Telespazio VEGA Deutschland present POTENTIAL OF SUBSONIC AIR-LAUNCH . Presented at The 12th Reinventing Space Conference, organised this year by the British Interplanetary Society, will take place in London, UK between Tuesday 18 - Friday 21 November 2014

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Telespazio VEGA Deutschland
THE DISRUPTIVE POTENTIAL OF SUBSONIC AIR-LAUNCH
12th Reinventing Space Conference
Royal Society, London
18-21 November 2014
David J. Salt - Senior Consultant

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QUESTION: DO WE NEED
BIG LAUNCHERS
TO ENABLE
BIG SPACE ACTIVITIES?
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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PRESENTATION OVERVIEW The Limits to Growth The Current Space Paradigm & Constraints on Commercial Space What’s the Problem?... The Space Access Dilemma & Potential for ‘Disruption’ The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch Benefits of Subsonic Air-Launch & Operational Concept Benefits of Air Collection & Boost to RLV Performance Operating Beyond the Limits LEO Operations & Beyond Commercial GEO Operations Conclusions
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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The Limits to Growth
THE CURRENT SPACE PARADIGM The current ‘space paradigm’ is stagnating! space activities are still dominated by government programmes supported by ‘commercial’ contractors all programmes take longer and cost more than planned future programmes face cut-backs and/or cancellation due to major constraints on government discretionary spending
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
A POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH?
Perspective: The 2012 global space revenue was $304 billion, which is less than the annual revenue of one large commercial company (e.g. Wal-Mart) World airline revenues in 2012 were $700 billion Lufthansa’s revenue in 2012 was $39 billion Question: Without another major government initiative like Apollo, how can we encourage and/or create new space markets?

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The Limits to Growth
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? We have much better supporting technologies than we had 50 years ago, when Apollo began manufacturing processes and computer hardware/software have made huge advances and become cheaper! Nevertheless, commercial space activities are limited to working with ‘photons’ rather than ‘atoms’ because of the space launch dilemma
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
THE SPACE ACCESS DILEMMA Space access is expensive… the price to get into low Earth orbit is on the order of $10,000/kg because current launcher vehicles are extremely expensive to operate Expendables (e.g. Ariane 5) throw away expensive hardware Repairables (i.e. Shuttle) take too much time/effort to turn-around Fully reusable launchers with airline-like operations could lower the cost of space access by at least an order of magnitude (less than $1,000/kg) but… the estimated cost to develop such vehicles is $10-20 billion current markets are insufficient to reach flight rates that would justify such a cost because… space access is expensive!

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The Limits to Growth
THE POTENTIAL FOR ‘DISRUPTION’
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch The current paradigm is very unlikely to overcome these limits to growth, especially if current launch markets remain ‘inelastic’ lower prices stimulate only limited market growth and, worse still, result in a significant decrease in total yearly revenue! One way to overcome this is to radical drop launch prices below $1000/kg, which can only be achieved via a mature RLV Another is to stimulate new markets with better elasticity and reduced performance demands (e.g. sub-orbital flights) that can be serviced by smaller/cheaper vehicles Bridging the performance gap between current and new markets will be critical to realizing this ‘disruptive’ path This work tries to show how a small subsonic air-launched RLV with operational flexibility and growth potential could resolve this dilemma

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
CAVEAT & RATIONALES FOR SUBSONIC AIR-LAUNCH Subsonic air-launch should be regarded as an enabling capability for a launch system, not a launch solution in and of itself the majority of the technology/cost challenge still reside within the rocket that performs the bulk of the work needed to place any payload into orbit best thought of as a mobile, high altitude launch facility It provides performance and operational advantages BUT it does increase the costs/complexity of the overall launch system Performance advantages translate into a relaxation of design constraints, which tend to be better exploited by an RLV than an ELV relaxation of RLV design constraints make their challenges far more tractable, realistic and affordable for ELVs (e.g. Pegasus), these advantages tent to be outweighed by the drawback unless the prime need is for rapid/flexible launch
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
THE BENEFITS OF SUBSONIC AIR-LAUNCH Performance benefits rocket operations above the dense atmosphere reduce significantly both drag and gravity losses enables significant increase in engine specific impulse (Isp) by using a larger expansion ratio nozzle that would be over-expanded at lower altitudes so cause destructive instabilities
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch Operational benefits enables operation out of existing airports with reduced launch range constraints increases launch window flexibility and orbital rendezvous opportunities up-range launch enables 1st stage to land back at base, minimising ferry flights Cost & Evolutionary benefits existing aircraft can be procured/modified at relatively low cost aircraft can be modified incrementally to increase performance (e.g. better thrust/weight/performance engines and/or introduction of ACES equipment)

