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  #1  
Old 03-24-2012, 10:23 AM
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Default NASA STUDY SUMMARY-"Personnel Launch System Study- Final Report"

Here's an interesting study from the early 90's, of a shuttle replacement design for a small lifting body crew transport using the Titan IV for a launch vehicle. It was called the "Personnel Launch System" (PLS). This basic concept is still around today, over 20 years later, having come back around in the "Orbital Space Plane" design of the early 2000's (just before the Columbia accident changed the space program markedly) which was designed to be launched on an EELV heavy variant (eliminating some of the nastier catastrophic launch vehicle failure modes of the Titan IV, which is all the designers had available to put it on back in 91 when this study was done). The idea is currently in vogue as the "Dreamchaser" vehicle, being designed by a commercial company to fly on the Atlas V rocket.

The study itself is almost 300 pages, but a good portion of that is also devoted to management issues and other such minutea that has little interest or bearing on spacemodeling. The vehicle itself has the outer mold line of the Soviet BOR-15 lifting body vehicle they experimented with in the early-mid 80's. It would have been interesting to see the alternative vehicle designs that were competing against it and weren't chosen. I bet there were some interesting concepts... Too bad that NASA chose to waste ANOTHER decade on SSTO concepts for things like the X-33/Venturestar program, etc. rather than simply going for a cheaper, more easily maintainable and quicker turnaround "airliner" type spaceplane (which is the ONLY way a reusable spaceplane makes economic sense), launched by a (preferably low cost) expendable booster... which interestingly enough was one of the early proposals for a preliminary shuttle design-- a 'cheap to build, fly, and maintain' orbiter lofted by a low cost design expendable booster rocket (see the recent NASA Study Summary I did on Tech Influences on Shuttle Design for more information). IF NASA had developed something like this, maybe partnering up with the Air Force to gain access to the Delta IV Heavy or Atlas V Heavy, (which was designed but never built) and had NASA paid for manrating their preferred version of the EELV heavy to lift this small spaceplane, we wouldn't be in the position we find ourselves in now... Shuttle could have been phased out in the mid-late 90's and replaced with this orbital spaceplane crew ferry vehicle and EELV's used to launch space station components for ISS.

This vehicle wasn't wedded to the Titan IV, either... it probably would have relied on Titan IV early on (unless it was phased in in the mid-late 90's, by which time the EELV's could have been ready for it, and had they been manrated from the get-go, it would have been much cheaper and more effective to do it in the original design phase). There is also obtuse mentions of the "ALS" launcher, which was a last-gasp attempt at a shuttle derived concept for an "HLV" (heavier payloads than shuttle, but not in the range of a "true" HLV like Ares V or SLS-- maybe 50 tons or so to LEO) which grew out of the "NLS" (National Launch System) studies that had been going on since shortly after the Challenger explosion... which designed a shuttle-derived launcher designed for payload launches or lofting a small top-mounted crew capsule or follow-on spaceplane to orbit using various proposed designs of rocket boosters based on existing shuttle elements-- SRB's, the 27.5 foot diameter ET turned into a core stage, SSME or STME (disposable shuttle engines, basically) engines, in various combinations from SRB augmented liquid boosters (not unlike SLS today) to innovative six SSME/STME engined 1.5 stage all-liquid boosters like a huge hydrogen powered modern version of the original Atlas, dropping a ring of 4 SSME's halfway through flight and continuing to orbit on a central pair of SSME's on the core... NLS started in earnest in the wake of Challenger when it was thought by some, early on, that shuttle might be retired due to the loss of the crew. NLS morphed into ALS when NASA was trying to get the Air Force interested in a joint replacement/shuttle augmenting HLV to operate beside or instead of the shuttle. After it became clear that the shuttle program would continue and return to flight, NLS morphed into ALS, the "Advanced Launch System" which was more tailored specifically to Air Force needs, and as such, competed against what would soon become the EELV's. The Air Force had their eye on eventually replacing the Titan IV, because its launch and operations costs were very expensive, on par with shuttle (which was a TERRIBLY expensive vehicle!) The Air Force had a definite bad taste in their mouth from their collaboration with NASA on the shuttle, and didn't look to want to repeat that mistake again, so ALS got essentially no traction in the DOD because of its close ties with the shuttle program, which was NASA's baby by this point since DOD had pretty much backed out of shuttle by this point and had thrown full efforts behind Titan IV. It was rather sad because some of the ALS designs were quite innovative and had they been developed, we again would be in a MUCH better position now at shuttle retirement than we presently are, because the ALS vehicles would have been ideal for modification into manned space launchers... (and essentially that's what SLS is... the old NLS parading in new clothing, trotted out once again after 25 years as "something new"). Had ALS/NLS been developed, we'd at least have a core vehicle ready to fly or modify to fly manned...

