Mittwoch, 14. Juni 2017 - 07:20

Raumfahrt - DARPA XS-1 Raumschiff Programm -Update-1

15.08.2015

Space is already contested and it will become increasingly so in the future. XS-1 will support national security by providing rapid, regular and reliable access to space.

Some speculate that the XS-1 will be used to launch secret spy satellites and space weapons to defend against a hostile country’s tech placed out in space.

The goal is for the space plane to also be far more affordable than current options. Each journey may cost less than five million a go.

XS-1 would make it easier and cheaper to quickly get US defense tech into space.

How does it work?

The XS-1 is not focused on spending time travelling through space and is instead about rapidly getting to low earth orbit without any help to deliver payloads. Rather than conventional approaches, it uses a hypersonic propulsion system, which means it can reach speeds of Mach 10.

One of the key goals is for XS-1 to launch 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of payloads into orbit. Another objective is that this spacecraft will be reusable and could be run in a way similar to that of commercial airplanes.

Instead of the one-offs of current space travel, this spacecraft would not just be reusable but re-deployable at a high rate. For instance, it could make 10 return journeys in 10 days.

The first stage launches the XS-1 and flies it to suborbital space where it deploys an upper stage. The upper stage would be able to launch up to 5,000 pounds of payloads into low-Earth orbit.

After the payload is launched, the spacecraft flies back to Earth where it could be quickly prepared for the next flight using methods similar to a commercial airplane.

The XS-1 will most likely have a reusable first stage, but expendable upper stages.

And this spacecraft could do all this flying and maneuvering by itself. The XS-1 will not have a human pilot and would be autonomous.

What’s next?

DARPA has given all three companies more money to continue developing their versions of an XS-1 robotic space plane.

For the Phase 1 work, Boeing teamed up with Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman with Virgin Galactic, and Masten with XCOR Aerospace.

The companies must now complete their XS-1 design and test their tech before August next year. The first XS-1 mission to space could be as early as 2018.DARPA’s ALASA (Airborne Launch Assist Space Access) is also exploring how to launch small satellites rapidly. In ALASA, the satellites launch from an F-15 fighter jet. ALASA may undergo testing later this year.

Quelle: FOX News

Update: 8.04.2016

XS-1 Program to Ease Access to Space Enters Phase 2

Spaceplane program looks to public-private effort to enable next-generation space launch

In an era of declining budgets and adversaries’ evolving capabilities, quick, affordable and routine access to space is increasingly critical for both national and economic security. Current satellite launch systems, however, require scheduling years in advance for an extremely limited inventory of available slots. Moreover, launches often cost hundreds of millions of dollars each, due in large part to the massive amounts of dedicated infrastructure and large number of personnel required. DARPA created its Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) program to help overcome these challenges and create a new paradigm for more routine, responsive and affordable space operations, reducing the time to get capabilities to space.

In an important step toward these goals, DARPA has announced Phase 2 of the XS-1 program, which seeks to design and fabricate an experimental unmanned spaceplane using state-of-the-art technologies and streamlined processes, and fly the vehicle ten times in ten days. The reusable XS-1 would demonstrate the potential for low-cost and “aircraft-like” high-ops-tempo space flight, enabling a host of critical national security options while helping to launch a new and potentially fruitful commercial sector. A Special Notice was posted today on FedBizOpps announcing the XS-1 Phase 2 Proposers Day, to be held on Friday, April, 29, 2016, in Arlington, Virginia.

“During Phase 1 of the XS-1 program, the space industry has evolved rapidly and we intend to take advantage of multiple impressive technological and commercial advances,” said Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager. “We intend to leverage those advances along with our Phase 1 progress to break the cycle of escalating DoD space system launch costs, catalyze lower-cost satellite architectures, and prove that routine and responsive access to space can be achieved at costs an order of magnitude lower than with today’s systems.”

XS-1 envisions that a fully reusable unmanned booster vehicle would fly to high speeds at a suborbital altitude. At that point, one or more expendable upper stages would separate, boost and deploy a satellite into low Earth orbit (LEO). The reusable first stage would then return to earth, land and be prepared for the next flight. Although relatively small by conventional aircraft standards, the XS-1 flight booster size—akin to a business jet—would be sufficient to validate credible scaling to larger reusable launch systems. Moreover, demonstration of on-demand and routine access to space, akin to aircraft, is important for next-generation DoD needs.

XS-1 has four primary technical goals:

Fly 10 times in a 10-day period (not including weather, range and emergency delays) to demonstrate aircraft-like access to space and eliminate concerns about the cost-effectiveness and reliability of reusable launch.

Achieve flight velocity sufficiently high to enable use of a small (and therefore low-cost) expendable upper stage.

