News Stratolaunch

Fabri91

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Thunder Chicken

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Boy, they sure are keeping the animations department busy, aren't they :lol:

Great ideas, crazy (meant in a good way) visions, and deep pockets. It's all good, but I hope SpaceX doesn't trip over its shoelaces while looking too far ahead. I think they need to get their heads down, get humble, and get well-practiced in the art of putting dumb rockets into orbit cheaply. They have had some successes, some failures - they need some more experience before they start acting on Elon's dreams.

NASA and the Russians have been in the game for over half a century and they haven't put together anything as crazy as SpaceX is suggesting. That isn't a reflection on their intelligence or capability, but on the difficulty of the task of just getting stuff upstairs into orbit.
 

T.Neo

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Wow, what a surprise. It does look like something out of a NuSpace fanboy's dreams though...

Also, Mike Griffin. This can't end well...

NASA and the Russians have been in the game for over half a century and they haven't put together anything as crazy as SpaceX is suggesting. That isn't a reflection on their intelligence or capability, but on the difficulty of the task of just getting stuff upstairs into orbit.

Difficulty isn't the only reason entities like NASA don't try this. There is only so much funding to go around, and there are other considerations, too.

But the concept is pretty similar to Orbital's Pegasus rocket. In fact, it looks very vaguely similar... the difference however is that pegasus is far smaller, and is a solid fueled system rather than a large liquid fueled one. The mothership seems to be a pretty interesting (read: usual) Rutan design, incorperating the twin-hull configuration seen in WhiteKnight Two as well as minor asymmetry.

This sort of air-launch stuff isn't really new, see the t/Space concept of operations. Also airlifted by a Scaled Composites aircraft, though there are many differences:

 
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T.Neo

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Also: Falcon 5 is seemingly back from the dead!
 

T.Neo

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A couple of things/questions I see;

1. 1300 nautical miles from the launch site. Based on very rudimentary observations in Google Earth, shouldn't that be enough for a non-doglegged polar orbit if staged from KSC?

2. Where do they keep the LOX? The stuff boils off constantly and you need to keep it topped off. Also, isn't keeping the propellants inside the LV tanks during liftoff and cruise a safety risk?

3. The animation is just an animation, but; where is the nozzle extension on the second stage? Maybe this vehicle doesn't need the nozzle extension to reach its target performance? How does that affect payload to higher orbits?

4. Are the astronauts supposed to stay inside the Dragon all the way through to launch? Isn't that a safety risk? Or perhaps logistically problematic?

5. Can this thing even carry a crew Dragon? Griffin stated "capacity to launch a six person vehicle into space"- does this mean that Dragon is stripped down/has its capabilities reduced when part of this system, or that it lost a passenger in capability somewhere along the road?

6. There's a graphic showing this thing with a payload fairing, and it is only a graphic, and at an odd angle... but it looks narrower than the F9 fairing. Is SpaceX supposed to develop a new fairing for this?

7. Part of the idea is supposedly not to be tied to traditional launch sites, but they speak about launching from KSC. Isn't that a traditional launch site? Maybe they mean it from more of a geographic point of view than an economic/logistical one.

8. Maybe a whole other rationale behind this is to develop a huge aircraft for an air cargo market?
 
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MaverickSawyer

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A couple of things/questions I see;

1. 1300 nautical miles from the launch site. Based on very rudimentary observations in Google Earth, shouldn't that be enough for a non-doglegged polar orbit if staged from KSC?

2. Where do they keep the LOX? The stuff boils off constantly and you need to keep it topped off. Also, isn't keeping the propellants inside the LV tanks a safety risk? Maybe the propellants are stored within the aircraft and only loaded right before launch.

3. The animations is just an animation, but; where is the nozzle extension on the second stage? Maybe this vehicle doesn't need the nozzle extension to reach its target performance? How does that affect payload to higher orbits?

4. Are the astronauts supposed to stage inside the Dragon all the way through to launch? Isn't that a safety risk? Or perhaps logistically problematic?

5. Can this thing even carry a crew Dragon? Griffin stated "capacity to launch a six person vehicle into space"- does this mean that Dragon is stripped down/has its capabilities reduced when part of this system, or that it lost a passenger in capability somewhere along the road?

