Antares (Taurus II)

[Salo]

http://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2016/05/06/space-notebook-spacex-dragon-set-to-depart-international-space-station/84014508/

Two RD-181 engines that arrived in July 2015 were being integrated in August with the Antares first stage air frame at the Wallops Island, Virginia Horizontal Integration Facility. A "hot fire" test on Pad 0A is expected this month. (Photo: NASA)

Antares ready for rollout
Orbital ATK this week plans to roll out its new-look Antares rocket to a Wallops Island launch pad where it is expected to test-fire a new Russian engines later this month.
The Antares was last seen exploding seconds after an October 2014 liftoff, thanks to a failure by Soviet-era engines that had been refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne.
The rocket's power plant now consists of NPO Energomash RD-181 engines, whose primary purpose in the near-term will be to boost Cygnus cargo vehicles on their way to the International Space Station.
Orbital ATK expects the Antares to return to flight in July, and fly again around November.
While the Antares was being "re-engined" and its launch pad repaired, Orbital ATK launched two Cygnus spacecraft from Florida on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rockets.
The second of those, launched in March, barely made it to orbit when the Atlas V's Russian RD-180 main engine shut down six seconds early.

[Salo]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/05/09/key-return-to-flight-milestone-looms-for-antares-rocket/

Key return to flight milestone looms for Antares rocket             
 May 9, 2016 Stephen Clark
 
Orbital ATK technicians install two RD-181 engines to the base of an Antares rocket's first stage booster last year at Wallops Island, Virginia. Credit: NASA

Targeting a resumption of Antares cargo launches to the International Space Station as soon as July, Orbital ATK plans to roll out an upgraded Antares rocket to a launch pad in Virginia this week for a 30-second firing of the booster's new engines.
Technicians working at the Antares launch site on Virginia's Eastern Shore are finishing up preparations for a series of tests and dress rehearsals for the rocket's return-to-flight.
The first Antares launch in nearly two years is set for early July, perhaps as soon as July 6, with a Cygnus supply ship carrying logistics, provisions and experiments to the space station and its six-person crew.
Before the cargo mission, dubbed OA-5 in Orbital ATK's flight sequence, is cleared for blastoff, engineers have several more major tests in store for the upgraded Antares rocket.
The next step is scheduled as soon as this week with the rollout of an Antares first stage booster to pad 0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, according to Blake Larson, Orbital ATK's chief operating officer.
Fitted with two newly-built RD-181 engines fr om Russia, the Antares first stage will roll out of its Horizontal Integration Facility at Wallops for the one-mile trip south to the launch pad, wh ere it be hoisted vertical for several weeks of tests.
One of the first tests will be a wet dress rehearsal, in which the Antares launch team will load kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the booster.
"We'll basically run the pre-launch sequence and go right up to the point of firing the engines. We'll load all the commodities. We'll load all the pressurant gases. We'll apply all the purges. We'll get everything ready and see everything work properly between the vehicle and the pad systems, and then we'll stop the test right before engine ignition," said Kurt Eberly, Orbital ATK's Antares deputy program manager.
 Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of our full interview with Kurt Eberly. Become a member today and support our coverage.
"We'll detank and look at all that data. If that all looks good, roughly a week or so later, we'll re-initialize the sequence, load the tanks, and go for the hotfire test.
The 30-second test firing of the twin-engine first stage is scheduled for late May.
The engines will be programmed to ramp up to full power — equivalent to more than 800,000 pounds of combined thrust — and go through a steering check as the control computers throttle the engines to different thrust levels they will see in flight.
 
