Pentagon Enlists Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson To Design a Space Plane

"The Pentagon's premier research division wants to design an
advanced spacecraft that engineers have tried and failed to
build for years. So they've enlisted the help of Amazon
founder Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson, naturally.

No, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has not
lost its marbles; it's just that Branson's Virgin Galactic
and Bezos' Blue Origin companies have technology the Pentagon
needs to reduce the exorbitant cost of space flight."


"DARPA calls its new project the XS-1, for Experimental
Spaceplane. To that end, DARPA has awarded contracts to three
companies: The first is Boeing--which is working with Bezos'
Blue Origin. The second is Masten Space System--which is
paired with XCOR Aerospace. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman has
teamed with Branson's Virgin Galactic."

See:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ce-plane.html#

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014 4:29:17 PM UTC-7, wrote:
"The Pentagon's premier research division wants to design an

advanced spacecraft that engineers have tried and failed to

build for years. So they've enlisted the help of Amazon

founder Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson, naturally.



No, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has not

lost its marbles; it's just that Branson's Virgin Galactic

and Bezos' Blue Origin companies have technology the Pentagon

needs to reduce the exorbitant cost of space flight."





"DARPA calls its new project the XS-1, for Experimental

Spaceplane. To that end, DARPA has awarded contracts to three

companies: The first is Boeing--which is working with Bezos'

Blue Origin. The second is Masten Space System--which is

paired with XCOR Aerospace. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman has

teamed with Branson's Virgin Galactic."

See:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...ce-plane.html#

Anything our DARPA and Pentagon does can be accomplished better and at not more than 10% the all-inclusive cost by civilians and actual competitive accountability.

On Monday, August 11, 2014 6:51:10 PM UTC-4, Robert Clark wrote:
Adapting already existing Falcon 1 or Falcon 9 stages may provide a quick,
low cost approach to producing the DARPA spaceplane:

I don't get why. Why would SpaceX want to set up Masten for a SSTO solution that would compete with their TSTO solution for USAF payloads? There seems to me only two ways that would make sense from SpaceX's perspective and the first is way is very cynical indeed. And that would be, hey, here's an opportunity to unload legacy Falcon 1's on somebody we believe will fail, but at least we can make some quick $$$ off of DARPA's bad investment. The second is less cynical but kinda of anti-thetical to SpaceX and that is, hey, we have no idea how to build a winged lander first stage, but we will provide hardware to Masten and if he can master it, it's obviously better than anything we could engineer so we'll buy him out at the end! Now to my mind it certainly ISN'T clear at all why a winged return booster would be superior to what SpaceX is working on. Not at all. So I don't see the motivation for SpaceX. Why would they want anything to do with this? Why would it not make more sense to offer rides on a Falcon 9R or F9HR (how does F9 stack up vis-a-vis Atlas 5?) to the Dream Chaser team?

In fact I don't understand the DARPA incentive at all given Dream Chaser exists. And more so, not just on paper. Why not explore what it takes to adapt Dream Chaser to a reusable booster rather start over from scratch?

Dave

Dave

In article ,
says...

It's not an SSTO. It's a reusable first stage booster. The upper stage that
actually reaches orbit is supposed to a smaller, expendable rocket. As to
why would SpaceX help with this, I seem to remember hearing that SpaceX
might allow other companies to use their engines.
I can't find a reference where Elon Musk says that now, but there is this
article on TheSpaceReview.com where the writer promotes this:

Is the Merlin engine the workhorse of future spaceflight?
by Stewart Money
Monday, August 16, 2010
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1682/1

This is a tough one. Do you allow your launch vehicle competition to
have access to your engines, which would presumably allow you to take
the lead in the US as pretty much the only company who can produce
largish reusable liquid fueled rocket engines cheaply? Or, do you drag
your feet and do everything you can to disallow it in order to maintain
your lead as the low cost launch provider of medium to largish (and
later larger) payloads to LEO and GEO?

Considering Musk's ultimate goal is to get to Mars, I'm guessing he'll
do whatever is necessary to make SpaceX profitable both in the short
term and the long term. Because more profit means more money to funnel
back into R&D on next generation engines, launch vehicles, recovery
techniques, spacecraft, and etc.

As to whether or not selling engines to the competition is a good thing,
I suppose he'd have to have his business/economics people take a good
hard look at both scenarios along with some engineering input to handle
the "what ifs".

