I imagine fueling depots in LEO, perhaps one for each spaceport, where satellites, probes, and manned and unmanned spacecraft are refueled for their higher orbit or interplanetary missions. Reused upper stages can become tugs for some spacecraft, perhaps taking satellites to geostationary orbit or geostationary transfer orbit.

If the fuel can come from the Moon, a lot of savings can be had.

Altius needs to be successful with their fueling port so that it can be licensed to as many companies as possible. Then maybe reuse in space will be more likely.

Dick,
ULA’s plans for ACES has me excited, because it means that commercial space companies have plans for the future. ULA even plans to modify ACES to make a lunar lander, Xeus, with which to ship materiel to and from the Moon, yet another vision of the not-so-distant future.

Orbital ATK have been trying to make the most of everything, like their use of Cygnus to perform tests after leaving the ISS. So I hope that attitude carries on.

Another good point about potential refueling/reuse once in space. I don’t think Orbital-ATK has any such plans though. ULA is the one that wants to repurpose their ACES upper stages for extended use in or beyond LEO.

Yes, thanks. I didn’t read closely enough.

In all cases, the 3rd stage would be powered by a vacuum-optimized version of Blue Origin’s BE-3 LOX-LH2 engine, the sea-level-optimized version of which is currently powering the suborbital New Shepard.

Vacuum optimized wouldn’t be so great at landing back on Earth then? But maybe it would work to land on the Moon. It seems like after going through the effort to get something up there, its a shame to waste it. Their proposed MEV could possibly play a role in moving the 3rd stage someplace to get refueled.

Based on what Orbital-ATK has said thus far about the design of its prospective Next Generation Launch System (NGL) the first two stages would both be based on SLS-type SRB segments. All configurations would have a 1st stage consisting of two SRB segments and a 2nd stage consisting of either one or two segments depending upon the needs of the payload.

This sort of design makes more sense than the unitary multi-segment booster design Orbital-ATK offered for the since-cancelled Ares 1. First, a two stage design employing either three or four segments provides more payload capacity than a single stage with either three or four segments would. The Ares 1 design alsohad a lot of vibration problems. Solids seem to have more vibration the longer they are.

In all cases, the 3rd stage would be powered by a vacuum-optimized version of Blue Origin’s BE-3 LOX-LH2 engine, the sea-level-optimized version of which is currently powering the suborbital New Shepard. Orbital-ATK has a contract from USAF under which it is developing the vacuum-optimized version of BE-3. This version of the BE-3 is also slated for use on an optional 3rd stage for Blue Origin’s own New Glenn booster when needed for GTO/BEO missions.

I believe Blue Origin intends its own BE-3-based upper stage to be reusable, though perhaps not right away. So far as I’m aware, Orbital-ATK has no plans to recover or reuse any parts of NGL. Orbital-ATK has been very publicly skeptical of all recovery/reuse projects either extant or proposed by other builders.

I share your concerns about the economics of any form of completely expendable rocket booster. At this point in history, that just seems like deliberately leaning into your competitor’s fist to me.

My question is if the second stage would be reusable? The engine is capable but I am not rocket nerd enough to math out whether or not it is feasible on technical grounds.

They have been working on some other space based products so reusing the second stage in orbit would also be useful.

If the second stage was reusable in some form and the cost of an expendable first stage was lower than the refurbishment costs of a Falcon 9, they could be competitive.