NASA study summary: JPL Solid Propellant Nova vehicle

[luke strawwalker]

Here's the second summary I've worked up. This one is about a study from 1962 done at JPL entitled "The Applicability of Solid Propellants for a NOVA class Injection Vehicle and Comparison with a Liquid Vehicle of Comparable Capability". It's 109 pages and probably one of the most "beastial" launch vehicles ever conceived...

Enjoy! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

The first pic is of the JPL four stage NOVA all-solid propulsion launch vehicle proposal... it consists of four stages made up of various combinations of clusters of two seperate SRM types... the "A" motor, which was to be 22 feet in diameter EACH (264 inches) and the "B" motor, which was to be 19 feet in diameter EACH (228 inches).

The first stage would consist of a cluster of 7 "A" motors, having a total outer diameter of the first stage of 77 feet (more than TWICE that of Saturn V!) and a first stage height of 81.5 feet from the nozzle exit plane. It would produce FIFTY MILLION POUNDS of liftoff thrust (compared to Saturn V's 7.5 million).

The second stage would consist of a cluster of 3 "A" motors which would take the height of the vehicle to 164.5 feet at the second stage seperation plane.

The third stage would consist of a cluster of 6 "B" motors arranged in a hollow hexagon pattern, which increased the vehicle height to 208.5 feet at the top of the third stage.

The fourth stage was a single "B" type SRM delivered unlit to LEO with the payload attached, partially nestled inside the cluster of 6 "B" motors on the third stage. Small "OMS" type rocket engines would boost the speed sufficiently to achieve orbit since the third stage would burn out just before achieving orbital velocity, for disposal in the atmosphere. When ready for the TLI burn, the fourth stage SRM would be commanded to ignite, and would propel the spacecraft or cargo to escape velocity and be discarded.

The vehicle would weigh 30 million pounds on the launch pad-- about five times what a Saturn V weighed-- and be capable of lifting 500,000 pounds to LEO and inject 130,000 pounds to escape velocity.

The use of low specific-impulse solid fuel in upper stages limited the capabilities of the vehicle, but it was felt reduced complexity, cost, and schedule risk. With hydrogen powered upperstages sized to take advantage of the enormous liftoff thrust and cargo lifting capacity of the first two SRM stages, a payload of 930,000 pounds could be delivered to LEO, or 110,000 pounds delivered to the lunar surface. If the rocket were to deliver an electric propulsion spacecraft to LEO, the delivered mass to the surface of the moon, predicated on using LH2 for descent and landing propulsion, would increase to between 215,000 and 440,000 pounds of delivered cargo on the lunar surface, depending on the trajectory transit time selected.



The second pic is a comparison of the JPL all-solid concept compared to a different solid/liquid propulsion concept vehicle, and an all-liquid engine NOVA concept.



The third pic is basically the same as the last one, from a different part of the report.



The fourth pic is a comparison of different size vehicle concepts depending on the selected landing/mission mode.



The fifth pic is another comparison of all-liquid vehicles using EOR methods for a lunar mission (assembly in Earth orbit-- including a Saturn based propellant tanker on the left) with a Saturn crew launch vehicle second from the left, what came to be the Saturn V we know second from the right, and a four stage all-liquid Saturn V on the right (which is an interesting vehicle proposal in itself-- imagine a Saturn V with a 6 RL-10 powered S-IV stage mounted atop the S-IVB stage... interesting concept especially if it were designed so the S-IV stage was delivered to orbit with essentially full tanks (less final orbital injection and circularization propellant).



Later! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Here's some more pics...

The first pic is a diagram of the 6 outer first stage SRMs... they had their nozzles canted 5 degrees to align their thrust with the burnout CG of the vehicle to minimize corrective forces (and therefore steering fluid consumption) of the vehicle in flight due to slight thrust imbalances between the SRMs...

The second pic is a sideview diagram of the JPL Nova proposal... apparently they planned to use "fire in the hole" staging, where the upperstage motors are ignited before complete burnout of the preceding stage, as the Titan II did-- see the blowout panels around the stage seperation planes just below the nozzles of the stage above it... The rocket in this pic, with the payload, is projected a 399.5 feet tall!


The third pic is an 'exploded' diagram showing the location and layout of the interstages, fairings, steering fluid system, etc. proposed for the vehicle.