Launch a 900- to 1,500-pound representative payload to demonstrate an immediate responsive launch capability able to support both DoD and commercial missions. The same XS-1 vehicle could eventually also launch future 3,000+- pound payloads by using a larger expendable upper stage.

Reduce the cost of access to space for 3,000+-pound payloads, with a goal of approximately $5 million per flight for the operational system, which would include a reusable booster and expendable upper stage(s).

Successful design would require integrating state-of-the-art technologies, processes and system approaches to deliver routine aircraft-like operability, reliability and cost efficiency. In particular, incorporation of autonomous technology and operations promises to significantly decrease the logistical footprint and enable rapid turnaround between flights. Structures made of advanced materials, cryogenic tanks, durable thermal protection, and modular subsystems would make possible a vehicle able to launch, fly to high speeds and then land in a condition amenable to rapid turnaround and launch with the next payload. Reusable, reliable propulsion would also be essential for a low-cost and recurring flight capability.

In Phase 1 of XS-1, DARPA sought to evaluate the technical feasibility and methods for achieving the program’s goals. To achieve that, it awarded prime contracts to three companies, each working in concert with a commercial launch provider: The Boeing Company (working with Blue Origin, LLC); Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace); and Northrop Grumman Corporation (working with Virgin Galactic). Phases 2 and 3 will be competed as a full and open Program Solicitation mandating an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement with the expectation of a single resulting award. Cost share is expected.

Specifically, the program is structured to directly transition any successful technology to the industrial and commercial launch sectors, with the goal of enabling new launch markets and sale of launch services back to the government at dramatically lower costs and more rapid time frames than are possible today. By ensuring the technologies and launch systems would be available through the commercial sector, government leaders would have the opportunity to begin relying on XS-1 and derived systems. Militarily-relevant applications of the technology may also spur adoption and help enable future capabilities such as disaggregated spacecraft architectures and next-generation, reusable space-access aircraft.

Quelle: DARPA

Update: 15.04.2016

Northrop Sets Sights On Phase 2 Of Darpa’s XS-1 Spaceplane

COLORADO SPRINGS — Building on its Darpa-funded design for a partially reusable responsive XS-1 spaceplane, and on work it has done for NASA on lightweight cryogenic tanks, Northrop Grumman is preparing its bid to build a prototype vehicle under Phase 2 of the XS-1 project.

Working with teammate Virgin Galactic, its Scaled Composites subsidiary in Mojave, California, and other subcontractors, the company is finalizing its XS-1 design, with a major review scheduled before work starts on preparing the Phase 2 proposal, according to Doug Young, Northrop Grumman vice president, space systems resiliency. A contract award is expected in the fourth quarter of this year.

“We’re maturing our design; we’re refining it,” Young said in an interview April 14 at the annual Space Symposium here. “Our major design review is next week, so that’s kind of the major milestone before we enter into the proposal phase.”

The Northrop Grumman/Virgin Galactic team was one of three receiving Phase 1a and 1b Darpa contracts for a reusable launcher design able to meet the military’s requirement for responsive space launch of payloads in the 3,000-5,000-lb. class. Boeing/Blue Origin and Masten Space Systems/Xcor Aerospace teams also produced designs in the first phase. Darpa has scheduled an industry briefing April 29 on the second phase, an open competition that will select a single contractor to produce a prototype reusable first stage and fly it 10 times in 10 days, sharing the cost with the government (Aerospace DAILY, April 8 - subscribers only).

The Northrop Grumman vertical takeoff/horizontal landing design uses a composite cryogenic tank built and tested as a subscale composite tank for NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS test article was sized to fit the XS-1 design, with out-of-autoclave composite-curing techniques to save manufacturing costs. (Aviation Week & Space Technology, May 13, 2015). The tank is an example of Northrop Grumman’s use of developments in other programs to shape its XS-1 design.

“Advances in unmanned vehicles today are really one of the things that make [reusable launch vehicles] even more feasible today, when you look at flying 10 times in 10 days, the kind of turnaround time you have to have, the level of automation is critical for mission planning, for highly reliable flight, for safety purposes, range safety,” Young said. “Ten or 15 years ago you wouldn’t have imaging UAVs landing on carriers and doing aerial refueling. … It allows for more sophisticated management of flight margins, safety, things of that nature.”

The “tools and skills” associated with the XS-1 also are playing into ballistic missile upgrade and hypersonic work at the company, Young said, noting that the XS-1 first stage will have the performance to deploy hypersonic testbeds. Northrop Grumman and Virgin Galactic are adapting the latter company’s Newton liquid-oxygen/RP-1 hydrocarbon engines for the XS-1, and working on an expendable upper stage to place payloads in orbit.

