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Boeing Will Make the Military's New Hypersonic Spaceplane (theverge.com)
The Department of Defense has selected Boeing to make a new hypersonic spaceplane that can be reused frequently over a short period of time to deliver multiple satellites into orbit. "DARPA, the agency that tests new advanced technologies for the military, has picked Boeing's design concept, called the Phantom Express, to move forward as part of the agency's Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program," reports The Verge. From the report: The goal of DARPA's XS-1 program is to create a spacecraft that's something of a hybrid between an airplane and a traditional vertical rocket. The spaceplane is meant to take off vertically and fly uncrewed to high altitudes above Earth. From there, the vehicle will release a mini-rocket -- a booster with an engine that can propel a satellite weighing up to 3,000 pounds into orbit. As the booster deploys the satellite, the spaceplane will then land back on Earth horizontally just like a normal airplane -- and then be fueled up for its next mission. DARPA wants the turnaround time between flights to last just a few hours. But perhaps the most audacious goal is the price DARPA wants for each flight. The agency is aiming for the spaceplane to cost $5 million per mission, a significant bargain considering most orbital rockets cost tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to launch. And Boeing says it's up to the task. "Phantom Express is designed to disrupt and transform the satellite launch process as we know it today, creating a new, on-demand space-launch capability that can be achieved more affordably and with less risk," Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, said in a statement.
>spaceplane
Impossible
Two weeks after Boeing complains that Bombardier has government support on the C-Series, they receive this huge handout. Irony.
It is nice that they can put more stuff into orbit in a quick turnaround time but isn't it time to start cleaning up the mess/debris we already left behind ?
Oh man.... What a laugh.
Keep up the humor Slashdot!
So, would this be enough to get one person into orbit (including spacesuit)? Would it be enough to include some sort of heat shield/parachute?
I know this sounds crazy but a long long time ago I read that it might be possible to de-orbit a single astronaut be using a very large low density shield (high temperature rigid foam?!) and very gradually decelerate from orbital velocity shedding speed (and heat) slowly enough that it wouldn't incinerate the structure (or astronaut). I heard that NASA was investigating some sort of semi-inflatable shield (a ballute?) that might be the more evolved version. Anyway, would that give the astronaut at least a chance of making it past re-entry? (he would still need a parachute though).
Sounds like something that could be used by James Bond (or the American equivalent).
(By the way, I'm going to Australia soon, do they call australian astronauts, austronauts? Astronomers austronomers? :)
I like the idea of these scramjet planes, but I struggle to see how they are going to be economical vs the sort of thing Musk/Bezos are planning with reusability (I understand this is for significantly smaller payloads). In the end, is it really that big a deal having to carry oxidiser for the first stage with you? As Musk keeps arguing, the fuel costs are not a big issue with rocket launches, and the size of your rocket isn't such an issue if you can reuse it enough times.
In contrast, the main problem I see with these scramjets is that the atmospheric conditions required to allow scramjet operation (speed and density) also produce massive heating and drag on the airframe. Presumably you must carry extra fuel to pay for the ability to collect oxidiser, and it would be interesting to see just how much of an improvement in fuelling costs these designs can achieve in the best case.
For spaceplanes to really come into their own I would have thought a single stage to orbit system would really be required. Reaction Engines seems to think this is possible, but I doubt it is coming anytime in the next decade. Still, great to see progress being made on new concepts.
new hypersonic spaceplane that can be reused frequently over a short period of time to deliver multiple satellites into orbit.
Is the description of this craft's operation supposed to be a euphemism?
When the military talks about "delivery" they usually mean weapons: bombs. And the simplest explanation of why they would need to deliver many "satellites" with a turn around of a few hours would be if those "satellites" were disposable. Is this development really just a space-based weapon system? One that uses orbital (or sub-orbital) platforms to bomb targets from space.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Anti-orbital weapons could dispose of satellites whether they are meant to be disposable or not. The maximum payload is an order of magnitude lighter than that of a B-2, so I don't think it's meant to be used as a strategic bomber.
If you could deliver a tonne and a half of payload into orbit for a few million dollars, you'd attract quite a lot of non-bombing customers.
Ezekiel 23:20
Sounds like you read about the General Electric MOOSE and the Douglas Paracone.
http://www.astronautix.com/m/m...
http://www.astronautix.com/p/p...