The fourth pic is a diagram of the CG locations of the stack and their shifts in position at ignition and burnout and after seperation of each successive stage. It's interesting to note that our multistage solid model rockets undergo similar shifts in CG from ignition to burnout and at staging...


The fifth pic is of the steering fluid tank concepts explored for the JPL four stage all-solid NOVA concept. Stability and control of such a large vehicle was believed to be feasible, but the exclusive use of SRMs complicated the design of thrust vector control systems. Three proposals were looked at: 1) the use of jet-vane assemblies in the exhaust outlet of the nozzles, similar to V-2 and Redstone. This was dismissed due to the power-robbing effects of the jet vanes being stuck in the exhaust stream, and the difficulties and technical risks involved in finding suitable materials that could stand up to SRM thrust levels and have sufficient control authority at high altitudes with overexpanded nozzle plumes. 2) Vernier control rockets, IE directional thrusters-- these were considered to have some development risk, be heavy, and complicated systems. They had the advantage of providing continuous stabilizing forces during SRM tailoff and burnout, during staging, before upper stage SRM ignition and coming up to pressure/thrust. 3) Liquid steering fluid injection systems installed on the nozzles, similar to that used on the Titan III SRB's, developed for Polaris and Minuteman, which injects nitrogen tetroxide 'steering fluid' through nozzles placed radially around the nozzle periphery, which when activated by valves controlled by the stabilizing platform, would inject this high-pressure fluid into the exhaust stream of the nozzle in a specific direction, "bending" the exhaust stream of the rocket motor coming out of the fixed nozzle and creating a correcting force similar to that if the nozzle was gimballed. This system was considered the lightest and least risky to develop.

More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Here's some more...

The fifth pic is the first stage center motor of the cluster... it had a straight nozzle pointing directly aft.



The fourth pic is a second stage SRM, which were, like the 6 outer SRMs in the first stage cluster, all canted 5 degrees from centerline to direct their thrust through the burnout CG to minimize trajectory impacts from thrust imbalances. They were also to have larger nozzles that were optimized for the upper atmosphere/vacuum...



The third pic is of the third stage SRMs, the smaller "B" motors. These likewise were canted 5 degrees off the centerline to minimize trajectory disturbance, and as all three large motors in the second stage, all six in the third stage were canted away from the centerline.



The second pic is of the straight-nozzle fourth stage "B" motor SRM. Since it was to fly as a single SRM, it had a straight nozzle thrusting through the centerline. Storable propellant liquid vernier engines would provide stabilization while on orbit and provide for short duration burns necessary to inject the fourth stage and payload into orbit (from near-orbital speed at third stage burnout, designed so that the third stage would re-enter the atmosphere and break up for ocean disposal). The fourth stage motor would be lit for the TLI/escape trajectory burn.



The first picture is a screencap of some of the more interesting text from the study itself... fascinating read.



Bit more to come... OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Here's the last four for this batch... some of these are 'orphans' that I post here merely because they're related to NOVA concepts of the time...

The first pic is another screencap of the study itself, detailing some of the layout.



The second pic is an 'orphan' I picked up somewhere along the way... it isn't related to the JPL study, as the NOVA concepts visualized there aren't layed out like the JPL study is. Interesting nonetheless...



The third pic is a chart someone linked to or posted on nasaspaceflight.com forums. It's an interesting 'gamut' of the main NOVA proposals of the time...



The fourth and last pic is some liquid (obviously Saturn-derived) NOVA proposals... vehicles such as these were competing against the solid designs detailed in this study...



Hope you found it interesting... might make some cool "future/fantasy scale" rockets! Later! OL JR

[blackshire]

Another waterfall--excellent! This is why I'm glad I successfully agitated for the creation of this Scale & Sport Scale forum. Also:

Those designs show what could be done today with the existing Shuttle SRB tooling, which would keep the folks at Thiokol (now ATK) happy and employed. By dispensing with the SRB's aft skirt (which supports its movable nozzle) and using a simpler fixed nozzle with secondary fluid injection for thrust vector control, clustered SRB-based solid stages of various lengths could be combined to create a family of heavy-lift launch vehicles. Although it would take more time to build them up before launch, such huge and heavy rockets could be stacked at their launch pads one motor at a time, which would make it unnecessary to upgrade the crawler-transporters and the VAB floor to support the assembled vehicles' weight.