“We haven’t gone into [public] detail yet,” Young said of the upper stage. “It’s an important part of the offering in terms of how one reaches the cost point.”

One of the military needs Darpa is trying to cover with the rapid-turnaround launcher is resilience in defending and applying space assets, but the agency also foresees a commercial market for the vehicle to help hold down cost.

“There’s a demand for this responsiveness for a long-term mission set,” Young said. “There’s an emerging commercial market that portends for lots of small satellites that might need individual replenishments and unique orbits at given times. It all kind of converges.”

Quelle: Aviation Week

Update: 29.04.2016

DARPA’s Spaceplane of the Future

Wanted: One small, reusable launch vehicle for $146 million or best offer.

While the eyes of the world are on SpaceX and other companies building and testing new reusable rockets, a related and equally important development has been happening under the public radar. DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane-1 (XS-1) has been gearing up its own development program, which in some ways is even more impressive than the big launchers.

Along with the Atlases and Falcons, there are many smaller rockets regularly launching small payloads. That sector of the industry is ripe for the same kind of innovation now disrupting the large launcher market. For most satellite projects, launch is the largest single expense, and the trend today is to try to reduce launch costs through reusability—building hardware that can be used over and over, instead of being tossed in the ocean after liftoff.

DARPA has asked the aerospace industry to design a small, first-stage rocket that can launch into space, deploy another stage with 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of payload attached, then return to land on a runway and be ready to do it all over again the next day—ten days in a row. That’s much more often than any of the bigger rockets launch, none of which have actually achieved reusability yet. XS-1, as DARPA calls the experimental vehicle, won’t have time for extensive refurbishment. It should essentially be able to refuel and re-fly, like an airplane. And it should do it for $5 million per flight, around a tenth of the cost of a current launch.

Spaceplanes have certain advantages in this arena. They have gentler atmospheric reentries than traditional rockets do, thus lessening aerodynamic and structural stresses. They can take off or land on any runway that’s long enough, and so can be flown from pretty much anywhere.

In 2014, three teams were selected to do advanced design work on the XS-1: Boeing/Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman/Virgin Galactic/Scaled Composites, and XCOR/Masten were all funded to develop their concepts. (Generally one company leads the overall design, while the other focuses on propulsion).

Now DARPA is putting up $146 million for Phase II of the project—building and flying an actual demonstrator. Anyone with a concept can submit, but of course the three Phase I teams have a serious leg up. Even though $146 million is a lot of money, it won’t likely cover the full cost of building a novel spacecraft, so the winning company will probably need to invest some of its own money as well. Theoretically the winner will end up with a tested spaceplane that it can enter in a lucrative marketplace. But since nothing in spaceflight (or government funding) is guaranteed, it’s still a gamble.

The two large spaceplane projects of the 1980s, the U.S. Space Shuttle and Soviet Buran, never came close to achieving airline-style operations. The Shuttle, despite its name and original design goals, required a long and extremely expensive refurbishment after each launch, and the Buran made its first and only flight in 1988. Although the industry has since turned back to conventional rockets, the spaceplane concept never really died, and many have been drawn up on paper.

Now market forces and technological advancements have rekindled interest in spaceplanes. Sierra Nevada Corporation is set to test its Dream Chaser winged lifting body to resupply the International Space Station; it requires a traditional rocket to reach orbit but lands on runways. Virgin Galactic and XCOR are selling tickets for their suborbital spaceplanes (XCOR’s Lynx even takes off from and lands on a runway; Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipOne is air-launched but runway-recoverable). Of the paper spaceplanes, Reaction Engines’ Skylon is by far the most exciting: a single-stage-to-orbit, reusable spaceplane that detailed independent studies say is technically feasible, if immensely difficult to build and fly.

DARPA exists to try risky new things, and not all of its spaceflight ideas have worked out. A smaller project to air-launch tiny 100-pound satellites, called Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA), was canceled last December after its intended fuel kept combusting prematurely.

Quelle: AIR&SPACE

Update: 25.05.2016

DARPA's XS-1 Spaceplane

The XS-1 program has evolved from several previous failed attempts to develop a reusable space launch vehicle.

The DARPA hopes to develop a reusable spaceplane, the XS-1, that can boost an upper stage and small orbital payload through the first stage ascent profile. The second stage would carry small satellites into low earth orbits. The initial customer for such a system is expected to be U.S. national security agencies.