If you could deliver a tonne and a half of payload into orbit for a few million dollars, you'd attract quite a lot of non-bombing customers.
And making that cheaper is somehow a good thing? Exactly how many tonnes of shit do we expect to be able to put up in orbit before the inevitable happens?
We humans haven't exactly done a good job at keeping Earth tidy, neat, and organized. Turning our orbit at any level into a giant clusterfuck of garbage flying around at high speed isn't exactly the wisest plan if we would like to continue to navigate through it safely with spacecraft.
Kim Jong Un Supervises Test-fire of Ballistic Missile
Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission and supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, supervised a test-fire of ground-to-ground medium-to-long range strategic ballistic missile Pukguksong-2.
The test-fire of Pukguksong-2 was aimed to finally verify all the technical indexes of the weapon system and thoroughly examine its adaptability under various battle conditions, before its deployment at military units for action.
The Supreme Leader issued an order to launch the missile at the observation post.
Together with officials, he analyzed the results of the test-launch and expressed his great satisfaction over them, saying it is perfect.
Saying with pride that the missile's hitting accuracy is very high and Pukguksong-2 is a successful strategic weapon, he approved the deployment of this weapon system for action.
Now that its tactical and technical data met the requirements of the Party, this type of missile should be rapidly mass-produced in a serial way to arm the KPA Strategic Force, he said.
He set forth the strategic tasks for bolstering up the country's nuclear force.
He expressed belief that the national defence scientists and workers at the munitions factories intensely loyal to the WPK would produce better and more Juche weapons, nuclear offensive means of Korean style.
He had a photo taken with all the national defence scientists, technicians, workers and officials who carried out the successful test-launch.
Accompanying him were Ri Pyong Chol, Kim Jong Sik, Jong Sung Il, Yu Jin, Jo Yong Won and other senior officials of the C.C., WPK and General Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the KPA Strategic Force.
Political News Team
Oops, replying to my own post, a quick search found a more-detailed article on Wikipedia about MOOSE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Rods from the Gods delivery system? I wonder what the delta-v requirements would be to get a payload into a highly elliptical orbit (so you get lots of re-entry velocity) with a negative altitude perigee. You'd probably save a lot of fuel by not circularising your orbit (and then needing more to drop the perigee down again. Might have to boot up KSP...
Sorry to be cynical, but reading news on contracts like this it seems that the one group getting the worst deal are the American Tax-Payers.
The article doesn't say, but does anyone know if this is a fixed-price-bid or a "Cost-Plus" contract?
The differences could be absolutely huge. You only need to compare the cost-per-kilo-to-orbit of the various solutions being developed today (Falcon Heavy, New Glenn, SLS) to see how hugely expensive the government-funded solutions are in comparison with commercial enterprises.
I'm not for one moment suggesting that the new platform is a waste of money, just that it's value for money may have a huge dependency on the way that the contract is written.
I, for one, welcome our new suborbital rocket-launcher platforms.
"A goldfish was his muse, eternally amused"
The rest of the world has mapped out every US spy and mil communications platform.
They know the hours when the US is looking down.
The US tried to make its spy sats really hard to see but they still get detected by people and nations.
Projects like this allow the US to add a lot more look down hardware if needed. New orbit times that will not allow other nations to predict or hide in time.
The other fear of the US mil is emerging anti-satellite weapon systems removing a few of its very advance systems. That gap will be quickly filled by a lot of new launches.
The US will flood space with its small sats and the enemy will run out of anti-satellite weapon systems.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Even 1960s tech could get a man into orbit with a 3000lbs. That's about the size of the biggest Mercury capsules.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Good news, everyone! Boeing is making the first prototype for our delivery service of the future.
And making that cheaper is somehow a good thing?
Yes.
We humans haven't exactly done a good job at keeping Earth tidy, neat, and organized.
Actually, we seem to follow a pattern of letting shit get out of hand and then correcting. Western Europe and the US have improved their environments significantly over the last 50 years. China is just beginning to figure this out as well.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What dolt at DARPA - an organization filled with pretty savvy people - came up with the acronym "XS-1"? Just say it out loud: "excess one". It just screams of government waste, no matter the merits.
I guess it could have been worse - the program's expanded name is "experimental spaceplane." If they had made spaceplane two words instead of one, the program could have been called "XSP", or "excess pee".