[Joe Wooten]

The first pic is of the JPL four stage NOVA all-solid propulsion launch vehicle proposal... it consists of four stages made up of various combinations of clusters of two seperate SRM types... the "A" motor, which was to be 22 feet in diameter EACH (264 inches) and the "B" motor, which was to be 19 feet in diameter EACH (228 inches).

The first stage would consist of a cluster of 7 "A" motors, having a total outer diameter of the first stage of 77 feet (more than TWICE that of Saturn V!) and a first stage height of 81.5 feet from the nozzle exit plane. It would produce FIFTY MILLION POUNDS of liftoff thrust (compared to Saturn V's 7.5 million).

The second stage would consist of a cluster of 3 "A" motors which would take the height of the vehicle to 164.5 feet at the second stage seperation plane.

The third stage would consist of a cluster of 6 "B" motors arranged in a hollow hexagon pattern, which increased the vehicle height to 208.5 feet at the top of the third stage.

The fourth stage was a single "B" type SRM delivered unlit to LEO with the payload attached, partially nestled inside the cluster of 6 "B" motors on the third stage. Small "OMS" type rocket engines would boost the speed sufficiently to achieve orbit since the third stage would burn out just before achieving orbital velocity, for disposal in the atmosphere. When ready for the TLI burn, the fourth stage SRM would be commanded to ignite, and would propel the spacecraft or cargo to escape velocity and be discarded.

The vehicle would weigh 30 million pounds on the launch pad-- about five times what a Saturn V weighed-- and be capable of lifting 500,000 pounds to LEO and inject 130,000 pounds to escape velocity.

The use of low specific-impulse solid fuel in upper stages limited the capabilities of the vehicle, but it was felt reduced complexity, cost, and schedule risk. With hydrogen powered upperstages sized to take advantage of the enormous liftoff thrust and cargo lifting capacity of the first two SRM stages, a payload of 930,000 pounds could be delivered to LEO, or 110,000 pounds delivered to the lunar surface. If the rocket were to deliver an electric propulsion spacecraft to LEO, the delivered mass to the surface of the moon, predicated on using LH2 for descent and landing propulsion, would increase to between 215,000 and 440,000 pounds of delivered cargo on the lunar surface, depending on the trajectory transit time selected.


Later! OL JR

Can you imagine the wreckage the launch pad would have been after that baby was fired? I bet our current EPA and the other enviro-whackos would have really loved this monster.......

[luke strawwalker]

Another waterfall--excellent! This is why I'm glad I successfully agitated for the creation of this Scale & Sport Scale forum. Also:

Those designs show what could be done today with the existing Shuttle SRB tooling, which would keep the folks at Thiokol (now ATK) happy and employed. By dispensing with the SRB's aft skirt (which supports its movable nozzle) and using a simpler fixed nozzle with secondary fluid injection for thrust vector control, clustered SRB-based solid stages of various lengths could be combined to create a family of heavy-lift launch vehicles. Although it would take more time to build them up before launch, such huge and heavy rockets could be stacked at their launch pads one motor at a time, which would make it unnecessary to upgrade the crawler-transporters and the VAB floor to support the assembled vehicles' weight.

Well, if a line capable of mass-producing expendable SRM casings was started... Using the shuttle casings they'd run out after a couple flights. Spiral filament wound is one way to get the weight down, and I'm sure that SFW casings have come a LONG way technologically since 61-62.... but of course they're expendable. BUT, this would be an expendable rocket-- it'd be unrealistic to recover it (CERTAINLY cost more to recover and refurb than simply to replace the casings). Even disposable steel casings wouldn't be that big a deal-- they could be made by shipbuilders experienced with manufacturing high pressure hulls (submarines) quite easily.

The problem is the thrust-- go much bigger than Saturn V-- I think the limit is about 11 million pounds, and may be less (I know the pads at 39A and B were designed to handle up to 11 million pounds thrust), and the acoustics (shock waves) from the motors firing create enough overpressure to shatter windows for miles around, and there are towns close enough that it would start becoming a real problem.