In effect, the XS-1 is intended to replace the traditional expendable "first stage" of a multistage launch vehicle, but with the capability of flying at hypersonic speeds. In a fashion similar to an expendable first stage, the XS-1 should enable an expendable upper stage to separate and deploy a payload into orbit. This hypersonic stage will be designed to return to Earth and be serviced fast enough to repeat the process at least once every 24 hours.

The XS-1 program has evolved from several previous failed attempts to develop a reusable space launch vehicle. For example, the Rockwell X-30 was an advanced technology demonstrator project for the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) program in the 1980s. It was cancelled in the early 1990s, before a prototype was completed.

Then there was the VentureStar, a single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system proposed by Lockheed Martin and funded by NASA. This vehicle was intended to replace the Space Shuttle but was cancelled after failures stalled the X-33, subscale technology demonstrator.

The current DARPA attempt, XS-1, was announced in November 2013. The announcement stated that such a spaceplane is more feasible today due to better technologies, including light and low-cost composite airframe and tank structures, durable thermal protection, reusable and affordable propulsion and aircraft-like health management systems.

Three prime contractors were awarded initial contracts in mid-2014: Boeing , Masten Space Systems and Northrop Grumman. In August 2015, the prime contractors received additional funding to continue their XS-1 design concepts for a Phase 1B activity. DARPA began a Phase 2 activity on 7 April 2016. The first XS-1 orbital mission could occur as early as 2020.

Quelle: SD

Update: 1.06.2016

XS-1 prepares for liftoff

Last week, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) formally released the solicitation for the next phase of the Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program. The solicitation was not a surprise to the industry: DARPA announced more than a month earlier of its intent to move ahead with the XS-1 program, and it held an industry day about its plans at its Arlington, Virginia, headquarters late last month.

“It’s enough to pick someone and go. It’s probably not enough to fully fund what we have envisioned,” Sponable said of the XS-1 funding.

XS-1 is the latest—and, potentially, last—effort by the US government to spur the development of reusable launch vehicles. The goal of the XS-1 program is to develop a reusable first stage that, coupled with an expandable upper stage, launch payloads weighing up to a few thousand kilograms into orbit for no more than $5 million a launch: a fraction of the price of current vehicles in that mass class.

Announced in 2013, DARPA awarded three “Phase One” study contracts in 2014 to teams led by Boeing, Masten Space Systems, and Northrop Grumman. Those companies have all wrapped up, or are about to wrap up, those studies, bringing their designs to roughly the level of a preliminary design review.

The outcome of those studies led DARPA to press ahead with the next phase, which calls for development of a prototype followed by flight demonstrations. “DARPA’s been very good to me, and I can tell you, officially now, that we have a funded flight demonstration and experimental program for the next phase of the XS-1 program,” said Jess Sponable, DARPA XS-1 program manager, in a talk at the Space Access ’16 conference last month in Phoenix timed to the DARPA announcement about its plans to move ahead with XS-1.

DARPA expects all three companies that won Phase One contracts to submit proposals for Phase Two and Three (representing prototype development and flight demonstrations, respectively), with those proposals due by July 22. Other companies are also able to submit proposals, but Sponable suggested that they will be at a significant disadvantage unless their designs are at a similar level of maturity. “We are looking for a level of detail in the response that will make it very difficult for some people to come in off the fly and respond,” he said.

Another factor that may deter companies from competing is that DARPA expects the winning company—Sponable said he anticipates only a single award—to share the cost of developing the XS-1 prototype. DARPA will provide up to $140 million to the winning company, but expects them to pitch in a significant amount of money to cover development. “It’s enough to pick someone and go. It’s probably not enough to fully fund what we have envisioned,” he said of the funding.

Sponable said at Space Access that the award will be done through DARPA’s “other transactional authority,” a more flexible approach than standard government contracts that is analogous to NASA’s funded Space Act Agreements for commercial cargo and crew. “That implies cost share,” he said.

“We were using a new propellant technology that greatly simplified the design of the rocket engine,” said Melroy of ALASA’s problems. “It’s highly energetic, and in all of our flow testing we continually had unplanned energetic events.”

The response from the companies with Phase One agreements to that cost-sharing arrangement varies. In an interview during the 32nd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs a few days after Space Access, Doug Young, the Northrop Grumman vice president responsible for XS-1, said his company was looking forward to competing in the next phase of the competition.

“We’re excited. This is really an amazing time,” he said. The company has made some refinements to the design it unveiled in 2014, he said, but has not made any major changes. He added he was planning to keep intact the team of companies involved in the Phase One XS-1 study, including Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic.

Masten Space Systems, a company a tiny fraction the size of Northrop, is also looking ahead to the next phase of the XS-1 competition. Company founder Dave Masten said at Space Access said the company was sticking to its approach of having the vehicle make a vertical landing, rather than gliding to a runway landing, based on the company’s experience with vertical takeoff and landing.

