NASA HL-20 lifting body

[Orionblamblam]

I've posted a bunch of artwork and mockup photos of the HL-20 lifting body over on my blog...

http://up-ship.com/blog/

 

[archipeppe]

Many thanks Scott, as usual, your contribution are always very welcomed...

 

[Archibald]

Hmmm I feel some 3-view of the HL-20 coming...

 

[archipeppe]

Hmmm I feel some 3-view of the HL-20 coming...

It's easer than you think, I've already done HL20 3 views.
Stay in touch....

 

[flateric]

Can someone say why actually HL-20 and HL-42 designs, (based, AFAK, on data aquired from WT tests of models made to match aerodynamic shapes of BOR-4), were abandoned?

Why, returning to lifting body CRV idea, NASA went back to SV-5D PRIME/X-23A shapes instead of playing with BOR-4 ones?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Why, returning to lifting body CRV idea, NASA went back to SV-5D PRIME/X-23A shapes instead of playing with BOR-4 ones?

Because the X-23/X-24A shape was far more proven than the BOR-4 design. It also provides a somewhat smaller vehicle for the same small passenger capability. HL-20 makes a better vehicle if you need built-in propulsion capability, since you can put propellant tanks in the flattened body.

 

[The Artist]

This seems to be the place to post these.

I was lucky to have been at the Virginia Air and Space Museum on the day the HL-20 mock-up was delivered then again the next day when it had been placed on display. I just checked the floor maps on their website and it seems to no longer be on display there.

I'm not claiming that these are great pictures but I think they may be of interest to some here. The pics were scanned from the 4x6 inch prints. If I can locate the negatives I may be able to come up with better details.

So, anyone interested?

Mike

 

[flateric]

absolutely yes!

 

[The Artist]

Again, these were scanned from the 4 x 6 inch prints. I'll look for the negatives. Maybe they are still in with what I let Mark Nankivil borrow to scan - I'm still working my way through what he has returned.

 

[The Artist]

Second batch.

 

[The Artist]

Third batch

 

[The Artist]

Last batch.

Mike

 

[Triton]

Awesome! Thank you The Artist. ;D

 

[flateric]

absolutely thank you, Mike!

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I loved that museum! Used to go there when I was stationed out in VA. Thanks for bringing back some memories.

 

[Steve Pace]

Check these...

 

[archipeppe]

As previously promised here it is a small presentation, with all new full color mine artwork, about the HL-20.

 

[archipeppe]

More slides....

 

[archipeppe]

The last slides.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Brava!

 

[archipeppe]

Brava!

Many thanks (emh...."brava" in Italian is for a female, for a man is "bravo"....I know this odd Italian language..... ).

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Bravo! My bad! ;D

 

[The Artist]

Very nice! Thanks for sharing.

 

[CFE]

Is there any detailed info on OSC's attempts to bring back HL-20 for OSP in 2001-2002? Their initial artwork looked very much like the traditional HL-20 layout. As the project progressed, the HL-20 outer fins got bigger and lost their dihedral, essentially becoming wings.

 

[archipeppe]

Is there any detailed info on OSC's attempts to bring back HL-20 for OSP in 2001-2002? Their initial artwork looked very much like the traditional HL-20 layout. As the project progressed, the HL-20 outer fins got bigger and lost their dihedral, essentially becoming wings.

Not so much.

In effect the original HL-20 proposal was recycled twice: the first time for the OSP proposal, around 2000, and the second time for the DreamChaser second layout for COTS (taking into account that not fresh new are about it since a couple of years).

 

[Archibald]

Archipeppe did it again ! Wonderful ! Pictures already stored on my HD. Somewhere I've created a WORD file with Mark Wade and Archi' spaceship profiles.

 

[Byeman]

More slides....

Only a comment, it would have been tested on a Titan IV. Titan III production was long ended by this time

 

[Nik]

Seems a bit inadequate, but I gotta say, "Isn't it so *cute* !!"

