Reusable Successor To EELV Moving Ahead

"A truly reusable, quick-response launch
system has been an elusive dream of the
U.S. Air Force since the dawn of the space
age, but now the service is taking the first
steps toward a real capability as plans for
a reusable booster system (RBS) come
together.

Dubbed Pathfinder, the demonstrator is a
subscale vehicle aimed at proving the
concept of a vertical-launch-and-horizontal-
landing first stage. Researchers hope to
show that by returning to an aircraft-like
landing and being fully reusable, the system
could cost up to 50% less to launch than
the Air Force's current Evolved Expendable
Launch Vehicle (EELV) family."

See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....p28-449433.xml

On Apr 24, 1:00*pm, wrote:
"A truly reusable, quick-response launch
system has been an elusive dream of the
U.S. Air Force since the dawn of the space
age, but now the service is taking the first
steps toward a real capability as plans for
a reusable booster system (RBS) come
together.

Dubbed Pathfinder, the demonstrator is a
subscale vehicle aimed at proving the
concept of a vertical-launch-and-horizontal-
landing first stage. Researchers hope to
show that by returning to an aircraft-like
landing and being fully reusable, the system
could cost up to 50% less to launch than
the Air Force's current Evolved Expendable
Launch Vehicle (EELV) family."

See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....l/AW_04_23_201....

link no good

On Apr 24, 11:12*am, bob haller wrote:
On Apr 24, 1:00*pm, wrote:





"A truly reusable, quick-response launch
system has been an elusive dream of the
U.S. Air Force since the dawn of the space
age, but now the service is taking the first
steps toward a real capability as plans for
a reusable booster system (RBS) come
together.

Dubbed Pathfinder, the demonstrator is a
subscale vehicle aimed at proving the
concept of a vertical-launch-and-horizontal-
landing first stage. Researchers hope to
show that by returning to an aircraft-like
landing and being fully reusable, the system
could cost up to 50% less to launch than
the Air Force's current Evolved Expendable
Launch Vehicle (EELV) family."

See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....449433.xml&p=1

link no good

Hmm, the link works on my terminal. Should I just
copy/paste the entire article?

In article 75a6f57a-87d8-4e07-ad87-
,
says...

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....p28-449433.xml

From above:
?The big driver is the rocket-back mission,? says Bruce Thieman,
leader of AFRL's Affordable and Responsive Space Access Technology
Transition effort. ?Every launch you do has to go out over the
water, so everybody has to be able to get back to land. So we
have the problem of what to do at the staging point around
Mach 5.5. How do we flip it back while still firing the engine
and how to control the propellant inside the vehicle? So
Pathfinder is going to help us understand the aero-thermal issues
and guidance-and-control problems of doing that flip,? he says.

Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. NASA certainly isn't. I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... :-P

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

In article fc5b63b5-1fc0-44df-895e-
, says...

On Apr 24, 11:12*am, bob haller wrote:

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....449433.xml&p=1

link no good

Hmm, the link works on my terminal. Should I just
copy/paste the entire article?

The link worked fine for me too. I wouldn't worry about it. Bob ought
to be able to find the article on Aviation Week's website. Failing
that, Google ought to be his friend.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article 75a6f57a-87d8-4e07-ad87-
,
says...

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....p28-449433.xml

From above:
?The big driver is the rocket-back mission,? says Bruce Thieman,
leader of AFRL's Affordable and Responsive Space Access Technology
Transition effort. ?Every launch you do has to go out over the
water, so everybody has to be able to get back to land. So we
have the problem of what to do at the staging point around
Mach 5.5. How do we flip it back while still firing the engine
and how to control the propellant inside the vehicle? So
Pathfinder is going to help us understand the aero-thermal issues
and guidance-and-control problems of doing that flip,? he says.

Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. NASA certainly isn't. I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... :-P


I don't know. The USAF is looking for runway landing. We'll see.


Jeff

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:38:06 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:


Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. NASA certainly isn't. I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... :-P

Nope. Reusability was dropped.

Brian

On Apr 24, 9:37*pm, Brian Thorn wrote:
On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:38:06 -0400, Jeff Findley

wrote:
Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. *NASA certainly isn't. *I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... *:-P

Nope. Reusability was dropped.

Brian

It can come back too if enough $$ is paid to congress.

the link now works fine

In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article 75a6f57a-87d8-4e07-ad87-
,
says...

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article....p28-449433.xml

From above:
?The big driver is the rocket-back mission,? says Bruce Thieman,
leader of AFRL's Affordable and Responsive Space Access Technology
Transition effort. ?Every launch you do has to go out over the
water, so everybody has to be able to get back to land. So we
have the problem of what to do at the staging point around
Mach 5.5. How do we flip it back while still firing the engine
and how to control the propellant inside the vehicle? So
Pathfinder is going to help us understand the aero-thermal issues
and guidance-and-control problems of doing that flip,? he says.

Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. NASA certainly isn't. I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... :-P


I don't know. The USAF is looking for runway landing. We'll see.

I'm not too happy about the runway landing, but since they're staging at
a relatively high Mach number (and presumably some distance downrange
from the launch site), the vehicle will need wings to return to the
launch site. Once you stick wings on a vehicle, it's going to be
awfully hard to convince the USAF to not land it on a runway.

The alternative is to stage earlier, at a lower Mach number, and/or use
for an initial trajectory that's more vertical. This makes return to
the launch site and vertical landing easier. The trade is a less
"efficient" trajectory for the first stage and puts more of a burden on
the upper stage to be more efficient. As an engineer, I'd make this
trade in order to replace wings and (horizontal) landing gear with
vertical landing gear.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

In article , bthorn64
@suddenlink.net says...

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:38:06 -0400, Jeff Findley
wrote:


Good thing that SpaceX and the USAF are taking a sane approach to
resuability of the first stage. NASA certainly isn't. I wonder if
today's flavor of SLS will include "reusable" SRB's... :-P

Nope. Reusability was dropped.

That's what I thought. Hopefully they'll still try to recover at least
some of them for inspection. Otherwise, a Challenger like failure can't
be predicted.

Just because a rocket stage works several times in a row, doesn't mean
it isn't close to failure. Reusability means that inspections are done
after each flight. Dropping expendable stages in the ocean generally
means inspections are rarely, if ever, done.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker