Delta IV vs. Atlas V

On 2 Aug 2003 17:28:21 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

One Heavy mission should be cargo-equivalent to one STS flight,
not counting the mass of the needed orbital maneuvering stage.
With the stage, you would need no more than two Heavies to
replace the cargo of an STS mission.

So you need three Heavies to replace a Shuttle mission. Or two Heavies
and a Medium if they go the capsule route for OSP. This still doesn't
look like much of a bargain. Why not just build another Shuttle?

Add to this satellites have traditionally gotten bigger as time goes on
which will slowly increase the market for these big launchers.

The Heavy launchers can only compete commercially if they are
used to launch two or more satellites at a time.

Same as Ariane 5, which is a money-losing operation with only a single
customer onboard, hence Arianespace's desperate deal with Starsem for
the Soyuz.

The commercial
sat market was interested in Delta IV Heavy at one time (a
single Delta IV-H could put two Zenit or Proton class payloads
into GTO), but costs must now have risen too much to hold their
interest.

With NASA evidently leaning toward Atlas these days (Pluto, GOES), it
will be interesting to see LM's proposal for the OSP launch vehicle.
Atlas V-Heavy may yet see the light of day. And since Atlas V is
evidently coming in somewhat cheaper than Delta IV, it will be
interesting to see if LM tries to challenge Arianespace in the
dual-launch market.

I remain convinced that unless the government bulks up it's
currently thin launch requirements, one of these launchers will
be driven out of business.

It will have to be Zenit 3SL. The U.S. government won't put payloads
on a SeaLaunch no matter how much Boeing tries to persuade them its
really a US launch vehicle (Boeing's word is pretty much worthless
these days) and the Air Force will put enormous pressure on Boeing to
keep Delta IV alive ("kill Delta IV and the next round of tankers will
go to Airbus.") After Boeing's corruption penalties, there is no way
LM's Atlas V will be killed off. That leaves SeaLaunch. That ain't
fair, but such is life.

It will simply cost too much to
keep them flying if each machine only flies two or three times
a year. NASA and OSP may be needed to save one of these rockets.

Zenit is busy with commercial launch business that Boeing has
decided to let slip away. Soyuz and Delta II are both busy
with government launches, but Delta II's days are numbered once
the U.S. Air Force moves it's GPS launches to the EELVs. That
day will arrive in not too many more years.

Will Boeing revive its old Delta IV-Lite concept and gather all of the
Air Force's and NASA's remaining medium-class payloads under the Delta
IV banner? There has to be a point coming soon where maintaining two
production lines (Delta II and Delta IV) is going to be more expensive
than simply launching Medium-class missions on an overpowered Delta
IV. Add in the cost savings from maintaining only one launch facility
at the Cape, and I'm surprised Boeing didn't make that decision a few
years ago. Now that Delta IV is flight-proven, I expect such an
announcement in the near future.

Arianespace made a similar decision years ago vis a' vis Ariane 4 and
Ariane 5, and is now regretting it... bringing in Soyuz to launch
light, one-off payloads. But a Delta IV Medium or Lite is somewhat
smaller than Ariane 5, so the economic difference may be smaller for
Boeing, and the Decatur plant certainly has capacity to spare.

Brian

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 04:04:56 GMT, Brian Thorn
wrote:

On 2 Aug 2003 17:28:21 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

One Heavy mission should be cargo-equivalent to one STS flight,
not counting the mass of the needed orbital maneuvering stage.
With the stage, you would need no more than two Heavies to
replace the cargo of an STS mission.

So you need three Heavies to replace a Shuttle mission.

One thing to remember is that NASA are in their own market, which is
quite separate to the commercial one, where we also know that they
like reusable rockets.

So they could certainly choose to have made a RHLV that can do these
Shuttle replacement cargo launches all at once, but I have a feeling
that they would go with two smaller HLVs in order to increase the
launch rate.

Sure NASA will be making use of the commercial expendable rockets to
begin with, but that is because they don't have their reusable rocket
yet, where even the new engines are not yet complete.

