Launch Vehicles

I'm part of an undergrad design competition -- more on this later. We need to do at least one trade study on launch vehicles, so I'm wondering what y'all's input is on which launch vehicles are good for what; and where to find the most and most reliable information about them.

AIAA papers I would say

I suggest you take a look at these links that Klaus posted in the "Actual cost of current Rocket systems" thread.
http://www.futron.com/pdf/FutronLaunchCostWP.pdf
http://www.gwu.edu/~spi/spaceforum/Mili ... fSpace.pdf

Thanks, guys. Any thoughts on reliability? At the very least, the system we're looking at will require two or three launches (if not several more).

You're looking for something like this?

http://www.aero.org/publications/crossl ... ble_1.html
http://www.aero.org/publications/crossl ... ble_2.html
http://www.aero.org/publications/crossl ... 01/03.html
http://www.aero.org/publications/crossl ... 05/03.html

For a detailed reliability review of single launchers, I have a book from Harland and Lorenz.

Encyclopedia astronautica has reliability numbers for most launch vehicles.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/index.htm

For example, the Atlas Centaur SLV-3D entry looks like this:

Manufacturer: Convair. Launches: 32. Failures: 3. Success Rate: 90.63% pct.

By the way, a quick glance at some of the more popular vehicles shows a surprising number with 100% success rates. For example, Atlas V has 6 out of 6 launches successful and Delta 6000 has 17 out of 17 launches successful.

The whole Atlas family has, since the introduction of the Atlas II in 1990, a 100% success rate Regarding Encyclopedia astronautica..a very nice site I always like to visit but not all information is accurate (what is impossible with that much data). For example the second Ariane 5 launch is listed as success although the achieved orbit was far from the planned orbit.

It depends, does the launch system need to be human rated?

Hehe -- at least sometimes. We're looking at launching hardware and people both (and quite a bit of it).

Thanks, all.

launching bits of people?

There's a heck of a lot of launch vehicle information here:
http://www.hobbyspace.com/Links/RLVCountdown.html
It's mostly on RLVs but hopefully it will help.

Good Luck!

As long as it's currently in use, all I care about is that it goes up.

I find that site to be more credible than Futron or the Aerospace corporation think-tanks myself.

Also try www.russianspaceweb.com and visit the Real Space Modeling section over at www.starshipmodeler.net and ask around over there.
Also ask over at www.nasaspaceflight.com

Speaking of Atlas Centaur--the largest conventional Atlas (G model) before the Atlas I, II, etc. is listed here:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/atlasg.htm

Even with hydrogen upper stages (good for probes) it was only able to loft 3.6 metric tons--as opposed to the seven or so tons R-7 could loft--with no hydrogen at all. The concept below shows how R-7 performance can be increased (somewhat) with no high energy upper stage.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/soyuzm.htm

The important point is that Soviet rockets were made with margin. They were overpowered and under-optimised--meaning they had plenty of room to grow. American craft (exept for the Saturns and the Shuttle) were under-powered and over-optimised often being all but stick built.

This 'excess' launch capability allows the Russians to domionate the lv/launch market to this day, with their Saturn IB (the UR-500 Proton) being as good if not a better seller than even R-7.

The bigger the LV they have--the better they sell, and the lower the price per pound.

Imagine that.

Are you referring to the October 30, 1997 launch of the Ariane 5G?
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ariane5g.htm
From the descriptions of the 3 satellites launched it seems like they did not depend on reaching the planned orbit to successfully complete their missions. If that is so, then I don't think it is wrong to call the launch a success, even if it didn't go exactly as planned.

The second stage shut down far too early.

In the meantime I found official launcher prices by ESA