Building an offshore launching pad like a floating offshore oil rig (or even permanently moored) would solve that problem, but it costs MONEY.

That's the thing with the VAB/crawler infrastructure... it's fundamentally limited in what it can handle. The VAB doors limit vehicle height to 410 feet, and the current crawlers and crawlerways limit the weight... I think, IIRC, that two five segment boosters on a SHUTTLE SIZED ET-BASED CORE is JUST SQUEAKING UNDER the weight limits that the crawlers and crawlerways can handle. I know that going to a 33 foot core like Ares V had switched to added enough weight that it required a new crawler and crawlerways beefed up. The VAB and crawler method was designed for high flight rates, which never happened-- either with Saturn V OR shuttle, (though shuttle wasn't even ORIGINALLY designed to use the Saturn infrastructure-- that requirement came later as a 'cost cutting' method! I've seen a study that proposed launching Shuttle from the new "Spiro T. Agnew Space Center" in Matagorda County, Texas, near Bay City, Texas... that would have been cool-- 2 MAJOR space centers within 80 miles of each other, and me 3/4 of the way between them!!!) Thing is, the vertical integration and crawl the to pad method has been proven to be probably the most expensive way to do it. That's why EELV and SpaceX have copied the Russian method of horizontal integration of the vehicle, transport it to the pad BY RAIL, and then elevate it on the pad. (Why is it the Russians always figured out the cheapest way to do it decades ago and stuck with it??)

Remember that ALL rockets were integrated (stacked) at the pad or hauled horizontally and erected at the pad before Saturn V... even Apollo 7's Saturn IB and Apollo capsule were stacked at the pad at SLC34... It wasn't until Skylab that a Saturn IB was integrated in the VAB... and flown off a 'milkstool' so that the Saturn V pads could mate up to it!

Personally, having read and studied this stuff for the last several years following the saga of the Cx program on nasaspaceflight.com forums, I think that if they're going to keep the VAB and crawler system, they either need to do one of two things-- go with an ALL LIQUID FUELLED HLV (kerolox) that can be hauled to the pad empty-- remember Saturn V was 'mostly air' in the empty tanks when it was hauled to the pad on the crawlers... so upscaling it would be NO problem... OR, go with the "21st Century Spaceport" method... (depending on what that actually means). TO me it means construct a series of adaptable MLP's that can be easily reconfigured to service a number of different vehicle designs, obviously they'd still be limited to less than 410 feet in height and less than the weight of 2 5 segments SRB's, but for MLV's and some HLV designs that'd be enough. Or spring for the money and upgrade SLC 39 to support larger vehicles, but that means redoing the pads, crawlers, crawlerways, and possibly the VAB floor, and depending on how big a vehicle you're talking about, maybe raising the VAB roof-- NOT CHEAP!!!

The other alternative is to go back to the 'stack on the pad' method... then you can build as large a rocket as you want. Course the acoustics and setback distances for large clusters of SRM's still apply, so if one wanted to build a LARGE multi-SRM based HLV like this JPL NOVA rocket, that would virtually require either building an offshore launch complex or moving the whole operation out to the Pacific Islands...

Later! OL JR :)

[Bill]

Personally, having read and studied this stuff for the last several years following the saga of the Cx program on nasaspaceflight.com forums, I think that if they're going to keep the VAB and crawler system, they either need to do one of two things-- go with an ALL LIQUID FUELLED HLV (kerolox) that can be hauled to the pad empty-- remember Saturn V was 'mostly air' in the empty tanks when it was hauled to the pad on the crawlers... so upscaling it would be NO problem... OR, go with the "21st Century Spaceport" method... (depending on what that actually means). TO me it means construct a series of adaptable MLP's that can be easily reconfigured to service a number of different vehicle designs, obviously they'd still be limited to less than 410 feet in height and less than the weight of 2 5 segments SRB's, but for MLV's and some HLV designs that'd be enough. Or spring for the money and upgrade SLC 39 to support larger vehicles, but that means redoing the pads, crawlers, crawlerways, and possibly the VAB floor, and depending on how big a vehicle you're talking about, maybe raising the VAB roof-- NOT CHEAP!!!



Funny how we laughed at how the fins on the V-2 were influenced by the size of German railway tunnels. Now our own launch vehicles are limited by the capacity of the crawler or the height of the VAB...