Masten also said his company was in the midst of raising $50 million, a far larger financing round than the company has sought. That funding, he said, would go to winning the XS-1 program “and be able to actually work that program,” which requires growing the company beyond its current size of about 40 employees. Winning Phase Two, he added, would likely requiring raising more funding beyond the current $50-million round.

Only Boeing seemed to hedge its bets about XS-1. Company officials, speaking at Space Symposium, suggested the cost-sharing requirement was less than expected, and thus was causing them to rethink their plans. (Others in industry said they had long anticipated that DARPA would provide no more than about $140 million for XS-1.)

“One way or another we’re going to go forward with this program, but we’re working closely with DARPA to work on the expectations for the next phase,” Alex Lopez, vice president for global sales and marketing at Boeing Network and Space Systems, said at the symposium.

But despite the commitment of the three companies, and perhaps others who, despite the long odds, will also submit proposals, what’s the future of the XS-1? Two factors are working against its success, or at least its relevance.

One factor is DARPA’s checkered history with launch vehicle development. DARPA started XS-1 around the time it was working on a separate concept, called the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA). That program sought to create a small launch vehicle that would be air-launched from an F-15 for placing small satellites into orbit.

DARPA, though, cancelled plans for flight tests of ALASA late last year after its prime contractor, Boeing, ran into problems with the unusual propellant combination it selected for the launch vehicle.

“Ten flights in ten days for a rocketplane is a stressing requirement,” said Young. “Even turning around a new airplane in its initial stages of its flight test program every day is a big stretch.”

“We were using a new propellant technology that greatly simplified the design of the rocket engine,” said Pam Melroy, deputy director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office, during an April presentation to a National Academies committee. “It’s highly energetic, and in all of our flow testing we continually had unplanned energetic events.” Or, in other words, it exploded.

Before ALASA, DARPA also worked on launch vehicle programs in the early 2000s, with an air launch system called Responsive Access, Small Cargo, Affordable Launch (RASCAL) and a small launcher effort called Force Application and Launch from Continental United States (FALCON). Neither made it into flight testing.

DARPA emphasizes the experimental nature of the XS-1 effort in the Phase Two solicitation. The document lists five factors that it will use for evaluating proposals, with “overall scientific and technical merit” the most important. The two least important ones were “cost realism” and “schedule realism,” which raises questions about the ability to get a vehicle developed (with significant fiscal resources provided by the winning company) and into flight testing by 2020, as desired by DARPA.

Adding to that challenge are some of the technical requirements in place for the program. DARPA has scaled back some aspects of XS-1’s performance: an initial launch can carry a payload weighing as little as 410 kilograms, so long as the company can demonstrate a path to launching larger ones. It also dropped a requirement that XS-1 perform at least one test flight to Mach 10, a speed that raised issues for some in industry. While a Mach 10 flight remains an “objective” for the program, the minimum threshold for success is a single flight to at least Mach 3.

Still in place, though, is the requirement to fly ten times in ten days, a central goal of the overall XS-1 program to demonstrate fast turnaround. That is a challenge for companies used to more incremental flight test programs.

“Ten flights in ten days for a rocketplane is a stressing requirement,” said Northrop’s Young. “Even turning around a new airplane in its initial stages of its flight test program every day is a big stretch.”

“We want to push the industry to the point where we can fly a lot more often,” Sponable said at Space Access, making the case for the reflight requirement.

That push is also another issue affecting the odds of success for XS-1. Once the nearly exclusive domain of government agencies, both civil and military, reusable launch vehicle development is now being led by industry. SpaceX has now repeatedly landed Falcon 9 first stages—three in a row after a May 27 launch—with plans to refly one of those stages later this year. Blue Origin has reflown its New Shepard propulsion module on several suborbital flights.

Sponable acknowledged those efforts in his Space Access talk, but suggested XS-1 could distinguish itself from those commercial efforts by emphasizing a high flight rate. “We think flying ten times in ten days is something well outside the capability of either SpaceX or Blue Origin at this time, and we hope to spur them along to get them to think about how they can increase their flight rates,” he said.

Those companies, and others, are no doubt already thinking about increased flight rates (it’s been nearly two months since New Shepard’s last flight, for example.) XS-1 could provide some answers for an increased flight rate by the time flight tests of the vehicle begin in 2020—if the program remains on track, and if those companies haven’t figured out how to do it themselves by then.

Quelle: SN

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Update: 19.05.2017

US Military Is Close to Selecting Builder for XS-1 Space Plane

The U.S. military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will soon select a company to build its robotic XS-1 space plane, according to media reports.

