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SLS and Orion

More SLS Contracts Announced

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 1, 2012
Filed under

NASA Awards Space Launch System Advanced Booster Contracts
“NASA has awarded three contracts totaling $137.3 million to improve the affordability, reliability and performance of an advanced booster for the Space Launch System (SLS). The awardees will develop engineering demonstrations and risk reduction concepts for a future version of the SLS, a heavy-lift rocket that will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

25 responses to “More SLS Contracts Announced”

  1. PostitiveOutlook says:
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    There are 15 completed RS-25s in existence.  If the SLS uses them up at 5 per launch the new RS-25 expendables will be needed quickly. These will require fabrication at a rate never before achieved for any engine of its size.  I have not seen any information on the actual construction of any new RS-25s.  Last thing I saw was a technical release in 2007 detailing the changes needed.  It appeared then that Marshall would be in charge of the technical specifications creation for the expendable versions — which were to include new technologies like composite ablative nozzles.  

    • no one of consequence says:
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      You could have built SLS (or Ares V) with ablative nozzle, lower cost engines (like RS-68).

      But you’d have to have used Kerlox boosters on the side instead of ATK’s precious solids, which make the base heating require costly regenerative nozzles.

      add:
      RS-68 is and will be used for another decade or two. RS-25 from Shuttle is no longer in active use, and its follow-on development will take an indefinite amount of time because its “new”. And costs of its use will be highest because … no one else uses it.

      Not to mention, because it is older that the RS-68, which has recently been upgraded, the older engine is “stale” for development – engine controllers aren’t modern, and for five instead of three to work will be a considerable project in and of itself.

    • newpapyrus says:
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      The cheaper
      and expendable RS-25E is being developed at Pratt & Whitney
      Rocketdyne (PWR). NASA reported that Rocket-engineering experts at NASA
      and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR) will shift over from 

      J-2X

      development over  to
      the RS-25E development since since the 

      J-2X is not
      essential for the first generation of manned SLS launches that will use the RL-10 utilizing ICPS upper stage. Plus you
      don’t need the J-2X even for the CPS stage since you can use existing
      RL-10 rocket engines.

      This is due to the tight SLS budget which the Obama administration is trying to cut back even further in the 2013 budget.

      I’ve read some timelines that suggest that the RS-25E engines will not be ready for production until 2021. But they could be produced a lot sooner if there was more money. But I guess there’s no rush since the current administration is really not serious about any practical or politically sustainable beyond LEO program.  So I guess they must like Congress running the show!

      Marcel F. Williams

      • Robin Seibel says:
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        Congress does run the show:  they fund it. SLS is a program generated to patronize arsenal space and shore-up the power base of certain congresspeople.

        • no one of consequence says:
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          Yes. And  its vulnerable to two weaknesses:

          1. for such an expenditure, it has to have a purpose. ASAP. Otherwise, like building a bridge to nowhere, when it suffers setbacks, the new representatives that replaced the old ones who started SLS, get political bonus points for cancelling it. Budgets are going to very shortly be strained. Only money for “shovel ready”, or shall I say “ISS hardware ready” projects is going to be available.

          2. If a existing project to do 5/7ths of a project flies 2 years ahead of  and  1/40th of the total cost of a govt project, oh and also it has other customers, including  taking away customers from Ariane 5 … what happens when you do get a place for SLS to go to … but SLS can’t either make it on time, or cannot be afforded?

          Oh, almost forgot, yeah, and we need a moon base,  lunar lander, means for cargo deliveries, exploration rovers/vehicles … did I forget anything?

  2. Tom Sellick says:
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    One day, next decade, this rocket will launch with an Orion and crew…. gonna be amazing.

    • Mader Levap says:
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       May I interest you in cool bridge? Only 1 mln $.

    • Tombomb123 says:
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      Doubt it. I’ll give it less than five percent chance it ever launches people. The sad fact of the matter is that $l$ and Orion are little more than jobs programs designed so that a handfull of companies like lockheed Martin,boeing,atk and Aerojet can make a heap of money from the american tax payer. what do the congress men and women get in return for there support? Jobs in there constituence and large political contributes(money) from these big companies. You may also like to know that the augustine commission stated that a 40 to 60 ton launcher Can support exploration meaning falcon heavy can support exploration. The projected development cost of $l$ is 10 billion before a single flight! Falcon heavy is projected to cost 125 mill per launch meaning you could buy 80 falcon heavy launches for just $l$ development cost pure cra

    • DTARS says:
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      Just like over 50 years ago!!!!  lololol 🙁

    • Emory Stagmer says:
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       Beer Bet it never flies.  No takers yet, you’re welcome to be the first.
      P.S. It’s a safe bet – I don’t drink beer…
      http://vaxheadroom.wordpres

  3. no one of consequence says:
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    Gateway and SLS are intertwined.

    Gateway gives “the rocket to nowhere” somewhere to go – a lunar habitat in a halo orbit around the moon, such that landers can be developed and sorties flown regularly from it to the surface, so that cost effectively a broad lunar exploration program can be afforded. Which we can start on today.

    So this means that by the time you fly SLS, you can do so with a crew and they can actually do lunar work straight up. It is the only way this can be accomplished within budget.

    Doing a lunar habitat/lander first, will require all new design, more LV development, lander development, and logistical support development – easily 10x more budget and another 10 years. Which we don’t have, and doubtlessly what would happen is we’d do too much on too little annual budgets, and, like CxP, end up doing nothing except inflating program cost til inevitable cancellation.

