Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Rand,

How has the Atlas performance been in comparison?

Posted by Astrosmith at December 22, 2004 12:53 PM

Latest I am hearing is it was a software glitch that shut down the main core 1st stage prematurely.

Apparently a 'low fuel' indicator was intrepreted as a 'no fuel' indicator.

This should be an easy fix and indicates no serious design defects.

Certainly a smoother 1st launch thann the Airane V had!

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 22, 2004 01:05 PM

Am I reading this right that it cost $141 million to list 48,000 pounds to ISS-esque orbit?

Is that a 'prototype' sort of cost, or a typical cost?

Posted by Al at December 22, 2004 01:08 PM

By all accounts, last Friday's Atlas V launch went off without a hitch.

That cost number sounds about right to me. It costs a lot of money to throw big rockets away.

Posted by Rand Simberg at December 22, 2004 01:15 PM

Boeing really is mucking up their space launchers a lot.

I cannot say our Ariane launchers are without glitches as of late either, after all even Ariane 5G had a glitch that put a bunch of satellites in the wrong orbit (including ARTEMIS), not to mention that Ariane 5 ESC-A which got totalled (turning STENTOR into ashes). Oh hum.

Atlas 5 does seem to perform quite well however. Not to mention it has higher performance than Delta 4, given similar numbers of engines. Those RD-180 engines on LOX/Kerosene are real nice. Complex but nice. The Delta 4 stage one engines are simple and neat in a way, but use that nasty low-density LOX/LH2 combo.

Posted by Gojira at December 22, 2004 02:36 PM

$2938 to LEO? Sounds pretty good to me.

Posted by B.Brewer at December 22, 2004 03:26 PM

$2938/lb. to LEO.

Posted by B.Brewer at December 22, 2004 03:27 PM

SpaceX's Falcon V is promized to be able to undercut that per-lb cost by more than a factor of two (6020 kg to 200 km orbit for $16 M). So it's not all that impressive, for an expendable.

Posted by Paul Dietz at December 22, 2004 03:34 PM

$2938/lb to LEO

A 5 segment Thiokol SRB with RL-10s or RL-60s as a 2nd stage would beat that number. Maybe not for crew, but for cargo.

Posted by Bill White at December 22, 2004 05:01 PM

SpaceX's Falcon V is promized to be able to undercut that per-lb cost by more than a factor of two (6020 kg to 200 km orbit for $16 M). So it's not all that impressive, for an expendable.

We'll see if either Boeing or SpaceX can deliver long term at their claimed prices. Also, Boeing isn't competing directly with the Falcon V here. After all, Delta 4 has a payload capacity amost four times as large.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at December 22, 2004 06:34 PM

Also, Boeing isn't competing directly with the Falcon V here. After all, Delta 4 has a payload capacity amost four times as large.

That makes it even worse -- smaller launchers are supposed to be more expensive per unit of payload. Things like avionics have a cost that is substantially independent of vehicle size.

Posted by Paul Dietz at December 22, 2004 07:31 PM

That makes it even worse -- smaller launchers are supposed to be more expensive per unit of payload. Things like avionics have a cost that is substantially independent of vehicle size.

Maybe so, but Boeing has a market that Falcon V isn't competing in. There isn't an incentive yet to reduce costs.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at December 22, 2004 10:50 PM

I'm curious as to whether the large fireball of free hydrogen that burned off at ignition was expected. It was impressive looking but certainly charred the hell out of the foam insulation.

Posted by Josh "Hefty" Reiter] at December 23, 2004 05:40 AM

Holy crap! That cannot have been good... (the fireball of free helium, that is)

Don't the have those little spark things at the bottom to clear all that out like the Shuttle does?

Posted by Astrosmith at December 23, 2004 06:45 AM

Isn't the saying any launch you can walk away from...?

Oh, damn it. That's any landing that you can walk away from.

And yeah, I found it very confusing to be reading spaceflighttoday.com and space.com and seeing opposite results. I guess it's all in what you call a success.

