When’s Orion’s next launch planned atop the SLS?
- Though why they wouldn’t do a further test on another Delta IV Heavy escapes me.
Great live video from the Ikhana plane and from Orion itself during re-entry. You get to see it plummeting through the upper atmosphere before the chutes are deployed. Never seen that before.
Cynically, I bet NASA doesn’t want anyone to catch on to the idea that the Delta IV Heavy could replace the SLS, especially if the crewed space exploration missions are delayed or cancelled. That makes Orion just a crew taxi to the ISS or other puttering around in low earth orbit, for which the Delta IV heavy only needs to be man-rated.
:rolleyes:
The first test flight of Apollo was in Feb 1966.
It was orbiting the moon with three astronauts 2.5 years later.
The first manned mission for Orion? 2021. 7 years. Thats the time between Friendship 7 (John Glenn) and Apollo 11.
[QUOTE=lazybratsche]
Cynically, I bet NASA doesn’t want anyone to catch on to the idea that the Delta IV Heavy could replace the SLS, especially if the crewed space exploration missions are delayed or cancelled. That makes Orion just a crew taxi to the ISS or other puttering around in low earth orbit, for which the Delta IV heavy only needs to be man-rated.
[/QUOTE]
Cynically? Thats what I think is going to happen. SLS etc are frankly pipe dreams.
Did anyone else immediately think of this Orion?
Well the whole point of Orion is to get away from near earth space and currently the Delta IV Heavy can’t really do that with an Orion/ServiceModule combination. The capsule comes in around 9 tons, the SM at 12 so combined you need to be able to lift 21 odd tons past LEO.
Saturn 5 - 118 tons to LEO, 47 TLI
Delta IV H - 28 tons to LEO, 14 GTO,
Falcon Heavy - 53 tons to LEO, 21 to GTO, 13 TLI
SLS Block 1 - 70 tons to LEO, 25 TLI
SLS Block 1B - 97.5 tons to LEO, 37.8 TLI
Only the Delta IV Heavy actually exists.
The neat thing I’ve noticed is that the Falcon Heavy design has a 5 m faring and can lift 21 tons to GTO. That just fits the Orion/SM combination if you’re shooting for GTO.
The cynic in me sees nothing happening any time soon; the other guy is pretty excited. 
Why was the decision made to launch Apollo with a Saturn V, instead of assembling it from several launches on smaller boosters?
Could this not be done with Orion?
Sure, there are plenty of concepts for missions that involve, say, launching a lander and a crew/service module separately and docking them in space. That was the plan for the Altair moon lander. It does add some non-trivial complications but it’s possible.
But that’s my other cynical thought: the SLS was designed with exactly 2.5x more payload capacity than the Delta IV Heavy (see Grey’s post above). That makes it impossible to simply replace the SLS with a pair of Delta IV Heavy launches.
Thanks, Lazy. From his link:
Cool!
Oh indeed. What I’m not able to find out is what it is exactly that’s revolutionary about this Orion - sadly not nuclear drive, I see.
No, this one, though.
Well, shoot. I like the name Aquila better. It just has that lunar mission ring to it.
AK84, you suggest the SLS is basically a pipe-dream (which I’m not necessarily doubting). For the cynical, do you think it’s cost, politics, lost desire to send men into deep-space, etc. that would squash it?
From that, I gather it’s not even begun to be built yet?
SLA is a very cool, very large rocket system. It needs the Orion system as its primary justification. The fact that we could then use it to put really impressive payloads into space does nothing for Congress. They care only so far as contracts go to their districts.
Which is why I’m entertaining the fantasy of NASA being clever enough to plan for SLS but put out enough details for what they’re building that SpaceX (or someone else) can be their fall back plan.
let me get this straight…you want to man rate a booster that regularly lights it’s ass end on fire?
now if they could do something about the hydrogen dump to pre-chill the RS-68 prior to engine start, maybe…
Now’s the time NASA needs a real conspiracy: Fake imagery and astronomical data showing a ginormous asteroid on a collision course to earth. Surely that’d be enough to scare Congress to…
Naw… who am I kidding?
Can one of the resident rocket scientists explain why a mission that does not include a rendezvous with a satellite, asteroid, comet, planet etc has a launch window? Seems like a rocket going around the Earth a couple of times and landing in the ocean would not care what time it was launched. Is it related to the relative position of the sun influencing the orbital mechanics somehow?
Isn’t “lighting its ass end on fire” exactly how rockets work? You’re worried about a light toasting from a little excess hydrogen, when there is the energy equivalent of 10 tons of TNT exploding per second under the rocket?
More seriously, there has been some consideration of man-rating the Delta IV Heavy. Here’s one such study (pdf warning). It’s reasonably feasible, and probably could have been done for a tiny fraction of the entire cost of the Constellation + SLS program to date.
And that’s not even considering the Falcon Heavy, which will lift more to LEO and is supposed to be far cheaper (if everything goes as expected…)
Perhaps for it to be daylight in the landing zone.