ULA engineers have pinpointed the issue that caused a premature shutdown of the first stage Russian engine on the last Atlas 5 launch.
They are inspecting all of their Russian engines to make sure the problem will not repeat. Meanwhile, the next Atlas 5 launch has not yet been scheduled.
In an effort to funnel money to Aerojet Rocketdyne at the cost of every other rocket company in the nation, the House Armed Services Committee has written a bill that tells the Air Force exactly how it will build its future rockets.
“The Committee shares the concern of many members that reliance on Russian-designed rocket engines is no longer acceptable,” the committee said April 25. “The Chairman’s Proposal, as recommended by Chairman Rogers of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, denies the Air Force’s request to pursue the development, at taxpayer expense, of new commercial launch systems. It instead focuses on the development of a new American engine to replace the Russian RD-180 by 2019 to protect assured access to space and to end reliance on Russian engines. The Mark also holds the Air Force accountable for its awards of rocket propulsion contracts that violated the FY15 and FY16 NDAAs.”
…“The funds would not be authorized to be obligated or expended to develop or procure a launch vehicle, an upper stage, a strap-on motor, or related infrastructure,” says a draft of the 2017 defense authorization bill.
As presently written, the bill would leave the Air Force only one option: use engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne.
If anything demonstrates the corruption or foolishness of our elected officials, it is this proposal. Not only are they telling the Air Force how to design rockets, they are limiting the options so much that they are guaranteeing that it will either cost us more than we can afford, or it won’t be doable at all. As I say, either they are corrupt (working to benefit Aerojet Rocketdyne in exchange for money), or they are foolish, (preventing the Air Force from exploring as many inexpensive future options as possible).
In the heat of competition: ULA has once again suspended future Atlas 5 launches indefinitely while it investigates the launch anomaly during the Cygnus launch several weeks ago.
The problem involves the system that delivers kerosene fuel to the rocket’s Russian-made RD-180 first-stage engine. Bruno said he expects to know within the next few days which components are suspect. Engineers have not found anything in the processing of the rocket for that launch on March 22 that was different from any previously flown, Bruno added. “We have a very good idea (of what the problem is), but we’re not quite done isolating it,” Bruno said. “I think in the next few days we should be able to say which components … we’re actually focused on.”
Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has questioned the cost numbers that ULA has given the government for replacing the Russian engines it uses in the first stage of its Atlas 5 rocket.
ULA has been trying to convince Congress to let it use those Russian engines indefinitely. McCain wants their use discontinued, now. The result: a battle of numbers.
The real bottom line has really nothing to do with the Russian engines, however. The real bottom line is the bottom line itself: ULA has to quickly develop a rocket that costs less to launch, or else they will lose all their business to SpaceX. Their use of these Russian engines now in the Atlas 5 is really irrelevant, in the long run.
The competition heats up: Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO, announced yesterday that the company plans to cut 400 jobs next year, in addition to the 375 jobs they are trimming now.
The goal is to cut costs so that the company has a better chance of competing with SpaceX.
The competition heats up: At a space conference this week Aerojet Rocketdyne pitched its AR1 rocket engine, still under development, as the ideal replacement for the Russian engine in the Atlas 5.
The U.S. Air Force awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract in February worth up to $534 million over five years to certify and start delivering flight-ready AR1 engines in 2019. Aerojet Rocketdyne says it already has kicked in $70 million, with its total investment expected to exceed $250 million over the life of the contract.
Van Kleeck, vice president of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s advanced space and launch business unit, said the Air Force contract — the largest of several propulsion-related awards the service has made in recent months — is a sign of the Air Force’s confidence in the AR1’s ability to provide an expedient replacement for the RD-180 engine the Defense Department is under pressure from Congress to stop using.
United Launch Alliance, however, has anointed Blue Origin’s methane-fueled BE-4 engine as the front runner to replace the RD-180 by serving as the main engine for the Denver company’s next-generation rocket Vulcan.
“The AR1 engine can fly both on an Atlas and Vulcan and it’s the only engine that can do so,” Van Kleeck said.
Aerojet has been losing business to the newer commercial space companies like Blue Origin, and desperately needs to find a customer for the AR1. In the long run the Air Force contract won’t suffice, as it really is no more than government corporate welfare and cannot sustain them as a company. This press conference was part of that effort.
In the heat of competition: ULA has scheduled May 27 has the new launch date of its next Atlas 5 launch, pending the results of its investigation into the engine anomaly from the previous launch.
They have not revealed whether they have pinned down the cause of the first stage engine’s premature shutdown.
The competition heats up: ULA and Bigelow Aerospace have announced a partnership to launch two of Bigelow’s largest space station modules, each with about as much interior space as both Skylab and Mir.
Both will be ready for launch by 2020. Neither company has made clear if they have any outside investment, though they left open the option of working with NASA and having the modules attached to ISS.
In the heat of competition: Because of the continuing investigation into the launch issue during its last launch, ULA has now extended the delay of the next launch of its Atlas 5 from one week to an indefinite delay.
The report at the link is very brief, and it also does not give a source. I was not able to find any other reports of this story after doing a web search as well as a search of ULA’s website, so it remains unconfirmed. Nonetheless, I suspect it is real, suggesting the company has uncovered some unexpected issue with the Atlas 5 that now requires more serious action that is going to take time. Stay tuned.
The competition heats up: In an effort to cut its costs, ULA has announced that it is laying off 375 workers.
The job cuts are not because the company is having financial troubles, but because they need to lower their launch prices to compete with SpaceX.They have always had some fat that could be trimmed but have not done so because, before SpaceX, there was no effort in the launch industry to cut costs. SpaceX, and some good healthy competition in a free market, is now forcing this upon everyone.