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
SUBSONIC AIR-LAUNCH OPERATIONS & WINDOWS
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch Cruise to launch point has major benefits increases daily launch window opportunities reduces ‘dog-leg’ for LEO rendezvous enables atmospheric LOx ‘harvesting’

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
BENEFITS OF AIR COLLECTION & ENRICHMENT Use of existing aircraft limits RLV mass and therefore payload performance to LEO The gross mass of any launch vehicle using liquid oxygen (LOx) will be dominated by the LOx mass
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
Candidate Aircraft
External Mass (Mg)
An-225
200
A380-800F
120
747-100 SCA -911
109
747-400F
140
Dual-fuselage C-5
350
Stratolaunch Carrier
120 oxidiser/fuel rations of 5.2 for liquid hydrogen (LH2) and 2.3 for kerosene (RP-1) mean that LOx is more than half the RLV gross mass at take-off! Any method that enables the LOx to be loaded after take-off should offer a number of significant advantages increased RLV mass and so payload performance to LEO for any given aircraft improved safety during ground operations and take-off due to elimination of LOx Two approaches appear possible transfer the LOx in-flight from a ‘tanker’ aircraft utilise the cruise phase to harvest the LOx from the atmosphere Harvesting LOx via an Air Collection and Enrichment System (ACES) offers the safer and operational less complex option

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
ACES CONCEPTUAL DESIGN & OPERATION ACES generates LOx by ingested air and separating out nitrogen and other component via heat exchangers and a rotational fractional distillation unit The heat exchangers use LH2 to super-cool incoming air tapped off the aircraft’s main engines or drawn in by a dedicated compressor The resulting LOx is then pumped from the ACES system on the carrier aircraft into the empty LOx tanks of the launch vehicle during flight
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
ACES BOOST TO RLV PERFORMANCE Parametric models of two RLV concepts were developed to investigate the impact of ACES on LEO payload performance a two-stage design using LOx/RP on the 1st stage and LOx/LH2 on the 2nd stage a two-stage liquid design using LOx/LH2 on both stages RLV mass/performance data was taken from NASA/DARPA & ESA studies Conservative ACES characteristics were taken from US & European studies
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Operating Beyond the Limits
LEO OPERATIONS & BEYOND… “HALFWAY TO ANYWHERE” Most space station crew and logistics transport requirements could be supported by a subsonic air-launched RLV Mass of many GEO and lunar transport elements could also be supported by this same RLV The vast majority (~80%) of mass launched to LEO will be propellant, which is infinitely divisible!
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
ISS Servicing Vehicles
LEO Mass (Mg)
Soyuz (Government – Russian)
7200
Progress (Government – Russian)
7200
ATV (Government – European)
20200
HTV (Government – Japanese)
19000
Dragon (Commercial – SpaceX)
6000
Cygnus (Commercial – OSC)
4500

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Operating Beyond the Limits
COMMERCIAL GEO OPERATIONS A suborbital air-launched RLV with 4000kg LEO payload performance can also launch GEO comsats 40% of GEO comsat launch mass is propellant to go from GTO to GEO Operational scenario would involve launch/assembly of a kick stage to perform LEO to GEO transfer number of launches depends on satellite’s Beginning of Life (BoL) mass final launch delivers/mates satellite with kick-stage Preliminary business case analysis suggests an RLV with development costs below $1billion could be a commercially viable proposition!
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Conclusions
CONCLUSIONS Space activities have so far failed to achieve the great expectations set out at the dawn of the space age, over half a century ago Access to LEO (i.e. launch vehicles) is one of the main constraining factors for in-space developments and operations A subsonic air-launched RLV could improve access to LEO significantly, in terms of safety, availability and cost Such an RLV could support new space infrastructures that would increase future in-space operations for both exploration and resource exploitation These developments could be driven by commercial investments, though there is much scope for governments to foster them in a synergistic manner Although more detailed analyses are needed in order to confirm these results, they do tend to suggest that…
We don’t need big launchers to enable big space activities!
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION…
… ANY QUESTIONS?
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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SUPPLEMENTARY SLIDES
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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The Case for Subsonic Air-Launch
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
ACES CYCLE DESIGN & EXPERIMENTAL TEST HARDWARE

