Space Launch 28 years of studies A Personal Journey By John W Livingston 2011 1 Space Launch 28 years of studies or Engineering & Management run amuck A Personal Journey By John W Livingston 2011 …and all I got was this lousy T-shirt 2 1958-64 Early studies (pre-me) Reusable Rockets & Aerospaceplanes • Wide ranging studies • Numerous combined cycle engines investigated Inadequate technology base, but really hot stuff. The US Air Force's aerospaceplane project encompassed a variety of projects from 1958 until 1963 to study a fully reusable spaceplane. A variety of designs were studied during the lifetime of the project, including most of the early efforts on liquid air cycle engines (LACE) and even a nuclear-powered ramjet. The effort was started largely due to the work of Weldon Worth at the Wright-Patterson AFB, who published a short work outlining a manned spaceplane. AF officials were interested enough to start SR-89774 (study requirement-) for a reusable spaceplane in 1957. By 1959 this work had resulted in the Recoverable Orbital Launch System, or ROLS, based around a LACE engine, known at the time as a Liquid Air Collection System, or LACES. Further work showed that more performance could be gained by extracting only the oxygen from the liquid air, a system they referred to as Air Collection and Enrichment System, or ACES. A contract to develop an ACES testbed was placed with Marquardt and General Dynamics, with Garrett AiResearch building the heat exchanger for cooling the air. The original ACES design was fairly complex; the air was first liquified in the heat exchanger cooled by liquid hydrogen fuel, then pumped into a low pressure tank for short term storage. From there it was then pumped into a high pressure tank where the oxygen was separated and the rest (mostly nitrogen) was dumped overboard. In late 1960 and early 1961 a 125 N demonstrator engine was being operated for up to five minutes at a time. In early 1960 Air Force offered a development contract to build a spaceplane with a crew of three that could take off from any runway and fly directly into orbit and return. They wanted the design to be in operation in 1970 for a total development cost of only $5 billion. Boeing, Douglas, Convair, Lockheed, Goodyear, North American, and Republic all responded. Most of these designs ignored the ACES system and instead used a scramjet for power. The scramjet had first been outlined at about the same time as the original LACES design in a NASA paper of 1958, and many companies were highly interested in seeing it develop, perhaps none more than Marquardt, whose ramjet business was dwindling with the introduction of newer jet engines and who had already started work on the scramjet. Both Alexander Kartveli and Antonio Ferri were proponents of the scramjet approach. Ferri successfully demonstrated a scramjet producing net thrust in November 1964, eventually producing 517 lbf, about 80% of his goal. Later that year a review suggested that the basic concepts of the aerospaceplane were far too new for development of an operational system to begin. They pointed out that far too much was being spent on development of the aircraft, and not nearly enough on basic research. Moreover, the designs were all extremely sensitive to weight, and any increase (and there always is one) could result in all of the designs not working. In 1963 the Air Force changed their priorities in SR-651, and focused entirely on development of a variety of high- speed engines. Included were LACES and ACES engines, as well scramjets, turboramjets and a "normal" (subsonic combustion) ramjet with an intake suitable for use up to Mach 8. In October a further review concluded that the technology was simply too new for anyone to predict when any such aerospaceplane could ever be built, and funding was wound down in 1964. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospaceplane" 3 Early 1980’s Round One RASV, AMSC, TAV • Manned • Horizontal Takeoff and Landing, HTHL • Single stage, or a near as possible • Fully Reusable, or a s near as possible • SSME / Existing propulsion • No SSTO designs submitted (or possible) • Propulsion & Structural Fractions too high Specified preferred solutions, TSTO VTHL solutions ignored Reusable Aerodynamic Space Vehicle (RASV) The Boeing RASV comprised a ground-based sled to accelerate the aircraft to takeoff speed on a conventional runway, and a delta-winged, piloted orbital vehicle. The RASV was designed to be constructed of conventional refractory metals such as titanium and Rene-41, with the cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants contained within the "hot structure" wing acting as a heat sink to cool the airframe and reduce weight. Powered by two modified SSMEs, the RASV attracted considerable attention from the Air Force, which invested $3 million in the project for technology development in the early 1980s. Advanced Military Space Flight Capability (AMSC) Initiated by AFSC with one-year