This wide-angle view inside Orbital ATK's Horizontal Integration Facility at Wallops shows Antares rocket hardware being readied for return-to-flight this summer. Credit: Mike Brainard/Orbital ATK

"We want to see steady-state operation at each of the operating points in flight," Eberly said. "Once we hit those points, we have some mixture ratio excursions that we will command, and then we'll also be vectoring the nozzles during the test with varying frequency content looking to excite any adverse modes and interactions between the components."
Orbital ATK ordered RD-181 engines from Russia's NPO Energomash, the builder of the Atlas 5 rocket's RD-180 engine, in the wake of a catastrophic launch failure moments after a liftoff from Virginia in October 2014. The Antares rocket crashed near the Antares launch pad, toppling two of the facility's lightning protection towers and carving a huge crater just northeast of pad 0A's elevated launch mount.
A commercial Cygnus cargo freighter en route to the International Space Station with supplies was destroyed in the failure.
Investigators from Orbital ATK and NASA concluded the fiery mishap started about 15 seconds after liftoff inside a liquid oxygen turbopump on one of the rocket's first stage AJ26 engines.
The engines were built more than 40 years ago by the Soviet Union's Kuznetsov Design Bureau for the N1 moon rocket. When the Soviet moon program was canceled, officials put the engines — called NK-33s in Russia — in long-term storage before Aerojet Rocketdyne imported the powerplants to the United States in the 1990s.
Aerojet Rocketdyne modified the engines for use on U.S. launchers, qualifying the NK-33s for U.S. propellants and adding mechanisms for in-flight steering. The company renamed the upgraded engines as AJ26s.
Orbital ATK intended to move away from the AJ26 engine before the 2014 launch failure, but the accident accelerated the company's plans. Officials announced two months after the rocket crash that NPO Energomash would provide newly-built RD-181 engines for future Antares launches.
Since the first two RD-181 engines arrived from Russia last year, ground crews at Wallops have mated the powerplants to the Antares rocket's Ukrainian-made first stage structure. The booster and RD-181 engines set for the hotfire test later this month are assigned to fly on the OA-7 launch scheduled at the end of 2016.
The RD-181 engine generates 13 percent more thrust than the AJ26 and burns its mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants more efficiently, Eberly said in an interview with Spaceflight Now.
 
These two RD-181 engines delivered in December will power the next Antares rocket launch. Two engines delivered from Russia in August 2015 will be used for the upcoming hotfire test, then prepared for another Antares mission at the end of 2016. Credit: NASA

"The combination of those two (improvements) give us a good 20 to 25 percent performance improvement to the orbit that we're flying to in low Earth orbit to inject the Cygnus for these cargo runs," Eberly said.
The single-chamber RD-181 is similar to the dual-nozzle RD-180 engine flown on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5, producing about the thrust of its larger cousin. NPO Energomash produces a nearly identical engine named the RD-191 for Russia's Angara rocket family.
The new version of the rocket is known as the Antares 230 configuration, according to Orbital ATK.
Eberly said the new engines required a new type of thrust adapter, a structural component that mechanically connects the RD-181s to the first stage. Orbital ATK also built avionics systems for the engines, developing the new controllers in-house to replace the AJ26 controller sourced from an external supplier, Eberly said.
"It's about the same physical size as the AJ26," Eberly said. "It uses the same propellants. The combustion cycle (is the same), which means that the mixture ratio between the two propellants — between the kerosene and the liquid oxygen — is very close."
Each engine is individually steered to guide the Antares rocket in flight, and designers positioned the RD-181 engine nozzles in the same place as the AJ26 engine cones, minimizing changes to the launch pad and ground support equipment.
"The new components were the engines, obviously, the new thrust adapter, and then feedlines, which are the pipes that connect the core tanks to the engines, and then some new avionics and software to control it all," Eberly said. "That was really what changed. Everything forward of the first stage is identical."
Orbital ATK builds the solid-fueled Castor 30XL second stage for the Antares rocket. It is unchanged from the upper stage on previous Antares models.
The higher-performing RD-181 engines will alter the Antares rocket's launch profile, Eberly said. Because the new engines will consume fuel from the same first stage tanks first designed for the AJ26, they will drain the propellant supply faster.
"Whereas with the AJ26, we were on the order of 235 seconds of first stage burn, we'll be down around 214 seconds for these RD-181s," Eberly said. "They will just consume the propellants that much faster."
 
