Simple, Robust Cryogenic Propellant Depot for Near Term Applications IEEE 2011-1044 Christopher McLean Brian Pitchford Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Special Aerospace Services 1600 Commerce Street 1285 Little Oak Circle Boulder, CO 80301 Titusville, FL 32780 303-939-7133 303-888-2181 [email protected] [email protected] Shuvo Mustafi Mark Wollen NASA GSFC Innovative Engineering Solutions Mail Code: 552 26200 Adams Avenue Cryogenics and Fluids Branch Murrieta, CA 92562 Greenbelt, MD 20771 858-212-4475 301-286-7436 [email protected] [email protected] Jeff Schmidt Laurie Walls Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Launch Services Program 1600 Commerce Street VA-H3 Boulder, CO 80301 NASA Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899 303-939-5703 321-867-1968 [email protected] [email protected] Abstract 1— The ability to refuel cryogenic propulsion features, technologies and concept of operations are stages on-orbit provides an innovative paradigm shift for described. space transportation supporting National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Exploration program as well as deep space robotic, national security and commercial TABLE OF CONTENTS missions. Refueling enables large beyond low Earth orbit ACRONYMS .......................................................................... 2 (LEO) missions without requiring super heavy lift vehicles 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 3 that must continuously grow to support increasing mission 2. DEMONSTRATED STATE -OF -THE -ART IN CRYOGENIC demands as America’s exploration transitions from early SPACE SYSTEMS ................................................................... 3 Lagrange point missions to near Earth objects (NEO), the 3. EXPLORATION MISSIONS AND SYSTEMS BENEFITTING lunar surface and eventually Mars. Earth-to-orbit launch can FROM CRYOGENIC TECHNOLOGIES ................................... 4 be optimized to provide competitive, cost-effective solutions ,, 4. CRYOTE .......................................................................... 5 that allow sustained exploration. 5. SIMPLE DEPOT ................................................................. 8 6. TECHNOLOGY FOR FUEL DEPOTS .................................. 11 This paper describes an experimental platform developed to 7. HISTORIC CRYOGENIC FLIGHT EXPERIENCE .............. 18 demonstrate the major technologies required for fuel depot 8. TESTING AND DEMONSTRATION .................................... 18 technology. This test bed is capable of transferring residual 9. APPLICABILITY TO LARGER DEPOTS ............................. 20 liquid hydrogen (LH ) or liquid oxygen (LO ) from a 2 2 10. SUMMARY .................................................................... 20 Centaur upper stage, and storage in a secondary tank for up BIOGRAPHY ....................................................................... 21 to one year on-orbit. A dedicated, flight heritage spacecraft REFERENCE ....................................................................... 23 bus is attached to an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) ring supporting experiments and data collection. This platform can be deployed as early as Q1 2013. The propellant depot design described in this paper can be deployed affordably this decade supporting missions to Earth-Moon Lagrange points and lunar fly by. The same depot concept can be scaled up to support more demanding missions and launch capabilities. The enabling depot design 1 978-1-4244-7351-9/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 1 ACRONYMS NRO National Reconnaissance Office O&C Operation and Checkout ACES Advanced Common Evolved Stage OSP Orbital Space Plane AFRL Air Force Research Laboratory PLF Payload Fairing AR&D Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking PMD Propellant Management Device ARC Ames Research Center PRSD Power Reactant Storage Distribution ATV Automated Transfer Vehicle RCS Reaction Control System BAC Broad Area Cooling SAS Special Aerospace Services BCP Ball Commercial Platform SBHE Start Box High End BEO Beyond Earth Orbit SOFI Spray-on Foam Insulation CDR Critical Design Review STP-SIV Space Test Program-Standard Interface CFM Cryogenic Fluid Management Vehicle COTS Commercial Orbital Transportation Services STS Space Transportation System CryoSTAT Cryogenic Storage and Transfer TCS Thermodynamic Cryogen Subcooler CRYOTE Cryogenic Orbital Testbed TPS Thermal Protection System DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency TRL Technology Readiness Technology DCSS Delta Cryogenic Second Stage TVS Thermodynamic Vent System DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite Program ULA United Launch Alliance DOD Department of Defense VJ Vacuum Jacket EDS Earth Departure Stage