This is Boeing's next government trough after the boondoggled SLS and the new AF tanker program.
A Mercury capsule was about 3000 lbs. (google search) So, yes, it could.
And in Australia they call those people that fly into space "arse-tronauts".
And making that cheaper is somehow a good thing?
Yes.
We humans haven't exactly done a good job at keeping Earth tidy, neat, and organized.
Actually, we seem to follow a pattern of letting shit get out of hand and then correcting. Western Europe and the US have improved their environments significantly over the last 50 years. China is just beginning to figure this out as well.
Uh, letting shit "get out of hand" in orbit would likely result in the modern world being thrown back into the proverbial stone age. Gonna be hard to "correct" it all after satellites play ping pong and destroy each other, and we've created an artificial ring of space junk around our planet.
GPS is used as the key timing source for high-speed communications. Hell, forget comm links, the younger generation doesn't even know what a paper map is in order to navigate on this planet, and they couldn't survive without the internet/social media.
Why am I seeing ads on TV telling me how great Northrop Grumman is? As much as I'd like to have my own B2 they're a little pricey and hard to park.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Instead of the boosters putting the shuttle into space, the shuttle is now putting the booster into space. Quite an advancement.
Gonna be hard to "correct" it all after satellites play ping pong and destroy each other, and we've created an artificial ring of space junk around our planet.
Also going to be hard to clean all that up without cheap access to space.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
At first, Boeing was partnering with Blue Origin on the engine. However, once they actually got this contract, they drop BO and switch over to Aerojet Rocketdyne; AR used to be called Boeing Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power before being spun off, merged, etc a few times. To me, this seems like a step backwards going back to the space plane idea; landing "normal rockets" has been proven now by two separate companies. It will be interesting to see if they can actually fulfill Phase III, 10 flights in 10 days.
I feel like you may not grasp how empty and vast space, even at the low altitude of satellites, is, and how comparably small satellites are.
Space debris is a solvable problem: it mostly sticks to predictable orbits where you can navigate around it, and we have several ideas for de-orbiting the junk. Using a laser from the ground to ablate it (on the side facing its direction of travel) would impart de-orbiting acceleration and cause it to drop into the atmosphere.
Boeing working on a cheap, fast turnaround, reusable spaceplane? Buwahahaahahahaaahaaa, get ready for wicked cost overruns, mediocre performance and multiple delays. I'd like to think that the threat from SpaceX/Blue Origin would have made them straighten out but I don't think that is happening.
Why does the color of their skin matter? People are people moron. Only caring about "brown" people makes you racist. Even when you pretend to paint it as anti-racism.
And in Australia they call those people that fly into space "arse-tronauts".
Not too many Australian astronauts. In space, no one can hear you cheer.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"Spaceplane" sounds like something piloted by a clean-limbed patriot in 1950s science fiction. This is a exospheric military drone.
The Boeing X-37B is currently doing this exact thing. It is flown by Airforce. Is the original article from the 90's?
So what? If all the turdbrains who can't live without fecesbook and can't use a real map and compass die off, the better off mankind is as a whole.
So what? If all the turdbrains who can't live without fecesbook and can't use a real map and compass die off, the better off mankind is as a whole.
I would agree with you, if the "turdbrains" in question did not represent 99.999% of the human race under 30 years old. Speaking of the survival of our species...
I feel like you may not grasp how empty and vast space, even at the low altitude of satellites, is, and how comparably small satellites are.
I feel you may not grasp mans ability to trash any place it inhabits, no matter how "vast".
I also feel you do not grasp the impact of our satellite network being inadvertently destroyed. Ironically, those in the stone age were more prepared for survival.
The problem here is similar to that for fission power plants: clean-up. Until we can clear the LEO clutter so that the current occupancy can be managed, it's arguably not a great idea to fill the space with even more small systems.
We're going to eject tax money hypersonically into space is all this means ...
What is a space plane going to stop from hitting us?
You bring up an interesting point. If the plane can reach suborbital velocities for a reasonable cost, it would be possible to bomb a country a few thousand miles away from where the bombs are "dropped." Of course the bomb would need guidance, which we already smart bombs. The kinetic energy added to the bomb would increase the damage it could deal. And in the case of nuclear war, you could lob nukes instead, and replace our aging solid-rocket delivery systems, with delivery mechanism that is more mobile (more difficult to wipe out in a first strike).