AirLaunch: launching satellites from cargo planes

[Dr Mordrid]

AirLaunch's idea is to roll boosters out the back of large cargo planes. Once rolled out it rotates to vertical then fires.

The USAF is partially funding its development and they just moved on to stage 2C after great success in the previous stages. In short; air drop works.

It's also the proposed launcher for t/Spaces CxV manned capsule. One of t/Spaces founders is Burt Rutans Scaled Composites, and many think CxV is SpaceShipThree in disguise.

Video: air drop of a mock-up booster....

AirLaunch Test


CxV


A. Mother ship

A “Very Large Aircraft,”either a 747 with extended landing gear or a custom vehicle (read: Rutans White Knight 2), will carry t/Space’s rocket to a launch altitude above any bad weather.

B. Capsule

The crew transfer vehicle (CXV) capsule accommodates three or four crew members and their supplies. Its design is based on the Corona reentry vehicle used to return film from spy satellites—its blunt shape dissipates heat well and automatically orients the craft for re-entry. During the CXV’s descent, two layers of inexpensive silicone and ceramic tiles (SIRCA) protect it from thermal buildup, and the seats swivel to face the rear, easing G-force strain on the crew.

C. Booster

The two-stage QuickReach rocket will heft the capsule into orbit, fueled by propane and liquid oxygen. To avoid complex turbopump machinery, vapor pressure, created by heating the propane prior to fueling, forces the fuel into the engine.

[Wulfman]

stupid question: why? doesn't seem to be more energy efficient [not far less altitude, no speed boost by the carrier (rather a loss by dropping)] or anything. is being independent of the weather / geographical location / established base really that much of an incentive?

mfg
wulfman

[Dr Mordrid]

2 adantages;

1. weather & location independence. A military launch, say an emergency spy satellite in low earth orbit for a particular target in an orbit poorly covered by existing resources.

2. getting a ground launched booster to 1st stage cutoff requires burning hundreds of thousands of pounds of fuel, sometimes millions of pounds. The launch planes fuel use is in the thousands of pounds. Basically, AirLaunch starts with the 2nd stage.

Sure; at staging the ground launched booster is moving at ~Mach 3 and it occurs higher up, but a relatively small bit of extra fuel in the AirLaunch takes care of that rapidly because of the lower drag at high altitudes; it's already above most of the atmosphere that the ground launch had to fight through.

The little bit of momentum lost by the drop is insignificant when you consider the target velocity of 17,500 mph

This makes air launch much more efficient and cheaper. It's also environmentally cleaner because all that fuel the ground launch 1st stage would normally burn isn't used.

There is already an air launch to orbit booster, Orbital Sciences Pegasus, that's been in service for 10 years, but it's a light weight launcher fired from the wing of a B-52. AirLaunch is much, much bigger.

[MultimediaMan]

The Air Force actually launched a Minuteman I from the back of a C130 cargo plane in the late 1960's. The Egress and Launch Phase of the test IIRC was a success. There was a problem with it's guidance due to the plane not being at the right point at launch, but this was 40 years ago on a missile designed to be launched from a fixed emplacement.

The idea of taking an orbital vehicle up to a "2nd stage" launch altitude is very attractive for many of the reasons the Doc already mentioned: the single best part of all of this is the fairly long launch windows you can have...if you miss your original launch window, you can change course while still on the delivery aircraft to compensate for the missed window. You do not have to worry about carrying all the extra fuel normally used for boosting the rocket to 50K-60K feet (which is the where the bulk of the fuel is used, anyway) an it's attendant complexities and risks.

We've been dropping shuttles and rockets from aircraft for over 60 years....

[Elie]

yeah but a 747 has altitude limitations as well, you want an aircraft capable of achieving extreme altitudes bordering the Earths atmosphere to save even more fuel I would say.

And I think such aircraft exist no?

[Dr Mordrid]

The 747 and A380 likely could be modded for use as air launchers but from lower altitudes.

White Knight 1, SpaceShipOne's launcher, and its stablemate the Proteus have already air dropped many times. Subjects; AirLaunch boosters for the USAF and the X-37 spaceplane for DARPA.

White Knight 2 is rumored to be 3 times larger than WK1, the size of a 737, but with a much heavier cargo capacity. WK2's the launcher for SpaceShipTwo, and it's the size of a GulfStream jet.

Both White Knights can operate at 50,000 to 60.000 feet. Proteus: 65,000+ feet.

Let's also not ignore the "Rockoon" launch option; the booster gets lofted to ~150,000 feet by a large balloon whereupon it's launched. I know of 3 groups working on this now, and 2 intend to launch manned spacecraft.

Rockoons go way back too, and IIRC it was tried as a missile basing option as well (confirm MMM?)

Proteus/AirLaunch drop

[MultimediaMan]

Rockoons were used in the late 1940's-until about 1960 for the Aerobee Project and a few others: The Technology of the time was holding them back, so their free-float altitudes were limited to about 70,000 feet and their payloads were fairly limited.

The Rockets themselves were not as successful as hoped due to the rocket components freezing during the fairly long ascent to altitude - which are all issues likely resolved from decades of other work and research on Satellites and Rocket Technology in General.

The only drawback of Rockoons, then as now, is the fairly long time to altitude (depending on weather conditions and wind, it can take days to get to maximum altitude), and the unpredictability of the final location of the rocket at Altitude for orbital insertion. Again, technology offers some solutions for these problems; modern computers can determine orbital insertion solutions in near-realtime.

This can make for an interesting launch cycle, because the entire process might have to be under computer control for the launch to work - Overrides and Go-NoGo commands would have to be True/False conditions rather than steps in the Launch Sequence. Some people may not like that.

[Dr Mordrid]

Again, technology offers some solutions for these problems; modern computers can determine orbital insertion solutions in near-realtime.

This can make for an interesting launch cycle, because the entire process might have to be under computer control for the launch to work - Overrides and Go-NoGo commands would have to be True/False conditions rather than steps in the Launch Sequence. Some people may not like that.

Some people probably already don't; SpaceX has automated their launch cycle to the point it only takes 15 people with laptops to launch their Falcon boosters.

On their 2nd demo launch of Falcon I they had an automatic abort just as the engine ignited. They were able to remotely drain the tanks, diagnose and correct a software fault, refill the tanks and launch within an hour because of their automation.

If that had been NASA

SpaceX says their Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy (27 1st stage engines ) will use the same system, though more people will be needed in the ground crew for maintenance and assembly

They'll be launching from the Cape, Vandenberg and possibly NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

[Technoid]

On their 2nd demo launch of Falcon I they had an automatic abort just as the engine ignited. They were able to remotely drain the tanks, diagnose and correct a software fault, refill the tanks and launch within an hour because of their automation.

If that had been NASA

It would have been a month, and that with nasa going on and on about how quick and efficiently everything went