I followed the Lifting Body saga as best I could, was bitterly disappointed by the Shuttle's many comprimises. Still, looks like X37, Japan, China, India, even the ESA are winging that way again, as the next rung after crew-rated capsules & expendable launchers. FWIW, a lifting body as crew-cab / escape capsule for a Skylon may be a sweet-spot in tech...

;-( Please excuse my mithpelling and garrulosity (sic) due left arm in plaster after a not quite good enough break-fall on icy path. At least radius is hairline instead compound...)

 

[archipeppe]

Only a comment, it would have been tested on a Titan IV. Titan III production was long ended by this time

I wondering the same by myself, anyway my reference (based upon NASA material) clearly speaks about Titan IIIC, please look at the following image.

 

[Byeman]

Only a comment, it would have been tested on a Titan IV. Titan III production was long ended by this time

I wondering the same by myself, anyway my reference (based upon NASA material) clearly speaks about Titan IIIC, please look at the following image.

It has 5 1/2 segments on the solids, which would mean Titan 34D.

Edit: Actually it could be a Commercial Titan III (no transtage and therefore no "C" designation) NASA did buy one for Mars Observer

 

[archipeppe]

It has 5 1/2 segments on the solids, which would mean Titan 34D.

Edit: Actually it could be a Commercial Titan III (no transtage and therefore no "C" designation) NASA did buy one for Mars Observer

Aha, this makes the things clearer.
I could also arrange a drawing with a Titan 34D....

 

[CFE]

My nitpick with the drawings (as beautiful as they are) is seeing only two engines on the NLS core vehicle. I suppose that NLS would have looked like a stretched Shuttle ET with six engines on the core (the four around the perimeter dropped off like the booster engines on the Atlas.)

 

[Archibald]

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993JSpRo..30..615B

http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JSR/1993/PVJAPRE25573.pdf

 

[Byeman]

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993JSpRo..30..615B

http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JSR/1993/PVJAPRE25573.pdf

I know one of the authors, I will see if I can get a copy

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

In effect the original HL-20 proposal was recycled twice: the first time for the OSP proposal, around 2000, and the second time for the DreamChaser second layout for COTS (taking into account that not fresh new are about it since a couple of years).

Although DreamChaser didn't win an initial COTS award, it has been granted some more recent funding (some details in the DreamChaser thread at http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,4389.0).

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

http://crgis.ndc.nasa.gov/historic/HL-20


Lots here.

 

[sferrin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlnWNOLDLtQ

 

[Stargazer]

Inasmuch as I loved the Dyna-Soar, M2 and X-24 lifting body designs, I always hated this bugger. Looked like a badminton shuttlecock to me!

 

[Triton]

"HL-20 as a Personnel Launch System"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElyqe6uugQ

 

[John Frazer]

Not at all accurate to say it came from any NASA work originally. It was from the USSR Cold War era space interceptor, the Uragan ("Hurricane"). The competitor to the USAF X-20 Dyna-Soar.

A model was flown to test heat-shield materials for the Buran ("Blizzard") Space Shuttle copy, and the HL-20 was designed from seeing that model. Langley found that it had good stability & control across the needed speed ranges and good landing handling. "Exceptionally benign" thermal characteristics during re-entry.

Lozino-Lozhinsky, working for the MiG design bureau invented the lifting body, named "Lapot" or wooden shoe, for the nose. NASA said it created a stand-off layer in front which kept the intense heat away and everything else was swept behind the Mach cone, as usual for MiG.
MiG-105 test plane made drop tests onto dirt strips with extendable skids, and it made hop flights with fixed wheels under its jet power.
Altogether with the Soviet and NASA Langley work, the HL-20 was very conservatively engineered, very thoroughly worked out and well-understood. It would have put the Shuttle industry out of business, and that's why we didn't use it after the Challenger accident.
It was most definitely "Not Invented Here".

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105
https://youtu.be/zJy3f72fock