At any rate, the Air Force politely said "no" and brushed NASA off, ALS died quietly and within a couple years, the Air Force got their Titan IV replacements into development, the Atlas V and Delta IV common core EELV's, ditching the expensive SRM's altogether, leaving NASA the only one flying the big segmented solids anymore (though of a different design, which is part of the reason they were so expensive for both the Air Force and NASA in the first place). The rest is history...

SO, here's the report... "Dreamchaser" and "OSP" ala 1991... Enjoy!

OL JR
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  #2  
Old 03-24-2012, 10:27 AM
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The PLS's intended role-- crew transport and rotation on and off of Space Station Freedom, which later became the International Space Station when the Russians were brought on board the project...

The PLS was MUCH MUCH smaller than the shuttle orbiter, because it was designed SOLELY as a personnel transport (though it is likely that a 2 crew version (or even crewless) could have been developed to fly like a gliding version of the current ATV resupply craft to the space station, ferrying pressurized cargo). The vehicle was sized for 8-10 occupants with 2 being actual flight crew.

The PLS was designed from the get-go to focus on the factors that make a shuttle in the form of a winged spaceplane operationally worth the development cost and the costs of reusability-- the very factors to which spaceplanes are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE to (flightrate, recurring costs, and refurbishment costs and turnaround time, which affect the first two), which the shuttle program starting off KNEW they had to design to, but basically eventually ignored ALL of these factors to build the large mostly reusable but maintenance intensive one-size-fits-all space dumptruck orbiter in collaboration with the Air Force and their overstated needs, which ended up trumping all the important design criteria that make a reusable vehicle economically viable... NASA was SO determined to get the "super-duper-uber shuttle" that they wildly inflated their proposed flight rates and had completely unrealistically underestimated recurring costs, turnaround times, and refurbishment time and costs, in order to justify the shuttle program. SO, it's no wonder that shuttle turned out to be more expensive than Saturn V launches! The PLS was based on FAR more realistic flight rates, though at 10-12 per year might be a little high (but not as rediculous as the 50-60 "projected" for shuttle!) and the vehicle itself was designed around the idea of minimum cost and time and the simplest operations for refurbishment and turnaround for relaunch. Had a safer and cheaper launch vehicle (other than Titan IV) been available, this could have been MUCH more in line with what shuttle operations and costs were SUPPOSED to be, but WEREN'T!

PLS was designed to be easy to manufacture and easy to service on the ground... the pressurized volume was sized for the crew, and most of the supporting vehicle subsystems were located OUTSIDE the crew compartment in the body structure surrounding the crew compartment. This made ground servicing MUCH simpler, as the body panels were removable for system access, and the systems themselves were simplified and designed for less maintenance, using nontoxic propellants, and designed for fast turnaround times with little maintenance between flights-- the way shuttle SHOULD have been designed but wasn't...

The wings were designed to fold up to that it could fly to orbit inside a shuttle payload bay, for some odd reason... doesn't make much sense... probably one of those early study "requirements" that ends up getting dumped after it creates a lot of headaches and drives the design needlessly in weird directions that then seem to carry over and cause problems later on...

