Slashdot Mirror
US Military Told To Move From 'Expendable' To 'Reusable' Rockets (arstechnica.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The conference report from the U.S. House and Senate calls for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program of the Department of Defense, commonly known as the EELV program, to be named the "National Security Space Launch program" as of March 1, 2019. No longer will the military rely solely on expendable rockets. Moreover, the report says the U.S. Air Force must consider both expendable and reusable launch vehicles as part of its solicitation for military launch contracts. And in the event that a contract is solicited for a mission that a reusable launch vehicle is not eligible to compete for, the Air Force should report back to Congress with the reason why. The U.S. House has already agreed to the conference report, and it should be taken up in the Senate next week. After that, it will need the president's signature to become law. [...] It is quite a change from the state of play just 13 years ago, when ULA was dominant and SpaceX was roundly dismissed by the courts and the broader aerospace community.
...the ICBM will become reusable ?!?
SpaceX's recent launch of a Tesla vehicle as proof of concept was cool, perhaps poetic and arty even, but not the most impressive part: I have to admit that my jaw dropped open when I saw 2 of the 3 rockets returning and landing again (3rd one was lost). I found it a triumph of good engineering, really impressive that it actually worked considering the rocket shape and gigantic powers involved.
You need to get an observation bird over a new hotspot, or one of your existing NRO birds goes dark. That's what this concept is for.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Possibly due to a change in the trend of satellites moving to swarms of smaller ones. This is to give them redundancy, and make them more difficult for an enemy to take out.
Just another day in Paradise
It's for space launch and not for ballistic missiles which are actually used surface-to-surface (with a bit of space in between).
It is pretty funny though to see the big rusty and spoiled old fat-and-lazy-on-cost-plus-contracts defense contractors that benefitted so well from an earlier such government mandate (the one that created the EELV program) now on the other end of such a mandate. Given that none of the overpaid morons managing these firms took SpaceX seriously, none will be on an even footing with SpaceX for future contracts. If the clowns pretending to be CEOs of these firms do not wise-up and order a major shift to reusability then it's likely Blue Origin will be ready with a reusable wile the big3 old school firms are still debating a course of action. Can it be that we are about to see a colossal abuse of taxpayers finally get punished? It probably depends on how many corrupt members of congress the big old firms can buy and whether its enough to defeat the policy change.
LockMart is currently designing their non-reusable Vulcan launch vehicle as their next-gen replacement for the Russia!Russia!Russia!-engined Atlas launch vehicle.
Boeing seems to be prepping to retire the Delta launch vehicle with no replacement.
NothrupGrumman (who have recently absorbed Orbital ATK) is home to the non-reusable Russian-engined Antares launch vehicle and they are currently designing a newer non-reusable solid-motor-based launch vehicle (the Omega) for the future.
Here is a story about a reusable rocket-plane using a modified Space Shuttle main engine, designed for DARPA, to launch medium sized military satellites (a bit over two tonnes.) It is intended to have 24 hour turnaround.
Like Falcon 9, the booster stage is reusable but the second stage is not. Unlike Falcon 9, the booster will glide back to a runway like a shuttle. First flight is targeted for 2021.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Bullets are mostly reusable.
The casing can be reused directly, and the projectile might need to be remelted.
Other than that just replace the primer, and repack with powder.
are now being replaced by "The Reusables"
Can the NRO hand craft the needed observation systems at that rapid rate from bespoke 100% made in the USA parts?
If they have a brain in their skulls they already have backups sitting on the ground on standby in a launch ready (or nearly so) condition. If they are already building one it saves a lot of money to build a second (or more) at the same time. Heck even commercial companies like SiriusXM build backup satellites that are ready for launch should one of their orbiting satellites experience a problem. It would be almost criminally stupid for a government agency tasked with defense to not do the same thing.