Reusable unmanned heavy vehicle...

An article at the homepage of the german section of the Mars Society - www.marssociety.de - is reporting that European Aeronautics Defense and Space is thinking about the development of an unmanned RLV instead of a new Arian version.

Unfortunately the article doesn't list a link.

This replacement and substitute for Ariane 5 could be available in 2010 or 2015.

The article says that this may be a chance for the german Hopper which Phoenix is a prototype of. Hopper would carry up to 7.5 tons payload to an orbit of 130 km altitude. There it would release its payload and return to the earthian surface. The payload would consist of a satellite and an upper stage the satellite is mounted to. This upper stage would carry the satellite to the destination orbit.

But Hopper currently isn't the new EADS-vehicle yet - that vehicle may be a real heavy carrier.

What about this?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Why would Europe need heavy lift?

I shouldn't have called it heavy lift - I was in error that moment because I compared the unmanned RLV to SSO, Rocketplanes vehicle, Suborbital Corporation's vehicle, Bristol Spaceplane'S vehcile etc. and in parallel read the name Ariane.

The reason why EADS is thinking about that unmanned RLV is that there currently is no sufficient market for rockets which can lift 10 tons or more. A new Arian 5 with larger capacity isn't justified economically - but that RLV could be justified.

So EADS considers a lighter vehicle to be needed instead of a heavier. Sorry for the error.

What I find interesting is the method...



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Medium lift then. I keep hearing of an Orel/Ural booster that may be similar to the fly-back Baikal booster that was to go on ANGARA with an RD-191.

Here in the states the only thing we have is the new Ares plan--but Boeing and LockMart may wind up winning that just to squelch it and sit on it so that it doesn't eat into EELV sales. Hu Davis at www.starbooster.com might be a friend. I think it would be wise if Europeans and Americans could come together against Boeing in some wise. Europe has made some agreements with Russia, and their fly-back goes all the way to Energiya:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/mtkkmain.htm

I think you will find the fly-back to be some scissor wing concept. They wanted the fly-back to replace the Ariane 5's solids--esp. after that big explosion in Tolouse that happened shortly after 9/11--and thus was under-reported here. The Orel might be soemthing bigger.

No doubt--it will have Russian tech. Though Alabama is become a business friendly state--for good or ill.

A true re-usable heavy-lifter would be this:
www.buran.ru/htm/41-3.htm
A smaller Ariane 5 version might be what they have in mind.

as long as the launch rate justifies an RLV.

Hello, publiusr,

a clarification seems to be of good use here that I perhaps will work out in the Financial Barriers section or the Regulation section: EADS has nothing to do with ESA - except that ESA is a customer of EADS.

So Energiya is a competitor of EADS's crafts - and EADS never will use Energiya to launch a RLV developed by themselves.

In Europe EADS develops the rockets and vehicles while ESA works out the specifications of their own payloads and then buys from EADS the service of constructing and building the vehicles.

The current situation at EADS seems to be that they decided that Ariane will not be developed further.

So the development of technologies and/or vehicles is done by at least two organizations. And the german industry is developing their own rocket by their Talis Institut which is concentrating on microlaunchers.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

As for Energiya itself--sadly that is dead--but the Zenit based strap-ons that it used are still in production for Boeings Sea Launch vehicle--the largest successful rocket flown by Boeing. Delta IV heavy has yet to prove itself.

The strap-on boosters were to be re-usable. Zenit's four-nozzle RD-170 lox/kerosene engine (with slightly more thrust than the old stock F-1 Saturn V engine) has two smaller siblings--the two nozzle RD-180 with half the thrust--and the single chamber RD-191 that is much weaker--this was to be used on their ANGARA vehicle--with one RD-191 strap-on to be equipped with wings. This was to replace the Ariane 5 strap-on.
Now what you are describing may be Baikal--or it may be something different.

Is there no way to link any pictures here? The old Orel series of (proposed) boosters can be seen at:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/orelv2.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/orelv6.htm (this was shown on Space Daily but seems a bit pricy.)

Baikal and Svityaz--an AN-225 launched Zenit kith-are at:

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikal.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/rockets_launchers.html

The Zenit family:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/zenit.html


"2005 April 26: Sea Launch Company successfully delivered DIRECTV’s Spaceway F1 satellite to orbit, completing the launch of the heaviest commercial satellite to date, the company said. According to Sea Launch, early data indicated the spacecraft was in excellent condition."

It seems NASA is getting behind a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle, not surprising given Griffen's comments so far on the subject. No details as yet but apparently NASA will make a statement in the first week of July on the matter.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1026

Better and better. I still want to know about the new European RLV Ekke was speaking on. The recent "non' vote might hinder that--but I think Russian involvement might help them out. If the idiots in D.C. aren't smart enough to engage the Russians--perhaps the Europeans will. The German/Russian EUROKOT launch vehicle, based on the UR-100, is perhaps the closest rival to Elon Musk's Falcon--and the Dnepr is Falcon V class.

I would like to see a link to this new Euro concept. I am not a big free-trader--but I really do appreciate having greater relations with Europe, even if it doesn't sound that way.
I appreciate Bolton being an America firster--but he needs to be a diplomat. But that is way off topic.

Any more info on the concept you were speaking about Ekke?

The article under www.marssociety.de says that EADS is thinking about an unmanned RLV (as I quoted it) - it is not saying that they are designing it already or working on it.

Since then I didn't ready more about it yet because the it was too recently. What has been said is about alternatives and possibilities but not about decisions made. So no real concept can be there already.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)