The Cygnus spacecraft's pressurized cargo module arrived at the H-100 processing facility at Wallops in March for the OA-5 cargo mission. Credit: NASA/Patrick Black

The Italian-built cargo module for the next Cygnus mission arrived at the Wallops launch site earlier this year. The service module, containing power and propulsion for the supply ship, will be transported from Orbital ATK's headquarters and factory in Dulles, Virginia, to Wallops in mid-May, officials said.
The company's commercial Cygnus cargo freighter continued flying while Orbital ATK readied the Antares for flights with the new engines. Orbital ATK ordered two Atlas 5 rocket launches in December 2015 and in March to continue executing on its more than $2 billion contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the space station.
The commercial cargo contract, initially signed in 2008 for eight missions, now has provisions for at least 11 resupply flights. NASA extended the agreement twice — for two additional flights last year, then again earlier this year for one more cargo launch.
SpaceX is NASA's other commercial provider for cargo transportation services. Its agreement originally covered 12 missions but has been extended like Orbital ATK's. SpaceX now has 20 logistics flights under contract with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule.
SpaceX and Orbital ATK have flown 13 of the 31 cargo missions — eight and five launches respectively — with each company suffering one launch failure. The cargo providers are not required to re-fly missions that fail.
NASA announced in January winners of follow-on commercial cargo contracts to cover the space station's logistics needs from 2019 through 2024. SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp., a newcomer to the cargo delivery service, won that competition, with each firm guaranteed at least six missions in the six-year period.
With the latest contract extension, Orbital ATK has 12 or more missions on the manifest for the Antares rocket through the early 2020s. Some future Cygnus cargo missions may blast off on ULA's Atlas 5 rocket, but most will fly on the Antares, officials said.
"Beyond this year, with the new extension mission added (and) with the the new CRS-2 contract coming online, the base level of demand really throughout the middle of the next decade for Antares should run at two or three launches per year," said David Thompson, Orbital ATK's president and CEO. "That gives us a solid foundation on which we can increase market reach of the vehicle and flight rates as well."
 
File photo of an Antares rocket launch in September 2013. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Once the Antares rocket resumes flights, Orbital ATK hopes to lure more customers to fly satellites on the booster, which can place medium-sized spacecraft into low-altitude orbits favored by Earth observation platforms.
Thompson said Orbital ATK designed to Antares to offer the company solid profit margins at modest launch rates. Engineers working on the Antares program also contribute to other projects within Orbital ATK's portfolio, and the launcher uses the same systems flying on other company products, he said.
"As we go from two or three launches per year to up to six launches per year, there's a lot of operating leverage in that," Thompson said.

[Salo]

Антарес готов к возвращению к полётам с Уоллопса:
http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/money/blogs/2016/05/08/antares-readied-return-flight-wallops/84118832/

[Seerndv]