Or two Heavies and a Medium if they go the capsule route for OSP.

That seems likely, but 2012 is an awfully long time to wait. Still by
that time NASA could well stick it on their own reusable rocket
anyway.

I am just wondering if they should stick this OSP on their reusable
heavy anyway, when then you have one rocket instead of two. HLV is
30t, half HLV is 15t and OSP is about 7t.

Go with a 15t launcher and you just need an extra 7t of sometime to
stick on it for a manned flight. That or simply reducing the boosters
and fuel to compensate.

Over capacity seems good to me if they want to go that little bit
further in the future.

This still doesn't look like much of a bargain.

NASA pays for all their ground crew mostly anyway, where in this
situation you are just making more use of them. And certainly smaller
rockets and a smaller and easier manned craft would help to reduce the
size of the ground support.

Why not just build another Shuttle?

As then we would be in exactly the same position that we are in now.

One point is that with a HLV cargo rocket we can blast cargo out of
Earth's gravity well, but you sure as hell won't do that with a
Shuttle #2 attached.

Sure doing that with a reusable rocket is not too helpful, but you
could just schedule such a trip for near the end of the engines life.

Also you do really need to break the cargo from the manned craft, when
all the equipment to support manned and then for the cargo structure
takes up most of the cargo mass. Just like with now.

Cardman.

"Cardman" wrote in message
...
Sure NASA will be making use of the commercial expendable rockets to
begin with, but that is because they don't have their reusable rocket
yet, where even the new engines are not yet complete.

NASA makes use of commercial LVs because it's required by law to use them.
Only payloads that require shuttle capabilities fly on shuttle.

That seems likely, but 2012 is an awfully long time to wait.

Which is why the IOC date has been moved up by two years minimum.

Still by
that time NASA could well stick it on their own reusable rocket
anyway.

NASA won't have a new reusable rocket by 2012.

I am just wondering if they should stick this OSP on their reusable
heavy anyway, when then you have one rocket instead of two. HLV is
30t, half HLV is 15t and OSP is about 7t.

HLV to ISS orbit is NOT 30t without some expensive development work. What
the hell is "half an HLV"? And you're dreaming if you think OSP will come in
at 7t.

NASA pays for all their ground crew mostly anyway, where in this
situation you are just making more use of them. And certainly smaller
rockets and a smaller and easier manned craft would help to reduce the
size of the ground support.

NASA only pays for shuttle ground crew and whatever crew will be required
for processing of the OSPs themselves. Integration and launch of OSPs will
be handled by the launch service provider's launch crew and that will be
factored into the launch service cost.

One point is that with a HLV cargo rocket we can blast cargo out of
Earth's gravity well, but you sure as hell won't do that with a
Shuttle #2 attached.

Depends. Shuttle has launched interplanetaries using IUS. If Shuttle II
(whenever - if ever - that finally appears) has 50K lb capacity, it could
certainly do the job.

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 02 Aug 2003 13:54:09 GMT, "Dholmes"
wrote:

1. 2004 looks like a slow year for Atlas V, but Delta IV
operations become comatose after 2005.

Is that not when they took away 7 launches from Delta and gave them to
Atlas?

Yes, the first switch was for a 2005 launch. But it will probably have
to switch back to Delta IV due to LM's not having a Vandenberg pad
ready in time.

If it is then that will correct itself after 2009 or 2010.

Or much sooner. There are still 10-15 EELV launch contracts due to be
awarded later this year. Boeing will certainly get some of them, all
they have to do to get out of their legal problems is demonstrate that
the corruption has been cleaned up. It appears as though they've
already taken adequate measures to that end.

The simplest solution would be to replace 1 shuttle ISS mission with 2-6
cargo launches from Delta or Atlas rockets

Replace one $500 million Shuttle mission with 6 $150 million Delta
IVs?

