Delta IV Heavy

[DogOnPorch]

A nice vid of last week's launch. Three CBCs (not our CBC...Common Booster Cores) are capable of getting about 10,000 kg to escape velocity. That or put an amazing 23,000kg into LEO. Perhaps this is the future manned US booster...

[bush_cheney2004]

Very nice...and courtesy of United Launch Alliance (Lockheed & Boeing). Who needs the Space Shuttle?

Rocketdyne RS-68

...good Soviet design!

Edited July 6, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[DogOnPorch]

Very nice...and courtesy of United Launch Alliance (Lockheed & Boeing). Who needs the Space Shuttle?

Way cheaper than an STS launch. The CBCs are no deposit, no return. Plus they burn 'green' which is nice (LOX/H2). Massive thrust of the R-68 is in the plus 30 kN range. Truely impressive. Only America could build such a beautiful, well engineered rocket. Everytime one of those Long March boosters goes up, I cringe. They use hypergolic fuels with all the nastiness that happens to metal parts and turbo pumps. At least the Russians figured out how to get hypergolic fuels out of the rocket if trouble occurs.

[DogOnPorch]

The US, of course, had a brief affair with hypergolic fuels and manned launches...not without some dangerous near misses.

[gunrutz]

It's amazing that as impressive as it is the saturn 5 booster makes it look anemic 50 years ago.

[DogOnPorch]

It's amazing that as impressive as it is the saturn 5 booster makes it look anemic 50 years ago.

The Saturn V's first stage burnt kerosene and LOX making for a very impressive launch. The Delta IV H is nearly as powerful and vastly cheaper. Safe, too...18 launches no fails.

[bush_cheney2004]

The Saturn V's first stage burnt kerosene and LOX making for a very impressive launch. The Delta IV H is nearly as powerful and vastly cheaper. Safe, too...18 launches no fails.

Yes...back then, money was no object, and it had to be man-rated.

[DogOnPorch]

Yes...back then, money was no object, and it had to be man-rated.

Yes...man rated is the key. The The Titan II was very close to being not man rated. Hypergolic fuels aside, it is still the roughest US ride into orbit, ever...lots of pogo effect and high Gs. You had to be a test pilot type. The Long March is even worse, practically incapacitating the occupants upon reaching zero-g. Shaken and stirred...lol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_oscillation

Edited July 6, 2012 by DogOnPorch

[Guest Derek L]

And of interest:

Lockheed Martin Delivers Orion Spacecraft To NASA Kennedy Space Center

The EFT-1 flight will be NASA’s first orbital flight test beyond low Earth orbit since the 1960s. The test will evaluate critical capabilities needed for safe deep-space exploration and reduce overall risk for Orion’s first human-rated flight in 2017. An uncrewed Orion capsule will be launched aboard a Delta IV Heavy to an altitude of more than 3,600 miles and demonstrate integrated vehicle performance for ascent, on-orbit flight, and a high energy re-entry profile with speeds up to 20,000 mph. The EFT-1 test will also enable the team to collect early critical flight performance data and assess the integration benefits for the Orion, Space Launch System and Ground Operations programs.

Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor to NASA for the Orion crew exploration vehicle – the world’s first interplanetary spacecraft designed for human exploration of our solar system. Orion is designed to carry astronauts beyond low Earth orbit on long-duration, deep-space missions to destinations such as asteroids, Lagrange Points or the moon.

[DogOnPorch]

And of interest:

Lockheed Martin Delivers Orion Spacecraft To NASA Kennedy Space Center

Yes...waldo will be suspicious.

Ah, well...good times. The space program moving forward is the height of human civilization. I've played around with a simulated Orion Delta IV combo in Orbiter. Plenty of power.

http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5556

Edited July 6, 2012 by DogOnPorch

[bush_cheney2004]

[DogOnPorch]

Nice vid. Similar to Orbiter. Better water...lol. Like Apollo, Orion will have to be able to withstand blistering 25,000 kt reentry speeds. Tiles just won't do. This August, however, Curiosity will be the star.

[Bonam]

As far as I know, there are no real plans of any kind to manrate the Delta IV (heavy or otherwise). If the US went that route, it'd be the Atlas V.

However, NASA is currently instead prepping to waste money on the SLS (Senate/Space Launch System), which is designed purely to funnel pork to keep people employed in a few specific districts, and will never fly.

Personally the only current effort I dare to put any hope in is SpaceX's.