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 Wednesday, August 13, 2014 7:56:52 AM UTC-4, Jeff Findley wrote:
Considering Musk's ultimate goal is to get to Mars, I'm guessing he'll
do whatever is necessary to make SpaceX profitable both in the short
term and the long term. Because more profit means more money to funnel
back into R&D on next generation engines, launch vehicles, recovery
techniques, spacecraft, and etc.

So unlike Tesla, I doubt if we will be seeing Merlin or Raptor patent's being put into the public domain anytime soon.

As to whether or not selling engines to the competition is a good thing,
I suppose he'd have to have his business/economics people take a good
hard look at both scenarios along with some engineering input to handle
the "what ifs".


I suppose they could offer the Merlin-1C for sale. Or maybe Dracos and possibly Super-Dracos for licensed use on a smallish upper stages.

Again tho, my take on this is that SpaceX, at least for the short term, is going to remain a 'vertically' driven, value-add company, rather than a general purpose supplier. At least until commercial space gets established.

Dave

http://www.google.com/patents/US3062482

A 450 kg two person disk with a linear aerospike engine - carrying 300 kg of payload - and 3,500 kg of propellant with a 3.5 km/sec exhaust speed.

Six tanks each 450 kg inert weight containing 4,000 kg of propellant. (Kerosene and LOX)

Four of the six tanks that attach in parallel - two above, two below - accelerate the vehicle to 2.55 km/sec. These four drop off, another two are drained. This adds another 3.28 km/sec - a total of 5.83 km/sec. These two drop. The flying disk then accelerates 6.07 km/sec - bringing the total impulse to 11.90 km/sec. Even after air drag and gravity loss, the ship is capable of orbiting the moon and returning to Earth!

This ship, without any add-on tanks, is capable of attaining 3,000 km

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand...008/RM3752.pdf

You can fly 560 km land, and return without refuelling.

Horizontal check out combined with horizontal drop and launch, would work.


Characteristics

Crew Size: 1. Habitable Volume: 3.50 m3. Spacecraft delta v: 900 m/s (2,950 ft/sec).

AKA: X-20A.
Gross mass: 10,125 kg (22,321 lb).
Unfuelled mass: 7,435 kg (16,391 lb).
Payload: 450 kg (990 lb).
Height: 14.50 m (47.50 ft).
Span: 6.34 m (20.80 ft).
Thrust: 71.19 kN (16,004 lbf).
Number: 1 .

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x20xmew.jpg

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/d/dsoar500.jpg

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/x/x20titn1.jpg

American manned spaceplane. Cancelled 1963. The X-20A Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soarer) was a single-pilot manned reusable spaceplane, really the earliest American manned space project to result in development contracts.

Cancellation in December 1963 came only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight in 1966.

It evolved from the German Saenger-Bredt Silverbird intercontinental skip-glide rocket bomber. Walter Dornberger, former head of Peenemuende, was at Bell Aircraft in the 1950's and developed the Sanger-Bredt concept through various iterations (Bomi and Robo). In typical Pentagon fashion the final development contract went instead to Boeing. Politics resulted in its primary purpose changing during its life (manned space bomber, high speed test vehicle, reconnaissance platform), with the launch vehicles at various times including Titan I, Titan II, and finally Titan IIIC. Cancellation in December 1963 came only one week after the JFK assassination and only eight months before drop tests from a B-52 and a first manned flight scheduled in 1966.

The Dyna-Soar itself would have been developed into more capable versions in 1966. The Dyna-Soar II, III, X-20X, and Dyna-MOWS (Manned Orbital Weapons System) versions which would have run the gamut of missions - orbital supply, satellite rendezvous and inspection, reconnaissance, research, and orbital bombing.

After its cancellation, the Air Force pursued further development of manned spaceplanes through the Prime, Asset, X-23, and X-24 programs, with suborbital launch of subscale lifting body designs. B-52 drop tests of the X-24A and X-24B lifting body designs continued into the mid-1970's. Reportedly there were also black programs leading to suborbital flight and re-entry of a full-size unmanned lifting body patterned after the NASA HL-10. In the end, the Air Force was pressured by the Nixon Administration to accept participation in the space shuttle program in lieu of separate development of their own designs.

