DARPA Picks Boeing's Phantom Express
Boeing, DARPA to Design, Build, Test New Experimental Spaceplane
“Boeing will develop an autonomous, reusable spaceplane capable of carrying and deploying a small expendable upper stage to launch small (3,000 pound/1,361 kg) satellites into low Earth orbit. Boeing and DARPA will jointly invest in the development. Once the spaceplane – called Phantom Express – reaches the edge of space, it would deploy the second stage and return to Earth. It would then land on a runway to be prepared for its next flight by applying operation and maintenance principles similar to modern aircraft.”
Aerojet Rocketdyne Selected As Main Propulsion Provider for Boeing and DARPA Experimental Spaceplane
SSME could certainly meet the goal of 10 flights in 10 days. But one of the goals of the program is to make space flight cheaper. I really don’t see how SSMEs will help advance towards that goal.
According to Wikipedia (I know, consider the source), they’re using leftover parts of unbuilt SSMEs to build two AR-22 engines for the XS-1 program. No doubt they believe that’ll keep engine costs at a minimum, although it’s hard to see how there’s much future in it.
That’s all well and good for an experimental program, but SSMEs do not strike me as the appropriate solution for an economical operational system.
I agree that it’s hard to see how there is much of a future for the reusable version of the SSME. They are neither cheap to manufacture nor cheap to maintain. Furthermore, since NASA is moving to make a cheaper to manufacture version of the SSME an “expendable” engine for SLS, some of the commonality with the SSME may be lost.
If they just want to test the airframe, thermal protection, etc. the rockets could be irrelevant. A future, operational vehicles would be different from their experimental predecessors, and might use different engines.
Seems like a nice use of the legacy RS-25’s, as they will be used more than once, and in theory after this test program is over they could be used in a similar manner for some other test project.
Unlike SLS which will toss these amazing reusable engines into the ocean after just one flight. Only after all of the reusable engines are used up will they start using lower cost expendable versions of the engine.
If they make it that far that is.
Part of the difficulty here is that hydrogen is not a particularly desirable fuel for a booster. Because of its low density it requires a lot of volume for the fuel tank, hence the large external tank on the Shuttle. Except for the wings, this would be similar to the booster of the Delta IV in its original light variant.
Agreed. But I still don’t like VTHL (or HTHL) launch vehicles. The wings and vertical stabilizer(s) are “dead weight” for launch and necessarily contain control surfaces for reentry and landing. VTVL with landing legs seems simpler to me and is quite likely lighter than wings and aerodynamic surfaces.
That said, some in the USAF are predisposed to vehicles with wings that land on runways. 😉
The pro-wing bias is probably about what an astronaut’s job description should be. Do they want to have pilots or flight engineers?
This launcher won’t be manned, so having wings doesn’t make sense, unless they’re trying to find another reason to justify very long USAF runways.
Landing the Falcon booster does require fuel, so the weight comparison is not obvious and the optimal solution can go either way. My guess is that a smaller booster with an SSME would favor wings, in part because the large single engine cannot be throttled down enough for a powered landing.
However LH2 requires a larger fuselage with greater aerodynamic drag, making the winged solution a bit more challenging, while the fuel for landing is lighter than it would be with RP-1.
Why not just use the New Shepard, which is in some respects a derivative of the DC-X?
Cost scales with complexity. Falcon 9R is going to be cheaper than a VTHL because wings (complex shapes and movable surfaces) and landing gear (with wheels and brakes) are more complex than simply making the stage bigger than necessary and adding landing gear and grid fins. This is, of course, my opinion and I think competition is good.
Exactly. Apparently one of problems in the X-37C proposal was the difficulty in adding a windshield and crew seat in the nose, when logical design placed the hatch in the tail. The fact that it can land perfectly well without a pilot did not change the situation.
Like the X37B, we don’t know the thinking of the AF Generals, but the two programs appear to be marching towards a similar goal.
If they use a autogenously pressurized Pistonless Pump, they will have a less expensive, more reliable engine with a long life. See http://www.rocketfuelpump.c…
It sounds like a commercial civilian version of their X-37B. Good news if they can actually make it work at an affordable price.
This is nothing like the X-37B though, which is a 20 year old spacecraft design, that is carried as a payload. The tanks and TPS for this project are straight out of X-33 (although that was LM back then, not Boeing).
But based on the sketches, the design is for wings and fuselage, not a lifting body. Probably a wise decision as it eliminates the X-33’s complex conformal fuel tanks.
The news about it using a SSME (essentially) is a little weird imo. Especially since they are talking about AJRD making them from spare parts found in their warehouses and NASA centers…If I remember correctly, SSME is not re-startable. This means that the spaceplane will launch from one airport, and land on another. Moreover, the SSME was not known to be a very fast turnaround engine. And this program is about 10 flights in 10 days..
Lastly, what the hell happened to Blue Origin? They were the original engine partner for Boeing in this program.
If the thing does not reach space….then can you really call it a spaceplane? I know it does not achieve orbit, but does it even pass the Karman Line?
WASHINGTON, DC (DARPA PR) — DARPA has selected The Boeing Company to complete advanced design work for the Agency’s Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1)
program, which aims to build and fly the first of an entirely new class
of hypersonic aircraft that would bolster national security by
providing short-notice, low-cost access to space.
Yes,I guess it is a spaceplane program. but this is a hypersonic aircraft. They only say launch at a high sub-orbital altitude.
I assume it would either get close to the Karman line or cross it. But there isn’t anything magical about that altitude. Von Karman based his line on comparing aerodynamic lift to centrifugal force. At the line, level flight would require flying at orbital velocity. But that really depends on the vehicle’s shape and coefficient of lift. 100 km is what you get for a plausible value, as well as being a nice, round number, so the Karman line is officially 100 km. But, in practice, it really doesn’t matter if XS-1 goes to 90 or 110 km. They will design it to go to the altitude which optimizes performance.
I’m willing to bet that SpaceX would have zero interest in doing so. Spaceplanes aren’t in their path to Mars. Starting a whole are design and production line would be a huge distraction for an uncertain amount of gain.
This has been in the works for four years, and there three teams working on the previous phase. Boeing/BO, Masten/XCor and Northrup Grumman/Virgin. That makes the current selection a competitive one. Dropping Blue Origin is a bit odd, but that could have been a Boeing choice. I have also seen some “Frankenstein” selections. (I.e. where they liked part of one proposal, a different part of another, selected part of one and part of the other and told the two teams to stich it together.)
I’d have liked to have seen Masten/XCor win this one. But Boeing has turned this into an “old space” only vehicle with their move away from Blue Origin in favor of Aerojet Rocketdyne for this next phase.
First, of course it was a competitive bidding process that Boeing won fair & square – and SpaceX didn’t even enter.
Second, why in the world is SpaceX presumptively assumed to be the best answer? For the record, I am NOT a Boeing employee but Boeing sells hundreds of commercial jetliners in the international commercial market every year – obviously they know how to innovate, compete and price commercially – SpaceX is not the repository of all things good in aerospace.
That raises an interesting question about Boeing. In some companies (e.g. LMA or SwRI) different branches or divisions are very different. Management practices and organizational culture can be so different you might think they were completely different companies. Is that the case with Boeing? How much alike are the civil aviation and government aerospace contractor sides of the company? (And which part of the company got this contract?)
Commercial and government business are different to say the least. The government requires massive proposals (often costing millions to write), complex contracts and micromanaged accounting. Commercial requires cost cutting, rapid response to customers, and slick marketing. Some companies manage to do both within the same division, but (as we can see with ULA) it’s not easy when there is competition. In the case of Boeing they are separate divisions.