Hermès Space Shuttle

[Jareel]

Kuiper Systems LLC is not Bezos'es own company, it's owned by Amazon (where Bezos got "only" 14% voting power and isn't in the CEO seat any more), Bezos isn't the one making decisions there, he's not even on the board of the company. It's a completely different beast than the Blue Origin which is majority-owned by Bezos and where Bezos truly is pulling the strings.

Also there was no need to "rescue" Ariane 6. It wasn't in danger. It already had years of orders and already had an upgrade funded (the black upper stage) before the contract for Kuiper.

ULA on the other hand... well... no way around it than admitting that this contract might have been make-or-break for the launcher's future. Certainly for their SMART system at a very least.

But it's going waaay offtopic for the discussion about Hermes.

 

[Archibald]

I was half joking

 

[flateric]

...

 

[flateric]

THE HERMES CARRIER AIRCRAFT (HCA)
Dipl.-lng. Fritz Hormann
Deutsche Airbus GmbH
Hamburg, Germany
1992

 

[Archibald]

Thank you, Flateric. ESA / CNES chance was that, in comparison with STS or Buran, Hermes was quite small potato. A310 was enough, and if it had not, then A300 provided a backup.

 

[Grey Havoc]

MBB‐ERNO Starts Detail Definition for COLUMBUS: First launches planned from mid‐nineties onwards | Emerald Insight

MBB‐ERNO Starts Detail Definition for COLUMBUS: First launches planned from mid‐nineties onwards

www.emerald.com

Abstract​

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THE smallest will be first: according to present plans, the Polar Platform is to be the first flight configuration from the European COLUMBUS programme to take up work in 1995. An ARIANE 5 will launch the platform whose task will be earth observation. The large COLUMBUS laboratory that is to form an integral part of the international space station of NASA will follow in 1996, launched with the US space shuttle.

 

[publiusr]

Ariane 6 able to launch a Hermes craft in lieu of SUSIE?

 

[RanulfC]

Ariane 6 able to launch a Hermes craft in lieu of SUSIE?

You do know that Hermes had serious reentry heating issues right? That was part of the reason it was canceled.

Randy

 

[Archibald]

Never heard about that. It was canned because it was morbidly obese with massive cost overruns, at a time when French leadership was in severe hardships: by 1992 Mitterrand was agonizing with cancer... and one massive scandal every month, or close. The economy was in shambles.

 

[archipeppe]

Two main reasons for Hermes cancellation:

1. TPS issue raised launch mass
2. Hermes launch mass issue become an Ariane 5 issue

Furthermore, TPS and launch mass issues increased R&D costs beyond what ESA really wanted to spend.
Essentially that was it.

 

[Archibald]

Hermes ended near 25 tons (24.5 tons, from memory) when the heaviest load ever lifted by an Ariane 5 was a 22 mt ATV.
Hermes drove Ariane 5 payload from 15 mt (with P170 SRBs) in 1985 to a bare minimum of 22 tons as of 1995 (with the current P240-something).
So yes, there was still a payload gap, even in the end. Never knew or realized before, it was related to TPS. The Hermes design really did not wanted to close - weight and costs seems to have been on a massive creep upwards.

 

[Nik]

My understanding ( followed at time via 'BIS' ) is Hermes' weight just grew and grew and grew.

The excess weight loaded the heat-shield, which needed up-grading, which raised the weight, so needed stronger frames, attitude thrusters, inter-stages etc etc...

Which additional weight further loaded the heat-shield...

Finally, like several WW2 aircraft which simply could not balance their power / weight etc issues, project cancelled. Not too bad if there are multiple competing designs. Sadly, when everything is pinned to one...

( IIRC, joke at time was we knew the project was doomed when French took out their wine-cellar, yet even that didn't square the lading... )

 

[archipeppe]

Hermes was doomed because was simply "too much".
Initially (1979) was a good idea: a sort of "Mirage de l'espace", with 3 astronaut and SOME payloads.



But shortly after ambition arose (like Shuttle) so it was added an useless Payload Bay, more (and more and more) payload, and so on.


The Challenger tragedy represented the "coup de grace" because added the necessity to have a detachable pressurized cabin (like the F-111) to save the crew.



The first symptom that something was going wrong on the total mass side was when the Payload Bay was (finally!) left for good.



The second symptom was whem the detachable cabin was also left for good replace by Russian K-36 ejection seats.



The final cut come with the TPS history and when ESA realized that any Ariane 5 version would (or could) never place in orbit the actual Hermes..... a sad end.

 

[Archibald]

The K-36 at least was a decent idea. Plus the Soviets made a gracious demo at Le Bourget 1989, with a MiG-29.

Initially the Ariane 5 (R - Reference) was to be a 44L with the ninth Viking engine dropping from stage 2 to stage 1, and replaced by what became the Vulcain, on stage 2.
Then was a 100% Vulcain (4+1), 100% hydrolox Ariane 5C for cryogenic.
Both designs were legacy Ariane 1 to 4, one way or another, but Hermes decided otherwise and 5P (= Poudre) was born. Just one Vulcain, with two huge SRB on the flanks. Main advantage: every time Hermes gains weight, it can be compensated by stretching the SRB: moar solid fuel, cheap trick. They grew from P170 to P240, number being "tons of solid prop per booster."
5C and 5R could not follow Hermes weight growth, 5P could, but barely.

And that's how Ariane 5 became an oddity among Arianes. Funny to think Ariane 6 is kind of return to Ariane 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 & 5R modular, single core approach.

Shuttle (negative) influence was felt at three levels

"Vulcain as a surrogate SSME"
"Big SRBs, eventually recoverable at sea - was tried in 1997-98, didn't worked"
"Hermes as a mini Orbiter"

 

[hesham]

From Aviation magazine 1987.

