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Air Force Requests Info For Replacement Atlas 5 Engine
schwit1 (797399) writes The U.S. Air Force on Thursday issued a request for information from industry for the replacement of the Russian-made engines used by ULA's Atlas 5 rocket: "Companies are being asked to respond by Sept. 19 to 35 questions. Among them: "What solution would you recommend to replace the capability currently provided by the RD-180 engine?" Air Force officials have told Congress they only have a broad idea of how to replace the RD-180. Estimates of the investment in money and time necessary to field an American-built alternative vary widely. Congress, meanwhile, is preparing bills that would fund a full-scale engine development program starting next year; the White House is advocating a more deliberate approach that begins with an examination of applicable technologies. In the request for information, the Air Force says it is open to a variety of options including an RD-180 facsimile, a new design, and alternative configurations featuring multiple engines, and even a brand new rocket. The Air Force is also trying to decide on the best acquisition approach. Options include a traditional acquisition or a shared investment as part of a public-private partnership. [emphasis mine]"
The Atlas 5 is built by Lockheed Martin. This is really their problem, not the Air Force or ULA. In addition, the Air Force has other options, both from Boeing's Delta rocket family as well as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
The Atlas 5 is built by Lockheed Martin. This is really their problem, not the Air Force or ULA. In addition, the Air Force has other options, both from Boeing's Delta rocket family as well as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
Perhaps the five most important words in TFA, omitted by TFS.
Seriously, spend your war budget on something useful instead of international e-peni.
Let's just copy the RD180. I doubt it has any patent ecumberances.
Companies are being asked to respond by Sept. 19 to 35 questions. Among them: “What solution would you recommend to replace the capability currently provided by the RD-180 engine?”
Apparently submitter knows a lot more than the Air Force does when it comes to booster rockets.
Ten bucks say that SpaceX could have Raptor operational before the ULA manages to draft their new engine. (Maybe I just feel like being sarcastic right now. Maybe I don't, though...)
Ezekiel 23:20
Rocket engines are already being printed.
Ezekiel 23:20
Lockheed decided to go with a Russian Engine. There seems so be a problem with that now.
Time to make bad choices matter!
It Lockheed can't deliver a launch vehicle, there should be a penalty. Sadly in these contracts there is no penalty. But they don't get paid, and Space X and Boeing can pick up the slack.
It's time defense contractors payed for failure to deliver
This won't bankrupt Lockheed, but it better hurt, hurt bad
A year on year loss due to stupid management would send a good message. We'll let you live, but not if you fuck up
Make it hurt!
TFA states that they are considering it.
It also states that we were supposed to set up our own production line quite some time ago, but never did so as it was cheaper to continue buying them directly.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
I thought that the original deal to use the RD-180 also came with blueprints and specs so that we could build the same engine on our own. Why aren't we pursuing this?
wow.. the taxpayers will have a lot of f35s in their back yards....oh wait. the taxpayer just gets the bill in the form of higher taxes and higher inflation.. oh well.
What "just one part"?
Ezekiel 23:20
First off, this is entirely off-topic. Apart from being built under the name "Lockheed Martin", the Atlas V is completely unrelated.to the F-35. Even that connection is a stretch, as they're managed under completely different divisions, and the Atlas is actually being built by a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
Second, you're only citing half of the story. The DoD originally asked for 42 F-35s, but had to cut back the order to 34 due to sequestration. The House Appropriations Committee denied some of the Pentagon's other requests, and moved that money into purchasing the additional F-35s.
Finally, I find it interesting that your very first post to Slashdot is a heavily partisan off-topic piece, very nearly quoted verbatim from the article I've linked, but conveniently missing the paragraph that gives an even perspective to the matter. I have a sneaking suspicion you're not intending to improve this discussion.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Let's just copy the RD180. I doubt it has any patent ecumberances.
They've already licensed the damn thing for domestic production from the beginning and had a good decade where they could have set up their own factory and had the Russians come in and willingly ensure they are being produced correctly and fix any detail not conveyed properly on the plans. In fact, I believe that the RD-180 is more of a work-for-hire specifically commissioned for Lockheed's requirements.