Edit: Btw, I can guarantee dudes aren't flying any interplanetary missions in the Orion spacecraft as presently delivered to NASA.

Curiosity, on the other hand, is a damn cool mission. NASA needs to do more robotic exploration along those lines rather than wasting money on giant launch vehicles that will never fly (Ares I, Ares V, SLS). They need to resurrect the JIMO project or something similar.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Bonam

[bush_cheney2004]

... NASA needs to do more robotic exploration along those lines rather than wasting money on giant launch vehicles that will never fly (Ares I, Ares V, SLS). They need to resurrect the JIMO project or something similar.

Don't be mislead by any NASA cover stories of manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Jupiter for "science". The real pacing item will be any developments and capabilities advanced by China. The NRO has a much bigger budget than NASA.

Edited July 6, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

Don't be mislead by any NASA cover stories of manned missions to the Moon, Mars, or Jupiter for "science". The real pacing item will be any developments and capabilities advanced by China.

Then we'll be waiting a good long while. China has a long way to go before it sends humans to any of those locations. Anyway, I'd be plenty satisfied with a few more good robotic probes for now. A robotic submarine to check out the oceans of Europa with a comm relay + mapper orbiter would be awesome.

As for Mars, NASA has pretty much hit a dead end. There aren't any noteworthy plans after MSL/Curiosity.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Bonam

[bush_cheney2004]

Then we'll be waiting a good long while. China has a long way to go before it sends humans to any of those locations. Anyway, I'd be plenty satisfied with a few more good robotic probes for now. A robotic submarine to check out the oceans of Europa with a comm relay + mapper orbiter would be awesome.

Sure, that would be swell, but the real action and program expenditures are for military, reconnaissance, signals collection, and secure relay links.

NASA is small potatoes in comparison.

[DogOnPorch]

Then we'll be waiting a good long while. China has a long way to go before it sends humans to any of those locations. Anyway, I'd be plenty satisfied with a few more good robotic probes for now. A robotic submarine to check out the oceans of Europa with a comm relay + mapper orbiter would be awesome.

As for Mars, NASA has pretty much hit a dead end. There aren't any noteworthy plans after MSL/Curiosity.

I think there are some plans to drop a floating probe into Titan's lakes. Now there's an interesting place! One of those lakes is as big as Superior.

[Bonam]

I think there are some plans to drop a floating probe into Titan's lakes. Now there's an interesting place! One of those lakes is as big as Superior.

There are paper studies and proposals, sadly there is no funded project to actually do it.

Edited September 30, 2012 by Bonam

[DogOnPorch]

There are paper studies and proposals, sadly there is no funded project to actually do it.

I heard Mars got the mission. Yes...it will sadly have to wait. I suppose they figure Cassini is still going strong...enough. But, it can't last forever. When I heard about liquid on the surface I was thrilled...but, I guess it isn't thrilling enough.

[Bonam]

I heard Mars got the mission. Yes...it will sadly have to wait. I suppose they figure Cassini is still going strong...enough. But, it can't last forever. When I heard about liquid on the surface I was thrilled...but, I guess it isn't thrilling enough.

It's plenty thrilling. But NASA is in shambles, without vision, without direction. It is an agency helplessly flailing about. All the cool projects that have been in development over the past 10 years or so have been cancelled. Curiosity was the last one. There's literally nothing else cool in the works, besides the new space telescope, which barely evaded being cancelled too.

[DogOnPorch]

It's plenty thrilling. But NASA is in shambles, without vision, without direction. It is an agency helplessly flailing about. All the cool projects that have been in development over the past 10 years or so have been cancelled. Curiosity was the last one. There's literally nothing else cool in the works, besides the new space telescope, which barely evaded being cancelled too.

Sadly, it's up to nations to get probes to the outer planets...I doubt private companies could find the financial motivation unless it was some side effect of the development of a large rocket for LEO payloads.

Remember the Jarvis?

[DogOnPorch]

Delta IV launch today. A military GPS satellite. Footage below.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20121005/SPACE/310050013/Delta-IV-delivers-GPS-goods

[DogOnPorch]

Oct 4th launch.

[DogOnPorch]

A Russian Proton rocket suffered a major failure during launch on July 2nd. Big bang...

The hypergolic fuels (UDMH & Nitrogen Tetroxide) used to power one of these are extremely poisonous.

[bush_cheney2004]

Nice ! Great sound with the delay. I wonder why range safety didn't destroy it sooner...maybe it was too much fun to watch.