6. There's a graphic showing this thing with a payload fairing, and it is only a graphic, and at an odd angle... but it looks narrower than the F9 fairing. Is SpaceX supposed to develop a new fairing for this?

7. Part of the idea is supposedly not to be tied to traditional launch sites, but they speak about launching from KSC. Isn't that a traditional launch site? Maybe they mean it from more of a geographic point of view than an economic/logistical one.

1. yep.
2. What if they use that new MLI that you found recently? that should help.
3. probably an oversight.
4. That's a very good question. :hmm:
5. Maybe it can't haul a fully crewed Dragon. Maybe it's only a partial crew.
6. It shouldn't be that hard to design a new fairing.
7. Using KSC or Vandenburg makes sense from a logistical standpoint. How many airports do you know of with access to RP-1 and/or LOX?
 

T.Neo

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2. What if they use that new MLI that you found recently? that should help.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought... but could it be available for use in the timeframe for this thing?

3. probably an oversight.

I think it'd be a pretty big oversight, since the expansion nozzle is pretty... big.

Maybe it would pay to delve into the history of Falcon 5, which started with dual Kestrels and ended up using a MVac.

5. Maybe it can't haul a fully crewed Dragon. Maybe it's only a partial crew.

But what is the mass reduction you achieve by removing a single crew member?

6. It shouldn't be that hard to design a new fairing.

It's a payload fairing! Surely it's got to be pretty expensive to develop a new one, though Mr Allen is fitting the bill...

7. Using KSC or Vandenburg makes sense from a logistical standpoint. How many airports do you know of with access to RP-1 and/or LOX?

But where are the RP-1 and LOX facilities at RWY-33? Those sorts of things may exist elsewhere in the immediate vicinity, but that doesn't mean much if they're not at the runway itself.

What about other considerations that could be required by this system?

Maybe SpaceX is involved because they're actually inept at operating their launch infrastructure... this could eliminate that problem for them, in this case. :shifty:
 

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This reminds me of a very interesting US Air Force air-launcher study that I read a while back. It mentioned super White Knight style carrier aircraft and SpaceX liquid rockets, among others. I'll try to find it...

Found it! (pdf)
 
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anemazoso

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Watched the live press conference via livestream. Pretty funny to see Griffin and SpaceX on the same team.

I don't think this concept will ever beat the F9 if/when it is fully reusable, heck even partially reusable would still beat Stratolaunch price. That huge aircraft is going to cost an arm and a leg to build and maintain and it will serve a very small market in it's payload class.

I still think Elon's approach to lowering launch costs will win in the end. Lean, mean, mass producing machine. As for SpaceX participation in this venture, they will be a sub-contractor which means they will probably just sell them the boosters and not much else. I don't think SpaceX will come out of pocket and it could compliment there fleet with the smaller booster. But I have to wonder,

1. Will it cost less to produce a smaller booster like a Falcon 5?
2. If so is it enough to reduce the cost proportionately to the reduce payload mass?
3. In the press conference Burt said that the air-launch concept improves performance by about 5%. Is that enough to justify the cost of building and operating one of the largest aircraft in the world?
4. If a booster costs X, and a launch aircraft cost Y, why would it be better to to add X+Y? Doesn't it have to be greater than X alone?
4b. Or is it the reduced costs of launching from a dedicated pad?

Also, like T.Neo pointed out, I would not want to sit eyeballs down in the capsule during take-off and accent for 2+ hrs. just sounds like it would suck.

:cheers:
 

Hielor

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We need an Orbiter model of this, stat!

Thoughts on the video:
- Man, nice turning radius on the ground. I'll need to update NoseWheelTurn...
- Guess the wind changed at KSC, looks like they took off 33 and landed 15?
- I can't be the only one thinking "go around, go around" on that landing video--way too high and fast, and they ate up a ton of runway in the roundout and flare...
 

anemazoso

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From the Horizontal Launch study posted by Wood above:
For a nominal reference payload of 15,000 lbs, the study team developed several subsonic
carrier aircraft-based reference space launch point design vehicle (PDV) system concepts.
One example is a near-term system comprised of a two-stage launch vehicle with a
hydrocarbon-fueled first stage and a hydrogen-fueled second stage which is carried to
launch by a modified Boeing 747-400F carrier aircraft. This system concept is estimated to
require $936 million for DDT&E, and will result in a cost of approximately $9,600 per pound

of payload to orbit. Aerial fueling provides further performance and cost benefits by allowing
a larger launch vehicle and payload weight while meeting the carrier aircraft’s maximum
take-off weight. The study team found that existing technologies are sufficient to begin
DDT&E on a selected subsonic carrier aircraft-based space launch system concept, and that
flight testing of a technology demonstration concept could be initiated immediately.