Спутники вместо боеголовок

В США получило продолжение прозвучавшее в середине апреля от американских военных предложение использовать устаревшее военное имущество для запуска коммерческих спутников. Выступая на ежегодном Космическом симпозиуме, глава космического командования ВВС США генерал Джон Хитен предложил продавать американским космическим частникам двигатели межконтинентальных баллистических ракет.
Он напомнил, что ВВС США ежегодно тратят миллионы долларов на поддержание в рабочем состоянии сотен списанных двигателей, отправленных на хранение. Однако ВВС не могут их поддерживать вечно: в какой-то момент они станут непригодными, и их придется утилизировать.
«С точки зрения налогоплательщиков, не лучше ли будет как-то использовать их, чем просто уничтожить?» — задал тогда вопрос генерал.
Уже тогда было понятно, что предложение военных породит волну споров по поводу целесообразности такого решения. С одной стороны, мирное, рациональное использование давно произведенных и пылящихся на складах двигателей кажется разумным решением, позволяющим экономить огромные средства. С другой стороны, одарить этими двигателями какого-то одного игрока на довольно чувствительном рынке космических запусков — значит серьезно пошатнуть его. Тем более что речь идет об американском рынке, где различные корпорации буквально дышат друг другу в спину, разрабатывая собственные двигатели и ракеты, рассчитывая на получение государственных и коммерческих подрядов на запуски.
Однако первым, кто поддержал идею использования военных двигателей, стал именно частник — известная космическая корпорация Orbital ATK, которая уже имеет подряды от правительства США на разработку двигательных систем новой ракеты Vulcan.
Примечательно, что нынешняя дискуссия вокруг этого вопроса сильно напоминает споры, которые велись в США в 1990-е годы, когда конгресс США принял закон, как раз вводящий запрет на передачу военных ракетных двигателей частникам.
Правда, спустя четверть века некоторые частники поменяли свои позиции на противоположные.
В начале 1990-х годов компания Lockheed предложила использовать для запусков спутников двигатели старых баллистических ракет Poseidon, базировавшихся на подводных лодках. Когда-то эти ракеты были мощным оружием «холодной войны», способным доставить ядерные боеголовки в любую точку планеты. Сегодня военные хранят эти устаревшие ракеты в подземных бункерах, где поддерживается особый микроклимат, и ракеты проходят плановое обслуживание.
В Lockheed хотели использовать списанные к тому времени двигатели для запуска небольших телекоммуникационных спутников типа Globalstar и Iridium. При этом противником этой идеи выступила тогда частная космическая компания Orbital Sciences, чья ракета Pegas впервые была запущена в апреле 1990 года.
«В XXI веке Америка не сможет конкурировать, используя технологии 1970-х годов»,
— заявила тогда представитель компании Барбара Задина газете The New York Times, назвав возможное использование военных двигателей государственным демпингом. «Мы считаем, что лишь небольшое число компаний выиграют от этого. Другим побочным эффектом станет то, что эта политика удушит инновации в индустрии ракетных запусков», — говорила другая представительница компании Лора Айрес позже.
Опасения по поводу этого вопроса высказывали и другие крупные аэрокосмические корпорации. «Это окажет сильное воздействие на наш рынок, поскольку создаст ситуацию, в которой подрядчики будут конкурировать с государством», — заявили в 1991 году в McDonnell Douglas.
Полемика достигла максимума в 1994 году, после чего администрация Клинтона запретила использование старых баллистических ракет, разрешив с их помощью лишь запуски по государственным программам.
И теперь за отмену запрета высказалась компания Orbital ATK, образованная в прошлом году слиянием компаний Orbital Sciences и ATK.
Ее представители считают, что появление на рынке двигателей старых баллистических ракет не нанесет ущерба его участникам. В компании не намерены соперничать с такими компаниями, как Virgin Galactic, которые планируют запускать небольшие космические аппараты. Если компания приобретет военные двигатели, их будут ставить на свои куда более тяжелые ракеты. «Это как если бы у меня была фура и я собирался бы везти на ней вашу упаковку пончиков», — пояснил представитель компании Эд Фортунато.
Сегодня ВВС США хранят около 1 тыс. ракет Minuteman и Peacekeeper в бункерах, таких как база ВВС Хилл в Юте и Кэмп-Навахо в Аризоне, где они в итоге все равно должны быть уничтожены.
«Было бы более экономно и разумно использовать их вместо того, чтобы просто взорвать», — считает вице-президент Orbital Марк Печински.
При этом в компании кивают на положительный опыт России по конверсии баллистических ракет. В рамках программы конверсии пока еще используют ракеты-носители «Рокот» (баллистическая ракета РС-18 «Стилет») и «Днепр» (РС-20 «Воевода», известная в НАТО как «Сатана»).
«Если русские показали себя эффективно в этом классе запусков и используют лишние МБР, чтобы соревноваться на рынке коммерческих пусков, почему бы не делать это и нашей стране?» — считает Печински.
С ним не согласен Ричард Дабелло из другой частной космической корпорации Virgin Galactic, опасающейся за стабильность рынка запусков. «Есть ряд коммерческих фирм, тратящих, без преувеличения, миллиарды долларов частного капитала, который входит на рынок, понимая правила игры. Если конгресс снимет запрет, это выбьет почву из-под их ног и заставит людей дважды подумать, инвестируя в будущее», — считает он.
«С моей точки зрения, время конверсионных ракет прошло.
Оно было в 1990-е годы, и была взаимная волна: много снималось с вооружения конверсионных ракет. С другой стороны, была мода на создание многоспутниковых низкоорбитальных систем связи. Предполагалось, что сотни этих ракет можно будет использовать для создания этих систем, — рассказал «Газете.Ru» редактор журнала «Новости космонавтики» Игорь Афанасьев. — Но, во-первых, выяснилось, что переоснащение ракет тоже занимает какое-то время. У баллистических ракет истекает срок службы, гарантийные сроки, их растягивать очень тяжело — ракеты были сделаны в 1970–1980-е годы, с тех пор прошло больше 30 лет.
Хорошо, если получится утилизировать ракеты пуском. Если есть спутники подходящие, то можно это делать. Если нет, то какой смысл?»
http://www.gazeta.ru/army/2016/05/11/8224595.shtml