DARPA has entered the final stages of the selection process, in which it will ultimately choose one company to construct the space plane, Air Force Magazine reported last week.

In Phase 1 of the XS-1 program, DARPA awarded prime contracts to three companies, each of which will work with a commercial launch provider: Boeing (working with Blue Origin), Masten Space Systems (working with XCOR Aerospace) and Northrop Grumman (working with Virgin Galactic).

However, the Phase 2 contractor won't necessarily be chosen from the three Phase 1 participants, according to the Air Force Magazine report.

Early DARPA artwork of the XS-1 military space plane.
Credit: DARPA

Technical goals

The XS-1 space plane will consist of a reusable booster vehicle and an expendable upper stage. According to the DARPA website, the XS-1 program has four primary technical goals:

Fly 10 times in a 10-day period, to demonstrate efficient, aircraft-like access to space.
Fly fast enough to allow the use of a small (and therefore cheap) expendable upper stage.
Launch a 900-lb. to 1,500-lb. (408 to 680 kilograms) payload, to demonstrate a launch capability that could support both military and commercial missions. The same XS-1 vehicle could eventually also launch future payloads in excess of 3,000 lbs. (1,360 kg), by using a larger upper stage.
Reduce the cost of access to space to about $5 million per flight for payloads of at least 3,000 lbs.

"Structures made of advanced materials, cryogenic tanks, durable thermal protection, and modular subsystems would make possible a vehicle able to launch, fly to high speeds and then land in a condition amenable to rapid turnaround and launch with the next payload. Reusable, reliable propulsion would also be essential for a low-cost and recurring flight capability," DARPA officials wrote on the agency's website last year.

Northrop Grumman is one of three firms vying for XS-1 space plane. The company's concept is shown here.
Credit: Northrop Grumman

Flight by 2020?

If everything goes according to plan, the XS-1 could get off the ground just a few years from now.

"After downselect, a critical design review would take place in 2018, and a series of flights could be made as early as 2020," Air Force Magazine's John Tirpak wrote in his story last week. "One of the program requirements is to fly 10 suborbital or orbital missions in as many days, achieving space operations with ‘aircraft-like’ frequency, DARPA said. If successful, a 'public-private partnership' model of operating the vehicles could be adopted, DARPA documents show."

Space.com contacted Jess Sponable, program manager of XS-1 at DARPA's Tactical Technology Office, about the Air Force Magazine report and projected timelines for XS-1 milestones.

"Absolutely, we are moving forward. But we never say so until it is a done deal," Sponable said.

Quelle: SC

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Update: 25.05.2017

Boeing's Phantom Express could launch, land at Cape Canaveral

A DARPA concept video of the Experimental Spaceplane 1, or XS-1. DARPA

Boeing on Wednesday won a U.S. military contract to develop an experimental space plane that could launch and land on the Space Coast in 2020.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency selected Boeing’s “Phantom Express” concept to advance to the next phases of its Experimental Spaceplane program, or XS-1.

The XS-1 program aims to develop an affordable, on-demand launch option for national security satellites, one that could fly 10 times in 10 days.

Asked where the flight activity would occur, a DARPA spokesman responded in an email, “The Cape.”

Air Force maps have identified Launch Complexes 16 and 20 as sites the XS-1 program could potentially use. Landings presumably would target Kennedy Space Center’s former shuttle runway, now operated by Space Florida.

Trump budget keeps NASA mostly intact but jettisons a few Obama priorities

Boeing already occupies several former shuttle hangars at KSC, one for assembly of the Starliner crew capsule and two for another military space plane, the Air Force's semi-classified X-37B mini-shuttle, which landed at KSC for the first time earlier this month.

Boeing said only that it is reviewing launch and landing sites. Space Florida declined to comment.

Described as the size of a business jet, the reusable Phantom Express will launch vertically to hypersonic speeds, powered by a version of a space shuttle main engine called the AR-22, provided by Aerojet Rcoketdyne.

A small, expendable upper stage, envisioned as liquid-fueled but to be determined by Boeing, will be deployed to deliver payloads roughly 3,000 pounds to orbit while the space plane booster returns to a runway landing.

The program hopes to fly such missions for $5 million, compared to tens of millions for conventional rockets that may take a year or more to order.

Spacewalkers complete ISS repairs

DARPA said the quick-launch technology would "revolutionize the nation’s ability to recover from a catastrophic loss of military or commercial satellites, upon which the nation today is critically dependent."

The value of Boeing's contract award was not specified, but DARPA previously estimated it would be around $140 million — small change for a rocket development program. Boeing also will invest in the project.

