ATK Liberty Updates
ATK Makes Progress with the Liberty Launch System, Commercial Space Watch (With video)
“In a trio of media releases ATK announced today that is has signed a deal with NanoRacks, completed a milestone for its contract with NASA for the Commercial Crew Development Program (CCDev) and that partner EADS Astrium has completed tests on tank structures for the Liberty rocket second stage.”
The “deal” with NanoRacks is pretty meaningless — companies pair up to sign these kinds of joint marketing agreements in lots of industries all the time. Neither party is committing any particular resources, so the announcement is basically just a way for both companies to get attention without actually doing anything of substance.
It’s hard to tell how much in the way of resources ATK put into the NASA milestone. It was a meeting to go over software plans. Maybe that took a lot of work by ATK, maybe not.
Similarly, it’s hard to tell how meaningful the EADS Astrium tank structure test is. They use the same stage for their other launch vehicle. Is this test something that they did specifically for Liberty that they wouldn’t have done anyway for Ariane? There’s no way to tell from the announcement. It’s also hard to tell how much it cost Astrium to do the testing.
Its meant to be a cheap “me too” gesture – to draw attention w/o needing to put skin in the game.
ATK is playing for sympathy off of its history. They’ve never thought that they’ve gotten all they were due for Shuttle RSRM’s, still want more – e.g. to always be paid for HSF solids.
Remember SRB-X the NASA proposal to the AF for a triple ( side-by-side) booster using 3 SRBs? It didn’t go anywhere. Nor did the liquid propelled NASA/AF Magnum SLS which was also stillborn, and the LFBB proposed to replace the solid boosters on the Space Shuttle. And don’t forget the $1Billion plus spent by NASA on the never built ASRM which was initiated after the Challenger failure. And NLS, ALS ,Shuttle-C, etc, etc. Mucho dinero and valuable human resources have been spent on many concepts but not enough on technology development and new space based infrastrucure. In the late1950s we had viable concepts in the works for outposts on the Moon, Space Villages, large space telescopes ( before Hubble) and many other future projects that were terminated due to the national dead end program known as Apollo.
I hate to look at it that way … but its too true.
In the success … sometimes lies the failure. In the failure … sometimes lies the success. Maddening.
My belief is that we have come full circle – we are being addressed with the challenge of succeeding in HSF for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons as before.
How will we do this time? Will we temper our approach with wisdom, or be compelled by unreasoning fear?
Most don’t think we can avoid our societal demons … that we are too immature a culture … for the rational conquest of Gerard K. O’Neill’s High Frontier. Or in Arthur C. Clarke’s view “out of the cradle, endlessly orbiting …”.Here is a demon. Not an aspiration to greatness.
add:
To understand the difficulty in understanding why leadership fail’s currently, I reccommend you read this:
Trickle-Down Distress: How America’s Broken Meritocracy Drives Our National Anxiety Epidemic
. It’s in the Atlantic.
It might also explain the nature of our dillemma’s in going forward post Shuttle. Food for thought.
nooc
The real problem is a lack of national will due to lack of political leadership and a true grass roots effort (driven by a champion like Wernher von Braun who could inspire politicians. engineers, technicians, students and average citizens to achieve greater goals and objectives.) A realistic rationale that is “gold -plated” and viable is another necessary ingredient for mission success as well as an honest budget and schedule neede for the operational entity –established to manage and implement the program from conception to completion.
Isn’t Musk today’s version of the Von Braun champion ????
Isn’t he building a grass roots following with each success???
Doesn’t he have the right message that most agree on??
Settlement of space or settlement reachable other worlds through FINALLY reducing the cost of spaceflight??
I and others here have suggested he do some bold stuff soon. Other prefer he play it extra safe.
I think a few stunts are in order to really capture the worlds attention.