WISE Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer EELV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle ESPA EELV Secondary Payload Adapter FTD Flagship Technology Demonstration FTINU Fault Tolerant Inertial Navigation Unit GH2 Gaseous Hydrogen GMD Global Missile Defense GO2 Gaseous Oxygen GPS Global Positioning System GRC Glenn Research Center GSFC Goddard Space Flight Center GSO Geosynchronous Orbit GTO Geostationary Transfer Orbit HLV Heavy Lift Vehicle HTV HII Transfer Vehicle IMLEO Initial Mass Low Earth Orbit IMLI Integrated Multi Layer Insulation Isp Specific Impulse ISCPD In-Space Cryogenic Propellant Depot ISS International Space Station IVF Integrated Vehicle Fluids JSC Johnson Space Center JT Joule Thompson JWST James Webb Space Telescope KSC Kennedy Space Center LEO Low Earth Orbit LH 2 Liquid Hydrogen LIDAR Light Detection and Ranging LN 2 Liquid Nitrogen LO 2 Liquid Oxygen MEO Medium Earth Orbit MHTB Multi-Purpose Hydrogen Test Bed MLI Multi Layer Insulation MMOD Micro-Meteoroid Orbital Debris MR Mixture Ratio MRS Minimum Residual Shutdown MSFC Marshall Space Flight Center NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NEO Near Earth Object 2 Table 1. Modern existing large launch vehicles have 1. INTRODUCTION similar performance. Today’s space transportation revolves around getting to low System Performance (mT) Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond. The world’s existing large LEO GTO Earth Escape launch vehicles can loft payloads of about 25 mT to LEO, Delta HLV 28.5 14.2 10.7 12 mT to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) or 9 mT to Atlas 552 1 21.1 8.7 6.5 Earth escape, Table 1. What happens if a mission requires Ariane 5 2 19.3 10.1 - more performance? Moderate performance increases are Proton 21.0 4.0 - possible by enhancing existing launch vehicles such as the Sea Launch 14.0 6.0 - Delta IV’s heavy upgrade program. More pronounced HIIB 10.0 5.8 - performance increases are possible by enhancing stages for Long March 11.2 5.1 - existing launch vehicles such as the Ariane ECB. For substantially larger performance levels one may need to Space Shuttle 18-24.4 5.9 - develop entirely new launch vehicles. Table 2. Required propellant mass as a percentage of LEO system mass for various typical missions assuming For large LEO payloads, mission designers have little state-of-the-art LO 2/LH 2 propulsion. flexibility. Either there must be a launch vehicle sufficiently large to loft the payload, or the payload must be split into Final Orbit % propellant mass manageable elements and assembled on-orbit. For the GTO 42% massive 500 mT International Space Station (ISS) NASA Trans Lunar Inject (C3=-1) 50% chose to assemble the station in orbit with no single element Trans Mars Inject (C3=21) 60% weighing more than ~21 mT, limited by the Space Shuttle’s GSO 61% launch capability. For the Constellation programs lunar Lunar Surface 75% exploration initiative, needing ~160 mT in LEO, roughly six times the capability of any existing launch vehicle, NASA require huge amounts of cryogenic propellant and no chose to combine development of a new Saturn V class individual element must be particularly large or heavy. heavy lift rocket, Ares V, and on-orbit “assembly”. The NASA’s renewed emphasis on technology development Earth departure stage (EDS) and the lunar lander (Altair) may allow near-term deployment and use of propellant would be launched on Ares V, while the crew would be depots. launched separately in Orion. Orion would rendezvous and mate (“assembly”) on-orbit with the EDS and Altair for the This paper describes a simple, near-term propellant depot trip to the moon. concept that can be fully assembled and tested on the ground followed by launch on a single rocket as an For demanding missions beyond LEO missions designers integrated assembly. Also discussed is a low-cost precursor have several alternatives to developing larger and larger mission platform to demonstrate multiple cryogenic rockets for each new mission. Once on-orbit, exhaust propellant transfer and storage technologies relevant to the velocity (I sp ) dictates mission performance, so mission simple propellant depot as well as NASA’s CryoSTAT planners can choose to use more efficient modes of mission. The simple propellant depot concept can be scaled propulsion such as nuclear thermal, solar thermal, electric from a capacity of 30 mT using existing rockets and ion, etc. These efficient forms of propulsion may bring total manufacturing tooling to 200 mT on enhanced existing system mass within the capability of available launchers or rockets to hundreds of tons of capacity flown on proposed allow a common heavy lift rocket to support ever growing heavy lift rockets with larger diameter payload fairings. The mission requirements. Another option for mission designers technology required to enable