It's Vulcan! As guessed earlier they are going to return the first stage engines mid air and re-use them. :hmm:
It's Vulcan! As guessed earlier they are going to return the first stage engines mid air and re-use them. :hmm:
I am a little confused about their advanced upper stage concept..what exactly is distributed launch?
I am a little confused about their advanced upper stage concept..what exactly is distributed launch?
It seems to me that ULA has a plan to be slightly less innovative a few years in the future than SpaceX is right now...literally today (well, literally tomorrow due to weather).
The sorting hat is about to make a choice....
The sorting hat is about to make a choice....
I'm glad they kept the pointy bit at the top of the rocket, that's my favorite feature :rofl:
Seriously, this is an interesting concept. No fuel or performance penalty for flyback, no crazy hypersonic control gymnastics required. It's not very exotic or sexy, but it does look like it would get the job done, perhaps even more robustly than SpaceX fly-back. The only part I don't like is that you have engines that are designed to separate from the stage. It would obviously be bad for this to happen any time during the boost phase, but I imagine there are more difficult engineering problems to cope with and it does not seem like a potential show-stopper.
It all comes down to the cost to refurb the stages. If SpaceX can routinely land a completely reusable stage, basically getting it back in "gas and go" condition, they'll win out. However, if ULA can routinely get their engines back intact and SpaceX discovers that they tend to ding up their tanks (which seems possible, maybe probable), this becomes a very tight competition.
I'm a little worried about SpaceX trying to compete with an organization that is already tightly affixed to the U.S. government teat. Even if SpaceX is technologically on par or even slightly superior to ULA, ULA and the gubmint are tight, maybe too tight.
Anyway, it's cool to see these things being attempted vs. tossing out a perfectly good rocket after every launch. That's like me buying a Porsche daily and driving it to work and back and then having it crushed for scrap at the end of the day (I don't do this and don't recommend it).
What elements of Vulcan come from the Delta IV? The new rocket seems to be developed only from the Atlas family.
Well, if you don't like the name, there is probably going to be a lawsuit:
http://news.yahoo.com/u-satellite-launcher-gets-first-request-vulcan-rocket-023840078--finance.html