Now everything is sour and steps to remedy it look political, rather than just a way of giving jobs for American blue collar labour, which is how it would have appeared before.
The RD-180 is a good engine that provides staged combustion performance and efficiency at similar cost to American gas generator cycle engines. The only problems with it is that it was really hard to design, which is irrelevant when you have the plans anyway. It would be a shame for NIH syndrome to screw up America's capability to launch satellites.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
None, that I'm aware of. However, SpaceX have 3D printed oxidizer valves for the Merlin engines, and combustion chambers for the Draco thrusters.
At the rate things are going, they'll probably be 3D printing entire engines before the replacement for the RD-180 is finished.
What "rocket engine" is 3D printed?
The nozzle for the Superdraco engine is 3d printed. The alloy is too hard to machine, so 3D printing is the only practical way of manufacturing them. It will be the landing thruster for the propulsive landing Dragonfly crew vehicle. It will land with the accuracy of a helicopter. Here is a video of it being cycled through its various thrust levels. Very cool.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Given that SuperDracos are pressure-fed, not pump-fed, the combustion chamber is the engine.
Ezekiel 23:20
It'll cost $(cost of ESA equiv + import license + 10%) for a basic launcher.
For anything more complex or powerful, let me check my Kerbel designs to see what I have.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Too late. I wore it out printing nukes
Table-ized A.I.
The "Atlas V" is not really an "Atlas" at all nor should it be numbered "V" and the whole thing is an anti-American crony-capitalist play. Let me explain:
The "Atlas" rockets which gained fame both as ballistic missiles and as the launch vehicle that put John Glenn in orbit were designed and built by Americans at the Convair plan in Kearny Mesa California (northern portion of greater San Diego). The modern "Atlas" is NOT a direct descendant (EVERYTHING about it is different except for the fuel and LOX) and is NOT designed and built by the men who designed and built the real Atlas (who were left behind along with the Kearny Mesa facilities). It's made by different peopple at a different LockMart facility and with Russian Engines (CLEARLY no ties to the American "Atlas") and was only named "Atlas V" as a marketing gimmick (The next production Atlas WAS to be the "IV" but Boeing was rolling-out the "Delta IV" as a competitor at the time so the LockMart folks bumped the number to "V" as a marketing play).
The "anti-American" part is BOTH because American rocket engine designers and builders were tossed-aside in favors of Russians to save money AND because it put a critical bit of US Government capability in a spot of vulnerability to the VERY SAME RUSSIA that LockMart uses as a big threat that makes the American Taxpayer NEED the uber-expensive over-budget, behind-schedule, under-performing, super-turkey F-35 jet... which LockMart makes, (of course).
The "crony" part is because Boeing and LockMart were allowed to merge their launch business into ULA (creating a total monopoly on US launch vehicles) to "save the tax payers money" but instead with a monpoly costs have skyrocketed (as though ANYBODY couldn't see THAT coming!). As part of the current "cozy" relationship between the federal government and the guys it pays to lauch payloads, the government shovels about a BILLION dollars per year for "assured access to space"..... NOT for any launches, which it buys on top of this fee. Now that SpaceX and Orbital are operating new launch vehicles (which are NOT part of the profitable ULA monopoly) and Russia is becoming more of a problem. the supply of engines for Faux-Atlas are threatened nobody at NASA or the USAF or LockMart are talking about "assured access" and the billions payed-out by taxpayers for it. A new engine is needed for Faux-Atlas and, like bad Wall St bankers, the so-called "commercial" entity does not want to spend the money to bail itself out of the spot that it put itself into; it is demanding a bailout and its "good friends" in government (some of whom, no-doubt, want to move from government careers to second careers in industry) are eager to bail it out (in the interests of "national security", of course). What commercial company wouldn't love to get billions of dollars to buy new components so it could better compete againsts competitors who are not getting that free money? If the taxpayer is forced to buy LockMart a new engine for its Faux-Atlas, then to keep things fair, the taxpayers should also buy new engines for Boeing, SpaceX, Orbital, and Blue Origin (and why not Virgin Galactic and StratoLaunch too while we're at it?>>)
LockMart should be left alone (just as the Wall St Bankers should have been) and when the supply of RD-180s runs out and they are unable to fly Faux-Atlas (and thereby unable to fulfull the launch contracts they locked-in with the US Government (the subject of the SpaceX lawsuit)), they should be driven into bankruptcy (just as the Wall St Bankers should have been) and their executives jailed for fraud (as the Wall St Bankers should have been). There was a STENCH to that Air Force "block buy" launch contract that was put in place just before SpaceX could get "certified" for USAF launches (by a process Lockmart never had to undergo) and it stinks MORE now that the feds are looking to buy LockMart an engine to help it fulfill that contract. The destruction of the giant defense contractor (like the collapse of the big Wall St Banks)
There are problems with just copying the RD-180.