The number would depend on what is being launched and how.
The 6 came from a quick calculation using 6 of the smallest Deltas or
Atlases launching equivalents of the Russian Progress craft.
It could easily be a lot less depending on what is being launched.
For example a single 20+ ton part could take just 1 Delta heavy or one
shuttle launch.
One interesting twist would be to use the shuttles solid rocket boosters on
the heavies for extra lift.

"ed kyle" wrote in message
m...
"Dholmes" wrote in message
...

3. Current plans show an average of only about 4 launches per year
for Delta IV and Atlas V combined.

The simplest solution would be to replace 1 shuttle ISS mission with 2-6
cargo launches from Delta or Atlas rockets

One Heavy mission should be cargo-equivalent to one STS flight,
not counting the mass of the needed orbital maneuvering stage.
With the stage, you would need no more than two Heavies to
replace the cargo of an STS mission.

2 heavies require 6 Delta rockets. That would keep the line nice and active.


Add to this satellites have traditionally gotten bigger as time goes on
which will slowly increase the market for these big launchers.

The Heavy launchers can only compete commercially if they are
used to launch two or more satellites at a time. The commercial
sat market was interested in Delta IV Heavy at one time (a
single Delta IV-H could put two Zenit or Proton class payloads
into GTO), but costs must now have risen too much to hold their
interest.

Or if something big comes along to lift say Mars or Luna probes, space
station components, OSP etc.
The Delta especially seems designed to scale up even larger.


4. Both of these rockets cannot survive under existing market
conditions.

They might survive but costs will be higher.
The next size below these launchers like the Zenit, Suyoz and
Delta 2 all seem very active from the lists I have seen.

I remain convinced that unless the government bulks up it's
currently thin launch requirements, one of these launchers will
be driven out of business. It will simply cost too much to
keep them flying if each machine only flies two or three times
a year. NASA and OSP may be needed to save one of these rockets.

Possible but national prestige and military interests require at least one
and probably two.

Zenit is busy with commercial launch business that Boeing has
decided to let slip away. Soyuz and Delta II are both busy
with government launches, but Delta II's days are numbered once
the U.S. Air Force moves it's GPS launches to the EELVs. That
day will arrive in not too many more years.


Zenit and Delta 2 both seem to be maxing out weight wise.
If the Delta 2 gets any bigger it would be competing with Atlas and Delta
base models.
Zenit is limited by it's ship launch.

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On 2 Aug 2003 17:28:21 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

One Heavy mission should be cargo-equivalent to one STS flight,
not counting the mass of the needed orbital maneuvering stage.
With the stage, you would need no more than two Heavies to
replace the cargo of an STS mission.

So you need three Heavies to replace a Shuttle mission. Or two Heavies
and a Medium if they go the capsule route for OSP. This still doesn't
look like much of a bargain. Why not just build another Shuttle?

Politics mostly.
Too old and too expensive. An unmanned version might have a chance.

Add to this satellites have traditionally gotten bigger as time goes on
which will slowly increase the market for these big launchers.

The Heavy launchers can only compete commercially if they are
used to launch two or more satellites at a time.

Same as Ariane 5, which is a money-losing operation with only a single
customer onboard, hence Arianespace's desperate deal with Starsem for
the Soyuz.

The commercial
sat market was interested in Delta IV Heavy at one time (a
single Delta IV-H could put two Zenit or Proton class payloads
into GTO), but costs must now have risen too much to hold their
interest.

With NASA evidently leaning toward Atlas these days (Pluto, GOES), it
will be interesting to see LM's proposal for the OSP launch vehicle.
Atlas V-Heavy may yet see the light of day. And since Atlas V is
evidently coming in somewhat cheaper than Delta IV, it will be
interesting to see if LM tries to challenge Arianespace in the
dual-launch market.

I remain convinced that unless the government bulks up it's
currently thin launch requirements, one of these launchers will
be driven out of business.