The proposed project would develop a manned, winged vehicle that would be rocket-boosted to hypersonic speed at an altitude above 30 km. It would then glide from 10,200 to 40,800 km, depending on the mission. The project was to be completed in three phases:

Dyna-Soar I would be a hypersonic research vehicle, boosted to 100 km altitude and 5.5 km/sec in its first version. This velocity would be increased later in the test program by the addition of a second stage. Range on test flights would be between 1800 and 5500 km. The booster could be powered by two of the high-performance liquid fluorine/hydrazine Chariot motors being developed by Bell. If these were not available in time, alternates would be a single Atlas sustainer engine or the X-15 XLR-99. Air-drop flights of the Dyna-Soar I were expected in March 1963, followed by single-stage booster flights a year later, and two-stage near-orbital booster flights by the end of 1965. This phase would replace the Hywards project and be accomplished in collaboration with NACA.

Dyna-Soar II would be a manned hypersonic reconnaissance vehicle, in replacement of the Brass Bell. This would use production versions of the Phase I hardware to boost the glider to 52 km altitude and 5.5 km/sec. From there it would glide at hypersonic speed over a range of 10,200 km. The pilot would monitor the operation of automated reconnaissance systems, which would consist of a high resolution camera, a side-looking radar, and 'ferret' (ELINT) sensors. Operation of these sensors at high speeds and under conditions of high airframe heating were considered to be a major development issue. The booster was expected to be powered by an Atlas sustainer engine, although use of the Chariot booster was a possibility if it could be developed in time. Dyna-Soar II would begin drop tests in January 1966, followed by boosted tests by the end of 1967. An operational weapons system was to be deployed in mid-1969. This would allow it to replace A-12 reconnaissance planes expected to be vulnerable by that time. If needed, Dyna-Soar II could be equipped with an interim nuclear weapons delivery capability if advances in Soviet development of anti-ballistic missile systems warranted that.

Dyna-Soar III would be a full-fledged manned, hypersonic, global, strategic bombardment and reconnaissance system. It would fulfill the Robo requirement, and require a multi-stage launch vehicle to take it to near-orbital velocity (7.6 km/sec) at 90 km altitude. Temperature loads were expected to be no greater than that for Dyna-Soar II, but the cooling system would be required to operate for a much longer period. A significant technical problem was expected to be achieving he desired 900 m CEP weapons delivery accuracy. First glide flight was expected in January 1970, followed by the first all-up boosted spaceflight in mid-1971. The Dyna-Soar III global weapon system would become operational in mid-1974.

The argument for the weapon system were quite similar to those aired 45 years later. The Air Force was concerned that by the 1970's the ballistic missile would not be able to strike hardened targets with the necessary accuracy. They certainly couldn't hit mobile targets. Boost-glide was a more attractive alternative than air-breathing advanced turbojet or ramjet engines as a B-70 bomber follow-on. A rocket-propelled glider could fly at the entire speed range from Mach 5 to Mach 25 as required by the mission. Air-breathing systems would be much more complex, more difficult to develop, and only operate at lower speeds. Rand Corporation studies indicated anything below Mach 9 could be vulnerable to Soviet air defenses by 1965.

The system also could form the technological basis for further commercial developments. Including ballistic transport vehicles as well as highly reusable stages that are easily returned to their launching point via suborbital flight.

The Dyna-Soar could attack enemy targets from any direction. At its low approach altitude enemy radar systems would only provide three minutes warning of the attack, as opposed to twenty minutes for an ICBM. Unlike a ballistic missile, it could be recalled or retargeted during the mission. On the reconnaissance mission, it could glide over enemy targets between 45 and 90 km altitude, providing better resolution than orbiting satellites at much higher altitudes. The data would be available for analysis within hours of the overflight, compared to having to wait for days for recovery of the capsules from spy satellites. The enemy would also have no warning to conceal its activities, unlike a satellite in its predictable orbit.

The Air Force considered 12 contractors as capable of bidding on the program. Nine vendor teams submitted bids by March 1958. These were broken into two groups: vehicles which would be accelerated to orbital velocity at 120 km altitude and achieve global range by actually being in orbit; and sub-orbital vehicles that would reach near-orbital speed at 90 km altitude and glide around the planet. The proposals may be summarized as follows:

Satelloid Proposals

Republic: Delta wing glider, 7,300 kg mass. Three solid propellant stage booster. Separate 'space-to-earth' 2930 kg missile. Global range.
Lockheed: Delta wing glider, 2,300 kg mass. Modified Atlas ICBM booster.. Sub-global range. Booster judged to be insufficient to achieve either satelloid velocity or global range.
North American: X-15B glider, 6,800 kg mass. Two-place X-15B, boosted by a unique one-and-a-half stage booster with expendable drop tanks for the X-15B. Global range.

