NASA Outsourcing J-2X Nozzle

Times have certainly changed. The US seems unable even to rebuild its
own Saturn/Apollo engine. Rocketdyne it isn't.

- Ed Kyle

"http://www.volvo.com/volvoaero/global/en-gb/newsmedia/pressreleases/#"

"2006-12-14

Volvo Aero in collaboration with PWR and NASA on the return to the moon

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) has selected Volvo Aero to participate
in the early development phase of the nozzles for the J-2X engine,
destined for NASA's new manned launcher ARES I, the successor of the
current Space Shuttle.

PWR has chosen Volvo Aero for its extensive experience in development
and manufacturing of rocket nozzles. The contract may develop into
Volvo Aero's most significant US space endeavor, and it is the first
time Volvo Aero participates in the development of a manned system.

Introduced by President Bush in 2004, the US Vision for Space
Exploration lays out the plans for NASA to develop a successor to the
space shuttle, which is to retire by 2010. The plan includes the
development of a space shuttle that will enable manned travels to the
moon and eventually Mars. The first version of the new system is
expected to be ready in 2014.
PWR was chosen by NASA to develop the J-2X rocket engine. The J-2X
engine builds on the Apollo heritage, and is a derivative of the J-2
engine, which powered the second and third stages of the Saturn 5 moon
rocket. The baseline concept for J-2X includes a nozzle with
significant resemblance to the nozzle Volvo Aero today produces for the
Vulcain 2 engine, propelling the Ariane 5 ECA rocket.

In addition to Volvo Aero's extensive experience, including more than
1000 nozzles flown on Ariane, PWR selected Volvo Aero because of the
technologies Volvo Aero has developed for actively and passively cooled
nozzle extensions in close collaboration with the Swedish National
Space Board (SNSB). The lead theme in the development of new
technologies at Volvo Aero has been to combine as simple as possible
designs with robust manufacturing processes thus enabling a high
reliability at a low product cost.

At Volvo Aero one is convinced that the technologies will be used on
the next generation of rockets. The PWR decision to select Volvo Aero
for the pre-study of the J-2X is yet another acknowledgment to Volvo
Aero that the development efforts, supported by SNSB, have been well
spent money.

"It is very satisfying that our technologies have been recognized by
PWR and NASA. It is our ambition to establish a Volvo Aero presence on
the US space market, and I hope this is the first step in a long
relationship with PWR and NASA", says Olof Persson, CEO at Volvo
Aero.

Roland Rydén, Manager Space Marketing and Sales, US, explains:
"The benefits of our sandwich technology are many. Manufacturing is
based on simple commercial materials, such as sheet metal and forgings,
and standard Volvo Aero core processes with a high degree of process
control. Combined with simplicity in design the result is a safe,
simple and cost effective product."

"The Vulcain 2 film cooling technology was developed on a requirement
from ESA to increase performance at a lower cost. For the J-2X engine
this will enable a light weight design with maximized performance at a
minimum of lead time and cost," he adds.

For more information, Ulf Palmnäs, Marketing Director Space, +46
0520-937 23, cell +46 70 569 04 32, or Staffan Zackrisson, Senior
Vice President Marketing and Programs +46 520 94513.

Free video clips from space propulsion at Volvo Aero are to be found at

http://www.thenewsmarket.com/Assets/...f-2f8ffe57019f

Photos showing Olof Persson and space propulsion at Volvo Aero are
available at
http://www.volvo.com/volvoaero/globa...ia/image+bank/

More facts on the J-2X nozzle

The J-2X nozzle has two components, an upper regenerative cooled nozzle
and a lower film cooled extension.

For the upper part Volvo Aero will propose a sandwich design, the same
technology that was chosen by Pratt & Whitney in 2001 for the RL60
engine. In the RL60 program Volvo Aero managed to concurrently design
and build a sandwich demon nozzle in the record time of 18 months. The
sandwich technology, patented by Volvo Aero, has also been selected by
ESA for a full scale demonstration on the Vulcain 2 engine late 2007.

