TimothyC wrote:
Something I forgot to mention (and thus I am sorry for the double post) is that the Extended payload module is only about six inches too short to take
Gary Hudson's XV crew vehicle. Furthermore, the COTS contracts called for a crewed version, and RpK did show off some renders of the crew vehicle
Yep that looked familiar
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-an-alternate-key.444836/page-2#post-17614068
By “take” do you mean have a version where the “Crew Space” from the XV is installed in an “extended, extended” payload module? Because it’s a wee bit shy more than just “6-inches’ to fitting the actual CV.
As for the K1 “competing” with the F9 other than some LEO payloads and NASA COTS contracts there’s no real area of ‘competition’ between the two. With a fully reusable K1 flying quite a bit before they get an even semi-intact F9 first stage back, SpaceX will still have shown the overall ‘cost’ of spaceflight can be brought lower. One could hope that they might take some ‘lessons’ from Kistler but it’s not a given. Since the Falcon-9 design (and attempted recovery system) is already built and pretty ready for flight any changes to give a chance for success through flight 5 (last V1.0 booster) is unlikely. It’s not like SpaceX was not aware of the need for a controlled, stable entry to have the booster survive to reach parachute deployment. They were (rightly) more worried at this point in proving the basic design and flight systems. Recovery had always been planned as a ‘bonus’ for the early flights and flights 1-5 gave enough aerodynamic and reentry data to show that added control systems were needed to have the booster survive reentry. F9-V1.1 provided these systems though I will point out that before the installation of the grid fins the RCS wasn’t enough for fine control to counter issues such as the Flight 6 roll.
In the end SpaceX was moving away from parachutes less because they were not effective, (they would have been capable had the booster survived to a place where they could be deployed properly) but there were large concerns over how much damage the booster would take due to their placement and how the landing was planned. The success of the K1 will only highlight these questions and issues as due to the way the F9-V1.0 landing was to take place: The parachutes would have deployed from the interstage once the booster had ‘stabilized’ in free-fall with and ‘engine down’ positioning so that the booster would impact the water engine first, (which was highly expected to damage the engine bell if not the entire engine) and after which the booster would fall over damaging or destroying the booster structure. (Which happened after the ‘successfully’ ocean landed V1.1 boosters later on) While the engine damage could possibly be avoided by a last minute short ‘retrofire’ this would not solve the toppling problem.
IncongruousGoat wrote:
Well, I think it's safe to say that SpaceX will be pushing reuse as hard, or maybe harder than, OTL (if that's even possible).
Somewhat but they are ‘stuck’ with the V1.0 till they can design and build the V1.1. In general they are going to be ‘behind’ the curve here and it will be rather more obvious TTL than OTL.
I think it's also safe to say that we're going to see a Falcon 9 v1.1 much like the one we got in OTL. There's no way SpaceX are going to change the tank diameter on Falcon 9, since common tank tooling and a common engine is part of what makes Falcon 9 so cheap.
The design was more aerodynamic and had better RCS as well even before the inclusion of the grid-fins. They needed to have the V1.0 stages fail to really understand this. (Arguably they should NOT have needed it since the information was/is widely available but...)
The question is, are SpaceX going to go for propulsive landing ITTL? On the one hand, they've got good evidence now that parachute recovery on land can be made to work. On the other hand, their experience with parachutes will be less than ideal (as per OTL), and the Falcon 9 booster is a very different beast than the K-1 LAP, aerodynamically and structurally speaking. Even if parachute landing looks like it might work for Falcon 9, Elon might decide to go for propulsive landing anyways, on the grounds that it'll scale much better. SpaceX are looking to colonize Mars, after all, and that process will require a vehicle a hell of a lot bigger than Falcon 9.
Elon had already been hinting at parachutes and a water landing being an ‘interim’ system at best. As noted above there are some real issues facing the Falcon-9 doing that regularly. Finding a way to recover the booster “intact and dry” was a major concern in reducing the turn-around time between launches so it’s likely SpaceX still goes with propulsive, dry land landing. The K1 will prove a good example of ‘boost-back’ for RTLS as well.
Of course what IS going to be a ‘problem’ for SpaceX is that their “learning curve” takes place during 9 flights over 4 years and assuming a similar schedule for the K1 it is highly likely that their “flight” program has the majority of those flights ending in BOTH stages being recovered each flight. Further, (and this IS actually important enough to the capabilities of the K1 versus any other launch vehicle even the Shuttle, enough so I’d expect RpK to actually schedule and RUN just such a test) the K1 was designed with and has fully intact abort recovery which the F9 does not nor does any ‘expendable’ booster. So I would fully expect that one of those ‘launches’ will see the K1 brought out to the pad with a payload bay full of breakable glass, eggs and even a few ‘animal’ passengers who will be ‘launched’ off the pad only to have the main engines ‘fail’ shortly thereafter and the second stage rocket away with full recovery of both stages. And a showcase of none of the item in the payload bay being broken or killed.
