Space Access ’11: Gary Hudson on t/Space’s CCDev Proposal

Gary Hudson of t/space is back….talking about the CCDev 2 proposal his company submitted to NASA…

• Team included Andrews Space, ULA and others…
• XV-OM — XV is crew transport, OM is orbital module
• It’s a pretty funky looking spacecraft…
• Soyuz type modular architecture…8 person crew vehicle…

• OM designed to be left on orbit as a free flyer…
• Land recovery system….re-enter over water in case land recovery system fails…
• Launch Vehicle Agnostic– Launch on Anything…Atlas V, Falcon 9….whatever…
• Rocket should not make decision on abort — XV-OM uses an on-board system….if you want a truly universal crew system, put the abort system on the capsule….put telemetry data receiver on spacecraft to monitor what’s happening on booster…
• No fairing on the rocket….saves you about $10 million…
• Launch of crew and cargo on Atlas 401…cheapest Atlas available…don’t require Atlas 402 like Boeing CST-100, which requires up to $100 million in development and an extra $30 million per launch
• If you are selling cargo to NASA for station use, the cargo pays for the seats….
• Very low cost option….if you want to fly a crew every month, you could do so at a reasonable cost from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg…
• In some configurations, can launch scaled down version of XV-OM just using the first stage of Falcon 9, Taurus II and Atlas V
• can be used as a space station life-boat — up to 12 seats…
• Air Launch — ran out of money, and the Air Force got bitten by the hypersonic bug (the propulsion system of the future…and always will be)
• Air launch concept has been revisited by others….still interest in it today