Dec 162011
DARPA is looking at air launch options… but instead of giant, world-record carrier aircraft, they are also interested in the possibility of using fighters and/or small corporate jets as the carrier aircraft in order to launch 100 pound payloads. The goal is a mission cost of one million dollars or less… equating to $10,000/pound, which is the equal of the most expensive large launchers. But the benefit for such high per-pound cost launch systems will be, it is hoped, the ability to launch on short notice, from innumerable airfields, and with high annual launch rates.
One design not mentioned but that springs to mind anyway is the XCOR Lynx. It’s a two-seat rocketplane designed to carry a small payload on its back; payload deliverable to LEO is not given, but with a dorsal payload of 650 kilos, it’s probably in the range of 20 kilos or so. The targeted price of a ticket on Lynx is just shy of $100 grand; so based just on that, Lynx would haul payload for the equivalent of $5000/kilo, or about $11,000 per pound. This, sadly, does not include the cost of the upper stages, which likely will be substantial, and probably expendable (although I wouldn’t rule out reusability here). This indicates that reaching that $10K/lb launch price at this scale may be a bit tricky, but is at least within the range of the possible.
4 Responses to “Air Launch: the other end of the scale”
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to look at drones? Why haul hundreds of pounds of extra crap just to keep a pilot alive?
My first though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT
Don’t know if it could be modified to carry 100 lbs, but I would be surprised if it couldn’t.
I’ve thought for years that a completely re-usable 2-stage to orbit rocket system would be a good idea. I’ll have to bring it up next time I meet a multi-billionaire. I suspect getting enough range with the first stage for Darpa’s arbitrary orbit insertion would be difficult.
As for military launchers, if you want to go supersonic, candidates might be the F-15 (early marks with the non-plastic canopy), the F-111 (lots available still), and my favorite: B-1B’s retrofitted to the B-1A supersonic configuration.
Too bad there aren’t any B-58 Hustler airframes around.
Here is an old for air-launching small satellites.