@TimothyC From a technical standpoint, you're entirely correct. However, NASA isn't going to give Category 3 certification to the K-1 until it's flown at least 40 or 50 times, which is what it would need to launch a high-profile mission like InSight. Remember, it took until November 2018 for Falcon 9 to get Category 3 OTL. If it were really as easy as being capable of launching the mission, Falcon 9 would have launched InSight.
Actually it may be FAR more likely that RpK WILL get certified very early on compared to OTL SpaceX. After all NASA OTL gave them $135million under the Space Launch Initiative Program in 2001, including a launch contract for unspecified “instrument” tests which if read correctly “promised” NASA would pay to fully finish the K1 and flight test it. (Later dropped) Followed by the support announcement in 2004 and it was obvious that a large majority of NASA management was ‘rooting’ for Kistler and the K1 despite the odds. There is quite a bit of circumstantial but valid evidence that NASA TTL may very well greenlight K1 operations and payloads after only a few flights.
And as TimothyC notes it was very much designed with maintenance and ease of refurbishment in mind in an already rather conservative design.
Unless and until Kistler start offering a cheap cargo/passenger service to Mars, Musk's ambitions will be completely unaffected. SpaceX was founded explicitly to act as a forcing function for the colonization of Mars, and anything else they do is done towards that end.
But by the same token lowering the cost to LEO, (which arguably the K1 is doing even though it will have some expensive initial costs) actually lowers the cost to get to Mars and this has always been the achillies heal of Musk’s “Mars Direct-ish” ambitions. OTL the very fact that Musk/SpaceX “appears” to be alone as front-runners, (yes that’s in ‘quotes’ because it IS appearance) has given them a huge amount of leeway and credibility they won’t have TTL. Including the basic concept of little or no orbital infrastructure or capability build up and requiring heavy lift assets.
Now, the execution of those ambitions is another matter entirely. SpaceX are going to be launching less ITTL, at least for the first few years (Kistler will be taking some of their business), which means they're going to have fewer launches with which to experiment, as well as lower cash flow and a smaller R&D budget. This in turn means that their launch vehicle design efforts are going to be delayed compared to OTL, and the final design of whatever BFR equivalent they come up with may be designed differently. Starlink might be butterflied, but they're going to have to do something outside of their satellite launch business to raise money for Das Marsprojekt, so they're going to have to diversify in some way.
Well Musk will continue to fund the end-goal as long as he can and probably like OTL he’ll have other interests as well. He may need to put more effort into some of them to back up SpaceX. On the plus side this may mean some of the many “marginal” projects that have expressed ‘interest” in using SpaceX for launch services for things like “Mars One” will be more pressured into “put-up-or-shut-up” on funding. (Or at least have to offer a realistic plan)
Which is going to be advantageous for them in the short term, since they can get to market in volume a lot faster than SpaceX can. The long term is somewhat less rosy. SpaceX are going to be at a significant advantage in R&D and design iteration pace, simply because of the advantages conferred by vertical integration, not to mention manufacturing costs of new hardware. Unless Kistler either A: manage to kill SpaceX before they can get a foothold in the launch market (which seems unlikely), or B: start moving as much as possible in-house (also unlikely, for institutional reasons), they're going to be in a bad way 10 years down the line.
No that doesn’t parse actually. You’re going to see a lot of those ‘partners’ finding ways to reduce costs and/or load share just as most aerospace companies are doing today due to SpaceX’s business model. It’s neither impossible nor unlikely that Kistler will change as well and both innovation and R&D were part of the original business and unlikely to fade away. Again the big paradigm ‘change’ TTL is the simple fact that SpaceX is clearly not always “right” in the way they do things as they appear in OTL.
In the meantime, though, they're in a good position to completely dominate the polar/sun-synchronous and rideshare segments of the launch market, and there's also a good chance they'll be able to get a vehicle that can compete with Falcon 9 if they get moving on it quick enough. They might also have better luck than SpaceX with competing for Air Force and NRO launches, what with the OldSpace pedigree, but I don't know if K-1 is capable of delivering that class of large, heavy payload.
The K1 is not capable of those payload but then again it IS the “K1” which was specifically designed for servicing a LEO market. K2, K3, etc were/are in there someplace but the main point was to prove full reusability and recovery-and-refurbishment timelines. Another thing to worry SpaceX IS that the K1 was a VERY conservative design, and it is now a “proven” conservative design which means it is a LOT easier to convince investors that with marginal and/or audacious changes vastly more can be accomplished. How tough would it be to take the LAP and double its size? Pretty straight forward AND unlike the Falcon the K1 can actually accept boosters if you want to go that route. Similar with the OV though you get into having to reentry more like a lifting body than ballistic the parallels between the OV and XV-CV are obvious. I point out below that the supposed ‘disadvantages’ of using multiple propellants in an LV are not as bad as some would suggest as long as you don’t fall for the hydrogen hype.