It will have to be Zenit 3SL. The U.S. government won't put payloads
on a SeaLaunch no matter how much Boeing tries to persuade them its
really a US launch vehicle (Boeing's word is pretty much worthless
these days) and the Air Force will put enormous pressure on Boeing to
keep Delta IV alive ("kill Delta IV and the next round of tankers will
go to Airbus.") After Boeing's corruption penalties, there is no way
LM's Atlas V will be killed off. That leaves SeaLaunch. That ain't
fair, but such is life.

Possible but you can not really claim Atlas is American built either.
Plus it would be hard bring that kind of pressure.
Especially after China launches later this year.
More likely the US would buy a bunch of Delta 4 rockets maybe put Delta 2
launches on Delta 4 rockets.
Maybe even subsidize moving launches from SeaLaunch to Delta 4.


It will simply cost too much to
keep them flying if each machine only flies two or three times
a year. NASA and OSP may be needed to save one of these rockets.

Zenit is busy with commercial launch business that Boeing has
decided to let slip away. Soyuz and Delta II are both busy
with government launches, but Delta II's days are numbered once
the U.S. Air Force moves it's GPS launches to the EELVs. That
day will arrive in not too many more years.

Will Boeing revive its old Delta IV-Lite concept and gather all of the
Air Force's and NASA's remaining medium-class payloads under the Delta
IV banner? There has to be a point coming soon where maintaining two
production lines (Delta II and Delta IV) is going to be more expensive
than simply launching Medium-class missions on an overpowered Delta
IV. Add in the cost savings from maintaining only one launch facility
at the Cape, and I'm surprised Boeing didn't make that decision a few
years ago. Now that Delta IV is flight-proven, I expect such an
announcement in the near future.

Delta 4 and Atlas 5 even scaled down would be too big and because of this
would IMO still bring no cost saving.
I doubt satellites will all get that big for at least 5-10 years. Also Sea
launch is competitive in this market.
Of course if they decide they really need more Delta 4 then it is possible.



Arianespace made a similar decision years ago vis a' vis Ariane 4 and
Ariane 5, and is now regretting it... bringing in Soyuz to launch
light, one-off payloads. But a Delta IV Medium or Lite is somewhat
smaller than Ariane 5, so the economic difference may be smaller for
Boeing, and the Decatur plant certainly has capacity to spare.

Brian

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 18:50:18 GMT, "Dholmes"
wrote:

Possible but you can not really claim Atlas is American built either.

Yes, you can... and Lockheed-Martin has already done so, with notably
greater success than Boeing Sea Launch. Atlas 5 has some foreign
components (notably the engines) that's a far cry from Sea Launch,
which is entirely foreign except for some marketing by Boeing.

Plus it would be hard bring that kind of pressure.

No, it wouldn't. Boeing needs the US military alot more than the US
military needs Boeing. Boeing already lost the huge JSF contract, now
they've lost the lion's share of the EELV contract. The KC-767 is
still not a done-deal, the V-22 is still listed as day-to-day, and
they really want the Air Force to buy more C-17s, even though that
plane has never lived up to expectations. No, Boeing is in deep, deep
trouble. This definitely is a buyers market, and the Air Force knows
it.

Especially after China launches later this year.

China launching humans later this year will be a non-event, as far as
the US government is concerned. They tweaked the design of Russia's
35-year-old Soyuz, and the first Chinese astronauts will no doubt be
congratulated in orbit by the Russian and American already in orbit.
Nope, it won't even appear on Washington's radar. Sputnik, this ain't.

More likely the US would buy a bunch of Delta 4 rockets maybe put Delta 2
launches on Delta 4 rockets.

Delta 4 and Atlas 5 even scaled down would be too big and because of this
would IMO still bring no cost saving.

Not when you consider Boeing and the Air Force have to maintain four
launch facilities currently... one each for Delta II and Delta IV at
Vandenberg, and one each for Delta II and Delta IV at Cape Canaveral.
Cutting that number in half *must* look interesting, from a cost
standpoint, particularly at that rust-magnet Cape Canaveral. Consider
also that Boeing has to maintain production lines in two different
states, with two completely different armies of employees, and the
economics of transitioning everything to Delta IV only looks better
and better in the future. And when they have their arms twisted to
keep Delta IV in production... no, I don't think Delta II will survive
much longer.