Boost-Glide Proposals

Douglas: Arrow-wing glider, 5,900 kg mass. 3 x Minuteman solid stage booster. Suborbital velocity in Phase I using three modified Minuteman stages in parallel. Addition of another stage would give the vehicle orbital capability, although the planned life support system was not designed for sustained flight.
McDonnell: Arrow-wing booster, 5,500 kg mass. Modified Atlas ICBM booster. Suborbital velocity in Phase I.
Convair: Delta wing booster, 5,100 kg mass. Hypersonic aircraft using air-breathing engines. No booster was proposed. Suborbital velocity in Phase I.
Martin+Bell: Delta wing glider, 6,050 kg mass. Titan ICBM booster. Two crew. Capable of orbital velocity in Phase I. Actively cooled airframe.
Boeing+Vought: Arrow-wing glider, 2,950 kg mass. Minuteman stages used as booster. Payload only 230 kg including one crew. Capable of orbital velocity in Phase I. Passively cooled airframe using refractory metals.
Northrop: Delta wing glider, 6,450 kg mass. Hybrid booster - solid fuel burned using a liquid oxidizer, plus an all-liquid core. Suborbital velocity in Phase I.

The evaluation board found the Martin-Bell and Boeing proposals as most attractive, since they offered the entire range of capability from lower-mach boost-glide through orbital velocity in a single vehicle. Bell had five years of Bomi, Brass Bell, and Robo studies behind it and was by far the potential contractor with the greatest expertise in the area. Boeing's concept of a passively-cooled structure was considered superior to the active-cooling of Bell's design if it could be pulled off. Both companies received $ 9 million one-year contracts to refine their designs, leading to a competitive down-select.

During the study period, something extraordinary happened: Boeing's configuration evolved from its original Buck Rogers concept, festooned with fins, to something nearly identical to Bell's glider. Boeing's March 1958 configuration was essentially a tetrahedron; triangular planform with a diamond cross-section. That shape was driven by the desire to eliminate thermal stresses by using a determinate truss primary structure. But Boeing already recognized that the ventral fins were thermally untenable and would have to go. They were driven to a flat-bottomed configuration with distinct wings to reduce heating and improve landability. By the time of the final proposals in June 1959, the competing glider systems were nearly indistinguishable, except that Bell's glider used a more sophisticated double-delta wing, foreshadowing the space shuttle of 15 years later. In a shock move, Boeing was selected for the glider in June 1959.

This was Bell's swan song. The small but innovative company had invested millions of its own money in the Bomi and Dyna-Soar. But Bell was considered more of a prototype house by the Air Force. In World War II they were relegated to production of fighters to be sent to the Soviet Union on lend-lease.. Although they had built the first American jet aircraft and the X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, they had not won a full-scale development contract for a manned aircraft since 1955. Boeing, on the other hand, was the premier builder of SAC's B-52 bombers and Minuteman ICBM's. To compensate it for the loss of the B-70 competition at the end of 1957, it was perhaps considered logical for it to build the successor.

On the other hand the service greatly preferred Martin's booster proposal (Titan I for the suborbital tests, Titan C for global flights). Boeing's vague proposal was to use Atlas-Centaur for suborbital flights, and a booster 'to be determined' for orbital flights. The contract awards for Dyna-Soar, were announced on November 9, 1959. By then the program was had gone down to two phases, and then back to three phases - a suborbital test Phase 1, an orbital test Phase 2, and an operational weapon system in Phase 3.

The selection of the Titan C for the Phase 2 booster was controversial. This was a Titan II booster stage topped by a new liquid oxygen/hydrogen upper stage. Even though Aerojet already had the engine under test in Sacramento, the Eisenhower administration wasn't interested in developing yet another new orbital launch vehicle. There were also elements in the Air Force pushing their Space Launching System family of modular launch vehicles. And there was an Air Force requirement, beyond Dyna-Soar, for development of a large booster for its SLV-4 requirement. This new vehicle would be needed by the late 1960's for launch of ten-metric ton reconnaissance satellites into low orbit and heavy communications, ELINT, and early warning satellites into high orbits. Production of Titan I boosters for Phase 1 was authorized while a decision on the orbital booster was deferred.