More later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:31 AM
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PLS atop the Titan IV... virtually identical to concept pics I've seen of OSP launching atop an EELV heavy, which would have been the ideal vehicle for this spaceplane... that or the ALS booster based on shuttle derived parts...

PLS with wings folded, to fit neatly into the shuttle cargo bay (for some reason-- to deliver it uncrewed to the Space Station Freedom (SSF). A rather bizarre requirement IMHO, and one likely to have been dropped or never used at any rate...

Unlike shuttle, PLS had vehicle abort provisions with an LES escape rocket. IF the manrated Titan IV had a problem giving sufficient time for an abort (which was problematical, as certain failure modes on Titan IV gave only milliseconds of warning at most, like SRM case failure, GNC failure, etc, which was insufficient time to perform a survivable abort). The PLS would have been rocketed off the top of the doomed LV stack, either on the pad or in flight, by solid booster rockets below the glider on the adapter section, propelling it up and away at 8 gees and then separating to deploy recovery parachutes for a water landing. The three parachutes would lower the vehicle into the sea tail first, then floatation bags would inflate around the rear hatchway to keep it above the water level, to assist in crew egress. The float bags were designed to keep the hatch above water regardless of whether the vehicle was floating upright or inverted.

PLS docked to the SSF... (note the early 'cupola' design!) The PLS would dock rear-end to the station, controlled by a docking pilot looking out the hatch window at docking targets and operating the thrusters to manuever the craft... Once docked the hatch would be opened to allow the crew into the station...

One of the "important design criteria" for the PLS was the ability to return "deconditioned" SSF crews to earth safely after thier six month or more sojourn aboard the station... such crewmembers were considered to be too weak to handle egress from the vehicle on their own-- in fact, their seats reclined sharply during reentry and landing to put their heads nearer the same level as their hearts to minimize transition to gravity effects. The large docking hatch in the rear would provide gentle egress from such "incapacitated" returning crews, who could be transferred immediately to gurneys and taken to "recovery medical facilities" to aid their transition back to the world of one gee here on the surface...

More later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:37 AM
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PLS focused on the factors that ultimately make a reusable spacecraft either successful or unsuccessful, meaning more expensive than a well designed expendable spacecraft-- mainly flight rates high enough to justify the added expense of reusable designs, sufficiently low recurring costs to make those flight rates possible, and sufficiently low cost refurbishment after the flight to prepare the vehicle for the next flight, which goes hand in hand with relatively fast turnaround times to enable high flightrates and reduce costs from large amounts of touch labor to restore the vehicle to flight readiness. The shuttle scored EXTREMELY POORLY on ALL these metrics, which is what made it such a HORRENDOUSLY expensive spacecraft, matching or exceeding the costs of the expendable vehicles it was supposed to replace! Focusing the design on these factors, presented with realistic goals, targets, costs, and flight rates, was far more likely to produce an economically viable design than the shuttle program had been with its wildly optimistic flight rates and low recurring cost and turnaround time estimates...

The most problematical part of the proposal was the use of Titan IV as the LV... while Titan IV was a good launcher, it wasn't flawless, nor was it manrated. It would have required manrating and a substantial number of changes in the vehicle and supporting infrastructure at Complex 41 to make it compatible with PLS. It would still have had some rather nagging failure modes, not particularly likely to be sure, but not able to be ruled out, such as 'sudden death' if the launch vehicle broke up from a GNC failure, a casing failure of the SRM, or other failures of this sort. Some failures, such as an engine shutdown on the core vehicle, would be much easier to abort from, or might even be recoverable and allow the mission to continue. At least PLS had SOME realistic chance of crew abort, unlike shuttle which relied on "a miracle by risking likely death to avoid certain death"...

PLS would require some new facilities. The biggest and most complex is the Horizontal Servicing Facility, or HSF. It would have had several "bays" for the proposed fleet of four vehicles (though two was enough to start the program) and would have potentially provided storage space and workspace for maintenance between flights. The facility itself could start off with 2 bays and have more added as the program ramped up to add more vehicles and the need for additional ground support facilities.

