Rutan's RASCAL

Anyone seen this yet?:
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/new...s/SSO11014.xml
Sounds almost like the reemergence of the Soviet "Spiral-50/50" system
in an unmanned payload form.

Pat

http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/new...s/SSO11014.xml
Sounds almost like the reemergence of the Soviet "Spiral-50/50" system
in an unmanned payload form.

As far as I could tell from a little quick web searching, Spiral-50/50
was going to be much bigger (in terms of payload capacity and vehicle
size), involve more new technology, and cost a lot more to develop.

Keep in mind that RASCAL is supposed to have only a 75 kg payload and
cost $750,000 per flight.

When I saw that RASCAL article, it made me think of what Pegasus was
originally supposed to be, or taking the concept one step further.
Didn't Pegasus have a goal of rapid launch from the time of payload
delivery (which kind of went by the wayside, I think)? And I don't
know if Pegasus had a specific dollar target, but it was seen as a way
to put a small payload in orbit for a small amount of money.

In article ,
Jim Kingdon wrote:
When I saw that RASCAL article, it made me think of what Pegasus was
originally supposed to be, or taking the concept one step further.
Didn't Pegasus have a goal of rapid launch from the time of payload
delivery (which kind of went by the wayside, I think)?

Rapid launch was a goal for Taurus, but I don't recall explicit mention
of it for Pegasus. (Mind you, it's been a while...)

And I don't
know if Pegasus had a specific dollar target, but it was seen as a way
to put a small payload in orbit for a small amount of money.

And it is... for moderately hefty values of "small". It *has* gotten
substantially more expensive than originally advertised, although the
customer demand is also far less than expected, which just might have
something to do with that.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Henry Spencer wrote:

Rapid launch was a goal for Taurus, but I don't recall explicit mention
of it for Pegasus. (Mind you, it's been a while...)


If it succeeds, RASCAL would give the military NRO and NSA a unique
capability in regards to space access; such a vehicle would be capable
of launching a large number of small satellites onto orbital paths that
would take them over "hotspots" on their first orbit, allowing SIGINT
intercepts from orbit or photoreconnaissance at borderline orbital
heights- with the images being sent down via coded microburst as the
satellite passed back over the U.S. or friendly territory prior to reentry.
It would also allow the launch of large numbers of small military
communications, navigation, or signal jamming satellites in a surge mode
in times of crises, as well as satellite interceptor vehicles in a
direct-ascent mode.
The mission launch rate of once per 24 hours means that a small number
of these aircraft/booster combos could put up stored satellites or
interceptors every few hours in an emergency.
Although such a craft could have scientific or commercial uses, the
funding by DARPA suggests that its use is intended to be primarily
military in nature.

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery writes:
Henry Spencer wrote:

Rapid launch was a goal for Taurus, but I don't recall explicit mention
of it for Pegasus. (Mind you, it's been a while...)


If it succeeds, RASCAL would give the military NRO and NSA a unique
capability in regards to space access; such a vehicle would be capable
of launching a large number of small satellites onto orbital paths that
would take them over "hotspots" on their first orbit, allowing SIGINT
intercepts from orbit or photoreconnaissance at borderline orbital
heights- with the images being sent down via coded microburst as the
satellite passed back over the U.S. or friendly territory prior to reentry.
It would also allow the launch of large numbers of small military
communications, navigation, or signal jamming satellites in a surge mode
in times of crises, as well as satellite interceptor vehicles in a
direct-ascent mode.
The mission launch rate of once per 24 hours means that a small number
of these aircraft/booster combos could put up stored satellites or
interceptors every few hours in an emergency.
Although such a craft could have scientific or commercial uses, the
funding by DARPA suggests that its use is intended to be primarily
military in nature.

The same is pretty much true of Pegasus. What's been limiting that
has been a requirement to use existing ranges for, as I understand it,
range safety reasons. While the airborne launch theoretically
provides for essentially unrestricted launch trajectories, the need to
keep track of it on the way up, and have it fall somewhere other than,
say, a Junior Jugh School in New Jersey if things go wrong, have made
that inherent flexibility moot.
Is there any reason to believe that those artificial requirements
would be modified or lifted for Rascal? I rather doubt it, myself.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Peter Stickney wrote:

the need to
keep track of it on the way up, and have it fall somewhere other than,
say, a Junior Jugh School in New Jersey if things go wrong


They aren't going to live that down for a while, are they? Could have
been worse...could have hit a ski-lift in the Italian Alps...

have made
that inherent flexibility moot.