The first development contract was not issued until April 1960. While glider development continued at Boeing, the booster kept changing. By January 1961 it was decided to use the Titan 2 instead of the Titan 1 for the suborbital flights. In July 1961 the Air Force recommended production of its visionary Space Launching System for the SLV-4 requirement. The A-388 'Phoenix' variant of the modular booster would provide Dyna-Soar's ride to orbit. This was overturned three months later and the Titan 3 became the heavy-launch vehicle for the USAF. A month later, at the end of 1961, it was decided to dump the Titan 2 sub-orbital phase of Dyna-Soar launches, and use the Titan 3 alone for Dyna-Soar launches.

Meanwhile development of the glider was proceeding well. By the end of 1962 critical design reviews of all major subsystems had been completed. Major breakthroughs had been achieved in high temperature materials and fabrication of parts for the airframe was underway. Delivery of the first Dyna-Soar was to be made by October 1964 and first orbital launch by the end of 1965. While the first glider test would be 14 months later than the original July 1957 schedule, the first orbital flight was expected six months earlier.

Dyna-Soar was seemingly doomed from birth over controversy over its mission and the lack of a strong sponsor. The Eisenhower administration wanted to limit it to suborbital missions (so as not to infringe on the new NASA agency's mission of manned orbital flight). Once Eisenhower was replaced by Kennedy, the catastrophic new Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, began to work his malignant magic. There was no weapons system immediately resulting from Dyna-Soar. Nor did he believe there was any need for the military to waste so much money on an aeronautical research vehicle. The back-and-forth was extremely tedious and can be traced through the chronology below. Suffice to say after reviews, audits, and special studies ad nauseum the project was killed by McNamara in December 1963.

It was replaced by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL), equipped with a Gemini capsule, also launched by a Titan 3 booster. McNamara killed a project in being, with drawing release nearly 100% complete, and the first spacecraft one month away from final assembly. Expenditures were under control and Boeing had already spent $ 253.5 million of its $ 530 million development budget. Captive-carry flights would have begun within the year. In its place was a vague concept not even studied in any detail yet. After six years of development, it would in turn be cancelled in 1969 after wasting $ 1.5 billion. It was a typical example of McNamara's criminally poor judgment.

If Dyna-Soar and the Space Launching System had been completed, the United States would have had by 1965 a modern modular launch vehicle launching a reusable manned spaceplane -- something it now hopes to accomplish with the Delta IV / OSP by 2010. The nation could have been spared the false premise of the shuttle program and had a space station ferry in being by the beginning of the 1970's. It might even have been flying well into the 21st Century, while the Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle were consigned to the trash heaps of history.

Technical Description of the Dyna-Soar

Configuration

The glider had a 72.48 deg straight delta wing with a flat bottom. The aft fuselage was ramped, found desirable to provide directional stability at transonic speeds. It was 10.78 m long, with a wingspan of 6.34 m and a wing area of 32 sq m. The design provided a hypersonic lift-to-drag ratio of from 0.8 to 1.9 at hypersonic speeds. This was sufficient to give it a maximum cross-range of 3150 km. This meant if it had to divert from a planned landing at Edwards Air Force base, California, it could land anywhere from Juneau, Alaska, to Talaro, Ecuador, including any airfield in the continental United States. The Dyna-Soar's unique wire-brush skids allowed it to land even on compacted earth runways as short as 2400 m.

The glider had a design mass of 5,055 kg with a 450 kg return payload for the 3150 km cross-range. This design mass was based on the original expected performance of the heat shield materials. Tests prior to cancellation of the project indicated higher-than-expected emissivity of the heat shield. This meant the flight vehicle could have a mass of 6,400 kg with a return payload of 1800 kg at the 3150 km cross range. This capability was to be exploited in planned follow-on versions.

In orbit the glider remained attached to the third stage of the Titan 3. This transtage was a restartable rocket capable of enormous maneuvers. Before ignition it had a gross mass of 12,250 kg, of which 10,300 kg was storable nitrogen tetroxide/Aerozine-50 propellants. The transtage would fire initially to place the Dyna-Soar in orbit. Available remaining propulsion would depend on the mission initial orbit and glider mass. On a typical mission it was expected the total mass (glider+transtage) orbited would be 12,700 kg, leaving the transtage with 5700 kg of propellants, enough for a single maneuver of over 2 km/sec. Such huge maneuvers would greatly complicate the enemy's ability to predict the overflight path and time of the Dyna-Soar on a reconnaissance, bombing, or satellite interception mission.

