Boeing to propose D-IV H for VSE

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Aviation Week & Space Technology

Trial By Fire
02/20/2005 01:42:58 PM
By Craig Covault

TRIAL BY FIRE

Boeing is preparing a range of Delta IV Heavy launcher
options for NASA Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and
unmanned cargo transportation architectures to the
Moon and Mars, now that the massive new rocket has
been flight tested.

The Dec. 21 launch of the 232-ft. vehicle on 2 million
lb. thrust marked the largest all-liquid expendable
booster flown since the last Saturn V in 1973. A second
Delta IV Heavy mission is scheduled for this summer
carrying a U.S. Air Force missile warning satellite.
The first launch carried a dummy payload.

Boeing wants NASA to consider the Delta IV Heavy for
manned CEV missions, but is also pushing the Heavy for
unmanned exploration launch roles. One Delta IV Medium
version could also be a CEV player.

Boeing says even modest upgrades could double the
Delta Heavy's Earth orbit capability to more than 50
metric tons, including being able to fire up to 20
metric tons on escape trajectories to Mars.

The current Heavy, like that tested in December, can
already send about 10 metric tons to the Moon, while
modest upgrades could more than double the lunar tonnage.
NASA is asking all exploration program elements to
standardize on metric ton references.

Also among the options are performance upgrades using new
upper-stage engines--including the Pratt & Whitney RL60
and the Mitsubishi/Boeing MB-60.

Allen Thomson wrote:
http://aviationnow.ecnext.com/free-s...ticle=02215top

Aviation Week & Space Technology
Trial By Fire
02/20/2005 01:42:58 PM
By Craig Covault

Lots of good info in this article. The best bits a

1) "The Delta IV is the only launch vehicle that, by
design, sets itself on fire during its ignition sequence."

and:

2) the information that Boeing has added to its catalog
a Delta IV Medium with six solid boosters that will be able
to meet the 20-metric-ton CEV launch mass requirement.
This might be an indication that the company doesn't expect
any more $200 million-a-copy Heavy launches after those
currently planned.

- Ed Kyle

"Ed Kyle" wrote in
oups.com:

Allen Thomson wrote:
http://aviationnow.ecnext.com/free-s...ge=aw_document
&article=02215top

Aviation Week & Space Technology
Trial By Fire
02/20/2005 01:42:58 PM
By Craig Covault

Lots of good info in this article. The best bits a

1) "The Delta IV is the only launch vehicle that, by
design, sets itself on fire during its ignition sequence."

Completely peculiar to the current design of the RS-68;
Rocketdyne might be asked to Do Something About It.

2) the information that Boeing has added to its catalog
a Delta IV Medium with six solid boosters that will be able
to meet the 20-metric-ton CEV launch mass requirement.
This might be an indication that the company doesn't expect
any more $200 million-a-copy Heavy launches after those
currently planned.

Man-rating a Medium D-IV with six solids might be interesting.
The astronaut's office is reported not happy with the prospect.
I wonder if they might go with two larger solids side-by-side.
The Heavy will still have the option of being built as needed,
when needed, and I think that could prove more often than
most do.

Significant payload gains with minimum changes, too. Now if
Boeing can just get the cost of the Heavy down, and keep it
there.

--Damon

Ed Kyle wrote:

2) the information that Boeing has added to its catalog
a Delta IV Medium with six solid boosters that will be able
to meet the 20-metric-ton CEV launch mass requirement.
This might be an indication that the company doesn't expect
any more $200 million-a-copy Heavy launches after those
currently planned.


According to the article, Boeing will be proposing the Heavy for the CEV
manned flights and would only use the augmented Medium+6 and augmented
Heavy for cargo flights. That might be an indication that the company
expects many more of those Heavy launches...

--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com

Reed Snellenberger wrote:
Ed Kyle wrote:

2) the information that Boeing has added to its catalog
a Delta IV Medium with six solid boosters that will be able
to meet the 20-metric-ton CEV launch mass requirement.
This might be an indication that the company doesn't expect
any more $200 million-a-copy Heavy launches after those
currently planned.


According to the article, Boeing will be proposing the Heavy for the
CEV
manned flights and would only use the augmented Medium+6 and
augmented
Heavy for cargo flights. That might be an indication that the
company
expects many more of those Heavy launches...


I didn't see the article saying that Delta IV-M+(x,6) is only
meant for cargo. It says:

"Boeing wants NASA to consider the Delta IV Heavy for manned
CEV missions, but is also pushing the Heavy for unmanned
exploration launch roles. One Delta IV Medium version could
also be a CEV player...."