An investigation into the early shutdown of the first stage engine on the Atlas 5 during last week’s Cygnus launch is now centered around the rocket’s fuel system.
Though they state that the system appears that it used its oxygen supply too quickly, the company has not released more details.
In the heat of competition: ULA officials have delayed by one week the next launch of their Atlas 5 rocket in order to investigate the early engine shutdown of the first stage during Tuesday’s Cygnus launch.
The competition heats up: ULA’s Vulcan rocket has passed its first design review.
This is good news for ULA, but I wouldn’t get too excited. Announcements like this often have little to do with any real construction, and are often made to give the impression to the public and Congress and other investors that something is happening. Right now, all ULA is doing is pushing paper around. Only when they start cutting metal and testing real equipment will I consider Vulcan for real.
The article does provide an interesting tidbit. Despite protests that ULA hasn’t yet made a decision between Blue Origin or Aerojet Rocketdyne for the first stage engine of Vulcan, it was Blue Origin’s engine that they used for the design review, suggesting that this is the engine they plan on using in the real rocket.
In the heat of competition: The first stage Russian engine in the Atlas 5 rocket that put Cygnus in orbit this week shut down six seconds prematurely for reasons that are as yet unclear.
The early shutdown had no effect on the Cygnus mission, as the Atlas 5’s upper stage compensated for it by burning longer. Nonetheless, ULA has opened an investigation to find out what caused the early shutdown.
The deputy inspector general of the Defense Department has notified the Air Force that he is beginning an investigation into ULA and the DOD over their relationship and contract.
He also made it clear that the investigation was sparked by last week’s comments by a ULA executive who subsequently resigned.
This is all a game. The Air Force and ULA have been colluding for years to squeeze out any competition. There is no one in Washington who needs an investigation to find this out. The inspector general will issue a report, the Air Force will admit its error and promise to do better, and they will then try to have things continue as they have.
The one difference, however, will be that SpaceX will be there, providing real competition. Thus, what matters isn’t the investigation by the inspector general. What matters is the existence of a competing company willing to put cost pressure on ULA and the Air Force.
The competition heats up: A ULA Atlas 5 rocket tonight successfully placed an Orbital ATK Cygnus freighter into orbit to resupply ISS.
This was the second time an Atlas 5 put Cygnus into orbit. The next Cygnus flight will mark the return of Orbital’s Antares rocket.
This Cygnus capsule contains probably one of the more interesting engineering experiments flown by NASA in years. When it leaves ISS in about two months they will ignite a fire inside it to study the way fires spread and burn in weightlessness.
In an update to the story last night about the head of ULA rejecting comments made by one of his chief engineers, that engineer has now resigned.
[Brett Tobey, formerly ULA vice president of engineering] resigned his position, effective immediately, ULA chief executive Tory Bruno said in a statement. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing. “The views, positions and inaccurate statements Mr. Tobey presented at his recent speaking engagement were not aligned with the direction of the company, my views, nor the views I expect from ULA leaders,” Bruno said in the statement.
In other words, we can’t have too much honesty here. There are games that Congress and ULA play with each other to justify the billions in subsidies the government gives ULA, and to note these games in a straightforward way is to note that the emperor has no clothes. We can’t have that.
I hope Tobey finds a job at SpaceX.
The heat of competition: The head of ULA has disavowed his engineers’ remarks that plugged Blue Origin’s engine for the Atlas 5 while dissing Aeroject Rocketdyne’s.
The engineer was giving a talk at the University of Colorado this week where he made it pretty clear that ULA favors Blue Origin over Aerojet Rocketdyne, but had to make believe they were treating both companies equally in the competition to replace the Atlas 5’s Russian engines in order to keep the Air Force happy. Bruno is probably now doing some damage control, as the government still wants to justify the Aerojet Rocketdyne contract (whose only real purpose was as a government pork barrel jobs program). Considering all the money the Air Force and congressmen give to ULA, he has to keep them both happy. And telling the world that their Aerojet contract is a waste of government money is not a very good way to do this.
Nonetheless, he also admitted that Blue Origin is way ahead in development, and is thus most likely to win the competition anyway.
The competition heats up? The executives in charge of ULA’s parent companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, today expressed mixed support for the development of the Vulcan rocket, designed to replace the Atlas 5.
For more than a year, Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been investing in the rocket on a quarter-by-quarter basis and the ULA board leaders said this week that the practice would continue. “We have to be prudent, disciplined stewards of any kind of investment,” Ambrose [Lockheed Martin] said. “Vulcan would be like any other investment decision.”
In September 2015, ULA’s leaders said a ban by Congress on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine, which powers ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket, was a leading driver behind the measured investment in Vulcan. But that issue was temporarily resolved in December, when Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) used a must-pass spending bill to eliminate the engine restrictions that had become law just weeks earlier.
Now, Ambrose pointed to “uncertainties” with launch policy, while Cooning [Boeing] said disagreements between lawmakers and the Air Force on the best approach for ending RD-180 dependence have given them pause, further justifying a “cautious and conservative approach.”
In other words, now that the law requiring a quick replacement of the Russian engine has been repealed, these executives feel less compunction to build Vulcan, something I had sensed in December and had commented on. As a result, they are telling us, in their tangled corporate ways, that they are not going to invest much of their own money on Vulcan, unless the government forks up a lot of cash for them to proceed.
The competition heats up: ULA has awarded XCOR a design contract for building an upper stage rocket engine for the Vulcan rocket.
This is good news for XCOR, though there is one important caveat: A close reading of the press release at the link shows that the contract does not guarantee that ULA will use this engine in Vulcan. XCOR must deliver, and ULA must be satisfied with what they produce.