Notice the bold portion. The emphasis is mine. AT $9600 per pound to orbit this sounds like this concept is a non starter.
 

Hielor

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From the Horizontal Launch study posted by Wood above:


Notice the bold portion. The emphasis is mine. AT $9600 per pound to orbit this sounds like this concept is a non starter.
That seems rather high...
 

mojoey

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It will probably have the same crash rate as windows... if the design works... great!
 

T.Neo

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I don't think this concept will ever beat the F9 if/when it is fully reusable, heck even partially reusable would still beat Stratolaunch price. That huge aircraft is going to cost an arm and a leg to build and maintain and it will serve a very small market in it's payload class.

SpaceX achieving viable reusability isn't a certainty yet, at all...

How often does the An-225 fly? Even a relatively low flight rate could be very helpful in amortising the cost of the mothership.

But, it isn't like this is a infrastructure-less system. You still need to integrate and prepare the vehicle. You still need to integrate the payload to the vehicle... transport the vehicle to the 'launch site' (aircraft), fuel it, etc.

Those things will cost too. If the integration facility for example is seperate from those SpaceX has at LC-40, it will have its own totally new overhead.

1. Will it cost less to produce a smaller booster like a Falcon 5?

Depends on what you mean by 'smaller'; the removal of 4 engines should help a good deal since propulsion is a major cost item (plus you still get good economies of scale combined with F9 production, etc).

I have a hunch that reducing the number of tank barrel sections won't reduce cost that much, and you still have other things (avionics, seperation systems, etc) to deal with. They'll probably be shared with F9, which means they won't be smaller... the major price reduction factor for those components would be higher production rates.

2. If so is it enough to reduce the cost proportionately to the reduce payload mass?

That is a very good question.

Perhaps the cost/capability change of this compared to a ground-launched F5 is enough to make it work...

3. In the press conference Burt said that the air-launch concept improves performance by about 5%. Is that enough to justify the cost of building and operating one of the largest aircraft in the world?

Burt Rutan gets paid for it. What do you think he will say?

:lol:

Maybe a large portion of the business case is the terrestrial air payload market.

4. If a booster costs X, and a launch aircraft cost Y, why would it be better to
to add X+Y? Doesn't it have to be greater than X alone?

4b. Or is it the reduced costs of launching from a dedicated pad?

There are two parts to launch costs: vehicle hardware costs, and launch facility costs (hardware costs are actually dependant on the cost of the facility that produces the hardware, but for simplicity sake we can seperate the two).

The idea is that the cost of the "launch facility" with the airlaunch is lower than the cost of a traditional launch facility.

Of course, the aircraft launch facility is now seperate from the other launch facility (SLC-40/SLC-4). Which means that the other facility is used less and its costs are not shared as much.

So there is potential that this offers less oppurtunity for SpaceX to decrease their cost per launch over all systems, including F9 and eventually FH.

There could be another rationale here: SpaceX is a contractor, not an investor. They just get money for the booster/any preperations that need to be peformed with it, and also the development work involved.

It is a way for them to make a profit. A profit that they can then use toward their numerous development projects, such as crewed Dragon, FH, and reusability/Grasshopper. The emphasis for SpaceX here might not be much about lowering their prices and attracting a bigger market, but just getting extra cash.

That said, maybe it isn't the right rationale... maybe Stratolaunch fails to attract enough customers and is a loss, maybe launching more rockets is more advantageous to SpaceX... who knows.

AT $9600 per pound to orbit this sounds like this concept is a non starter.

Why is it so shocking? Not all systems have to reduce launch costs by one to two orders of magnitude.

That said, I think it would make more sense if it were $9600 a kilogram for a modern system. But even the EELVs don't reach this at their current flight rates.
 
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