Brian

Brian Thorn wrote in message . ..
On 2 Aug 2003 17:28:21 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

With NASA evidently leaning toward Atlas these days (Pluto, GOES), it
will be interesting to see LM's proposal for the OSP launch vehicle.
Atlas V-Heavy may yet see the light of day. And since Atlas V is
evidently coming in somewhat cheaper than Delta IV, it will be
interesting to see if LM tries to challenge Arianespace in the
dual-launch market.

The LV options considered for Pluto New Horizons were Atlas V 551 and
Delta IVH. IIRC, the 551 has around 75% of the IVH's capability for
Earth escape, and could be used with an earlier launch and longer
trajectory to Pluto. The choice could have been made on schedule
(they could get the spacecraft built in time for the earlier launch
date), and cost (the cost of some extra months of cruise operations is
small change compared to cost difference between the 551 and the IVH).
The biggest IVM+(5,4) has less capability than even the 531, and was
not a viable option.

There was a recent post by Kim Keller on GOES switching from Delta III
to Delta IVM+. Has there been a more recent change to Atlas??

I remain convinced that unless the government bulks up it's
currently thin launch requirements, one of these launchers will
be driven out of business.

It will have to be Zenit 3SL. The U.S. government won't put payloads
on a SeaLaunch no matter how much Boeing tries to persuade them its
really a US launch vehicle (Boeing's word is pretty much worthless
these days) and the Air Force will put enormous pressure on Boeing to
keep Delta IV alive ("kill Delta IV and the next round of tankers will
go to Airbus.") After Boeing's corruption penalties, there is no way
LM's Atlas V will be killed off. That leaves SeaLaunch. That ain't
fair, but such is life.

But SeaLaunch appears to be making money in the commercial launch
market without any US govt customers. It should stay in business as
long as it is profitable. And then there was the recent release in
sci.space.news on "Arianespace, Boeing Launch Services and Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries Announce A New Launch Services Alliance." Since
Boeing is not marketing Delta IV for commercial launches, the only
card Boeing has on the table for this alliance is SeaLaunch.

It will simply cost too much to
keep them flying if each machine only flies two or three times
a year. NASA and OSP may be needed to save one of these rockets.

Zenit is busy with commercial launch business that Boeing has
decided to let slip away. Soyuz and Delta II are both busy
with government launches, but Delta II's days are numbered once
the U.S. Air Force moves it's GPS launches to the EELVs. That
day will arrive in not too many more years.

Will Boeing revive its old Delta IV-Lite concept and gather all of the
Air Force's and NASA's remaining medium-class payloads under the Delta
IV banner? There has to be a point coming soon where maintaining two
production lines (Delta II and Delta IV) is going to be more expensive
than simply launching Medium-class missions on an overpowered Delta
IV. Add in the cost savings from maintaining only one launch facility
at the Cape, and I'm surprised Boeing didn't make that decision a few
years ago. Now that Delta IV is flight-proven, I expect such an
announcement in the near future.

Having GPS launches certainly helped to amortize non-recurring Delta
II production and operations costs over a larger number of launches
with the only other customer being NASA. But let's say the only
customer for Delta II class capabilities in the future will be NASA,
and the number of launches will be 2 or 3 per year (Explorer and
Discovery class missions). Is that sufficient for Boeing to spend
money developing the Lite with the idea to recover that money from
Delta II manufacturing and operations savings? And when will Boeing
see the savings? If it takes 30 launches (throwing out a number here)
to recover the development dollars, that is 10 to 15 years before any
profits.

It appears a tough sell for Boeing to get NASA to fund Delta-Lite
development to reduce future NASA Med-Lite launch costs. The Air
Force had figured that a billion or so up front EELV development
dollars plus procurement and operations costs for X EELV launches will
be cheaper then same X number of Atlas 2AS and Titan 4B launches for
some number X. (There were reliability and responsiveness reasons
also.) There will be some similar number Y for Med-Lite launches, but
NASA may find it difficult to convince Congress to give it a big chunk
of up front dollars for savings that won't come until 10 or more years
later.