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Supplementary Slides
ACES SCHEMATIC
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Supplementary Slides
NASA/DARPA DESIGN CONCEPTS (PD-2 & PD-3)
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Supplementary Slides
EVOLUTIONARY STEPS FOR A ‘BIMESE’ RLV
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Supplementary Slides
RLV SCALING RELATIONSHIPS x
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch

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Supplementary Slides
SELECTION OF EXTERNAL CARRIAGE AIR-LAUNCH CONCEPTS (EXCLUDES TOWED OR INTERNAL CARRIAGE)
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
Config. Concept Name Designer/Year Air-launch Vehicle Propellant Reusable Payload Captive on Top Boeing AirLaunch USA/1999 747 Solid No 3.4t Interim HOTOL UK/1991 An-225 LH2/LOx Fully 7.0t MAKS-M USSR/1989 An-225 RP-1/LH2/LOx Partly 5.5t MAKS-OS USSR/1989 An-225 RP-1/LH2/LOx Partly 8.3t Pegasus II USA/2011 Stratolaunch Solid+Cryo No 6.1t Saenger II Germany/1991 Mach 4.4 turbo-ramjet LH2/LOx Fully 9.0t Spiral 50-50 USSR/1965 Mach 6 turbo-ramjet RP-1/LOx Partly 10.0t Teledyne-Brown USA/1986 747 LH2/LOx Fully 6.7t Captive on Bottom Global Strike Eagle USA/2006 F-15 Solid No 0.3t Pegasus USA/1990 L-1011 Solid No 0.5t Yakovlev HAAL USSR/1994 Tu-160 Solid No 1.1t