Posted by Bryan Price at December 23, 2004 08:06 AM

What are we surprised at? It is rocket science after all. Read about the second saturn V launch:

The second Saturn V did not fly so smoothly. For about 10 seconds near the end of its bum, the first stage underwent "pogo" vibrations so severe that they could have injured astronauts with 10 g accelerations. As soon as the pogo oscillations cleared up, a section of the LM shroud fell free. During the second stage bum, two of the five J-2 engines shut down prematurely. To the surprise and delight of NASA engineers, the vehicle didn't lose control. But the loss of thrust sent the S-lVB pointing in unexpected directions as it fought the with trajectory of the vehicle. At the moment of burnout, it was in fact pointing backwards. While the third stage was able to salvage the mission and place the Apollo spacecraft in orbit, it refused to restart later in the flight.

Mission controllers managed to complete the reentry mission with the SM's engine. While a crew would have survived a flight aboard Apollo 4, SA-502 could not have reached the Moon.

This comes from

http://www.moonrace2001.org/sv_history.shtml

The interesting thing was that on the NEXT FLIGHT, they went manned and to the moon with Apollo 8. So, all things considered, I will say that met most of their objectives.

Posted by rod at December 23, 2004 09:03 AM

That $141 million reflects the actual Delta IV Heavy launch costs. Instead, that's just an Air Force subsidy to Boeing to conduct the flight.

Back when the ELV rockets were being developed, both Lockheed-Martin and Boeing assumed there'd be many more launches per year. However, the launch market has dried up considerably, cutting into the market for boosters and driving up the costs. Without any firm numbers to back it up, I'd wager the real cost of a Delta IV Heavy flight to be at least $250 million. I doubt an Atlas V Heavy would be any cheaper.

If you want "cheap" heavy lift, then revive the Energia production line. The engines are still in production for the Zenit booster, so reviving Energia might not be too difficult or expensive.

Posted by Larry J at December 23, 2004 09:38 AM

It looks like there was a second failure, too -- a couple of student mini-satellites that were supposed to be dropped off in LEO apparently were brought into GEO transfer orbit with the upper stage:

http://insidedenver.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3417204,00.html

Posted by RW at December 23, 2004 01:31 PM

They were released by a timer and the stack was at 57 miles when it should have been +100. They augured. This was the fault of the underperformance of the three CBC's

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 23, 2004 02:27 PM

If you want "cheap" heavy lift, then revive the Energia production line. The engines are still in production for the Zenit booster, so reviving Energia might not be too difficult or expensive.

Energia was certainly not cheap. If it was the Russians would still be running it. It is too large for most things. There is a reason they keep using old faithful R-7.

Posted by Gojira at December 23, 2004 02:34 PM

Ok, I have to ask.... Did anyone else get the impression when looking at the stack against the sky....

It seems to me to have given a whole new meaning to 'the Bird'
(As in someone flipping you one :o)

Randy

Posted by Randy Campbell at December 23, 2004 04:38 PM

Yep Randy, I thought the same thing.

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 23, 2004 04:54 PM

I looked in all usual places but there was no comment about the burn of free hydrogen at ignition and subsequent change of the CBC external color from light brown to black. Evidently, it wasn't dangerous (if impressive), but I do not recall anything like it when Energia launched (it also used LH2 in the first stage). Come to think about it, Shuttle doesn't do it either.

Posted by Pete Zaitcev at December 23, 2004 07:57 PM

Well, yeah, Pete, they have those little spark emitters come on about 10 seconds before launch, to burn off any stray hydrogen down there.

Hmmm...I doubt they went without those spark emitters. I wonder if they had a leak somewhere, a small one.... That might account for the loss of performance, except that the pics of the rocket in flight look OK. Of course, a small leak in the side would not have detonated until it got to the engine plumes anyway.

What do I know? I'm a GN&C guy...

Posted by Astrosmith at December 24, 2004 05:03 AM

There's a hour-long streamed video of the launch (including a few replays)

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/delta/delta4/d4h_demo/d4_heavy_webcast.htm

Some of the chatter answers the question about the hydrogen flare at ignition, if you read between the lines a bit.

It sounds like they pump a lot of LH2 through the engines at the last minute to pre-cool them. So they expected a big hydrogen flare at ignition, and know from past experience that it would toast some of the external insulation.