IIRC, the EELV-Lite development was originally dropped because not
enough launches of that class were anticipated to make the effort pay
off. I don't see how that has changed.

Arianespace made a similar decision years ago vis a' vis Ariane 4 and
Ariane 5, and is now regretting it... bringing in Soyuz to launch
light, one-off payloads. But a Delta IV Medium or Lite is somewhat
smaller than Ariane 5, so the economic difference may be smaller for
Boeing, and the Decatur plant certainly has capacity to spare.

Arianespace has to try and make money too. Keeping Ariane 4 around
for 1 per year missions was more expensive than going with Soyuz.

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 18:50:18 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Dholmes"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

So you need three Heavies to replace a Shuttle mission. Or two Heavies
and a Medium if they go the capsule route for OSP. This still doesn't
look like much of a bargain. Why not just build another Shuttle?

Politics mostly.
Too old and too expensive. An unmanned version might have a chance.

That would make no sense at all. There's little point to flying a
Shuttle without crew.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 16:31:48 GMT, "Anonymous"
wrote:

"Cardman" wrote in message
.. .
Sure NASA will be making use of the commercial expendable rockets to
begin with, but that is because they don't have their reusable rocket
yet, where even the new engines are not yet complete.

NASA makes use of commercial LVs because it's required by law to use them.
Only payloads that require shuttle capabilities fly on shuttle.

Well I don't know about that, when last I heard they were simply
banned from launching commercial stuff on the Shuttle.

I doubt that is true for a manned launch, when NASA said themselves
that they will use the commercial rockets until they move on to
reusable rockets. They may be commercial reusable rockets though...

That seems likely, but 2012 is an awfully long time to wait.

Which is why the IOC date has been moved up by two years minimum.

Last I heard was that it was revised back by two years, which means
that you may be thinking of the old date.

Still by
that time NASA could well stick it on their own reusable rocket
anyway.

NASA won't have a new reusable rocket by 2012.

Well they are working on the engines right at this minute, where all
they will need is a rocket to attach them to.

That should be done well before 2012.

I am just wondering if they should stick this OSP on their reusable
heavy anyway, when then you have one rocket instead of two. HLV is
30t, half HLV is 15t and OSP is about 7t.

HLV to ISS orbit is NOT 30t without some expensive development work.

I am just quoting Shuttle like cargo capacity, which would fall under
the HLV class.

What the hell is "half an HLV"?

Half capacity of my larger HLV rocket.

And you're dreaming if you think OSP will come in at 7t.

NASA quoted 5 to 7 tons for this project, which seems about right for
a four seater space craft not much bigger than a van.

They have to launch it on one of these commercial rockets you know,
which restricts the launch mass.

NASA pays for all their ground crew mostly anyway, where in this
situation you are just making more use of them. And certainly smaller
rockets and a smaller and easier manned craft would help to reduce the
size of the ground support.

NASA only pays for shuttle ground crew

And by 2012 there will be none of those, when there will be no more
Shuttle. Either 2012 or if another Shuttle is lost.

and whatever crew will be required for processing of the OSPs themselves.

Yes a small crew, but they will need a recovery team to get their
reusable rocket back.

Integration and launch of OSPs will
be handled by the launch service provider's launch crew and that will be
factored into the launch service cost.

I have always had the impression that NASA wanted to do these launches
on their own ground supervised by their own crew. After all a manned
launch is not best left to commercial cost savings.

One point is that with a HLV cargo rocket we can blast cargo out of
Earth's gravity well, but you sure as hell won't do that with a
Shuttle #2 attached.

Depends. Shuttle has launched interplanetaries using IUS. If Shuttle II
(whenever - if ever - that finally appears) has 50K lb capacity, it could
certainly do the job.

And still with a massive overhead for such a large vehicle.

Cardman.