[AR] Re: shuttle SRBs (was Re: Re: Phenolic regression rate)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2018 23:06:11 -0500 (EST)
On Sun, 4 Feb 2018, George William Herbert wrote:
...the US doesn't currently have any big LOX/kerosene engines on hand.
The RS-27A (Delta II core) is the biggest that's been in US production
recently, and it's rather small for the job. ...
On the other hand, Falcon clustering Merlins isn't a big deal, and
they're (M1D) ~ 140,000 LBT at sea level.
The RS-27A was about 200klb at sea level, and could probably be uprated
further with a bit of development. Clustering them should be no great
problem either -- they are minor derivatives of the H-1 (in fact, the
original RS-27s were rebuilt H-1s), eight of which powered the Saturn IB.
However, what is really wanted for an SRB replacement is something more in
the league of the F-1, or better yet the F-1A (1.8Mlb and considered ready
for flight). A shuttle SRB is about 2.7Mlb -- the one good thing about
big solids is that it's easy to get high thrust. The Energia strap-ons
were minor variants of the Zenit first stage, using the RD-170, which
delivers about 1.6Mlb.
(Unfortunately, not only does the RD-170 share the RD-180's problems of
being Russian, but the rest of the Zenit first stage is Ukrainian, so it
gets hit by unfavorable politics from both sides.)
Serial production. Can be had preintegrated into in a fully reusable
stage, even...
Definitely a potentially useful package, even if one could wish it were
larger for such applications.
Henry
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