1) The license for manufacturing the RD-180 expires around 2022.
2) The RD-180 is based on 70s technology. The Air Force would prefer current technology. The Air Force has been working on a low level at developing technology for a staged combustion hydrocarbon engine.
3) Any new engine will require building a new factory, training new employees, and supply chain.
I would argue that the Atlas V is unneeded, and this is an opportunity for it die, but I am not in Congress.
Is obviously a cluster of at least five different nozzles, all built in different facillities spread over several representatives' districts.
ULA / GenCorp (who acquired Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2013) has the right to produce the RD-180 domestically as part of its partnership with NPO Energomash.
Since they have the plans, access to the current production line and certainly the ability to make the engine, patent encumbrances would not be an issue.
The problem is cost -- the RD-180 is very labor intensive to make, and it would also require tooling, testing, certification and undoubtedly test flights to bring the US-made version to equivalence of the Russian one. It may be cheaper to use a new design and start from scratch.
In the US, we can't even do things that we used to be able to do. We used to be able to go to the moon, but we can't do that anymore. Next, we mothballed the space shuttle fleet without having a via replacement. Now we're dependent on Russia to get to the ISS. Good thing we have such a cozy relationship with Russia. Oh, wait. We managed to royally piss them off. It seems kind of like being stranded in the desert, and we give the finger to the only car that passes by.
LM's been in a staring contest with the USAF for years, each trying to get the other to pay for the development of a domestic version of the RD-180. The USAF just blinked.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Previous reliance on U.S. technology made the cost of liquid-fueled rocket engines, made mainly by Rocketdyne, ruinously expensive. They required a highly-skilled workforce to build them. The Soviets, on the other hand, were known for designing and building things that didn't require a machinist with PhD.-level knowledge to make. Witness the MiG-25 with nickel-steel leading edges in the wings, that though weighty, did the job as well as the lightweight U.S. zirconioum oxide ceramic equivalents in our jet fighters. And there are other things Russian made I could mention, but won't. Recently (2013) a war surplus store (Oxman's Surplus) in La Mirada, California had in it's possession a surplus Rocketdyne F1 engine, which was manufactured for the Apollo/Saturn 5 project which sent our astronauts to the moon. They had it in a cradle sitting outside the store, out back, for at least a decade. Anyone with a Brownie or Hasselblad could come by at any hour and take a few snaps. In February 2013 their founder passed away and the store and it's appurtenances became the property of his heirs. Well, it was time to think about paying the taxes Uncle Sam demands after a dynast's demise. I'm reasonably certain that with that in mind, the family decided to sell the aforementioned Rocketdyne F1 engine to liquify the value of the legacy. A Japanese millionaire happened by with 1 million dollars U.S., and with the our government's blessing, made off to parts east Asian with his booty. NASA insiders said the important part of the rocket technology didn't leave with rocket engine. They may now have a disassembled example at hand, but they gotta know how to make a duplicate to really have something of value. Well, NASA comes to the rescue, with news announcements such as how to print metal parts with graduated alloy content (you start on a part with, say, a carbon steel alloy in the base end and finish off with a Hastelloy-type nickel alloy where the burning rocket fuel meets the metal) and suchlike info. . . . But, hey, we were just trying to keep a failed nation on it's feet to participate in the New World Ordure.