Stratolaunch is 40 Percent Complete
The new design of Stratolaunch’s carrier aircraft. (Credit: Stratolaunch Systems)
The Seattle Seahawks may have lost the Super Bowl because of an idiotic call on the goal line in the waning seconds, but billionaire owner Paul Allen can take comfort in two things:
He still has billions of dollars. And Birdzilla.
Speaking of which, Stratolaunch System’s giant carrier aircraft is 40 percent complete:
Scaled Composites President Kevin Mickey confirmed the progress in an email Tuesday from that company’s headquarters in Mojave, Calif., where the aircraft is being built….
The wings and fuselage of the 1.3 million-pound Stratolaunch will be new, and about 80 percent of the assemblies are complete, Mickey said….
Progress on the aircraft seems so far to be steady. The first flight is still scheduled for 2016, the same date the company earlier indicated.
If that remains the case, the aircraft is supposed to finish certification flights and launch its first space craft by 2018.
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82 responses to “Stratolaunch is 40 Percent Complete”
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Birdzilla.
Good name for that.
There was another “Birdzilla”, 70 years ago, that was flown only one times and is now part of a museum! Do you remember?
Spruce Goose?
Exactly! 🙂
I imagine test flying that beast is going to be real interesting.
The Russians have launched a satellite to orbit from a submarine, so it is certainly possible to do from an airplane too. But I don’t see the benefit of doing so.
http://www.space.com/2440-r…
Launching from a mobile site (submarine, platform such as Sea Launch, or aircraft) gives you a lot of flexibility. Just about every ground launch site has constraints that determine which orbits you can launch into. A mobile platform can go to where ever necessary to achieve a particular orbit. An airborne platform offers a performance increase as well. There may also be confidentially issues – you can launch where no one is watching. The launch flexibility and confidentially may be Strato Launch’s business model to cater to certain government agencies.
I see also many, many drawbacks ….
That’s true for anything. The question is whether the drawbacks are outweighed by the advantages. It could be that for certain customers (cough NRO cough), the advantages are worth it. We shall see, won’t we?
The advantages counts at most for the need of very fast response, which may be at most military missions.
Being mobile allows for more launch opportunities. As an example, when the Russians launch a Progress or Soyuz to the ISS on the 6 hour to rendezvous profile, there are launch opportunities every three days. A mobile platform allows for more frequent launch opportunities.
The StratoLaunch booster may be capable of reasonably rapid launches, as needed to reconstitute dying or destroyed military satellites up to GPS size. The military is definitely interested in that but it needs to have a pipeline of replacement satellites ready to go. I remember reading a classified space intel report back in the 1980s. The Soviets had suffered a launch failure of a military satellite. Instead of grounding the launch vehicle for months, they just took the next booster and satellite from the pipeline and had it in orbit less than two weeks after the failure. We can’t come close to doing that.
Thank you for the insight!
” ….The StratoLaunch booster may be capable of reasonably rapid launches, as needed to reconstitute dying or destroyed military satellites up to GPS size.”
You can do that on with ground launch too.
Have a bunch stored somewhere close to the pad, start recycling fast. The Soviets would launch a soyuz a week. and could surge 4/week.
I don’t really see how air launch and responsive space work together; we’ve been able to achieve launch-on-need for missiles for forty years or so without having to resort to it, and the closest thing to ORS right now is itself a ground-launched converted missile (Kuaizhou).
true enough, but, the launch windows aren’t the biggest problem. If you miss a launch window, you need to stop, defuel, check the payload, refuel. That’s true even for air launch.
“If you miss a launch window, you need to stop, defuel, check the payload, refuel. That’s true even for air launch.”
And – in addition – much more complex and hazardous in case of an air-launched vehicle.
You don’t need to defuel if the rocket is solid fueled as is the case for Stratolaunch.
– You operate out of an airport. You take off from a runway. You don’t need a dedicated launch pad at a dedicated facility.
– You can fly the carrier between any suitable airport, rather than trucking or shipping it around. And any suitable airport, not just launch sites.
– You can move between countries easily (depending on ITAR issues), operating out of a foreign client’s airport if they don’t want to (or legally can’t) ship their payload to your facility.