The lower J-2X nozzle extension will be cooled with a supersonic film
injection of turbine exhaust gases. This is a technology Volvo Aero
developed with great success for the Vulcain 2 engine, and is the only
flight proven super sonic film cooling technology system in the world.
This experience puts Volvo Aero in a unique position and enables a
straight forward development of a similar system for the J-2X engine."

Gene Cash wrote:

"Ed Kyle" writes:

Times have certainly changed. The US seems unable even to rebuild its
own Saturn/Apollo engine. Rocketdyne it isn't.

Wow. That's just sad (and embarrassing) beyond belief.

I guess it's true: we did lose the technology to build Saturns, no
matter how many blueprints are squirreled away.

We can't build J-2s, much less F-1s.

ROTFLMAO.

--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

"Gene Cash" wrote in message
...
I guess it's true: we did lose the technology to build Saturns, no
matter how many blueprints are squirreled away.

We can't build J-2s, much less F-1s.

We certainly could build the J-2X exclusively in the US. The question is,
at what cost? It's up to the US government to decide if it's going for the
lowest bidder, or the lowest bidder in the US. As for this specific case,
it's the nozzle that's being outsourced.

We could also build F-1 engines in the US, but more modern alternatives for
high thrust LOX/Kerosene engines exist. For large LOX/kerosene engines like
the F-1, there is a strong argument that US rocket engine technology has
fallen behind the Russians, but that's old news. Just look at the engine on
the Atlas V first stage.

The real failure in your reasoning is linking the shelving of the Saturn V
with loss of some ability to design and build rocket engines in the US. The
loss of this ability is due to lack of investment (spending) in this area.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

On 20 Dec 2006 19:53:23 -0500, in a place far, far away, Gene Cash
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

The real failure in your reasoning is linking the shelving of the Saturn V
with loss of some ability to design and build rocket engines in the US. The
loss of this ability is due to lack of investment (spending) in this area.

Nope, I'm not linking the shelving of the Saturn V with loss of the
ability to design decent engines.

I'm just commenting on the fact that we can't build engines that we once
could obviously build. And that it's sad.

I personally think we'd have a real problem building a new J-2, no
matter how much money we threw at it.

What a bizarre belief.

The quality, knowledge, and work ethic of the hardware & software
engineers has gone rather down. I don't think we have the management
ability for large projects either.

Again, another bizarre belief, with no supporting evidence.

I was just talking to someone about the distinction between "work code"
and "home code". "Work code" is the minimum effort done strictly to spec
because the project's going to only be around six months if it even gets
off the ground. "Home code" is something you write for your machine at
home or as open source, and it's got the best work you can manage to put
into it.

For example, X-33 was "work code" (as is most of everything Boeing and
Lockheed-Martin put out) and DC-X was "home code"

That's a function of project management and incentives. They are
changeable.

Jeff Findley wrote:

The real failure in your reasoning is linking the shelving of the Saturn V
with loss of some ability to design and build rocket engines in the US. The
loss of this ability is due to lack of investment (spending) in this area.

And, continuing to root cause this, the lack of spending is due to a lack
of perceived benefit from the activity. The big initial US investment
in liquid rocket engine technology was driven by the military, for
nuclear delivery vehicles. After being carried a bit by Apollo,
it largely died away in the 1960s.

Paul

"Gene Cash" wrote in message
...
Nope, I'm not linking the shelving of the Saturn V with loss of the
ability to design decent engines.

I'm just commenting on the fact that we can't build engines that we once
could obviously build. And that it's sad.

I personally think we'd have a real problem building a new J-2, no
matter how much money we threw at it.

Then you're just flat out wrong. The blueprints still exist and there are
J-2 engines you could pull from museum pieces for disassembly and
examination. We could build these engines again, but it would cost a lot of
money to build those exact engines again. Things like manufacturing
techniques would need to be researched and reinvented in a few places since
the actual people who built these engines aren't likely easy to find and
even if you could find them, their memories of what they did 30 to 40 years
ago isn't likely to be very clear.

