Jul 142010
Along with the two-stage “Saturn v derived” design previously shown, in 2002 NASA also looked at a vehicle composed of “Magnum” core vehicle (essentially a Shuttle external tank heavily modified into an in-line launch vehicle) with four Shuttle RSRMs strapped around it for increased performance. The payload shroud was also increased in diameter.
The core vehicle was equipped with two RS-83 hydrogen/oxygen engines on the first stage. The solid rocket boosters were the planned five-segment versions of the standard Shuttle RSRMs. Payload to a 150 nautical mile circular orbit was 106.6 metric tons, notably better than the performance of the two-stage vehicle.
And here’s the CAD drawing:
7 Responses to “Magnum-Derivative of 2002”
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A very capable design, but what was it to be used for?
A return to the Moon?
More likely Mars.
I actually built one for NASA about 18″ tall. The paint scheme was really ugly, a blue nosecone, white midesection and red from the midsection down. Looked like a giant popscicle
you can actually see it in the background over Summer’s shoulder
http://i421.photobucket.com/albums/pp291/retrorocketmodels/Retro%20Rocket%20Contract%20models%20for%20NASA/Summer2.jpg
That one has a red nosecone, white midsection, and is blue from the midsection on down.
And when did NASA get TIE fighters?
For a while “Magnum” was like “Nova”, i.e., the name of the next big booster on the wish list. In 1984, Magnum was a three stage, parallel-staged all liquid system with a 300K payload to 540 nm from Vandenberg. It used STMEs and a 1.7M lbf version of the STBE. It also was used in reference to that big-ass 8-RSRM thing in the 90-Day Study.
Duh, forgot to add that the RS-76/83/84/COBRA/TR106 generation of engines had some interesting technology, and hopefully the new RP-1 effort will take advantage of some of the R&D already invested.