– Your rocket engine is fired in the air, eliminating 90% of your range safety issues.
– Your carrier is reusable out of the box. You can test it over and over by flying, landing, reusing, flying again. You can test it with a simulated mass instead of a live upper-stage, without wasting the carrier.
– You can fly above most weather, increasing you chance of hitting any given launch window. That makes your launcher appear more reliable, something customers like.
– You can fly around much of the remaining weather, reducing even further the likelihood of missing a window. And if you do miss your window, you fly 15-30 degrees longitude west and try again. (Depending on the target orbit.)
– You can fly towards the equator, gaining initial velocity, increasing your payload slightly.
– You can optimise the upper-stage engine nozzle for thinner atmosphere, gaining Isp, increasing your payload slightly.
There are lots of advantages of aerial launch.
The first disadvantage that immediately comes to mind is the unexplained “abort – return to airport” procedure if anything is ‘red’ during the final countdown.
In other words – how do you land, with this thing still under the wings?
Good question. Long-haul airliners often have to dump fuel to come under their maximum safe landing weight if an emergency forces them to land shortly after take off. Were their launcher liquid fueled, you could imagine them doing something similar with the rocket, or at least dumping the LOX, but that won’t be an option for solids. They are still planning on using an all solid Pegasus II, aren’t they?
Mostly solid. Specifically two solid stages then a hydrolox with RL-10s.
Right (see Sam Moore’s comment in the same thread). I don’t know how much you can trust the Wikipedia on this, but it mentions Pegasus II as being all solid:
“
Development of the cryogenic third stage was halted in 2014, and ATK was asked to evaluate a replacement consisting of two solid stages. In November of that year, Stratolaunch confirmed that Pegasus II would be an all-solid vehicle.
“
So, you have two solid stages the size (and weight) of the Shuttle’s SRB’s. There must be a carrier/cargo weight limit for landing and you also need to be as gentle as you can during the entire process (obviously).
Little questions like these often separate a successful project from the ones that “looked good on paper”.
On a slightly different topic – solids are not cheap, and without cryogenic upper stage just how much payload can this thing deliver to LEO? The original Pegasus could carry 997lb for a cool $43 million (when it did work, ahem).
Does anyone care to do the “lb-to-orbit” math here?
Orbital’s solid rocket space launchers have a payload mass fraction between 1.7 and 2.0% (LEO), for this performance four solid stages are required for ground launched version (Taurus), but in case of air-launch (Pegasus), yes a stage can be saved, but to achieve some payload mass fraction. Falcon 9 has a payload mass fraction of about 3%, but only two stages.
I remember someone asking Elon Musk about air launch concept in general and StratoLaunch in particular. His reply was that the “mothership”, essentially acting as the first stage, only achieves a small fraction (about 3%) of the required orbital insertion speed and vastly complicates things in return.
This is also my view.
In theory, if it can take off, it can land. For safety, yes, you want to dump the fuel.
From what I understand, Stratolauncher has fuel pumps on the carrier to both fuel the launcher only after the carrier is airborne, and dump that fuel for an “abort to airport”.Edit: I see from other comments that they’ve switched to an all solid. So, yeah. In theory they can still land. In practice…
However, thanks to the exponential nature of the rocket equation, that 3% increases your payload by 10%. Or allows a much fatter vehicle MR which lowers development costs. (Rule of thumb, for every 10% increase in mass of a part, you can either double the lifespan or save 50% of development costs.)
The rocket equation is deceptive, the first 1km/s uses a quarter of your fuel, the last 1km/s uses around 2%. Even people who do this for a living sometimes forget just how costly that first velocity is.
Paul, the air-dropped Pegasus XL, while weighting 50,990 lb, was able to put 976lb into 185 km orbit. That works out to 0.019 mass fraction (let’s be generous and round it to 2%). 🙂
The last time I’ve checked, that rocket was in the $43 million price range. So, the ‘lb-to-orbit’ works out to slightly over $44,000. Even the shuttle’s $450 million launch cost would equate to about $8,000 per pound.