Lol
Use what and who you have now lol
DTARS
I worked for over 20 years with Dr. von Braun on various tasks and assignments, so I am biased in trying to compare him with Mr. Musk– and I doubt that Elon has enough ego to accept such a comparison. The unique charisma, systems engineering and management skills, broad knowledge of many subjects, and warm personality of Dr. von Braun was a rare combination in one individual– that will be very difficult to replace.
Perhaps a new space exploration leader will appear some day and I do hope that Elon Musk will mature into such a role.
Lets see his record after a few more years before we hail him as our hero.
I do wish him the best.
Spacehistorian
For me, it’s cool to even get a response from someone that, like you, knew him.
And I’m not trying to compare the personalities.
My simple point is I think the battle today is to make space commercial and THE most important thing to do is to make cheap reusable flyback boosters which only Mr. Musk seems to have the gumption to try, and I find the fact as you have stated that flyback boosters was Mr. Von Braun’s idea, most Interesting.
I had fun thinking and writing about Tinkers, lifter launching Von Braun’s space station Mars cycler which makes me wonder how all could have been different had we followed Mr. Von Braun’s ideas more closely.
Parallel Lines
Add
One of the qualities that I think is kind of cool about Mr. Musk is he isn’t and doesn’t claim to be a super scientist. Just a business Joe with a dream that Space should and can be there for all.
Seems to be the right guy with the right message at the right time to me.
Chris:
The first stage of the Ariane V is pressurized during it’s shipment to French Giana because it can’t support it’s own weight in when horizontal. Orion would be lighter than an fueled upper stage and payload that Ariane lifts though.
My main beef is simple. No solid rockets launching crewed vehicles please. We’ve followed that fault tree once before to a place we don’t want to go again.
tinker
“My main beef is simple. No solid rockets launching crewed vehicles please. We’ve followed that fault tree once before to a place we don’t want to go again.”
While I agree, the risk is ATK’s until they prove their design. Which is how it should be. I don’t mind independent vendors experimenting with novel designs, developing on their existing capacity. As long as NASA isn’t essentially forced by Congressional language to adopt a specific vendor on a traditional FAR contract.
It would be good if ATK developed, essentially, Ares I and Orion on an unfunded SAA. It reinforces the idea that NASA needs more (not less) freedom to do multi-vehicle/multi-vendor fixed-price contacts for major developments… like SLS.
This is a key point and I think where Liberty deserves a degree of lattitude that Ares-I did not get. Ares-I was going to be the compulsory and default crew launch vehicle. So, any serious problems that were allegedly going to be papered over for political and ego reasons could easily turn into a Challenger-style catastrophe from which NASA might not have recovered. Liberty, on the other hand, is competing on largely level ground with at least three (four, if you include Blue Origin) other LV/spacecraft systems. If Liberty turns out to be inheritly flawed as Ares-I sceptics and haters insist, then the market will select it for failure.
Interesting comments from Marc and Tinker about the Ariane tank not being sufficiently stout. But I have to ask: isn’t that same A5 stage launched with two heavy solids attached to it ?
The problem is that the forces are all different. Instead of it being from two side-mounted boosters transmitting their force through a ‘shoulder’ thrust beam, it’s a single in-line engine transmitting its force from directly behind into the bottom of a tank that was only meant to take the force from a much less powerful liquid-fuelled engine. The tank thus needs to be re-engineered to handle a completely different set of forces.
As one commentator on NSF likes pointing out: Rockets are not Lego bricks. You can’t just stick bits together in a way other than how they were originally intended to be used.
The primary difference, from what I gather from the release and in the video, is that the tank needs to be thicker for Liberty. Hence the tests to see if the technology for Ariane 5 can be adopted.
Thicker side walls for the HULK to dig his fingers into, to hang on to make it human rated.
It does appear to be very good progress for a complicated integration problem. I guess I just think they can not compete against best value when compared to the competition. Total risk for entire project would seem to be very high compared competitors who have either flown or have a certified rocket and they are just working the spacecraft portion The launch infrastructure still needs significant investment and work. Other systems such as the spacecraft are less then at PDR status.
Unless someone at NASA feels the political need to keep them in game this is going die its own death.