 

[hesham]

From Aviation magazine 1990.

 

[PMN1]

Instead of steadily increasing the capacity of the A5 booster was any thought made of clustering smaller boosters to meet the payload requirements?

 

[Byeman]

Instead of steadily increasing the capacity of the A5 booster was any thought made of clustering smaller boosters to meet the payload requirements?

Attach them where?

 

[TheKutKu]

Instead of steadily increasing the capacity of the A5 booster was any thought made of clustering smaller boosters to meet the payload requirements?

A5’s EAP’s load are transfered through the top of the core stage and they hold the whole launcher together on the ground, you couldn’t put more smaller ones without completely redesigning the launcher, which was too late after 1984.

There was the nuclear option of the double vulcain EPC, which was repeatedly considered. Performances would increase by up to 4 tons to LEO with a H205 EPC, much less gravity losses too. However this would have directly meant at least a good 10-20% cost increase and would be even more oversized and inflexible for commercial launches, along with additional failure points. There also wouldn’t have been much room for lengthening the EPC due to structural and integration Center limitations (as shown with the Former Ariane 5 ME)

 

[flateric]

...

 

[flateric]

Wonder why use 1979 iteration art for a cover in 1985 in a profile trade publication...

 

[Trident]

...

OT: was the timing deliberate? Nice work, either way

 

[flateric]

1988 and 1991 full-scale mock-ups
1985(?) and 1987 iterations scale models

 

[archipeppe]

I saw the full scale model in Noordwjick back in 1992 outside the ESA ESTEC Space Museum.

 

[Timber Micka]

Photos of various Hermes hardware, featured in various scientific articles available on JSTOR and "Matériels & Techniques."

I have often heard that Hermes was a “paper project” but that was far from being the case.
Most of the technologies for Hermes were successfully developed and tested, like the structural elements presented here.

 

[Deleted member 4286]

Two main reasons for Hermes cancellation:

1. TPS issue raised launch mass
2. Hermes launch mass issue become an Ariane 5 issue

Furthermore, TPS and launch mass issues increased R&D costs beyond what ESA really wanted to spend.
Essentially that was it.

There was also a problem of mismanagement and responsibility between Aerospatiale and Dassault.

 

[Archibald]

The familiar Ariane 5 ended with 22 metric tons of payload... but by 1991 Hermes had busted that to 24.5 mt ! There was a very severe weight creep issue. The perenial solution was to add more propellants to the solid-fuel boosters on the sides. But there was limits to that...

 

[TheKutKu]

The main problem was funding, the lesson from Hermes is that a small shuttle costs virtually as much as a big shuttle**.

From van den Abeelen's book: Munich 1991, cost estimate of 6000 MAU (equivalent 2024$16.7B, on top of the 1000 MAU already spent) for the 1991-2000 period... considering the same ESA ministerial planned a 2002 first launch and 2004 operational status, that these were estimate before production began, and the book mentions contemporary counter-estimates already a Billion Accounting Unit above (8000 MAU), it seems likely the final cost of development would have ran above the 10,000 MAU (2024$ 28.0B)

And then add the cost of Ariane 5 - My nearby issue of CnesMag says 45 Billion Francs, average conversion rate over the A5 development is 5.5 Francs to USD, peak of A5 funding was in 1992 today that's 2024$ 18.6B*.. and that's not counting the A5 ECA upgrade that would be required to lift Hermes... another billion.

So 35 Billion minimum, likely 45 Billion if not more to get a shuttle and its launcher! Meanwhile the shuttle cost about 10 billion to develop throughout the 70s and early 80s, about 40-50 Billion today (Energia-Buran was also in the same general range, but I won't try converting rubles)

Broadly speaking, Hermes would have required the same annual funding as Ariane 5, which averaged a quarter of ESA's budget (you can check the annual report on their site) through the 90s, so there's no Hermes without that 25% budget increase, or cuts elsewhere..

Considering the european countries already squabbled intensely over the much lesser funding of Columbus or supporting Ariane 5's difficult beginnings, I don't see it happening.

*As much as I like to criticise A6, I have to admit that it's cheap to develop compared to A5, thanks to the fact it reuses so much of its infrastructure and technologies, A5's development cost in 1992 (1050 MAU) alone was equivalent to 2/3 of A6's total development cost...

**But that was already predicted by NASA in the early 70s, and, thanksfully, convinced the congress, OMB and presidency.

 

[Barrington Bond]

First part...

 

[Barrington Bond]

...next part.

 

[Archibald]

Many thanks for that. 1980 ? Very early studies. CNES started in 1977 and the studies were revealed to the public at Le Bourget Airshow, June 1979.

 

[TheKutKu]

Parachuted splashdown of Hermes! Ambitious!

 

[Michel Van]

Parachuted splashdown of Hermes! Ambitious!

the french text labeled this a rescue parachute for ocean landing

 

[Archibald]

This is why it had the weird (and ugly) windshield... there was a rescue parachute inside.

 

[archipeppe]

First part...

The very first iteration of Hermes, dating back 1979, my favourite one.
My schoolmate introduce me to it through a 1981 issue of "Test" Italian Sci & Tech magazine.

 

[Michel Van]

This kind of shuttle studies goes way down into 1960s under ELDO.
however this was CNES study for Ariane launch system in 1970.
Its sad that during 1980s this concept, mutated into "French Space Shuttle" what ended as Hermes we know...

 

[TheKutKu]

This kind of shuttle studies goes way down into 1960s under ELDO.
however this was CNES study for Ariane launch system in 1970.
Its sad that during 1980s this concept, mutated into "French Space Shuttle" what ended as Hermes we know...

"The Beginning of Hermes Spaceplane (1976 – 1985)" by Phillipe Coué.