEP tug) that would brake into LEO and use a COTS taxi for crew transfer. The whole plan of staging exploration missions from EML-1 or EML-2 sounds more like a justification of Orion than an actual mission requirement. A bit like the modular ISS design (or space station Freedom) was a justification for the Shuttle rather than a rational way of building a space station.

But at any rate, you still need a deep space capsule with high-speed reentry capability and high delta-V for abort modes in case something goes wrong with your star cruiser and it fails to insert into LEO on its way back. I don't think Dragon has that capability, or at least it wasn't designed for it in COTS. Orion is one component of a larger system. The problem is that with SLS it is the only component with an actual budget.

[Rune]

Again, and I'm starting to think you guys don't read: Dragon's heatshield was designed for Mars return reentry velocities from the start (including the cargo version used on COTS). At a fraction of the cost the traditional contractors were asking for, for an inferior product (read up on how PICA-X came into existence, lots of help from the NASA technical library, and much more ingenuity and cost control). And if something goes wrong with your "star cruiser" while you are very far away, the heatshield is no issue: you will die for lack of consumables or a solar flare before you reach Earth, be it in Orion or in Dragon. As a side note, even Soyuz's heatshield is (or at least was at some point) capable of reentry from lunar trajectory, and there's not much difference between the two. But let's keep on comparing american products.

As to NASA's definition of deep space (which itself changes all the time), Orion is still incapable of most of it: How would you feel about sitting in an Orion for, say, a year in geostationary orbit? Because your chances of not frying yourself to death would be slim. But you would probably die of hunger first anyway. Orion can do lunar missions on its own, and that is trusting no inconvenient solar flare happens during the mission (a non-zero fatal possibility). Period. Just like Apollo, but with seven people.

The original Orion's service module propulsion was designed for lunar return, so I won't buy that it is "necessary for abort modes". Those abort modes are fantasies to justify the project, the weight of Orion itself and the artificial requirement of launching on a SLS poses greater risks to the overall mission. And the actual service module that ends up flying is going to be built in Europe anyway, so actually Orion is basically only a capsule with no propulsion system, attached to an European ATV. Dragon has a huge advantage there with its integrated LES running on hypergolics. And its gonna end up costing, what, less than a fifth of what Orion has spent to date? Perhaps half if they have huge cost overruns late in development? I hope keeping the engineers at Lockheed happy and fed is worth it, I will keep on thinking there were more productive ways of spending their time.

Rune. For boops sake, the crewed version of Dragon is supposed to land propulsively on land with chutes only as backup. In what way is Orion superior, again? The bathroom?