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#1
02-26-2012, 02:36 AM
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NASA Study Summary: "Low Cost Launch Vehicle Study"
Well, here's a study by TRW from 1969... a 434 page monster called the "Low Cost Vehicle Study". Pretty interesting concept. The idea was, what kind of rocket would you get if you designed it with the #1 priority being "Design it cheap, build it cheap, fly it cheap". Everything else took a backseat. The entire study is predicated around the 'perceived demand' for launches in the 1973-1985 period, with this vehicle taking most of the load. The launcher they came up with was about the size of the Saturn V, but MUCH heavier because it was designed to use thick-wall pressure-fed single or quad engines with 12 million pounds of first stage thrust for a vehicle just under 10 million pounds in weight (over half again the weight of Saturn V). It would be constructed out of high strength steel for cheapness and strength to contain the 250-400 PSI propellant tank pressure to feed the engine(s) directly, and would use all hypergolic storable propellants, nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, basically the same as the Titan II. The vehicle would put about 100,000 pounds into LEO or 20,000 lbs to geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO). It would cost way less than half that of a Saturn V on a recurring (per-launch) basis. Versions down to 20 tons were envisioned, using combinations of the upper stages modified for first stage use. They also looked at combining a large pressure-fed booster stage with a hydrogen powered high-energy S-IVB stage from Saturn V to get a high performance booster... which could have been cost competitive had they reduced S-IVB costs from $20 million per stage down to $12 million... and if they had done a barrel stretch on the S-IVB to increase the propellant load by 35%, combined with the pressure fed low cost first stage would make a vehicle capable of orbiting over 200,000 lbs! Pretty impressive!
SO, here's the study summarized into the main high points dealing with the design of the vehicles and the supporting infrastructure at KSC. They also give a nice breakdown of costs and capabilities at KSC for the VAB, Pads, MLP's, LUTs, crawlers, crawlerways, MSS, etc... pretty neat stuff, because I've not seen that stuff quantified so succinctly before. I put it all in the summary. This would make some interesting rockets to go alongside Saturn V's... maybe as "follow-on" vehicles had this path been chosen instead of the Space Shuttle... Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round! 
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#2
02-26-2012, 02:38 AM
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A basic breakdown chart of the LCLV family in the study...
The LCLV family... The different proposed stages for the LCLV family... A chart comparing flight rates, payload, and cost per pound payload to orbit for various vehicles... A chart comparing costs with the design parameters, IE cost vs. conservative performance estimates/low risk, versus costs for designs with more 'optimistic' performance estimates and higher risk... Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!
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#3
02-26-2012, 02:41 AM
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LCLV configurations...
Design summary... Modular variation, which would develop a single engine type and the propellant tanks sized for it, which would be "ganged" together to make lower stages. This complicated design so much that it was more expensive, MUCH MUCH heavier, and offered less performance and greater cost, so the design was abandoned. The individual modules would have to be tailored with different skin thicknesses, operating pressures, and different nozzles (expansion ratios) fitted to the engines depending on what stage they were being placed. The monolithic tank model DID get some traction and was about on par with the mono-tank single engine varieties, because it didn't require the development of a 12 million pound pressure fed engine... it would merely reuse the upper stage's 3 million pound pressure fed engine in a cluster of 4... A summary of the characteristics of the different potential vehicles... Pressure fed liquid boosters utilizing the S-IVB as a high-performance upper stage. This was predicated on doing a "streamlining and cost-cutting program" on S-IVB to take the price down on it from $20 million per stage to $12 million. Higher performance could be had (nearly double Saturn V) by stretching the S-IVB stage 35% for more propellants at the same time as the 'cheapening' program was done. It would also allow a very effective "interim" program to begin as soon as the first stage was ready for the LCLV, using the existing S-IVB stage as an upper stage, until the second and third stages of LCLV could be completed. Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!
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#4
02-26-2012, 02:44 AM
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LV Configs vs. costs chart...
Main Tank Injection (MTI) stage pressurization system. This was a very novel design. The oxidizer (nitrogen tetroxide- N2O4 or NTO) tank operated at a higher pressure than the fuel tank (unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, UDMH). As a result, and due to the special nature of room-temperature storable hypergolic propellants used, a pair of pumps would inject some of the fuel directly into the oxidizer tank through nozzles submerged within the NTO deep in the oxidizer tank. This UDMH would instantly burst into flame when it mixed with the NTO, releasing a flurry of hot bubbles that would rise to the top of the tank and pressurize it to a couple hundred PSI to force the propellant into the engine(s). The fuel tank was at a lower pressure, so nozzles emplaced on the standpipe transporting the oxidizer through the fuel tank to the engine, submerged under the UDMH fuel, would inject NTO into the liquid UDMH, causing it to instantly burst into flame, producing a flurry of bubbles to pressurize the fuel tank and force the fuel into the rocket engine(s). Evidently the practice had been proven in tests, though whether it was ever used on an operational vehicle I have no idea. The nozzles injecting the liquids into the opposite tanks would be controlled by regulators that kept the propellant tank pressures at the appropriate levels. As the propellant levels in the tanks dropped as the propellant was burned in the engine, eventually the nozzles would be exposed and would then be squirting the hypergolic chemicals onto the surface of the liquid in the opposing tanks, causing it to instantly burst into flame as they contacted... this acted to heat the ullage gas in the tank and make it less dense, while maintaining the pressure needed to force the propellants into the engine injector. The gas would eventually heat up to about 600 degrees F just before shutdown of the injection system, which occurred a few seconds before engine shutdown to allow the remaining propellants to be undisturbed as they flowed out of the tanks and into the engine(s) to minimize the propellant