The Air Force was especially interested in exploring the possibilities of 'synergistic' orbital maneuver. This would involve the X-20 entering the upper atmosphere, and using its aerodynamic maneuverability to change the orbital plane. The transtage would then boost the spacecraft back into orbit. This would change the maximum plane change from 15.8 deg for the pure propulsive engine burn to 20.3 deg for the 'synergistic' turn.

In the fairing between the glider and the transtage was a solid-propellant abort rocket adapted from the Minuteman third stage. This would be used for aborts during launch to blast the glider away from the booster. On orbit, it could be used for emergency retro-fire in case of a transtage propulsion failure.

Structure

The internal structure of the X-20A was a truss structure of Rene 41 steel. This was designed to compensate for thermal expansion of the hot structure during re-entry. Within the body truss were four bays - forward pilot's compartment, a central equipment compartment, aft equipment bay, and secondary equipment bay.

The upper wing, body, and inside fin surfaces were also of Rene 41. Coated molybdenum was used for the leading edge panels and the lower wing surface. The nose cap was of zirconium. Maximum re-entry temperatures during a maximum lateral range re-entry would 2010 deg C at the nose-cap, 1550 deg C on the wing leading edge, and 1340 deg C on the wing lower surface. The internal structure would stabilize at 980 deg C.

Systems

Avionics

The X-20 would not be controllable throughout its speed range with purely manual controls. Therefore a control augmentation system was provided, which could operate in four control modes, all of them fly-by-wire. A side-arm controller provided pitch and roll inputs while yaw commands were via conventional aircraft rudder pedals. The pilot was able to use these controls for manual flight of the Titan 3C launch vehicle during the boost to orbit, if needed. In space, these controls commanded one of two redundant hydrogen peroxide thruster systems for orientation. During re-entry, the control system operated a mix of thruster and aerodynamic controls until the glider reached a dynamic pressure of 0.68 bar. From that point purely aerodynamic controls were used. The thrusters were shut down and the remaining hydrogen peroxide propellant was pumped overboard. Over 8,000 pilot-hours were spent in X-20 simulators before the program was cancelled. These showed the glider's longitudinal and lateral handling characteristics were rated between good and satisfactory in the speed range Mach 1 to Mach 27.

The inertial navigation system was developed by Honeywell at their Saint Petersburg, Florida facility. It used an adaptation of the inertial measurement unit developed for the Bomarc-B missile and later adapted for the Centaur upper stage. The guidance computer was the same used in the Hound Dog missile. The system was tested in-flight in an F-101B fighter and on a high-speed sled at Holloman AFB. After the X-20 cancellation, the system was tested at extreme speed and altitude in the X-15.

For the re-entry the pilot was provided with a unique 'energy management display' which consisted of a series of transparent overlays on a cathode-ray tube. The system was driven by the guidance computer, which changed the overlays every 300 m/s as the re-entry progressed. Two dots were projected on the cathode-ray tube. One showed the current angle of attack and bank angle of the glider; the other the angles the pilot would have to fly to reach the selected airfield. The overlay included a line indicating air vehicle structural limits to ensure the pilot did not over-maneuver the aircraft. The guidance system could store a maximum of ten airfield locations.

Systems

The internal compartments of the Dyna-Soar were encased in 'water walls' which provided passive cooling. These reduced the 980 deg C re-entry equilibrium temperature of the airframe truss structure to 90 deg C and allowed the pressure shells of the compartments to be of conventional aluminum. Cooling systems in the compartments further reduced the maximum internal temperature to 46 deg C. The pilot compartment was pressurized to 0.5 atmosphere, equivalent to an altitude of 5500 m, but with a mixture of 43.5% oxygen and 56.5% nitrogen. The payload compartment was pressurized at 0.7 atmosphere with 100% nitrogen. The other two bays were not pressurized, but had nitrogen purging systems in the case of fires.

The pilot's compartment housed the inertial guidance system, the flight control system electronics, pilot displays, controls, ejection seat, and gas supplies for windshield cover jettison and landing gear extension. The pilot had a view at all times through two side windows. The three-piece forward windshield was covered by a heat shield during ascent, orbital operations, and re-entry. It was only blown off when the glider had slowed below Mach 6, for use on landing. However tests by Neil Armstrong with a modified F5D Stingray fighter showed landing could be safely made using only the side windows if this failed to jettison. The ejection seat could only be used at subsonic speeds between 1,000 and 130 kph.

