In article ,
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On 2018-05-19 07:25, Jeff Findley wrote:

LOL yeah, not much you can do except toss the other US providers some US
Government launches as part of DOD's strategy of having at least two
certified launch providers.

Please enlighten me. Apart from SpaceX, who, of the newbies have an
established and running commercial launch business in USA ?

Blue Origin isn't going to stop until it's successful, but they may, or
may not, be the near term threat. You can't ignore Orbital ATK.

And BTW, why is Orbital ATK not using its Antares rocket for commercial
launches? Did getting 2nd stage contract for ULA's Vulcan entail a no
compete clause? Does the transaction with Northrop Grunman change things?

Antares is a medium launcher. It's really not EELV class (with it's
solid upper stage, it likely isn't suitable for anything but LEO
missions).

That said, Orbital ATK has a much larger EELV class launcher in
development and it looks to be fairly close to actually flying. They're
calling it Next Generation Launch System.

https://www.orbitalatk.com/flight-sy...-vehicles/NGL/

I don't like it due to the use of large solids, but that's Orbital ATK's
wheelhouse so they absolutely will make it work. And due to the need of
DOD to maintain the infrastructure to manufacture large solids (i.e.
ICBMs), they'll buy launches, you can bet on that.

If ULA can't turn around and develop a competitor to Falcon9, then it is
likely they will just buy SpaceX.

Bull****. SpaceX is owned by private investors. Such a feat would be
quite difficult without the support of the investors. It's also
possible there are other legal provisions which would help prevent such
a hostile takeover (so called "poison pills" and the like).

BTW, will ESA respond to SpaceX, or will they stick with Arianne 5?

Ariane chief seems frustrated with SpaceX for driving down launch costs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgRXoL0Vmc

It's finally hitting home and the chief is very salty.

In the meantime, Boeing and Lockheed will lobby themselves to continued
military contracts, finding some feature that their launch vehicles has
that Falcon9 doesn't to justify the exhorbitant pricing.

That will only last so long. They will have to compete with Vulcan
(initially with Centaur, not Vulcan), which will need to be certified
for EELV launches. I'm sure DOD will bend over backwards to help with
this, but even so, it's not going to happen overnight. Meanwhile the
competition isn't sitting still.

Yeah, but partial reuse on a vehicle which still depends on solid
strap-
ons isn't going to be able to compete with Falcon 9 Block 5 and Falcon
Heavy.

partial re-use might yield results similar to the Shuttle with more work
needed to reuse engines. From a hardware point of view, is adding
ability to land very difficult?

It is when you have what Henry Spencer called the "performance uber
alles" mindset. ULA designs their vehicles to be undersized with the
ability to add strap on solids for increased performance. So they've
not got excess performance to work with. They have continued this with
Vulcan, which is not the trade to make if you intend to recover and
reuse the first stage. They've blown it before they've even flown.

Also, they won't reuse Vulcan engines at first. This is something they
"plan" on adding later. Much later apparently.

-Is it hard to give engines ability to ignite multiple times in flight?
-apart from landing legs and fins, is there much more hardware needed
that gave Falcon9 the ability to land?

Depends on the details. ULA hasn't picked a first stage engine yet for
Vulcan. It's no secret they favor the BE-4, but to not anger the
politicians who support the AR-1, they're still waiting to make the
final decision.

to construct New Glenn launch vehicles. It will likely take another 5
years before we'll be able to judge the success of New Glenn.

I know that there is a huge difference between real orbit with payload
and a joy ride that goes up/down.

However, from a re-usability/landing if 1st stage point of view, is New
Shepard pretty much "mission accomplished" and that experience/software
can be transfered to New Glenn ?

Perhaps, but things that are different just aren't the same. When ESA
tried that with the Ariane 4 to 5 transition with their flight software,
they lost the first flight due to the "proven" flight software.

Or in other words, in terms of difficulties/stress/heat, does the
Falcon 9 1st stage experience stresses/heat on re-entry that are
significantly different from what New Shepard experiences?

Night and day. Look at the velocity of a Falcon 9 first stage at engine
shutdown. That's why they need a reentry burn, to reduce the velocity
of the stage so it doesn't burn up.

Jeff
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