The XS-1 program's first phase included Boeing, which originally was partnered with Blue Origin; Masten Space Systems, working with XCOR Aerospace; and Northrop Grumman, partnered with Virgin Galactic.

Plans anticipate design and testing proceeding through 2019, including firing the main engine system 10 times in 10 days.

In 2020, a series of shakedown cruises would be followed by the attempt to launch 10 times on 10 consecutive days, first without payloads and later with the demonstration payload between 900 pounds and 3,000 pounds.

“Phantom Express is designed to disrupt and transform the satellite launch process as we know it today, creating a new, on-demand space-launch capability that can be achieved more affordably and with less risk,” said Darryl Davis, president, Boeing Phantom Works.

Quelle: Florida Today

+++

DARPA selects Boeing for spaceplane project

Boeing Phamtom Express XS-1 — Boeing will develop its Phantom Express reusable first stage for DARPA's XS-1 program, with a goal of performing 10 flights in 10 days and at least one flight to Mach 10. Credit: Boeing illustration

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced May 24 that it has picked Boeing to develop an experimental reusable first stage with the promise of lowering launch costs for medium-sized payloads.

Boeing will develop its “Phantom Express” vehicle for phases 2 and 3 of DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane 1 (XS-1) program, which has the goal of performing 10 flights in 10 days to demonstrate responsive and low-cost launch. Phase 2 will cover development of the vehicle and ground tests though 2019, with a series of 12 to 15 test flights planned for phase 3 in 2020.

DARPA spokesman Rick Weiss said the value of the award to Boeing is $146 million. The award is structured as a public-private partnership, with Boeing also contributing to the overall cost of the program, but Boeing declined to disclose its contribution.

“As it’s a competitive market, we do not plan to disclose our investment,” Boeing Phantom Works spokeswoman Cheryl Sampson said. “We are making a significant commitment to help solve an enduring challenge to reduce the cost of space access.”

The Phantom Express vehicle will take off vertically, with an upper stage carrying a satellite payload mounted on top of the fuselage. After releasing the upper stage, the suborbital vehicle would glide back to a runway landing.

“Phantom Express is designed to disrupt and transform the satellite launch process as we know it today, creating a new, on-demand space launch capability that can be achieved more affordably and with less risk,” said Darryl Davis, president of Boeing Phantom Works, in a company statement.

Phantom Express is powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne engine designated the AR-22, based on the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME). In a statement, Aerojet Rocketdyne said it is providing two such engines “with legacy shuttle flight experience” using parts from both the company’s and NASA inventories of earlier versions of the SSME. The engines will be assembled and tested at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

That engine represents an apparent switch in Boeing’s XS-1 concept. In phase 1 of the program, Boeing was partnered with Blue Origin, with the expectation Blue Origin would provide an engine for the spaceplane. “We selected the Aerojet Rocketdyne engine as it offers a flight proven, reusable engine to meet the DARPA mission requirements,” Sampson said.

DARPA announced the XS-1 program in 2013 as an effort to develop a reusable first stage that, coupled with an expendable upper stage, could lower the cost of launching payloads weighing up to 2,200 kilograms by an order of magnitude from the roughly $50 million the government pays for Minotaur 4 launches.

Sponable, in past discussions of the XS-1, noted the use of “spaceplane” in the program’s name was meant to describe the goal of aircraft-like operations, not the design of the vehicle itself.

In 2014, DARPA announced three phase 1 awards for initial studies of the XS-1 concepts. In addition to Boeing, DARPA provided awards to Masten Space Systems, working with XCOR Aerospace; and Northrop Grumman, working with Virgin Galactic.

DARPA issued a call for proposals in April 2016 for phases 2 and 3 of the program. Boeing, Masten and Northrop Grumman all submitted proposals for phase 2, but DARPA also allowed other companies to compete. DARPA did not disclose the number of proposals it received.

A key aspect of the program retained from its earlier days is a requirement to carry out 10 flights in 10 days. In phase 2, the vehicle will fire its engine in ground tests 10 times in as many days, with the 10 flights in 10 days, at speeds up to Mach 5, in phase 3.

Later test flights of the Phantom Express will go up to Mach 10, another original goal of the program. At least one test flight will carry an upper stage that would place a demonstration payload into orbit.

DARPA and Boeing recently worked together on another program that attempted to provide less expensive and more responsive space access. DARPA selected Boeing in March 2014 to develop a launch vehicle for its Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program. The ALASA rocket, launched from an F-15 aircraft, was intended to place satellites weighing up to 45 kilograms into orbit for $1 million a launch, and do so on 24 hours’ notice.