The equipment compartment provided just over two cubic meters of volume, to be occupied during flight tests with the 450 kg of the Test Instrumentation Subsystem. This processed and recorded data from 750 sensors that captured glider temperature, pressure, loads, subsystems performance, pilot biometrics, and heat flux.

The aft equipment bay was a narrow compartment containing the liquid nitrogen supply, the hydrogen peroxide propellant tanks, and some power system controls.

The large secondary power bay was dominated by the huge liquid hydrogen tank. This worked with two redundant liquid oxygen tanks to provide propellant for the unique Auxiliary Power Unit that provided 12 kVA 400 cycle AC power for the Dyna-Soar. It also housed the glycol secondary cooling system.

Mission Profile

For the 'single-orbit' test flights, Dyna-Soar would be boosted from Cape Canaveral by the Titan 3C and transtage to 7.53 km/s at 98 km altitude. It would then coast to an apogee of 146 km over South Africa. The transtage would be jettisoned over the Indian Ocean, and the long re-entry glide would continue from there until landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California. For multi-orbit flights, booster cut-off would be only 20 m/s faster and 600 m higher. But then the glider would coast to 183 km altitude, where the transtage would fire to circularize the orbit. After three circuits of the earth, the transtage would fire again over Angola to brake out of orbit, with the return demonstrating the spacecraft's cross range capability and the landing again at Edwards.

Growth Versions

Heavier and more capable versions of the Dyna-Soar were planned to follow on the basic ten-flight program. These could use both refurbished gliders from the basic program and new-build spacecraft. The basic vehicle had the capability for a 450 kg return payload and 300 m/s delta-v capability. Expected improvements were as follows:

Increase to 1,000 m/s delta v capability through improved Titan 3C performance
Increase to 900 kg return payload through glider weight reduction program
Increase to 1700 m/s delta v through introduction of an improved abort rocket and transition section modifications for multi-orbit flight
Increase to a maximum return payload of 1800 kg through improved emissivity of the heat shield. This would correspondingly lower the maximum delta v for the transtage to 1.2 km/s
Use of synergistic maneuver for plane change to reach an equivalent delta v of 2.0 km/s

Following the funded ten-flight test series, the Dyna-Soar could be used in a number of roles. While the space bomber mission was no longer discussed by late 1963, it would be a useful platform for other Air Force missions. The basic X-20A could be modified to accommodate the following payloads:

Addition of a two pilot positions in the equipment bay for rescue or extra-vehicular tests
Installation of alternate packages (high resolution camera/infrared, high resolution side-looking radar, or ELINT) for military reconnaissance missions.
Technology or scientific research payloads, which could be operated or repaired by the pilot if needed
Rendezvous and/or satellite retrieval packages for the SAINT II enemy satellite inspection and nullification mission

Longer-term, the X-20X was a follow-on version for space station ferry missions. The interior of the glider was substantially rearranged to provide for four passenger seats behind the pilot. The aft equipment bay was eliminated and all equipment was moved to the secondary power bay. The abort motor was eliminated. That and the performance improvements listed resulted in substantial space and mass margins for large payloads in a bay in the transition section between the glider and transtage. Grappling arms provided for docking of the entire upper fuselage with a space station.

The X-20 was pushed as an alternate to the Gemini as a space station ferry vehicle in the twilight days of the program. If only it had been accepted, the US would have had a space station and winged ferry vehicle flying before the end of the 1960's.

In article ,
says...

Horizontal check out combined with horizontal drop and launch,
would work.

Yes it "would work" and would likely be accepted by the USAF given their
bias towards long wide expanses of runways instead of smaller pads for
VTVL vehicles.

But, even for the USAF, the bottom line in the current era of shrinking
(or stagnant) budgets should be overall costs. Great strides are being
made in a relatively short amount of time in the VTVL area unlike the
decades upon decades of slow, plodding, "progress" by the HTHL approach.

Time will tell which approach is cheaper overall.

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

Space X could offer launch services to anyone, by providing the first stage booster hat will fly back to launch pad....

The big bloated companies wouldnt even try to compete

On Wednesday, August 20, 2014 12:32:36 AM UTC+12, bob haller wrote:
Space X could offer launch services to anyone, by providing the first stage booster hat will fly back to launch pad....



The big bloated companies wouldnt even try to compete

Putting interface standards out there, for a flyback first stage, and working with a number of second stages made by others (as well as offering their own second stage) would do that.