- 1 тыс. ракет и двигателей от них - non penis canina, как пишут некоторые  

[Apollo13]

http://www.vz.ru/news/2016/5/10/809720.html

Согласно результатам расследования аварии носителя Antares, проведенного компанией Orbital ATK, основной причиной инцидента стал взрыв ракетного двигателя AJ-26, сделанного на основе советского НК-33 и модифицированного для США украинским КБ «Южное».

Больше ада!

[Alex_II]

Apollo13 пишет:
Больше ада!

Тю, это ж "Взгляд", они иногда и похлеще несут чушь...

[napalm]

Кстати, а "Кузнецов" хоть словом официально обмолвился о бабахе Антареса? Я понимаю, их напрямую не касается навороченное американцами, но ущерб репутации имеет место быть.

[Дмитрий В.]

napalm пишет:
Кстати, а "Кузнецов" хоть словом официально обмолвился о бабахе Антареса? Я понимаю, их напрямую не касается навороченное американцами, но ущерб репутации имеет место быть.

Обмолвился.

[Георгий]

союз-2.1в покажет как правильно двигатели в ракету вставлять

[Apollo13]

https://www.orbitalatk.com/news-room/feature-stories/Antares_HotFire/

Antares First Stage Rolled Out for Test

 
Orbital ATK's Antares first stage with the new engines is rolled from NASA Wallops Flight Facility's Horizontal Integration Facility to Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport  Pad-0A on May 12, 2016 in preparation for the upcoming stage test in the next few weeks. The team will continue to work meticulously as they begin final integration and check outs on the pad and several readiness reviews prior to the test. The window for the stage test will be over multiple days to ensure technical and weather conditions are acceptable. Photo Credit: Orbital ATK

[Apollo13]

http://www.universetoday.com/128874/upgraded-antares-rolls-out-to-virginia-launch-pad-high-stakes-engine-test-looms/

UPGRADED ANTARES ROLLS OUT TO VIRGINIA LAUNCH PAD, HIGH STAKES ENGINE TEST LOOMS

16 May , 2016 by Ken Kremer

An upgraded version of Orbital ATK's commercially developed Antares rocket has at last rolled out to its launch pad on the Virginia shore – thus paving the path for a high stakes first stage engine test looming "in the next few weeks," according to the aerospace firm.

"This stage test paradigm is a design verification test, said Kurt Eberly, Orbital ATK Antares deputy program manager, in an interview with Universe Today.
The rocket will be erected at the pad during the hot fire test which is scheduled to last approximately 30 seconds. Hold down restraints will keep the rocket firmly anchored at the pad.
"After the 30 second test is done we will shut it down and have a pile of data to look at," Eberly told Universe Today.
"Hopefully it will confirm all our environments and all our models and give us the confidence so we can proceed with the return to flight."
Indeed the significance of the hot fire engine test cannot be overstated because the entire future of Antares as a viable launch vehicle and resuming delivery of NASA cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) depends on a successful outcome of the crucial test firing – following a devastating launch failure 19 months ago.
The now revamped launch vehicle dubbed Antares 230 has been re-engined and upgraded with a pair of modern new first stage engines, the Russian-built RD-181 fueled by LOX/kerosene.

To prepare for the upcoming stage test, workers carefully assembled and thoroughly tested an Antares first stage equipped with the new RD-181 engines.
On May 12, 2016, they moved the vehicle on a dedicated multi-wheeled transporter fr om the Horizontal Integration Facility at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility to Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad-0A about a mile away.

