What's set to be the final Atlas V missions dedicated to a national security payload is scheduled for Tuesday morning, July 30, at 6:45 AM EDT.
The mission, for the US Space Force, is known as USSF-51 and is a landmark mission by virtue of being the last US national security mission to fly on an Atlas family rocket. The Atlas rocket family has been flying since 1957. United Launch Alliance has only been around for a small portion of that 67 years, having been formed in 2006. ULA itself says this will be their 100th national security mission.
USSF-51 rolls from their vertical integration facility toward the launch pad - visible in the distance - on July 27. Image credit: ULA
The Atlas V, the final version of the storied family, first flew in 2002 and has flown 100 missions to date. The 100th mission was the launch of Starliner Crewed Flight Test in early June. Out of those 100 missions, 50 have been National Security missions.
The Atlas V vehicle is in the process of flying its last missions as the
engines it relies on, the Russian RD-180, have been unavailable since about
2014. ULA had stock on hand and bought more to fill their Atlas launch
manifest. Atlas V still has 15 more launches on its docket, most of which will
loft either Boeing's Starliner or satellites for Amazon's planned Project
Kuiper broadband constellation. Current Atlas V payloads will eventually be switched
over to ULA's new Vulcan rocket as the remaining Atlas Vs are used up.
So sad, a once-great rocket family, gone. Because nobody could figure out how to build an engine for it. Dumbasses. Stupid stupid dumbasses. Like with the Delta, great legacy, but dead now.
ReplyDeleteIf only someone had funneled some of the huge profits they made from either rocket line into advancing said rocket into the future, then, gee, they'd still be flying to this day and beyond.
Feckless bastards.
The Atlas could have been modified, updated, upgraded, advanced, become Atlas NextGen, with US-designed and built CNC designed and printed/machined parts for far less than buying the Russkie engine (doing what NASA engineers did to the mighty F-1 when they were looking to make the SLS engines, scanning all existing parts and making a new design composed of 40 parts to make the F-1B.) But, no, feckless anal-sphincters won, and now ULA is stuck relying on BO for engines.
Dang it. Corporate malfeasance at its finest.
It's an opinion not favored by many, but I blame the space truck. I admit that can be said to be an ignorant opinion. But in writing the chapters of the space odyssey, it is woeful to delete past knowledge.
DeleteThing is, the need for reliable and available launch services not related to the stupid shuttle actually increased once it was known that said shuttle wouldn't be launching every two to four weeks like it was planned.
DeleteSo that as an excuse to not continue improving Atlas and Delta doesn't wash. Most likely it was pure bureaucratic bullscat and corporate greed. After all, actually changing things is expensive. Why screw with a system that brings in hundreds of millions in profit per launch?
Stephen Clark at Ars Technica had a novel take on this mission. The title was, "With a landmark launch, the Pentagon is finally free of Russian rocket engines." Subtitled: "It's been a decade-long effort to end the US military's reliance on the RD-180 engine."
DeleteI mostly just skimmed it, but I didn't see anything asking, "why didn't ULA hire someone in the US to re-design the engines?"
Exactly. Take the expensive multi-bazillion parts US engines that the RD-180 replaced, or even the RS25/J2/SSME and do a thorough 3D scan of everything and reduce the engine parts to a bare minimum. No need for reuse, no need for throttling and restart capability and they could produce, well, a Merlin-like engine. Or engines.
DeleteI put this squarely on the heads of the MBA managers and cost-cutting accountants.
I mean, Atlas went through... 5 distinct stages and many minor iterations. What's one more to bring the system into modern times rather than going and completely redesigning everything and building a new rocket?