Presumably, they want the LH2 flow to be smooth so they don't EVER run LOX-rich and burn through some metal. Does anyone know how the SSME handles this problem?

Something that impressed me was the absence of any visible external icing, while LH2-fueled Saturn upper stages in the 1960s iced up pretty badly. Anyone know for sure what causes the difference?

Posted by Tom Mattison at December 26, 2004 10:02 PM

Tom, they may place little heating elements on the skin to prevent ice buildup.

Posted by Astrosmith at December 27, 2004 07:35 AM

It seems a bit risky for the Air Force and NASA to put their eggs in the Delta IV Heavy basket right now. Perhaps the AF should wait until the Atlas V Heavy flies before it chooses a Titan IV replacement. Similarly, the Atlas V may be the better booster for launching the CEV and other elements of the manned lunar return spacecraft.

At this point, it looks like the AF will use the Delta IV Heavy for a few more launches, because there are only two Titan IV's left and several spy sats waiting for a ride to orbit. If these sats are not time-sensitive, it would be sensible to wait for the Atlas V Heavy before launching them.

Posted by Impossible Scissors at December 27, 2004 01:04 PM

"Does anyone know how the SSME handles this problem?" Regenerative cooling IIRC.

"It seems a bit risky for the Air Force and NASA to put their eggs in the Delta IV Heavy basket right now. Perhaps the AF should wait until the Atlas V Heavy flies before it chooses a Titan IV replacement. Similarly, the Atlas V may be the better booster for launching the CEV and other elements of the manned lunar return spacecraft.

That is quite a leap to make untill this is ironed out. If what I heard is correct, it was a very easily fixable glitch. By your standards, no one should ever fly anything again on an Ariane V with it's questonable record.

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 27, 2004 02:38 PM

> smaller launchers are supposed to be more expensive per unit of payload.
> Things like avionics have a cost that is substantially independent of
> vehicle size.

The keywords there are "supposed to." This is an old cliche, but it ignores reality.

Avionics cost is not independent of vehicle size. Ever see the instrument ring on the Saturn V? Most smaller rockets could not have lifted it. If you have a larger vehicle, with longer cable runs, the cables are going to be heavier. If you have more engines, you need more engine controllers. And so on, all of which adds weight and cost.

More important, however, is the denominator -- the flight rate. If it costs D dollars to develop the avionics, P dollars to produce the avionics, and M dollars to maintain the avionics for one flight, the cost per flight attributable to avionics is not D+P but D/(Fv*N) + P/Fv + M (where Fv is the number of flights per vehicle and N is the fleet size).

Generally speaking, the maintenance cost for avionics are much less less than the unit production costs for the same avionics, and the unit production costs are much less than the initial development cost.

This is true for other hardware, as well. To minimize cost for flight, you want to maximize Fv and N, which argues for building the smallest vehicle that can accomplish the mission. Even if you throw your vehicle away after a single flight (Fv = 1), this may be true, but it's certainly true with reusable vehicles.

When Fv and N are large, increasing them further might require significant investments in spaceport infrastructure, etc., so it may make sense to look at the theoretical efficiency of larger vehicles (as well as other factors such as propellant cost, pilot labor, etc.) Fv and N are currently miniscule, however, so order -of-magnitude improvements are easily possible there.

Posted by Edward Wright at December 27, 2004 05:31 PM

It's interesting that the Ariane V is compared to the Delta IV, and yet the Ariane V is considered worse. My understanding was the Ariane V was also a software glitch. A spectacular fireball is more dramatic, but the end result is no different than placing a satellite in a useless orbit.

I think Boeing has a problem with software development. This isn't the first issue either. They have experienced software problems and delays on the ISS program. To be fair, it may be an industry issue. In the race to drive down costs, it is not very rewarding to develop rocket code that has to be 99.9% accurate vs developing say financial or energy sector code that can be 99% accurate and result in higher payoffs.

Posted by Leland at December 28, 2004 07:25 AM

Yeah but the Ariane V has had other failures as well as that 1st one, remember them having to remove their compet probe because of a fa. So far, this is the only significant glitch the Delta IV program has had and has several sucesses has gotten off to a much smoother start than the Ariane V.

Posted by Mike Puckett at December 28, 2004 08:36 AM

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