Another new facility that would be needed was an Adaptor Processing Facility, or APF... it would be rather remotely located, to isolate the other facilities from the hazards posed by preparing the LES rockets and attaching them to the conical spacecraft adapter section which would mate the glider to the booster rocket. Several different designs were already proposed, including a "trunk" type space in the adapter itself that could serve as a satellite servicing parts transportation area or haul minor unpressurized cargo. The adapters were seen as modules that could be designed to serve ancillary functions like those just mentioned, as well as being modified into several different designs to mate the glider with different booster rockets.

The Deservice/Pyro Safing Facility (DPSF) was another smaller facility needed to 'safe' the vehicle immediately after landing. Similar to how the shuttle is "safed" after returning to Earth, but much simplified. It mainly would have served to remove the residual propellants from the OMS/RCS system, which were going to be much less toxic than those hypergolics used on shuttle, and for safing the pyro charges used for various vehicle functions (or unused as the case would be) prior to moving the vehicle to the confines of the HSF. It would be a very simple "quonset" type facility, with an attached trailer for office space. Additionally, it would serve as a foul-weather crew egress point, especially for the return of "incapacitated" and deconditioned station crews unable to amble off the glider under their own power...

More later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:40 AM
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The general arrangement of the lifting body, as seen here... the crew cabin for transport of crewmembers to and from the SSF, and the support systems mounted under the side skin panels of the vehicle for easier ground repairs than on the shuttle...

The design weight breakdowns...

The launch escape system (LES) design parameters...

The importance of the folding wings for transport in various aircraft and the shuttle for ferrying operations...

More about the folding wings...

Later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:44 AM
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The structures of the vehicle were to be much simplified over that of the shuttle as well. It was to use a honeycomb graphite polyimide material for the outer skin, with the tiles bonded directly to this underlayer, unlike shuttle which used an intermediary layer of material to bond the tiles to the aluminum skin beneath. The GP material had the same expansion rate as the tiles, allowing them to be glued directly to the underlayment, which saved a LOT of weight and labor versus the shuttle tiles!

The structures were to be much simpler than shuttle in how the crew cabin and vehicle structures were integrated. The crew cabin wasn't to contain any more of the subsystems than necessary-- primarily just the crew control interfaces and life support system components needing attention. All the other propulsion, avionics, and other vehicle subsystems were to be mounted externally to the crew pressurized cabin to facilitate faster and easier ground maintenance between flights, as needed. The crew cabin was to serve as an integral part of the vehicle structure, but not the primary structure itself...

The vehicle cross section showing the equipment areas on either side of the cylindrical crew compartment.

Entry heating was broadly similar to shuttle, with some differences... but the heat shield materials were largely the same...

The avionics would be mounted externally to the crew cabin as well...

Later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:48 AM
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The vehicle was originally stipulated to use some rather noxious, single use only chloride batteries, but this was not the preferred method... after further study, the authors recommended the use of silver/zinc rechargeable batteries that would be more effective with lower recurring costs and present fewer hazards in servicing for ground crews. The batteries were recommended to be located on the left side of the vehicle, opposite the battery of three parachutes directly opposite them on the right side...

The original vehicle concept had three large SRMs mounted inside the conical adapter section under the glider mating it to the top of the booster... this had some drawbacks of its own...

Alternative LES concepts were considered, using SRM's attached directly to the belly of the glider itself instead of to the conical spacecraft adapter section below it... but this had a LOT of disadvantages, such as heat shield penetrations to make the connections, etc.

The preferred method was going with three smaller SRM's in two pairs, mounted externally, unlike the original proposal that had three larger SRMs for the escape rockets mounted internally to the conical adapter. This would free the area inside the adapter up for possible later use as a cargo area, etc. while still keeping the rockets minimally exposed to the airstream of the vehicle during flight...

For aborts, the vehicle would parachute into the sea, courtesy of three large parachutes and a four point recovery harness connected to the vehicle structures...