Now OTL they never proved it but assuming it’s no harder than what SpaceX is doing, (and arguably given the design used likely much easier) Kistler can easily have a flight available rate two to three times that of SpaceX which actually makes a huge difference. Specifically since we’ve been told they will have a second LV ready in a few months. Arguably this means that the K1 can “do” any mission that SpaceX can do at around twice the cost of any ‘single’ launch, (the cost is closer to about 1.5 to 1.75 due to cost sharing of the launch costs) and that’s before anyone raises the obvious utility of a “Kistler Space Tug” or SEP satellite hauler. What makes it more likely is the fact they can be very ‘near-term’ since Kistler has a ‘proven’ system and fairly (for a rocket) rapid turnaround time.
The biggest way the K1 can compete with the Falcon-9 is not head to head but by gradually shutting them out of the LEO market though I doubt it would come to that.
I’d keep in mind that “OldSpace” may be a bit slow but they are FAR from stupid and they have longer histories and deeper pockets than “NewSpace” does. That they ARE slow to react is a blessing for NewSpace but it doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t react eventually.
In General I’ll note that “Constellation” IS dead but neither the K1 or F9 have anything to do with it. COTs in general does since it now “allows” NASA to buy rides on “private” rockets to deliver people and cargo to the ISS which was ‘unserviceable’ by ARES-V or the general Constellation architecture, (just as Griffen planned) and since Constellation was specifically aimed at BLEO work, (which Congress was balking at) by 2009 it was clear that a new focus was needed for NASA and the upcoming “Space Launch System” would fill that bill. From the Congressional point-of-view it’s perfect as it never has to actually fly to have money spent on it. In fact it’s better if it does not in fact fly. “Post” Constellation was never about capability or practicality and ‘reusability’ was never a considered factor. THE main and only points was to keep ‘something’ going in the proper districts and ensure that neither COTs nor the ISS interfered with or effect that ongoing ‘something.
As an aside on “multi-propellant” launch vehicles I’ll note it isn’t all THAT difficult to design and build them. While as designed SpaceX couldn’t use a methalox stage on the F9 due to the size of the Raptor they’re actually designing smaller versions so the only argument for not doing so it the one they are using OTL which is that the F9 is an ‘interim’ vehicle they plan on tossing once they have a version of the BFR/S anyway. The other issue is the assumption of using liquid hydrogen, (for performance obviously) which in fact DOES significantly increase cost and complexity so much so that the Delta-IV (arguably a single liquid propulsion LV) is not unexpectedly the most expensive LV on the market
I’ll toss out that in my general reading on the subject that if one could adapt the VacMerlin to run on LOX and cryo-cooled, (LOX temperatures) propane requires no tankage or upper stage changes, (lengthening helps but not needed) but performs over 80% better than kerolox. Given the Merlin’s design, (pintle injector specifically) adaption should be rather straight-forward and payload performance greatly enhanced. The overall impact in cost and complexity is absolutely minimal but zero interest. Oh you can make it on Mars and it stores vastly better than methane but don’t tell the Zubrin fans
E of pi wrote:
I love all the discussion today! I'm working on the OV landing post, then some of the post-flight coverage. Not sure if that'll go up tonight or tomorrow.
Which means my comment will be late as usual. Well there’s something to be said for consistency no?
Well, TTL's present is December 22, 2009. Thus, the current US manned space access gap hasn't even begun. The actions taken over the next year will determine how long one will be, or if one ever exists at all
LordandsaviorKloka wrote:
It’s 2009. How are you going to butterfly away the gap, short of ASBs adding 25 missions to the shuttle schedule?
You have an obvious fully reusable LV that, (needs to be demonstrated but that’s actually pretty easy, but for manned missions the question is getting the crew away from a malfunctioning vehicle, can the K1 OV do that?) has all aspect intact abort capability. It’s hard to wrap ones mind around but this is a VERY big deal regarding manned access to LEO and it alone opens up a HUGE amount of suggested operations and markets that something like the Falcon-9/Dragon and/or Shuttle do not. (Not a dig but abort capable and intact abort capable by LV design ARE different) Depending on how it’s designed a ‘crew’ OV can carry between 4 to 6 without much redesign. If you’re willing to do the redesign, (and/or improve either or both LAP/OV performance) you can probably hit 8 or more in honest-to-God “airliner” safety. Again look at how much NASA OTL was willing to bend over backwards to keep Kistler in the game and where they could pretty easily go to NOT buy seats from the Russians. Lastly it is obviously NOT competing with SLS but IS addressing Congressional concerns for support of the ISS. How ‘fast’ could things get done if NASA is obviously more ‘helpful’ than hindering? To paraphrase “T/Space”:
Semper Audacem!
Randy