It is clear that Boeing would prefer to sell the Heavy,
but a 20 ton CEV payload would underuse Heavy. It sounds
like the company has worked out a less costly, fallback
Medium option for CEV launches designed to compete with
the solid-augmented Atlas V designs that Lockheed Martin
will surely propose.

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:

I didn't see the article saying that Delta IV-M+(x,6) is only
meant for cargo. It says:

"Boeing wants NASA to consider the Delta IV Heavy for manned
CEV missions, but is also pushing the Heavy for unmanned
exploration launch roles. One Delta IV Medium version could
also be a CEV player...."


Further down in the article, in the discussion about the requirements
for a human-rated booster.

Boeing is fully aware of the astronaut concerns [regarding man-rating
boosters - ed.], says Jim Harvey, who heads Boeing Launch Services
development and is leading Delta IV exploration studies. "Instead of
a human-rated rocket, Boeing is talking about a 'human-compatible'
launch vehicle," Harvey said. And that approach, coupled with CEV
escape designed in from the start, he said, would make the whole
system human-rated.

Aside from its IV Medium with six solids, Boeing
believes its all-liquid propulsion, with more benign failure modes
than solids, argues for strong consideration of the Delta Heavy for
the CEV role.

The development of health-monitoring capability for liquid engines is
well underway in NASA and industry. Such systems are designed to
discern if a liquid engine is close to a potential failure that would
make separation of a manned CEV less of a challenge.

Upgraded Delta Heavy options do include solids as augmentation to the
three RS-68s, but the options with solids would be for only unmanned
cargos.

Although you have to read between the lines slightly, it's pretty clear
from this that Boeing realizes that solids are a non-starter for manned
boosters due to their possible failure modes.

--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com

Damon Hill wrote:


Man-rating a Medium D-IV with six solids might be interesting.
The astronaut's office is reported not happy with the prospect.
I wonder if they might go with two larger solids side-by-side.
The Heavy will still have the option of being built as needed,
when needed, and I think that could prove more often than
most do.


I got the impression from the article that the Astronaut's office was
plumping for a NASA-developed booster ('Upgrading EELVs "could
potentially be as costly as building a new human-rated booster," said
the Astronaut Office paper').

I guess I'd hoped for a more positive contribution -- let them help
define what the requirements are for the manned booster (and
"designed-in from scratch" doesn't count as a requirement) but even if
the EELVs aren't the least expensive boosters possible, I've got to
believe they're more affordable than *any booster* that NASA could develop.

--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:40:39 -0600, in a place far, far away, Damon
Hill made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Man-rating a Medium D-IV with six solids might be interesting.
The astronaut's office is reported not happy with the prospect.
I wonder if they might go with two larger solids side-by-side.

I think that their consensus preference is a single solid (SRB based).

Reed Snellenberger wrote:

Although you have to read between the lines
slightly, it's pretty clear ... that Boeing
realizes that solids are a non-starter for
manned boosters due to their possible failure
modes.


The customer is always right, but is it a
consensus view at the customer (NASA) that
solids are a no-go? No-solids would shut
out Lockheed Martin's existing Atlas V
models after all.

- Ed Kyle

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 22 Feb 2005 08:27:22 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

No-solids would shut
out Lockheed Martin's existing Atlas V
models after all.


That's one reason why. It would also preclude the desire of some in
the astronaut office for a "single-stick" SRB-based design.

The failure mode they seem most worried about is the sort of
catastrophic case/nozzle failure that have already killed at least one
Delta (@ KSC) and one Titan IV (?, @ VAFB). No warning -- just *blam*
followed by insta-chaff. I imagine it's a pretty difficult abort
problem to solve -- you begin your abort already having given a good
head-start to the blast wave & fragments, rather than just getting away
from a booster that has begun to act up.

I don't think that the SRB-based boosters would have *that* problem,
necessarily. For one thing, an argument could be made that they're
already man-rated in some sense. For another, I would like to think
that the sort of case failure that would represent the same (or similar)
failure mode has been either designed out (over-strength case, different
materials) or quality-assured (x-ray or other testing of the case &
filling) out of them.

It might be possible to give the Atlas & Delta strap-ons the same level
of confidence with some cost & weight penalty -- but you'd have to take
into account that you would probably be using several of the motors and
would have to be (individually) more rigorous in your testing to get the
same level of confidence in the result (a 99%/motor success rate for one
motor is only 94% when you have to use 6 of them).


--
Reed Snellenberger
GPG KeyID: 5A978843
rsnellenberger-at-houston.rr.com