More later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 10:51 AM
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One of the important provisions of the abort scenario was keeping the crew compartment watertight and making egress simple for the crew or rescue personnel... so the aft hatch was designed to be kept above water after landing in the ocean regardless of vehicle orientation... flotation devices would inflate shortly after water impact and would keep the hatch up above the waterline, regardless of whether the vehicle came to rest right side up or inverted...

The manufacturing of the spacecraft was to mirror typical aircraft manufacturing to the greatest extent possible, again in keeping with the affordability factor for reusable spacecraft...

That's it... this would make a NEAT gliding entry in a future/fantasy event or just for sport flying...

Later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 12:07 PM
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Here's a little supplemental stuff that wasn't in the report...

First, here's the SLI (Space Launch Initiative) proposal for OSP (Orbital Space Plane) from the early 2000's (prior to the Columbia disaster and the redirection of the space program under the VSE, which replaced OSP with the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle, some proposal of which were small spaceplanes but all of which were ruled out when the focus of the program turned to lunar/deep space exploration with the announcement of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) for which spaceplanes were ill suited compared to capsule designs.) Notice the similarity to the PLS system proposal of a decade or so earlier...

Here's another pic I have from another study, this one showing one of the NLS/ALS launch vehicle (LV) proposals using SDLV (shuttle derived launch vehicle) designs that came out through that effort. NLS, the "National Launch System", was originally proposed in the wake of the Challenger disaster as a possible shuttle derived replacement for the shuttle, using an SDLV to lift a new capsule or small spaceplane to orbit and retiring the shuttle orbiters. After it became apparent that shuttle would continue and return to flight, the focus of NLS shifted as it first tried to be a supplementary HLV program to operate and augment shuttle capabilities alongside shuttle, and when approval and funding for that was not going to be forthcoming for such a vehicle, the focus changed again on a "medium"-HLV SDLV that could function for both NASA and the Air Force as a "lower cost" replacement for the rather expensive Titan IV. The Air Force had no interest in entering another partnership with NASA after their shuttle experience and ALS, the "Advanced Launch System" died a quiet death, soon to be replaced within a couple years or so with the EELV program for the Air Force, which developed the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles Delta IV and Atlas V to replace Titan IV.

Here's the HL-42 proposal...

And a modified HL-42 manned logistics resupply cargo carrier vehicle, for transporting pressurized cargo to the space station...

The HL-42's spacecraft mating adaptor with its integral LES rocket system...


later! OL JR
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Old 03-24-2012, 12:13 PM
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A few more small spaceplane ideas over the years, getting increasingly weird as we go along...

When the shuttle itself was in the earliest days of proposal/development, the concept of a small reusable spaceplane primarily for crew transport and maybe at most logistical resupply to a space station, presumably launched by a supplementary HLV, was proposed. This would allow a more "incremental" approach to a reusable shuttle system, allowing for the orbital vehicle to be developed and "perfected" first, using an LV specifically designed for low cost (a variation on the low cost booster concept discussed in another NASA study summary). This was rejected in lieu of NASA's "all or nothing" large mostly reusable shuttle design, which was increasingly compromised by the Air Force design requirements for large crossrange and an enormous payload bay... This is basically the PLS system, ala late 60's early 70's...

Details of the competing low cost expendable launcher mated to reusable small spaceplane idea for shuttle, compared to more "traditional" partially and fully reusable shuttle ideas. Everything old is new again as here we are 40 years later, looking for low cost expendable rocket launchers, and the small spaceplane idea now resides in commercial development of the "Dreamchaser" vehicle...

Lockheed's proposal for the Orbital Space Plane program... which would have launched atop a manrated EELV, probably Delta IV Heavy...

Some more small spaceplane concepts, probably from the OSP era... there's also a biconic, which was some of the other proposals for OSP, including capsules, that were made. OSP was quietly canceled but basically the proposals rolled directly into the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) program at the beginning of the VSE, so the early contenders for today's Orion design also included biconics and small spaceplanes in addition to capsules (though capsules had a huge advantage, particularly over spaceplanes, for deep space exploration work).

More later! OL JR
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