Orbital ATK Next Generation Launcher (NGL)

Orbital ATK signs rocket development deal with US Air Force

"Orbital has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC). The CRADA provides the framework and plan for data exchanges needed to certify Orbital ATK's Next Generation Launch (NGL) system to carry National Security Space missions.

"Under this CRADA, Orbital ATK is better able to support SMC in being the guardians of assured access to space," said Scott Lehr, President of Orbital ATK's Flight Systems Group.

"We look forward to certifying NGL to launch National Security Space Missions.""


edit: (Whoops, forgot first link.)

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Orbital_ATK_Signs_Cooperative_Agreement_with_U_S__Air_Force_Space_and_Missile_Systems_Center_999.html


https://www.orbitalatk.com/flight-systems/space-launch-vehicles/NGL/docs/NGL_Factsheet.pdf

Not sure where this will land in the pecking order of SpaceX's BFR, Blue Origin's New Glenn, and ULA's Vulcan. It should have a liftoff thrust higher than the Delta IV Heavy but, as Titan IVB showed, that doesn't necessarily translate to a higher payload. They don't give a payload to LEO figure that I could find.

http://spaceflight101.com/orbital-atk-advances-ngl-design/

Seems considerably smaller, at least for the baseline 500 version. They're quoting c. 5.5-8.5 tonnes to GTO. That's in the range for F9 and well short of New Glenn (13 tonnes) or BFR (who knows).

TomS said:

Seems considerably smaller, at least for the baseline 500 version. They're quoting c. 5.5-8.5 tonnes to GTO. That's in the range for F9 and well short of New Glenn (13 tonnes) or BFR (who knows).

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Yeah, I don't know how GEO compares to LEO from a difficulty standpoint. ???

GTO (and GEO even more so), needs far far more energy than a LEO launch.

flanker said:

GTO (and GEO even more so), needs far far more energy than a LEO launch.

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Yes, I knew that. Didn't know how GTO compares to GEO or if one could say something like "GEO is 145% harder than LEO". Trying to put the NGL in perspective with the rest of them.

Does this help? Performance of the Falcon 9:

payload to LEO: 13.15 t
payload to GTO: 4.85 t
payload to escape velocity: 2.9 t (est)

- you need more delta-V, so a heavier upper stage
- for GTO the upper stage needs to stay operational for longer (several hours instead of 10 minutes), so more battery capacity, more attention paid to insulation of propellant tanks
- for GTO you may need a restartable upper stage (some rockets do GTO without a restartable US, though, e.g. Ariane 5 ECA)

According to this site:

http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities

Falcon 9 is 8,300kg to GTO. This makes the initial NGL 500 roughly comparable at 8,500kg to GTO.
The NGL 500XL is 7,000kg to GEO. This compares to 6,750kg to GEO for the Delta IV Heavy (see below).

So NGL 500 is roughly a Falcon 9 and NGL500XL is roughly a Delta IV Heavy.

Keep in mind that that weight to GTO for Falcon 9 is the expendable limit. If they want to recover the core, it drops to around 5.5 tonnes (which is the profile they quote a $62 million cost for).

The difference between GTO and GEO is also substantial. Most launch providers specify performance to put a payload into a GTO-1500 orbit, i.e. an orbit that needs an additional 1500 m/s of delta-V to place the payload into geostationary orbit. GTO-1800 is also accepted sometimes.
That additional delta-V must be provided by the engines of the payload.

From a business prospective the last paragraph makes interesting reading.

Orbital ATK selects Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RL10C for newly christened OmegA rocket

Orbital ATK on Monday revealed new details about the rocket it has been developing over the last three years in an effort to take U.S. Air Force launch contracts away from United Launch Alliance and SpaceX.

With the Air Force expected to select up to three companies this summer to build and test rockets capable of launching intermediate to heavy-class national security payloads, Orbital ATK executives announced at the 34th Space Symposium here that they have picked Aerojet Rocketdyne’s RL10C engine to power the upper stage of a next-generation launch vehicle they are now calling OmegA.

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About 500 employees currently are working on OmegA, the company said, and the number is expected to grow to 1,000 over the next 18 months.

Pinkston said Orbital ATK expects OmegA to be cost-competitive in both the EELV and commercial markets, but said he could not provide any price estimates yet. The company is in search of customers. “We have some ‘letters of intent’ in hand for payloads,” he said. With Orbital ATK being a major satellite manufacturer, the plan is to offer “our own sallites in our own rockets for an attractive price.”

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http://spacenews.com/orbital-atk-selects-aerojet-rocketdynes-rl10c-for-newly-christened-omega-rocket/