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Supplementary Slides
AIR-LAUNCH MODEL INFO.
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
Wing & TPS Mass: Scales directly with materials factor (S) and the change, with respect to the baseline, in the sum of Fuselage, Tank, Systems, and Engine masses (Ms3 + Ms4 + Ms5 + Ms6).
Fuselage Mass: Scales directly with materials factor (S) and the change, with respect to the baseline, in the propellant tank mass (Ms4).
Tank Mass: Scales directly with materials factor (S) and the change, with respect to the baseline, in the propellant mass (Mf) raised to the power of 2/3.
Systems & Engine Mass: Scales directly with the change in the propellant mass (Mf), with respect to the baseline.
RLV Design & Mission
1
Baseline mission delta-v to 400km LEO = 7820 m/s
2
Delta-v loss: 1750 m/s from sea-level; 850 m/s from 10km
3
Existing rocket engines (e.g. Merlin 1C & RL10A-4-2)
4
Oxydised/Fuel ratio: 2.28 for LOx/RP; 5.24 for LOx/LH2
5
Isp: 450s @10km for LOx/LH2; 300s @10km for LOx/RP
6
Current available structural materials (i.e. TRL 6+)
7
TPS mass: 5% Booster dry mass; 20% Orbiter dry mass
8
Wings + Empennage + body flap: 7% dry mass
ACES Characteristics [RD.10]
1
LOx collection plant (LCP) mass / volume = 4Mg / 6m3
2
Collection Ratio (CR) = 2.0 (i.e. 1kg LH2 => 2.0kg LOx)
3
LOx collection purity = 90% (i.e. 10% N2)
4
LOx collection rate = 9 kg/sec
5
Isp = 292s @10km for LOx/RP with 90% purity LOx
6
Isp = 435s @10km for LOx/LH2 with 90% purity LOx
Separation Mach number (Mn) = 12Air-Launched+ACESAir-Launched+ACESMaterials density scaling factor (S) [%]1.001.001.001.00TSTO Booster DetailsTSTO Orbiter DetailsSpecific Impulse (Isp) [sec.]450435Specific Impulse (Isp) [sec.]450435Rocket equation factor (R=Exp(dV/Isp/g)2.59682.6836Rocket equation factor (R=Exp(dV/Isp/g)2.74482.8421TSTO Gross Mass (MTg=MBp+MBs+MBf) [kg]138576200848Orbiter Gross Mass (M0g=MOp+MOs+MOf) [kg]3485748908Booster Dry Mass (MBs=SUM(MBs1:MBs6)) [kg]1850825933Orbiter Dry Mass (MOs=SUM(MOs1:MOs6)) [kg]53797139Wings Mass (MBs1) [kg]14141981Wings Mass (MOs1) [kg]615817TPS Mass (MBs2) [kg]10141421TPS Mass (MOs2) [kg]10901446Fuselage Mass (MBs3) [kg]33904399Fuselage Mass (MOs3) [kg]12511588Tank Mass (MBs4) [kg]35094555Tank Mass (MOs4) [kg]15081914Systems Mass (MBs5) [kg]20202987Systems Mass (MOs5) [kg]677968Engines Mass (MBs6) [kg]716210590Engines Mass (MOs6) [kg]8541222FSSC-16 Defined Propellant Mass (MBf) [kg]85211126006FSSC-16 Defined Propellant Mass (MOf) [kg]2215831700Booster Payload (MBp=MOg, Orbiter Gross Mass) [kg]3485748908Resultant TSTO Payload (MOp) [kg]732010070Booster delta-V loss (LdV) [m/s]850850Orbiter delta-V loss (LdV) [m/s]------ Booster delta-V (BdV) [m/s]33633363Orbiter delta-V (OdV) [m/s]44574457ACES DetailsTSTO System DetailsLOx fraction of TSTO gross mass65%66%Total Mission Delta-V [m/s]86708670Total LOx propellant [kg]90165132436TSTO Dry Mass (MTs=MBs+MOs) [kg]2388733072LCP mass [kg]---4000TSTO Gross Mass (MTg=MTs+MBf+MOf+MOp) [kg]138576200848LH2 for ACES [kg]---66218TSTO Gross Mass without LOx [kg]---68412ACES 'kit' Mass [kg]---70218TSTO Gross Mass without LOx + ACES [kg]---138630

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Supplementary Slides
RLV BUSINESS MODEL PARAMETERS
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
Satellite Mass (kg)
Total No. (2013-2022)
Annual Average
(2013-2022)
% of Total
Below 2200
29
2.9
13%
2200 to 4200
62
6.2
27%
4200 to 54000
46
4.6
20%
54000 and above
91
9.1
40%
Total Forecast
228
22.8
100%
Business Parameter
Value range
Total R&D investment
$500-1000 million
Fleet size
3 operational vehicles
Price per flight
$10-20 million
Variable cost (per flight)
$2-10 million
Fixed annual operating cost
$40 million
Income tax rate
40%-60%
Interest rate
10% (for debt finance)
Annual flights (fleet max.)
100
First commercial launch
4 years after start

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Supplementary Slides
STEPS TOWARDS A NEW SPACE PARADIGM
The Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch
Timeframe
Future Steps
Impacts
Proof of Concept (2012-2018)
COTS payload services to ISS (~2012)
MODEST: Increased microgravity experimentation
Frequent reusable suborbital services for tourist passengers (~2016)
SIGNIFICANT: Rapid flight vehicle turn-around and passenger training
COTS crew rotation to ISS (~2018)
MODEST: Improved human in-situ servicing and support
Concept Maturation (2018-2020)
Commercial space station & ELV support (~2020)
SIGNIFICANT: Increased human in- situ servicing and support
Air-launched RLVs for ISS cargo and GEO satellite launch (~2020)
VERY SIGNIFICANT: Increased satellite missions and space infrastructure development
Air-launched RLVs for passenger services to ISS and commercial stations (~2023)
VERY SIGNIFICANT: Increased human in-situ activities supporting complex space developments
In-orbit propellant depots for crewed exploration missions (~2025)
VERY SIGNIFICANT: Enables deep space exploration missions and exploitation of space resources