United Launch Alliance considering reusing the engines of their rockets?

[DerpenWolf]

Just watched a live stream of United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno at a Stanford University event. It sounds like they are considering just reusing the engines by bringing them down on parachutes as they are pretty much the most expensive part of the rocket and easier to bring down than the entire thing. He didn't talk much about it and we can really be certain what they are going to do quite yet but sound like this could be very interesting to see develop. Also sounds like they will be releasing info on their next generation of spacecraft in April.

Thoughts?

Edited February 5, 2015 by DerpenWolf

[Scotius]

Yup, Elon Musk IS a trendsetter in space industry Now everyone can feel SpaceX breath on their necks, and are frantically scrambling to get some of the reusability cake for themselves. Good

[architeuthis]

When details emerged about ULA and Blue Origin partnership on a replacement for the RD-180 for the Atlas 5 first stage I was initially confused. Th BE-4 is supposed to use a LNG/LOX staged combustion cycle. This cycle has a lot of inherent technical difficulties and logistical complications, however LNG has less of a coking problem than RP-1 and thus should be intrinsically easier to reuse but is only low-cryogenic, avoiding the logistic nightmares of a LH2 system. It seems telling to me that the only other people in the world pursuing this technology are at SpaceX, with their enormous Raptor engine.

[B787_300]

it is not a bad idea and they actually did a white paper on it a while back

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/EELVPartialReusable2010.pdf

and

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/PartialRocketReuseUsingMidAirRecovery20087874.pdf

if you want to read more.

The issue was that the RD180 is cheap so there is little benefit in the extra cost and weight of recovering it and refurbishing it vs just buying a new one

[Airlock]

Slightly off-topic, but obligatory. Tory's been doing Q&A on Twitter.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Airlock

[SubzeroSpartan7]

They might be cheap but they are developing a replacement because from what I understand Russia will no longer supply the engines if the Atlas V is used as a launch vehicle for military spacecraft. This is highly unfortunate for ULA but hopefully the BE-4 will have some sort of ad carafe to it. As Scotius already mentioned it will be LOX and LNG. Will have to see how that goes.

[GoSlash27]

it is not a bad idea and they actually did a white paper on it a while back

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/EELVPartialReusable2010.pdf

and

http://www.ulalaunch.com/uploads/docs/Published_Papers/Evolution/PartialRocketReuseUsingMidAirRecovery20087874.pdf

if you want to read more.

The issue was that the RD180 is cheap so there is little benefit in the extra cost and weight of recovering it and refurbishing it vs just buying a new one

That's the million dollar question (no pun intended)

How much do you really save by refurbishing an engine as opposed to the costs involved in making it possible? Wouldn't it just be cheaper to junk it and buy a new one?

Best,

-Slashy

[Rakaydos]

That's the million dollar question (no pun intended)

How much do you really save by refurbishing an engine as opposed to the costs involved in making it possible? Wouldn't it just be cheaper to junk it and buy a new one?

Best,

-Slashy

Depends on how long you intend to use it for. (the marginal cost of development gets relatively smaller the more times you use it)

It also matters if you're actually trying to make it easy to refurbish, which the shuttle was... not. A flyback booster doesnt need to replace hundreds of tiny foamed-glass tiles every launch, for one, and designing an engine for reuse is another.

[78stonewobble]

They might be cheap but they are developing a replacement because from what I understand Russia will no longer supply the engines if the Atlas V is used as a launch vehicle for military spacecraft. This is highly unfortunate for ULA but hopefully the BE-4 will have some sort of ad carafe to it. As Scotius already mentioned it will be LOX and LNG. Will have to see how that goes.

Wasn't that more of an american political decision? Tho understandable.

[GoSlash27]

Depends on how long you intend to use it for. (the marginal cost of development gets relatively smaller the more times you use it)

It also matters if you're actually trying to make it easy to refurbish, which the shuttle was... not. A flyback booster doesnt need to replace hundreds of tiny foamed-glass tiles every launch, for one, and designing an engine for reuse is another.

Raykaydos,

Yeah, I get all that, but even so... what's the cost savings of refurbishing a rocket over buying a new one? Is that more or less than the cost of jumping through all these hoops to get the engine back?

Best,

-Slashy

[SubzeroSpartan7]

Wasn't that more of an american political decision? Tho understandable.

Partially. Congress had been pushing for an American version of the RD-180 for a while. But Russia made the statement that they would no longer supply the engines after the thing in Ukraine.