    Those that advocate for this, know that too. But the real reason they don’t want Gateway is … they fear that the program will be too successful. That it will get a lunar program going that will require SLS to accelerate to keep to schedule. And with Falcon Heavy breathing down its neck, keep to cost as well.

    It would force even more reform of “arsenal system” space … and they hate being reformed. No more cost overruns, schedule slips, dead end programs, and unaffordable boosters slipped in but with later “surprises”.

    Because either you make it work and SLS HLV really does what it claims to do … or its just a fraud, another “head fake” in a long line of them. Put up or shut up, you want to go do exploring or not?

    Not unlike John Houbolt. But this time, it’s also the beachhead for the solar system as well as the moon.

    • Mark_Flagler says:
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      Is anyone considering COTS-like resupply of either Gateway or a lunar base? Given the costs involved in an SLS launch, and its probable low production rate, cheaper commercial supply flights would seem to make as much sense in cislunar space as LEO. Send the consumables by FedEx. Er, SpaceX.

      • Tombomb123 says:
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        I’m all for using cots like resupply for a moon mars even asteroid base’s But gateway stations in my opinion are a waste of time. the more I ponder what NASA should be doing the more I realise why humanity hasn’t advanced much in space since the moon landings. it’s all down to cost elon musk is wright on the money when he says ” I will have considered us(spacex) to have failed” if they do not make reusable spacecraft. Reusability is the key to opening up travel threw our solar system by radically reducing cost to Leo. This is what I think we (humanity) should do next start up a cots like program main objective is to design and build a reusable rocket and spacecraft that can launch 100 people to a space station in Leo at one time and bring the total spacecraft And people back to earth and be ready to launch whitin 3.5 days (100 launches a year)of the previous launch this would dramatically reduce the cost of staying on a space station for a day or two my estimate is you would pay somthing like 100,000$ for a two day stay not bad eh. then you chould expand this model to the moon then mars and beyond:) .5 billion divided by 100 launches = 5 mill divided by 100 tickets = 50,000$ capital cost of rocket and spacecraft per ticket if launcher is used 100 times and launcher costs about half a billion dollars is there a Market for it?

        • Michael Reynolds says:
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          Well right now there is a British company creating the SABRE engine and the SKYLON spaceplane. Which will hopefully, if it works as planned, reduce orbital and suborbital flights by upwards of a hundred fold. Here is a link for you to look at:
          http://www.reactionengines….

          I always thought that NASA needed to focus its efforts on space vehicles and infrastructure instead of launch vehicles.

          • hikingmike says:
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             Is there energy behind this? I’ve read about it several times. Good to see they are focusing on the engines first.

        • hikingmike says:
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           Or they could make the spacecraft that stays in space, which is of course reusable by definition. If they do test launches of the SLS, they can send up some big stay-in-space stage, like an EDS, that has an engine, control jets, docking mechanism and a lot of propellant. That way the risk is less for an early launch but you still get something great up there, and uh hopefully it doesn’t cost as much as a different kind of mission payload. But they’re not going to do that I’m sure.

  4. SciFiFanLA says:
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    The latest plan I have seen shows 4 engines per launch, and a launch rate that does not exceed one per year.  At that fab rate, I see no issue with replacing the used engines going forward.  If the country could afford 3-4 launches per year than there would be a need for more infrastructure to support that launch rate.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      The real question is whether the country can afford even one launch per year. I have yet to see a long-term budget that provides for all the payload development and mission support required, as nooc points out, without slashing other programs, or which demonstrates practical benefits. The other US LVs (Falcon, Atlas, Delta) have multiple customers, higher launch rates, and lower costs.

  5. James Lundblad says:
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    I think a Jobs program is actually a good thing right now, funding SpaceX and the other commercial space companies is certainly a good jobs program also.

    • Tombomb123 says:
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      Communism at it’s finest eh. There’s a difference in spending money to create infrastructure and sound investments that lead to technological and economical advancement than funding projects like constellation,sls and orion purely to line the pockets of some congressmen and produce large amounts of jobs in there constituency which means they get re-elected. Maybe you should give over half your income to provide me whit a job eh. “funding spacex and the other commercial space companies is certainly a good jobs program also” this statement is totally wrong and is just laughable.

  6. bobhudson54 says:
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    It seems to me that the SLS system should be practically in production now. Its concept was to use the technology available today to produce this vehicle, not to ‘reinvent the wheel”. We have the availability to do this with all the shuttle hardware available. It doesn’t make sense.

  7. SciFiFanLA says:
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    I agree that at the rate NASA is getting funded we will never be able to afford what is needed to ‘explore’ to the level that people expect.  My concern is that people keep talking about other launchers like they are valid options (or even exist today, which Falcon Heavy does not).  The SLS target is over 2-6 times what can be launched by an Atlas or Delta (and over approx. 1.5 to 2.5X greater than Falcon).  Unless we have a total picture of what NASA intends, then it is hard to state what will and will not work. 
     
    As for Arsenal Space (or whatever name you want to give them), let’s see who can do the job better when you give both groups the same set of requirements and standards to meet.  Companies like Boeing have a lot of experience competing with Airbus and do so very well.  They are products of their environments… they just need to be given the same latitude to improve.  I am all for competition. 
     
    But, either way (new or old) we will never get to places like Mars with the limited budget we have today. I agree wholeheartedly that the infrastructure, support, landers etc. just are not in the cards with this budget.  It is worth noting that NASA’s budget as a % of the federal budget is at the lowest it has ever been under President Obama.  If we went back to the Clinton years, the NASA budget would almost be double.  With that amount of funding, we could do a heck of a lot to make HSF a success.