Should launch boost escape be added to unmanned launches?

Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to safely return payloads when possible?

wonder how much extra weight such a system adds? which obviously takes away possible maximum payload

In article ,
says...

Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to
safely return payloads when possible?

For GEO payloads? Not a chance in hell would this be economical. And
if you say "ion engines" I'll say van-allen radiation belts you ignorant
git...

wonder how much extra weight such a system adds? which obviously
takes away possible maximum payload

It's not so much the mass of the reentry shield, it's the mass of the f-
ing fuel and oxidizer needed to de-orbit from GEO! Orbital mechanics
again.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

launch boost escaPE!

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to
safely return payloads when possible?

For GEO payloads? Not a chance in hell would this be economical. And
if you say "ion engines" I'll say van-allen radiation belts you ignorant
git...


To be fair, I read his question as applying to the launch, not once on
orbit.

And I think it's a decent enough question. A very simple metric is if the
mass/cost of the boost escape costs more than the insurance for the
satellite, it's not worth it.

Going a bit further with some SWAG numbers, figure a 1% failure rate, so
your boost escape has to cost roughly 1% of the cost of the satellite.

I'm not a rocket scientist, but that sounds like a very hard number to beat.

Personally I'd rather see money spent on improving launcher reliability.
(just like we don't put parachutes on jumbo jets after one crashes, we fis
the reason it crashed in the first place.)


wonder how much extra weight such a system adds? which obviously
takes away possible maximum payload

It's not so much the mass of the reentry shield, it's the mass of the f-
ing fuel and oxidizer needed to de-orbit from GEO! Orbital mechanics
again.

Jeff

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

In article ,
says...

bob haller wrote:

launch boost escaPE!

tardis shuffle asceNT!

Since Bob refuses to use a real newsreader, we can't even tell what the
hell he's replying to anymore! He's so lazy insert punchline.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to
safely return payloads when possible?

For GEO payloads? Not a chance in hell would this be economical. And
if you say "ion engines" I'll say van-allen radiation belts you ignorant
git...


To be fair, I read his question as applying to the launch, not once on
orbit.

And I think it's a decent enough question. A very simple metric is if the
mass/cost of the boost escape costs more than the insurance for the
satellite, it's not worth it.

Going a bit further with some SWAG numbers, figure a 1% failure rate, so
your boost escape has to cost roughly 1% of the cost of the satellite.

I'm not a rocket scientist, but that sounds like a very hard number to beat.

Personally I'd rather see money spent on improving launcher reliability.
(just like we don't put parachutes on jumbo jets after one crashes, we fis
the reason it crashed in the first place.)


A 1% mass budget (because payload is why a launch provider is charging
money for the launch in the first place), I doubt you could provide a
reasonable "payload escape" system on an expendable, unmanned, launch
vehicle.

And I wouldn't count parachuting into the ocean as "reasonable" for a
payload. All that salt water would destroy a sensitive aerospace
payload, so you'd use up your mass budget just trying to make a payload
fairing tough enough that it could survive a parachute landing in water
while remaining completely water tight. This would be despite the fact
that during launch you want it to vent to the outside, so that you don't
get a pressure build-up inside the payload fairing. Never mind the mass
budget for the parachute, deployment mechanisms, and etc.

This is one area where resuables are an automatic win. Design the thing
from the start to include intact abort modes. Reusable SSTO's have an
edge here (since they're not dropping stages along the way). But, it's
not inconceivable that a resuable TSTO could also have intact abort
modes too.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

In article ,
says...

Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to
safely return payloads when possible?

For GEO payloads? Not a chance in hell would this be economical. And
if you say "ion engines" I'll say van-allen radiation belts you ignorant
git...


To be fair, I read his question as applying to the launch, not once on
orbit.

And I think it's a decent enough question. A very simple metric is if
the
mass/cost of the boost escape costs more than the insurance for the
satellite, it's not worth it.

Going a bit further with some SWAG numbers, figure a 1% failure rate, so
your boost escape has to cost roughly 1% of the cost of the satellite.

I'm not a rocket scientist, but that sounds like a very hard number to
beat.

Personally I'd rather see money spent on improving launcher reliability.
(just like we don't put parachutes on jumbo jets after one crashes, we
fis
the reason it crashed in the first place.)


A 1% mass budget (because payload is why a launch provider is charging
money for the launch in the first place), I doubt you could provide a
reasonable "payload escape" system on an expendable, unmanned, launch
vehicle.

That was my thought exactly. Though, to be fair, you can probably go over
the 1% if the launcher isn't mass constrained.


And I wouldn't count parachuting into the ocean as "reasonable" for a
payload. All that salt water would destroy a sensitive aerospace
payload, so you'd use up your mass budget just trying to make a payload
fairing tough enough that it could survive a parachute landing in water
while remaining completely water tight. This would be despite the fact
that during launch you want it to vent to the outside, so that you don't
get a pressure build-up inside the payload fairing. Never mind the mass
budget for the parachute, deployment mechanisms, and etc.

This is one area where resuables are an automatic win. Design the thing
from the start to include intact abort modes. Reusable SSTO's have an
edge here (since they're not dropping stages along the way). But, it's
not inconceivable that a resuable TSTO could also have intact abort
modes too.

Agreed. Like I say, we expect our airliners to avoid most issues and to
recover from most. We focus on building to that, not on including parachute
recovery systems, etc.

I suspect the folks building the payloads have run the numbers and haven't
found it cost-effective.

But even more so, I think it's a potentially dangerous way of thinking.