(Just stop and think about this for a second.. )
The proposed Pegasus II is also a 4-stage, all solid rocket, built by the same people that built the original Pegasus. They are just taking the same ‘ol Pegasus and making it much bigger, trying to take advantage of the SLS solid booster work that NASA has given to the ATK.
You’ve mentioned the rocket equation,a nd I agree with you there. So, where’s that magic with this system? What is going to be Stratolaunch “killer feature” that will justify all the expenses, very tricky logistics, skyrocketing cost of the solid propellant (about $100 per lb and I’ll leave it up to you to do a quick math for the cost of 4 solid stages of the quarter-million pound rocket), even things like the environmental impact (SRB’s punch a pretty big hole in the ozone layer every time they fly), lack of any meaningful rocket reusability and built-in limitations like the lack of cryogenic upper stage and inability to restart the motor?
Just to be clear: I’m not a fan of Stratolaunch’s architecture. (It seems an especially convoluted way to achieve what they want.) And I’m definitely not a fan of Pegasus.
That doesn’t mean that air-launch isn’t a useful method, or HTHL in general. People just seem to keep picking bad architectures. (Why solids, FFS?) There seems to be a weird disconnect between the rocket guys and the aircraft guys.
Sigh. I really need to develop an online payment method that is bought out by the largest online retailer… (Or a headphone maker fronted by a DJ that is bought by Apple for $3b.) But I’m too
stupidbusy posting comments on internet forums.I would say air-launch makes sense, if the launcher mass is very small (lower as 3-4 tons) and therefore air-resistance is an important factor and if launch response is important.
How does the Stratolaunch rocket take advantage of the SLS solid booster work? they’re of an entirely different scale, likely different fuel grain, composition, and geometry.
“Our next segment featured George Torres, Vice President of Communications for the ATK Aerospace Group in Salt Lake City, UT. George talked about the announcement for ATK being awarded the ALV first and second stage contracts for the boosters for the Stratolaunch project. George described the boosters, their proposed capability, and more. We also talked about the high energy solid rocket propellant used by ATK for this project, then I asked George about the five segment booster from the Aries 1 which was cancelled a few years ago. The five segment booster is interchangeable with the sections of the four segment booster used by the shuttle and now these boosters are being used for the SLS. We talked about the upcoming static firing tests for the new SRBs for Stratolaunch and SLS. George then talked about the ATK work in the field of composites and how they are a leader in the industry, doing the composite work for many other companies. He described the ATK Aerospace Group which includes two launch groups, two satellite groups, and the composite group. Before our segment with George ended, we returned to the subject of the five segment booster and SLS, focusing on the previous development motor static tests and the upcoming static firing tests actually being qualification motor tests. Near the end of the segment, George updated us on the Liberty Launch Vehicle. ATK is now positioning Liberty for the cargo market but this will depend on the market for the capacity Liberty offers.”
Orbital doesn’t innovate, it rides on coattails of others. Both SLS and Stratolaunch solid rocket motors are the same 3.71 meter in diameter.
“The five segment booster is interchangeable with the sections of the four segment booster used by the shuttle and now these boosters are being used for the SLS.”
actually, that’s not correct, or rather, it’s outdated. the interview you quote is from more than a year and a half ago, and refers to the SRB for the Ares I rocket. ATK had to change the fuel composition, fuel grain, and fuel geometry for the 5 segment SLS booster, it’s no longer interchangeable with the Shuttle SRB design.
while ATK is definitely at the forefront of solid rocket engine technology, but the SLS 5 segment booster does not really have any direct relationship with the they are developing for Stratolaunch. it will have a different fuel mixture and geometry.
“The first two stages of the Pegasus II will have the same outside diameter as the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster, but will be constructed using much lighter carbon-composite cases and contain a more energetic propellant mix.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
“However, unlike the SRBs, Pegasus II’s casings will be much lighter, while the stages will sport additional performance via an updated propellant mix.”
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
Pegasus proves that there is no significant increase in payload mass fraction by air-launch compared to similar ground launched vehicles.
