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http://aviationweek.com/space/ariane-6-becomes-reality#slide-0-field_images-1434561
("Ariane 64" seems to be a typo.)
("Ariane 64" seems to be a typo.)
Grey Havoc said:http://aviationweek.com/space/ariane-6-becomes-reality#slide-0-field_images-1434561
("Ariane 64" seems to be a typo.)
Michel Van said:Grey Havoc said:http://aviationweek.com/space/ariane-6-becomes-reality#slide-0-field_images-1434561
("Ariane 64" seems to be a typo.)
Nope, the offical desigination is Ariane 62 (two Solids) and Ariane 64 (four solids)
Not unprecedented, the Shuttle's SSMEs weren't providing anywhere near the thrust of the SRBs at liftoff. SLS's core will will be similarly configured as well. In this sort of "1.5 stage" configuration, the core engines can be lighter and less complex if you light them on the ground rather than air-starting them after staging as a true second stage.fredymac said:Interesting architecture where the solid strap-ons provide about 90% of the thrust. Almost sounds like it's a 2nd stage that starts early.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfqqNxhb7K4
fredymac said:Interesting architecture where the solid strap-ons provide about 90% of the thrust. Almost sounds like it's a 2nd stage that starts early.
Flyaway said:Ariane 6
European Space Agency, ESA
Published on Jan 23, 2017
Decided in Luxemburg by the European Space Agency council meeting at Ministerial level, Ariane 6 is a modular three-stage launcher (solid–cryogenic–cryogenic) with two configurations using: four boosters (A64) or two boosters (A62).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcKL_qR1dXM
WASHINGTON — Reusable rocketry in Europe took a step forward last year with a funding boost for Prometheus, a program meant to develop a reusable engine manufacturable at one-tenth the cost of the Ariane 5’s first-stage liquid engine. A parallel effort dubbed Callisto could test a European ability to launch, return and refly a rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in South America.
The French and German space agencies (CNES and DLR, respectively) have for the past two years collaborated on a scaled-down rocket that would allow Europe to practice different aspects of recovery and reuse. Callisto’s first flight is planned for 2020.
Callisto officials said the goal of the program is not to create a new vehicle in 2020 — the Ariane 6 is scheduled to debut that same year — but to establish a base of knowledge for future launch vehicles that could, maybe, be reusable.
Michel Van said:thanks for picture Jemiba
Sarcasm mode on
How nice
a re-usable sounding rocket
a clone of Falcon 9 first stage for 2021
a X-15 Clone for 2027
a re-animated old concept of 1985 as Ariane 7 for 2035
a Two stage re-usable Ariane 8 for the year 2045...
...On moment, Year 2045 ?
Let me see if all went right to then, your future look like that:
SpaceX and Blue Origin Dominate the Launch Market and intercontinental ballistic transport market
and just completed there Infrastructure build-up on Moon and Mars
Follow by China and India re-usable rockets follow space effort of Brazil, Ethiopia, Dubai, Philippines
NASA astronauts are now backseat drivers, while virgin galactic, ULA, Roscosmos and ESA & Co are memories
Poor ESA again its Conservatism is its downfall...
Sarcasm mode off
WASHINGTON — The European Space Agency will ask its 22 member states next month to fund an additional two to eight Prometheus reusable engines so that the agency can further the engine’s development.
ESA, with prime contractor ArianeGroup, has two Prometheus engines being built today, leveraging funds granted at its 2016 ministerial, plus earlier work supported by the French Space Agency CNES.
Jérôme Breteau, ESA’s head of future space transportation, said Oct. 21 at the 70th International Astronautical Congress here that those two engines are on track for test firings in late 2020 at the German Space Agency DLR’s Lampoldshausen facility. ESA will continue engine tests into 2021, but what follows “is the subject of our proposal to the Space19+ ministerial,” he said.
ESA’s tri-annual ministerial conferences are where the agency and its members allocate funds for future space programs. ESA is seeking 12.5 billion euros ($13.9 billion) at its next ministerial, dubbed Space19+, Nov. 27 -28 in Seville, Spain.
Breteau said ESA needs to know the outcome of the ministerial before it can lay out the next steps for Prometheus. The agency has “very ambitious” plans for the liquid-oxygen and methane engine, he said.
ESA’s goal with Prometheus is to manufacture the engine for 1 million euros ($1.1 million) each — a tenth the price of the Vulcain engine used on the first stage of Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket. Prometheus is also designed to be reusable.
Breteau said Lampoldshausen’s hydrogen engine test bench, used for Ariane 6’s Vulcain 2.1 engine, will need upgrades to support the methane needed for Prometheus.
Breteau said Prometheus is so far in line with its cost target and its performance target of 1,000 kilonewtons in thrust. He said it is difficult to have a set mass target for Prometheus because that requires knowing what vehicle the engine will support.
Work on Prometheus has been done with the expectation that it would be used on a launch vehicle in the 2030s, but ArianeGroup has mused using it on the Ariane 6 rocket, which debuts in 2020.
Breteau wouldn’t go so far as to name a launcher that might use Prometheus.
“System engineering on the target launcher configuration is ongoing,” he said. ESA has what Breteau described as “more than a notional idea” of how to cluster Prometheus engines together on a launcher, a detail he said gives an “idea of the maturity of the system activities.”
The first Prometheus reusable engine is on track for completion by the end of 2020, with ground testing to follow. ArianeGroup is preparing the engine for use in the 2030s, but Bonguet said the company can start applying Prometheus technology to Ariane 6’s expendable Vulcain 2.1 first-stage engines and Vinci second-stage engines. Prometheus, in addition to being reusable, leverages extensive 3D printing with the goal of costing 1 million euros to manufacture (a tenth the cost of Ariane 5’s Vulcain engine). Bonguet said spinoff technologies like electrical valves and 3D-printed parts from Prometheus could reduce the cost of Ariane 6’s expendable engines.