ALASA suffered problems, though, linked to its use of an unconventional “mixed monopropellant” called NA7, a mixture of nitrous oxide and acetylene. Ground tests found that NA7 was less stable than expected and, in November 2015, DARPA changed the goals of ALASA to continue testing NA7, scrapping development of the launch vehicle.

DARPA, in its announcement of the XS-1 award, said that autonomous flight termination systems and related autonomous flight technologies developed as part of the ALASA program will be applied to Boeing’s Phantom Express vehicle.

Quelle: SN

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Update: 14.06.2017

Boeing, DARPA to base XS-1 spaceplane at Cape Canaveral

Artist’s concept of the XS-1 spaceplane before releasing its expendable upper stage. Credit: Boeing

A reusable suborbital spaceplane the size of a business jet being developed by Boeing and the Defense Department’s research and development arm could be launching and landing at Cape Canaveral in 2020, officials said after the defense contractor won a competition last month to design and test the vehicle.

Designed for rapid reusability, the XS-1 spaceplane will take off vertically like a rocket — without a crew — deploy an upper stage after traveling beyond the edge of space, then return to landing on a runway for inspections and reuse.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, selected Boeing to finish designing the spaceplane last month. Boeing beat competitors Northrop Grumman and Masten Space Systems to win the $146 million contract.

Boeing and DARPA are developing the spaceplane in a cost-sharing public-private partnership arrangement, but Boeing did not disclose how much it is spending on the program.

When operational after a series of suborbital and orbital test flights, the XS-1 and its expendable upper stage could place satellites weighing up to 3,000 pounds (1,360 kilograms) into low Earth orbit several hundred miles above the planet.

“The XS-1 would be neither a traditional airplane nor a conventional launch vehicle but rather a combination of the two, with the goal of lowering launch costs by a factor of ten and replacing today’s frustratingly long wait time with launch on demand,” said Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager, in a press release. “We’re very pleased with Boeing’s progress on the XS-1 through Phase 1 of the program and look forward to continuing our close collaboration in this newly funded progression to Phases 2 and 3 — fabrication and flight.”

The Defense Department envisions the Experimental Spaceplane, or XS-1, program as an option for rapid call-up to replace a lost military or commercial satellite, available to launch within days instead of the months or years needed today.

An end goal for the XS-1 program is to launch 10 times in 10 days, with recurring operating costs as little as $5 million per flight, including the disposable upper stage, according to DARPA.

Boeing calls its XS-1 test vehicle the Phantom Express, a winged craft the size of a business jet that will launch to the edge of space and release an expendable upper stage, which would fire to inject the mission’s payload into orbit. The reusable first stage would turn around and fly back to the launch site.

Rick Weiss, a DARPA spokesperson, said Cape Canaveral will be the base for Phantom Express test flights and launch operations. He did not say which launch pad the spaceplane will use.

The spacecraft booster would return to land at one of two runways on Florida’s Space Coast: Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, a three-mile-long landing strip, or the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Boeing officials said the Phantom Express would employ operation and maintenance principles similar to modern aircraft.

The U.S. Air Force’s X-37B space plane, similar in appearance to the XS-1 but different in function, is also built by Boeing.

The Phantom Express booster stage would be powered by a single Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-22 engine, a version of the space shuttle main engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

Boeing originally partnered with Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, as an engine provider for the XS-1 program, but later switched to an Aerojet Rocketdyne engine, according to Cheryl Sampson, a Boeing spokesperson.

“We conducted trade studies with Blue Origin in the first phase of the program,” Sampson wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. “Boeing selected the Aerojet Rocketdyne engine for this next phase as it offers a flight proven, reusable engine to meet the DARPA mission requirements.”

Aerojet Rocketdyne said it will provide two engines for the XS-1 program with “legacy shuttle flight experience to demonstrate reusability, a wide operating range and rapid turnarounds.”

Artist’s concept of the XS-1 spaceplane before liftoff. Credit: Boeing

The engines will be designated as AR-22 engines, Aerojet Rocketdyne said in a press release. Technicians at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, where Aerojet Rocketdyne assembles and tests rocket engines, will create the AR-22 engines from parts left over from early versions of the shuttle main engine, the company said.

“As one of the world’s most reliable rocket engines, the SSME is a smart choice to power the XS-1 launch vehicle,” said Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president. “This engine has a demonstrated track record of solid performance and proven reusability.”

The Phantom Express booster stage will have advanced, lightweight composite cryogenic tanks to hold the super-cold propellants feeding the AR-22 engine. Hybrid metallic-composite wings and control surfaces on the spaceplane wi

XS-1 spaceplane reusable military spacecraft XS-1 space plane Raumfahrt DARPA XS-1 Raumschiff Programm

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