This “corn dog” rocket will just not go away. ATK is just looking for more government cash.
ATK just can’t believe that all their bribery … umm … ‘investment’ in Griffin and his cohorts won’t show a return. They’ll still be beating this dead horse a long time from now.
Roman candle for another 4th of July. Lol
Let’s take a poll. Who really wants to ride a solid-rocket made in Utah into space ?
I think the only ones that would are Tea Partiers!
Respectfully,
Stone
Democrats in Space via Commercial Transportation
I don’t think I want to ride that thing. Even for Shuttle with all that mass on the two SRBs is a rough ride.
They launched a Delta this morning, it looks smoother (though not sure how it really feels). Caught it on the news, they were saying “this is a private rocket [ or launch?] by Boeing and Lockheed.” Which I think is a bankrupt statement as all rockets are made by non-govt businesses. But then how come these privateers have not worked on putting an Orion on top of it. OK so I’m too lazy to work the numbers and search previous documents.
I somehow get the feeling only space vehicles that were system designed for HSF are Apollo, Shuttle, and Dragon/Falcon. All others were mods from ICBMs or as the ATK is a part of Shuttle but applied in a way that is not practical, that SRB for first stage by itself is a screamer with extremely high max Q so capsule has to be heavily shielded (weight) to protect it.
I am really anxious to see the stage separation dynamics on their first test flight. They don’t have to worry about the 12Hz resonant frequency (used in crowd control weapons – Google it) of the five-segment first stage until they actually put people on board.
This rocket is a non-starter just due to the launch infrastructure. Do they expect to use LC39A, a Shuttle MLP and the VAB? I doubt seriously that NASA will go for that. Even if they did, the mods to accommodate it would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Building it from scratch would be equally cost prohibitive. For this reason alone, this rocket can never fly. The competition has launch infrastructure in place.
This looks and sounds like a Frankensteins monster. If this makes it anywhere near the final 2.5 (!) CCDev finalists, it’ll just be Politics 1, Spaceflight 0.
I’m with those who think Liberty will disappear before it’s finished, and rightly so. Solid rockets are for killing quickly, period, and have no place in HSF. What I keep wondering about is where is ATK getting the money from that they’re continuing to pour into this? It seems like a huge risk to me; if we here can’t see it being used for HSF, certainly they’re not holding their breath at ATK, either. So, why? Who’s pushing it?
Steve
ATK is fighting for their life. They probably decided to invest some of their own money to try pushing this unfortunate vehicle through their lobbyists in congress. Lot of former astronauts with ATK stocks at risk.
Have no trouble with ATK solids orbiting non HSF payloads. Go ahead, lob 40T of storable propellant to orbit.
But they are less likely to do so, because the business case would be even harder to close than many suggest for SpaceX. One that members of Congress routinely ridicule.
Well, perhaps less since June.
But here’s the game plan, to those astros with ATK stock.
Force a situation where solids are the only game in town for HSF “in some form”, then cost dictates not having thrust termination on abort ports, mitigation for catastrophic failure on undetected manufacturing flaw single instance, … and then we have a “bad day” and find we needed stainless steel parachutes to have survived.
Any astro worth their salt would know why this is a bad idea. Any pilot knows you don’t fly with someone you don’t trust their judgement with. Likewise rock climbers.
Solids can detonate – shockwave. Liquids deflagrate – no shockwave. Clear?
So any astro’s backing Liberty … you have a good reason to question their professionalism. Then they’re not astro’s …
They must know, it sucks for them. Precourt and Rominger (google them) are former astronauts who were 1) in charge of ATK’s portion of Ares-1/Constellation and 2) current Program Manager of ATK Liberty. They have skin in the game, it’s about money.
The arguments they use are:
….solids have a “safe history” with proven results, in so many Shuttle flights…
no “human rated” booster has ever exploded (one of them, STS-51L only leaked a bit, but kept on flying…) catastrophically, like Delta’s or Titan’s solid rocket boosters.