In rigging for rescue, often beginners are taught "make sure your belay is
bomb-proof in case your anchor fails". There's value in this.

But really, if possible, you really just want to make sure your anchor
doesn't fail in the first place! (if your belay is better than your anchor,
why not use it as your primary anchor in the first place.) And yes, I've
greatly simplified the decision making process. But I've seen beginners
accept crappy anchors so that they'll have "better" belay anchors. They're
optimizing the wrong value.



Jeff

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

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:17:45 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:

This is one area where resuables are an automatic win. Design the thing

from the start to include intact abort modes. Reusable SSTO's have an

edge here (since they're not dropping stages along the way). But, it's

not inconceivable that a resuable TSTO could also have intact abort

modes too.

Not really. For the shuttle, it was survivable abort and not reuse for the payload.

A resusable TSTO would not have an intact abort modes, for the same reason as there isn't escape systems for payloads. The payload can't take the loads or environment. Nor can the vehicle afford the performance hit

In article ,
says...

On Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:17:45 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:

This is one area where resuables are an automatic win. Design the thing

from the start to include intact abort modes. Reusable SSTO's have an

edge here (since they're not dropping stages along the way). But, it's

not inconceivable that a resuable TSTO could also have intact abort

modes too.

Not really. For the shuttle, it was survivable abort and not
reuse for the payload.

The space shuttle was *an* example of a partially reusable 1.5 stage
launch vehicle (depending on how you count stages). I did say that
"it's not inconceivable" that such a vehicle could have intact abort
modes.

In fact, the shuttle performed at least one "abort to orbit". Depending
on the payload, that might be better than an expendable dropping the
payload in the ocean. Do note that STS-49 successfully captured
Intelsat 603 (left stranded in LEO by a failed Commercial Titan III
launch), attached a new upper stage to it, and successfully sent it on
its way to geosynchronous orbit.

A resusable TSTO would not have an intact abort modes, for the
same reason as there isn't escape systems for payloads. The
payload can't take the loads or environment. Nor can the
vehicle afford the performance hit

It might be asking too much of a "first generation" reusable TSTO to do
more than handle the "abort to orbit" case.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

On Saturday, July 27, 2013 7:01:33 PM UTC-4, bob haller wrote:
Since payloads are growing in size and cost perhaps its time to safely return payloads when possible?



wonder how much extra weight such a system adds? which obviously takes away possible maximum payload

This is a good idea. The best way to capitalize on it is to start your own launch insurance operation and collect premiums for relaunch. You'd make more money with a recovery rocket than the launch provider makes from operating the launcher.

I'd work with a fairing manufacturer because for an unmanned system this is what you'd need deal with.

Look at a Proton rocket, you've got a 5 meter diameter fairing that's 13.3 meters long. The whole apparatus, with fourth stage, and payload is 23,000 kg. You have a conical tip that's 1.8 m tall and 1.82 m diameter at its base. This is a volume of 1.56 cubic meters. So, one can imagine building a conical unit that separates and is recovered. It has an inert mass of 322 kg and carries 1,890 kg of solid rocket propellant. A total of 2,212 kg.. When operated it separates the fairing and payload stack from the third stage and has the ability to impart 200 m/sec delta vee to 23,000 kg and then deploy a parachute to recover the fairing, the payload and the fourth stage (if any). The fairing is equipped with a floatation system that also acts to absorb the shock of landing. The system operates in two phases. One to separate the fairing and payload from the rocket. Another at touchdown to minimize shock to the payload in a manner similar to that developed for the Soyuz capsule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZyb2W2hMUk

The escape rocket is recovered and reused.

During a nominal launch the fairing separates by firing the escape rocket, but in this case only the fairing is released. The fairing along with the escape rocket return to be recovered and reused.

Failures during launch are around 7%. Assuming the risk of the escape rocket reduce this to 1%, and charges are around 10% of the insured amounts, profits increase from 3% of the insured amounts to 9% of the insured amounts.

SO over the next 343 launches of the Proton over a 48 year period we can expect 24 failures. Of these 21 will be recovered without loss.

With an average value of $350 million per payload and a 10% charge for insurance this is $12.05 billion in fees collected at a rate of $251 million per year. Allowing $0.5 million for escape rocket operations per launch and with 7 launches per year, this is $3.5 million per year recurring cost, leaving $247.5 million per year EBITDA. The cost of the fairing redesign, procedural changes in the Proton launch system, testing and so forth, would cost $35 million.

With 7 launches per year;

Total Cost:

Counter-party risk: $350.00 million (retained and reinsured)
Development/Testing: $ 35.00 million (over 36 months less tax credits)
Operations: $ 3.50 million per year (less tax credits)

Revenue:

Premiums: $245.00 million per year (less taxes and costs)


Timing is everything;

Since most campaigns take five to seven years - its possible to begin collecting premiums TODAY for launchers and over the five year period to collect premiums for thirty five launches, or $1,225 million. Since the counter party risk is theoretical it can be sold in the reinsurance market under the right conditions, allowing escape rocket developers to collect the lion's share of this revenue stream.

Value in five years;

The value of $250 million per year is over $4 billion in today's market. So, an investment of $70 million to develop the escape rocket for the Proton and pay for its operation over the first year, combined with a marketing program, working with a fairing manufacturer for the Proton, and a reinsurer in London or Poland, would return several billion in a very short time.

This money could be used to support a return to the moon on the 50th anniversary of Apollo, for 35 astronauts. In fact, $2 million each for this project, with conversion to a moon ticket for the first $40 million earned, would make both programs work!