Only in the same way that the shuttle “proved” that vertical take off is unaffordable. Bad systems prove nothing. A solid motor is not the appropriate system for air-launch (unless it’s a weapon system, of course.)
I would say a liquid rocket system is even less appropriate for air-launch, see arguments above in different comments.
“However, thanks to the exponential nature of the rocket equation, that 3% increases your payload by 10%.”
This is not correct. If the aircraft is travelling at 500mph (approx 3% orbital speed), then you’d be lucky for the rocket to retain half of that. Usually air launch adds no more than 5% payload to orbit over what the same rocket could do from the ground. That comes from reduced low altitude drag and better high altitude performance of the rocket engine. Remember, you aren’t gaining any particular cost or performance advantage from air launch, since you have to adapt a rocket for that specific purpose. A larger rocket using more cheap fuel would get you more payload to orbit and for less cost. Air launch is ALL about eeking out whatever improvement you can from range flexibility.
From what I’ve read recently, the target payload to LEO is in the 14K-15K pounds range.
Antares uses a solid upper stage (Castor). If they have no liquid second stage for Antares, seems unlikely that they’d have one for Pegasus II.
Pegasus II is all-solid, when did I say anything to the contrary?
I wasn’t arguing, just sayin’, that’s all.
I wasn’t arguing, just sayin’, that’s all.
Another large disadvantage is that the engine will be ignited after separation from aircraft. Any small engine malfunction (which use liquid propellant) is now a loss of vehicle and mission, whereas in case of a ground-launched vehicle the engine will be simple stopped in the first second after ignition. Another disadvantage are higher loads due captive flight [edit] and higher aerodynamic loads during burn of first stage, which result in heavier structures and less payload.
“Any small engine malfunction (which use liquid propellant) is now a loss of vehicle and mission, whereas in case of a ground-launched vehicle the engine will be simple stopped in the first second after ignition.”
That might’ve been an issue earlier when they were going to use a derivative of the SpaceX Falcon 9 but not any longer. The current rocket is all solid propellant.
Carefully. The rocket is solid fueled. They have to design the aircraft to be able to handle the weight of an aborted launch. They may have to burn off or dump some fuel before attempting a landing but that’s a characteristic shared by many aircraft.
dump a lot of propellant, be prepared to punch it off
over empty land.
You are carrying 750,000 lb rocket under the belly, just how much jet fuel are you going to dump for it to make a difference?
I would expect them to a bunch of test flights with a full-size/weight mock-up (if they ever reach that stage in development). The landings would certainly be fascinating to watch.
Just look at that picture on top of the page again and try to imagine this plane landing without scratching off the rocket’s tail. 🙂
i would imagine you would dump all the propellant in the rocket.
of course this is a solid, so, that’s not easily dropped unless you blew some vent ports on the motor, and let them burn at low rate for an hour or two. That would mean the abort would be a payload problem not an aircraft problem
A misfired solid rocket, hanging at your aircraft, must be dropped fast as possilbe.
You don’t. Instead, just like a military aircraft with live ordnance you drop it, hopefully into the ocean, presumably in many pieces thanks to a well designed self-destruct system.
Imagine if SpaceX would self-destruct a rocket during terminal count every time there’s some issue preventing launch.
Disadvantages
– 90% of airports won’t allow you to operate there, can’t be FAA licensed for space launch,
– the 10% of airports that will let you launch and license have operational difficulties and costs. ( OSC operated pegasus out of Mojave. Big hassle getting there. They also operated out of Wallops, and had hassles just travelling there) Usually what makes an airport good for supporting space launch means no scheduled air service, far from FBO, mechanics, etc.
-Flying the carrier doesn’t mean any speed up in launch processing. Speed of the fleet, weakest link…
– Range safety starts the moment you fuel, not the moment you light. So you have range safety on the ground, on the flight path, etc.. Hence issue 1 above.
– while your carrier is reusable, stage 2-4 aren’t, no real gain in reliability there. Pegasus had reliability issues.
– you are constrained exterior carry. the volume limit for free launch on the ground lets you build big…
– WX constraints are an engineering issue, not “Deadly”, the Russians launch soyuz in blizzards, Airplanes launch in severe cross winds if designed properly. The US favors fragile launchers, the russians always designed for harsh weather and using to launch 90/year.