residuals... The TVC system of the LCLV was also very interesting and innovative. It used electromechanical fluid injection thrust vector control, virtually identical to that used on the Titan III and various military ICBMs. Since the propellants were used as the steering fluid, no auxiliary tanks were needed for it, unlike Titan III which used the liquid NTO injected into the nozzle to deflect the exhaust in lieu of gimbaling the nozzles of the solid rocket motors for steering control. This greatly simplified the steering system. The single engine baseline vehicle would control pitch and yaw through the fluid injection TVC system, and use "hot gas thrusters" mounted directly on the tank wall, in opposing pairs on opposite sides of the vehicle, controlled by solenoids and fired by the IU, to control roll. These thrusters would get their energy from the hot gas at a couple hundred PSI in the head ends of the propellant tanks themselves, merely opening a valve to release the hot gas through the thruster nozzle. Very innovative! For ullage control on the upper stages, rather than using retrorockets or ullage rockets to separate the stages and seat the propellant in the bottom of the upper stage prior to engine startup, the upper stages had additional hot gas thrusters placed around their periphery facing aft... when signaled by the IU, they would open their solenoid valves and release hot pressurization gas through the nozzles, to add a bit of acceleration to the stage and push the propellants to the back of the tanks and lines into the engine(s). Very novel! An expanded view of the LCLV single engine version... Part of the concept for lowest-cost possible launcher was, that the reason "regular" launchers cost so much was the widely-separated supply and fabrication chain of many different companies producing components and stages in widely separated areas, and requiring a substantial management and QC chain to ensure that all the parts would work together in the final stages, and then to transport all the stages and integrate them together from widely separated factories around the country into a single flight-ready vehicle. The idea of reducing these costs was then predicated on the idea that the LCLV would be built entirely in a new "Plant A" located very close to KSC... close enough for direct rail delivery of completed stages to KSC for stacking and integration on the MLP, without costly and difficult transport from across the country, which would also centralize the management efforts and streamline production and lower costs. Here's the suggested locations of the "Plant A" for LCLV... Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!
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#5
02-26-2012, 02:46 AM
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The Saturn V LUT/ML, which would have been reused with proper modifications for LCLV...
The Saturn V Mobile Service Structure (MSS) which too would have been modified and reused with LCLV, mainly by enlarging its lower work platforms to fit around LCLV's 40 foot diameter first stage... Pad 39A/B... with the blast deflector which would have been modified or replaced for LCLV... Concept of LCLV for ground support study... Comparison of Saturn V and LCLV, weight, dimensions, thrust... Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!
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#6
02-26-2012, 02:49 AM
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Alternate sites a bit further from KSC for Plant A were also looked at... and shown on this map... the most efficient means of moving stages from KSC was by rail, which meant it had to be fairly close...
The MSS shown in use supporting LCLV, compared to Saturn V... The engine that made the LCLV concept possible... the coaxial injector (pintle injector) low cost booster engine... Basically, it's a Lunar Module Descent Engine (LMDE) upscaled to 12 MILLION POUNDS THRUST (in the biggest model). Or, conversely, imagine a lunar module descent engine sized for 3 MILLION POUNDS THRUST... and use FOUR of them on the first stage of LCLV... Of course, one interesting thing of note, since this obviously never went any further than this study... the pintle injected LMDE engine was to rise again-- the canceled TR-107 LOX/RP-1 engine from a few years back was a large million pound thrust+ class pintle-injected low-cost engine... sadly canceled before it was completed... Later! OL JR
__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!
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#7
02-26-2012, 12:26 PM
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Quote:
You could be writing about the Boeing 787 production process here! This whole summary is fascinating. Thank you!
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Bernard Cawley NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member SAM 0061 AMA 42160 KG7AIE
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#9
03-14-2012, 10:44 PM
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Eh-men! "MCD" (Minimum Cost Design) is the rocket version of the "simple is beautiful" concept. Utilizing the Minimum Cost Design satellite launch vehicle design criteria results in SLVs that are somewhat larger and heavier than SLVs of an equal payload capability that are designed for minimum weight and high performance, but MCD satellite launch vehicles are much less expensive, much more robust, and much simpler to build than other SLVs. The Russian launch vehicles are built according to design criteria that are similar to the Minimum Cost Design criteria, and Russian SLVs are very inexpensive, robust, and reliable. Below are links to web sites that contain additional information on Minimum Cost Design satellite launch vehicles:
Lieutenant Colonel John R. London III wrote a book titled "Low Earth Orbit on the Cheap: Methods for Achieving Drastic Reductions In Space Launch Costs" (see: www.dunnspace.com/leo_on_the_cheap.htm ). Chapter 9 of this book (see: http://www.quarkweb.com/nqc/lib/gen...eocheap_ch9.htm ) has information about proposed Minimum Cost Design satellite launch vehicles, and this web page (see: www.quarkweb.com/nqc/lib/gencoll/leocheap ) has links to each chapter and to the entire book. Engineer Arthur Schnitt of The Aerospace Corporation discovered the Minimum Cost Design criteria, and he designed several satellite launch vehicles using the Minimum Cost Design criteria (see: www.dunnspace.com/home.html ). In addition, the "Low Cost Rockets" section of the Dunn Engineering web site (see: www.dunnspace.com/index.htm ) has an interesting technical report about simple, self-pressurizing liquid propellant rocket systems (see: www.dunnspace.com/self_pressurized_rockets.htm ).
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Black Shire--Draft horse in human form, model rocketeer, occasional mystic, and writer, see: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperba...an-form/8075185 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6122050 http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511 All of my book proceeds go to the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre www.northcotehorses.com. NAR #54895 SR
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