It's going to use _Soundless Rocket Engines_?!
Oh, excuse me...I thought you wrote "Mook" for a second there. ;-)

Is there any reason to believe that those artificial requirements
would be modified or lifted for Rascal? I rather doubt it, myself.


In times of crisis, the launch restrictions would be put aside, as long
as the booster stages came down over open ocean; it would be a lot
easier (and cheaper) to keep some of these things loaded and ready to go
than a fleet of Lockheed Tristars or B-52's, like Pegasus uses.
Considering the price that Rutan built White Knight/SpaceShipOne at, he
probably will be able to turn RASCAL out at a bargain basement
price...if only the bureaucracy will leave him alone- and not drown him
in paperwork, like the B-2 Stealth Bomber project was.

Pat

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
If it succeeds, RASCAL would give the military NRO and NSA a unique
capability in regards to space access; such a vehicle would be capable
of launching a large number of small satellites onto orbital paths that
would take them over "hotspots" on their first orbit, allowing SIGINT
...
The mission launch rate of once per 24 hours means that a small number
of these aircraft/booster combos could put up stored satellites or
interceptors every few hours in an emergency.
Although such a craft could have scientific or commercial uses, the
funding by DARPA suggests that its use is intended to be primarily
military in nature.

Pat

Wasn't something similar the original motivation behind delta clipper too?
A cheap way to launch the "brilliant pebbles", a huge amount of small
satellites that could intercept soviet ballistic missiles...

Well, this RASCAL thingy maybe wouldn't be _so_ cheap as a true rlv, but
sounds like a more doable compromise. It might have a fast turnaround,
since it doesn't go into orbit, and the expendable parts can be manufactured
for storage with reasonable cost.

Don't know about the aircraft part maintenance then, the flight profile
doesn't seem easy on the engines.

Why are the second and third stages so cheap?
750 000$ per flight, it puts 75 kg to 500 km.
That makes RASCAL about 10 000 $ / kg.

Minuteman is 6 million bucks and Taurus is 20 million.
Taurus only launches 1300 kg to 180 km, making it
about twice as pricey as RASCAL?

With the aircraft you get rid of the fairing and don't have to deal with
drag or aerodynamic stabilization in the expendable part, but does that
help a lot? And of course some deltavee too.

Do you need hundreds of launches before all this makes sense? Well, that
can only be seen when it's been built.


There's a pic of a windtunnel test article at space launch corp's
homepage:
http://www.spacelaunch.com/news_2004_002.asp

Very basic layout, like a concorde on steroids
Earlier concepts had nose intake and less engines, I remember. Seems they
have scaled up. I had some trade study pdf laying around but can't find
it from the internet now... The company also has a project where an f-4
phantom carries some launch vehicle.

But Scaled Composites is doing very well, plastic aircraft flying
mach 3... welcome to the 21st century!

--
tmaja ät cc hut fi

Why are the second and third stages so cheap? 750 000$ per flight, it
puts 75 kg to 500 km. That makes RASCAL about 10 000 $ / kg.

Does anyone know what flight rate (and other assumptions if
known/relevant) that is based on?
http://www.spacetether.com/rascal.html says 10/year.

I'm kind of assuming the cost will end up higher (as Pegasus did
compared with the cost numbers from the early stages of the program),
especially at that flight rate.

meiza wrote:

There's a pic of a windtunnel test article at space launch corp's
homepage:
http://www.spacelaunch.com/news_2004_002.asp

Very basic layout, like a concorde on steroids


Actually a lot more like the original Tu-144 Soviet SST design on
steroids... that had all the jet engines in a single housing.
It's not exactly underpowered looking, is it?

Pat

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Jim Kingdon wrote:
And I don't
know if Pegasus had a specific dollar target, but it was seen as a way
to put a small payload in orbit for a small amount of money.

And it is... for moderately hefty values of "small". It *has* gotten
substantially more expensive than originally advertised, although the
customer demand is also far less than expected, which just might have
something to do with that.

I recently asked a friend of mine at OSC about this. He said the price
increase for Pegasus launches was largely due to lots of extra-cost work
associated with meeting NASA requirements. It seems that the original
Pegasus design and launch-preparation approach was rather less expensive;
back then, NASA was not a major customer, and other customers were more or
less happy with that approach. NASA is now the primary customer for Pegasus,
and they very much want things done their way...the main driver for this
undoubtedly being NASA's unusually strong aversion to risk. (cf. Henry's
past .sig, "When failure is not an option, success can be expensive.")

- Kieran A. Carroll