– You hang the bird in cold air for hours while flying to the launch point. Rockoons, air launch, all these have proven challenging compared to simple big ground launch with a gantry supporting it until launch
strato launch is a much bigger bird then a delta 3 with high costs and no real advantage.
While 90% of airports aren’t suitable for Stratolaunch, there are a lot of airports. And a lot of operators suddenly deciding to set up as “spaceports”. Yet very few new launch sites are being built (SpaceX is the exception, as always.)
Put it another way, every launch pad in the world has a large runway nearby. How many large runways have a launchpad nearby?
And between those sites, the carrier can fly itself. Even globally. Transporting rocket stages and setting up a new launch site is hideously complex. (That’s why SpaceX made the decision to limit the size of their F9 stages, which led to the FH configuration, in order to allow each stage to be road transportable without special permits and escorts.)
But its carrier didn’t. The expensive development for Stratolaunch is the carrier. It will be reusable, and repeatedly testable, on day one. That drastically reduces the cost of tests. (You’re not destroying a vehicle for every test flight.)
“The expensive development for Stratolaunch is the carrier.”
Expenses, which are not necessary and would better avoided.
“While 90% of airports aren’t suitable for Stratolaunch, there are a lot of airports. And a lot of operators suddenly deciding to set up as “spaceports”. Yet very few new launch sites are being built (SpaceX is the exception, as always.)”
You can’t go to “Any Airport” with Stratolaunch. You need a really wide runway and a really big runway, If you look at Mojave, it’s a 12,000×200 concrete runway. That’s not a little grass strip or municipal runway.
Spaceport America put in a similiar runway, and buildings and that was $200 Million…
The problem is you need a real big runway with very little nearby. In case you have an accident, you don’t want to kill people within a mile or two.
That means you need a shutdown SAC base left over from the 80’s that hasn’t built up new users. There are some but in inconvenient locations.
Mojave, Loring, NTS, Malmstrom….
The stratolaunch carrier aircraft is impressive, but, it’s expensive. That’s a couple hundred million to build…
Wow.
For a lot less money you can build a booster.
For less money you can buy a booster.
Disadvantages of Birdzilla:
– for such a large aircraft, there will naturally be only a limited number of runways available
– since you are carrying a large “munition”, it’s likely that only (some) military airports will be available for fuelled rocket handling
– Surely range safety starts the moment the rocket is fuelled
– Your launch pad (i.e. carrier aircraft) is enormously expensive compared to a fixed pad and you are tied to that single pad (carrier aircraft).
– You are limited by the lift capability of the aircraft in the size of launch system you can employ – heavy solids further exacerbate this issue.
– Any perceived performance advantages apply only to the purpose made rocket that you are using. Since that rocket is designed for air launch and not ground launch, the performance advantages are designed-in and are NOT really a feature of air launch generally. Ground launch allows the use of larger and more efficient rockets which completely negates the supposed/perceived advantages of air launch.
Potential advantages mobile launch platforms:
– Weather avoidance: assuming the aircraft has the necessary range.
– Avoiding range congestion? – The “liftoff” range may be less restrictive, but might be complicated if you desire/require access to tracking stations.
Douglas, OT – Did you catch this new polling on space? Some interesting numbers.
http://www.monmouth.edu/pol…
now that is interesting.
Republican and Democrat polled almost exactly the same for everything except for the question about private spaceflight companies.
It was the 66% of independants that favored it, higher than both republican and democrat that surprised me.
I can’t believe the chicken shits that said they wouldn’t go if given a free ride!!
Why? Most folks have no interest in high risk activities. Why would space tourism be any different? I am surprised the number in the survey is as high as it is. Adventure tourism, the closest similar activity, only accounts for 26% of international travel.
https://pathwrangler.com/li…
And note that only about 10% of Americans travel overseas annually so that is 26% of 10%.
http://travel.trade.gov/vie…
If folks don’t care to travel to Europe why would they want to travel to space? Again, despite all the hand waving by space advocates space tourism will just be a small niche market, even when you don’t have to be a millionaire to afford it.