The team has about 3 weeks of check out work to complete before the live firing, including a wet dress rehearsal (WDR).
"The team will continue to work meticulously as they begin final integration and check outs on the pad and several readiness reviews prior to the test. The window for the stage test will be over multiple days to ensure technical and weather conditions are acceptable," noted Orbital ATK in a statement.
The 'Return to Flight' blastoff – currently planned for as soon as July 2016 – will be the first for the private Antares rocket since a catastrophic launch failure on Oct. 28, 2014, just seconds after liftoff from Wallops. That flight was carrying Orbital ATK's Cygnus cargo freighter on the critical Orb-3 resupply mission for NASA to the space station.
The launch mishap was traced to a failure in the AJ26 first stage engine turbopump and caused Antares launches to immediately grind to a halt.
Top Orbital ATK management soon decided to ditch the AJ26s, which were 40 year old refurbished engines, originally built during the Soviet era and originally known as the NK-33.
They sought a replacement and eventually decided to upgrade Antares by powering it with a pair of new Russian-made RD-181 main stage engines and modifying the first stage core structure to accommodate the new engines.
The RD-181 flight engines are built by Energomash in Russia.

Now it's time for the real deal. After all the hard work Antares is now at the pad.
"We place it on the pad about 3 weeks prior to the engine test," Eberly told me. "Then we and do a series of integrated checks, and electrical checks and pressure checks on the feed lines."
"Then we will do a wet dress rehearsal wh ere we will load the tanks with propellants. We will load the pressure bottles, pressurize the tanks and then count down just like we would for the real stage test. And right before we ignite the engines we will call a halt to the sequencer."
"Then we will detank and pick through all that data and do a readiness review."
If the WDR goes well, the full up engine test will follow.
"Then we will do the stage test," Eberly explained.
"It is a 30 second test. We will fire up both engines and hit all 3 power levels that we plan to use in flight."
"We will use the thrust vector controls. So we will move the nozzles and sweep them through sinusoidal sweeps at different frequencies and excite various resonances and look for any adverse interaction between fluid modes and structural modes."

The vehicle and pad will be outfitted with lots of special instrumentation to gather as much test data as possible.
"We will have a lot of accelerometers and extra instrumentation and extra microphones on the test article and around the pad.
"After the 30 second test is done we will shut it down and have a pile of data to look at."
"That will hopefully confirm all our environments and all our models and give us the confidence so we can proceed with the return to flight on the OA-5 mission."
In the past 6 months, Orbital ATK has successfully resumed launches of their Cygnus cargo freighters to the ISS – as an interim measure until Antares is returned to flight status
They utilized the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket to deliver two Cygnus vessels to the ISS on the OA-4 and OA-6 flights to the station.

Stay tuned here for Ken's continuing Earth and Planetary science and human spaceflight news.
Ken Kremer

[Apollo13]

[Apollo13]

[Apollo13]

[Apollo13]

[Apollo13]

https://twitter.com/flatoday_jdean/status/735178151538610176

James DeanVerified account‏@flatoday_jdean

Orbital ATK's Steinmeyer says Antares completed wet-dress Sun., planning hot-fire Tuesday (today?). NASA/CRS launch expected early July.

В воскресенье Антарес прошел тест заправки (?). Прожиг планируется во вторник. Пуск - начало июля.

[Seerndv]

- так что там с прожигом то?

[Apollo13]

Seerndv пишет:
- так что там с прожигом то?

Скорее всего речь о следующем вторнике.

[Salo]

Да!

James Dean ‏@flatoday_jdean  1 ч.1 час назад  
As a follow-up, Orbital ATK currently planning that Antares hot-fire next Tuesday at MARS/Wallops. #SpaceCongress2016

[Grey]

Apollo13 пишет:
http://www.vz.ru/news/2016/5/10/809720.html

Согласно результатам расследования аварии носителя Antares, проведенного компанией Orbital ATK, основной причиной инцидента стал взрыв ракетного двигателя AJ-26, сделанного на основе советского НК-33 и модифицированного для США украинским КБ «Южное».

Больше ада!

Мне гражданин из КБЮ гордо утверждал, что это именно они делали по заказу Aerojet Rocketdyne узел качания для НК-33. Оутсорс повсюду.