study contracts awarded to General Dynamics and Rockwell in 1981. Technology studies of small manned spacecraft based on two generic launch concepts: subsonic air launch and "staged" ground launch. Replaced by the Advanced Military Space Technology (AMST) program with a contract awarded to Boeing in January 1984 to determine key aerodynamic and performance parameters associated with air-launching a so-called AMST/TAV orbiter from a carrier aircraft. Transatmospheric Vehicle (TAV) Program begun in mid-1982. Stanley Tremaine coined the term “Transatmospheric Vehicle”, as the craft should be able to operate with equal efficiency both within the atmosphere and in space and be capable of transitioning from space into the atmosphere and back. Phase I of the TAV study began in May 1983 with Battelle Laboratories working with Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, and Rockwell. McDonnell-Douglas submitted its own unsolicited TAV proposal. Phase I ended in December 1983 and resulted in 14 vehicle concepts. Phase II started in August 1984 with a twelve-month contract to Science Applications. In Phase II selected industry concepts were evaluated against alternative solutions such as advanced aircraft and the necessary technologies were further examined with emphasis on determining the military effectiveness of a TAV. The TAV was expected to be the size of a small airliner with a gross liftoff weight of 1 to 1.5 million lbs and using up-rated SSMEs for propulsion in the first generation. A TAV Project office was established in December 1984 under the direction of Lt Col Vince Rausch. By early 1986 the TAV program had been replaced by NASP with the entire TAV staff transferring into the NASP JPO. Science Dawn A classified program begun in 1982 to determine the technical feasibility of a military aerospace plane. Requirements were for a sled-launched horizontal-takeoff / horizontal-landing single stage to orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle powered by a modified SSME with a two-position nozzle. Dry mass was to be 100,000-150,000 lb, takeoff mass 1,2-1,5 million lb with a 10,000 lb payload to a polar orbit from Grand Forks AFB. The craft was to have a turn-around time of 12 hours, be ready to launch within two hours of an alert and have 24 hours orbital capacity. AMSC concepts from Boeing, Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas were hand-picked for further development with Rocketdyne and Air Products as propulsion contractors. The Boeing concept was the RASV vehicle. The McDonnell Douglas proposal was named the Global Range Mach 29 Aerospace Plane, or GRM-29A. It had a down-pointing SSME in the nose to cater for the runway requirements. The Lockheed Zero Length Launch TransAtmospheric Vehicle (ZEL-TAV) used a ramped takeoff with two solid boosters. By 1984 it had become clear that horizontal takeoff was inappropriate use of rocket power, and the program was superseded by Science Realm. 4 Round One Early 1980s Trans Atmospheric Vehicles Conclusions: Short Comings: No SSTO designs submitted (or possible) Overly constrained Propulsion & Structural Fractions too high Inadequate models with limited physics Level 0-1 analysis applied to systems with very high sensitivities 5 Aerospaceplane deux Round Two 1983-1993 SSTO HTHL, Copper Canyon, NASP • Manned • Horizontal Takeoff and Landing • Single Stage to Orbit • Fully Reusable Mandated Solution, Too much money, too little systems engineering Have Region In 1986 Science Realm was followed by the Have Region program, to complement the ongoing air-breathing work in the NASP program. Main goal was to further develop structures and TPS to reduce risk. Under the program three prototype lightweight structures in scales from 40 to 100% were fabricated from exotic metals, primarily titanium and high-temperature superalloys, to evaluate near-term flight readiness. The cross- sectional structures with integral cryogenic tanks were tested in simulated ascent and re-entry conditions. In tests the Boeing concept was validated and the built but untested Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas designs were classified as partial successes. The test articles were within 3% of required SSTO design weights. Regardless in 1988 it was concluded that the materials developed for NASP were more promising. Total cost of Have Region was around $40 million. Copper Canyon and NASP In June 1983 DARPA initiated the classified Copper Canyon program to investigate the potential military applications of air-breathing hypersonic and single stage to orbit vehicles and technologies with Vince Rausch as project director. Tony DuPont’s initial design from 1983 originated from a NASA study into engine cycles and was a 50,000 lb “F-15 sized“ aircraft. Funded with $6 million for 1983, with Battelle Laboratories doing the main work and initial contracts for airframe work to Boeing, Lockheed and General Dynamics, and propulsion work to Marquardt and GASL.