I get what your saying. I just don’t understand why people wouldn’t because to me it’s the coolest thing ever.
ppl are scared or simply comfortable with their lives.
The reality is that a majority are happy living simple lives and just raising a family near where they were born.
http://www.pewsocialtrends….
The graph shows 57% have never lived other than the state they were born in. Only 15% have lived in four or more states. And remember, American is considered as having a very mobile population compared to other nations.
I expect if they dug down deeper they would find that most of those that did move away from their state were forced by economic necessity, not driven by wanderlust. Bottom line – explorers and pioneers are and always have been a rare breed.
Also, having done survey research for over 30 years, and teaching it as well, I also expect in that space survey the “90 percent” rule applies. That if that 28% were actually offered a free ride 90% on thinking about it further, and what was involved, would turn it down. Marketers know that without a lot of investment in promotional work founded on detailed behavioral research intentions only rarely turn into actions…
I have no desire to jump off a bungee cord tied to a bridge even for free.
Travelling overseas annually can be quite expensive. My wife and I travel pretty extensively (over 20 countries) but there can be gaps between the big trips.
IIRC, a Soyuz tourist flight is worth $20m. I’d be looking into selling it before I finished reading the prize announcement. Risk has nothing to do with it.
Same here, I could do a lot more for opening the space frontier with $20 million than taking a joy ride on a Soyuz and still provide a nice life for my family. Actually, even $200,000 would be a nice “prize” for us “peasants”. 🙂
Personally, I find serveral things interesting:
1) the GOP followers WANT the private space, while the GOP leaders are doing all that they can to kill it. So, what you have is that the followers listen to what their leaders say, while ignoring what they do.
2) the dems used to be a party of progressive. Looking at their stats on space, says to me that they have long since quit looking or thinking about the future.
JFK is no doubt rolling in his grave.
3) good to see indis love space and want it to move forwards. I wish that a third party, the bull moose party, would step forward with good ppl. It would be nice to see a return to good old Dem/GOP leadership, where they were fiscally conservatives and social moderates/ true progressives.
The video of recent issue by KGET gives a hint at the size and progress of Roc… Ok I am using the name Stratolaunch calls it. Seems to be well managed, if the time it took to build the building is an indication. Fun to be around these days…. some snarking and some gushing for these multiple enterprises.
Also Cool to see is the fact that Spacex has a Navy as well as a Space Force too.
Keep up the good work Doug… You provide an excellent review.
When spaceflight ventures start listing things as “X percent complete” i get immediate flashback to Kistler being 96.45% structurally complete for a few years.
Or about how the last 10% of any engineering effort take 96.456% of resources and time. Also, how 64.7% of the statistics are made up ..
In the world of homebuilt aircraft, the saying is “90% complete, 90% to go.” Those last details can be very time consuming. It’s good to keep in mind that this isn’t Scaled’s first rodeo, just their biggest one.
most projects hit that deadly “80% complete, 80% remaining phase”
Can I interpolate that Stratolaunch is 40% complete, 40% remaining? Cool! ;^)
The problem is as you get further in the goal posts move farther back for a long time… At the start it’s 10% in, 10% remaining,,,
https://dn3pm25xmtlyu.cloud…
the problem is when you approach delivery
Have they presented a schedule of works, a test flight date or a time table. Are they even worried about time, after all why worry if you aren’t competing.
test flights most likely to start late 2016 or in 2017
Thankyou for this Doug.
Is it just me, or would the vehicle be a lot stronger with a spar between the tails?
Nope. The rocket is carry almost entirely with the wing. The tails are just control surfaces. Besides connecting up the tail horizontal stabilizers will only increase the aerodynamics drag on the aircraft and shift the center of gravity toward the rear (tail heavy) plus increasing the overall aircraft weight,.
take a look at a P-38 lightning, i imagine Kelly Johnson knew what
he was doing there. Look at the F-82 Twin Mustang, again
a supported tail spar.
But that’s just my opinion
why would that matter?
Similar to any wing/tube, but just 2 tubes in tandem.