But what's the point? Building an engine design that dates back to some 40
odd years ago doesn't seem like a great way to make progress.

The quality, knowledge, and work ethic of the hardware & software
engineers has gone rather down. I don't think we have the management
ability for large projects either.

I think you're mistaken. Delta IV and Atlas V seem to be doing fine in
terms of quality and reliability, especially compared with launchers of the
1960's.

I was just talking to someone about the distinction between "work code"
and "home code". "Work code" is the minimum effort done strictly to spec
because the project's going to only be around six months if it even gets
off the ground. "Home code" is something you write for your machine at
home or as open source, and it's got the best work you can manage to put
into it.

For example, X-33 was "work code" (as is most of everything Boeing and
Lockheed-Martin put out) and DC-X was "home code"

You're full of it. DC-X actually flew several times. It's goals were
fairly simple and focus. Show that SSTO was a viable take off and landing
mode for a reusable vehicle and demonstrate that such a vehicle could have
rapid turn-arounds between landing and another flight. It really didn't try
to push the state of the art much, except in how the program was run.
Everything that could be bought off the shelf was procured that way.

What did X-33 do for us? NASA said it proved that we don't have the
technology to build an SSTO. I think that instead it shows that NASA and
the contractor it picked didn't care much about results (flying) as much as
they did about spending money playing in as many new technological sandboxes
as they could on a single vehicle. They were pushing the edge of the
envelope in every major area of aerospace engineering: propulsion,
structures, aerodynamics, and dynamics and control. As a result, it's not
surprising that one of those technologies (specifically the large,
geometrically complex, cryogenic, composite tanks) had trouble during
development preventing the entire program from building a vehicle that could
fly.

Don't point your finger at the engineers when assigning blame for the
failure of X-33. Point your finger at NASA management. X-33 was clearly in
trouble when NASA picked the design that was the most technologically
challenging of the proposals presented by the bidding contractors. And
after that, the way the project was managed by NASA doomed it to failure.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)

On Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:10:10 -0500, in a place far, far away, "Jeff
Findley" made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

What did X-33 do for us? NASA said it proved that we don't have the
technology to build an SSTO.

It went beyond that. They (or at least Art Stephenson) cliamed that
it "proved" that we didn't have the technology to build a reusable
vehicle of any number of stages. Both claims are logical nonsense, of
course.

Gene Cash wrote:

I'm just commenting on the fact that we can't build engines that we once
could obviously build.

No - you are commenting on your (unfounded) *opinion*. You haven't
introduced fact one into the conversation.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Derek Lyons wrote:
Gene Cash wrote:

I'm just commenting on the fact that we can't build engines that we once
could obviously build.

No - you are commenting on your (unfounded) *opinion*. You haven't
introduced fact one into the conversation.

The pertinent fact is that PWR is outsourcing critical J-2X work out of

the U.S. when it could "supposedly" do the work itself in the U.S..
This
channel wall nozzle is not a simple component. Since it was developed
in Europe, PWR and NASA (and the U.S.) won't "own" the technology,
and won't be able to use it or upgrade it at will without forever
sending
more U.S. taxpayer funding out of the country.

Could the U.S. build this engine? I look at it this way. If it could,
it
would. But it isn't. It doesn't matter if the reasons are technical
or
financial. The result is the same, and the facts speak for themselves.

- Ed Kyle

On 22 Dec 2006 16:59:06 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Could the U.S. build this engine? I look at it this way. If it could,
it would. But it isn't. It doesn't matter if the reasons are technical
or financial. The result is the same, and the facts speak for themselves.

That's not a very useful, or intelligent way to look at it. There's
no doubt it *could*, financially. It just thinks that there's no
reason to do so. There is in fact a difference between "could" and
"would." Words mean things.