Stacking on the pad brings its own set of problems: protection from sea spray and tropical storm systems.


Bill

[Doug Sams]

Here's the second summary I've worked up. This one is about a study from 1962 done at JPL entitled "The Applicability of Solid Propellants for a NOVA class Injection Vehicle and Comparison with a Liquid Vehicle of Comparable Capability". It's 109 pages and probably one of the most "beastial" launch vehicles ever conceived...

Enjoy! OL JRThis reminds me of a funny experience during my early education. The Nova rocket was originally envisioned as the necessary moon launch vehicle. I was told it would have had something like 5x the lifting capability of a Saturn V.

Seems that, when I was in second grade, we were starting to enjoy the benefits of the country's rush into teaching us science, so that we could catch up with those all-knowing Russians.

So, by 1968 (2nd grade), our school had been wired such that every classroom had a TV. The only caveat was the programming. There was no cable in those days, only over-the-air, which amounted to the three network affiliates out of Louisville, plus the PBS outlet there. We also had the Kentucky Educational Television Channel, KETC. Alas, KETC showed pretty much the same pablum as PBS, at the same exact time, no less.

And the content was badly dated. By 68, when it was already well known (even by little kids) that the Saturn V was to take us to the moon, the ~7 year old "education" program being shown to us in the classroom was telling us that the Nova rocket was needed to get to the moon.

Every time I think of that dreadful moment in history, when our country began drinking the kool-aid that educational TV would cure all us hicks of ignorance, I chuckle about how they told me Nova rockets were the way to get to the moon ;)

I doubt those TV's were on for more than a few hours in the first couple of years, and pretty much sat unused for many more years. Later, in high school, we still had them, and finally began using a fee of them with the availabilty of video tape recorders (VTRs) along with cable.

But I've always thought how poor a return on investment they were. Most of the sets were still barely broken in when I graduated in 1979. They mostly just gathered dust over the years.


Doug

.

[luke strawwalker]

Funny how we laughed at how the fins on the V-2 were influenced by the size of German railway tunnels. Now our own launch vehicles are limited by the capacity of the crawler or the height of the VAB...

Stacking on the pad brings its own set of problems: protection from sea spray and tropical storm systems.


Bill

You can design around that...

Of course, you can design around ANYTHING if you're willing to spend enough money... :)

OL JR :)

[luke strawwalker]

This reminds me of a funny experience during my early education. The Nova rocket was originally envisioned as the necessary moon launch vehicle. I was told it would have had something like 5x the lifting capability of a Saturn V.

Seems that, when I was in second grade, we were starting to enjoy the benefits of the country's rush into teaching us science, so that we could catch up with those all-knowing Russians.

So, by 1968 (2nd grade), our school had been wired such that every classroom had a TV. The only caveat was the programming. There was no cable in those days, only over-the-air, which amounted to the three network affiliates out of Louisville, plus the PBS outlet there. We also had the Kentucky Educational Television Channel, KETC. Alas, KETC showed pretty much the same pablum as PBS, at the same exact time, no less.

And the content was badly dated. By 68, when it was already well known (even by little kids) that the Saturn V was to take us to the moon, the ~7 year old "education" program being shown to us in the classroom was telling us that the Nova rocket was needed to get to the moon.

Every time I think of that dreadful moment in history, when our country began drinking the kool-aid that educational TV would cure all us hicks of ignorance, I chuckle about how they told me Nova rockets were the way to get to the moon ;)

I doubt those TV's were on for more than a few hours in the first couple of years, and pretty much sat unused for many more years. Later, in high school, we still had them, and finally began using a fee of them with the availabilty of video tape recorders (VTRs) along with cable.

But I've always thought how poor a return on investment they were. Most of the sets were still barely broken in when I graduated in 1979. They mostly just gathered dust over the years.


Doug

.

Drinking the koolaid seems to be the national passtime now...

I got excited about X-33, which then became VentureStar, and which subsequently disappeared. I got excited about Reagan's National Aerospace Plane, and that quietly disappeared. I was interested in Reagan's "Space Station Freedom", which, after over a decade of design and redesign and re-redesign and re-re-redesign, FINALLY morphed into ISS and flew it's first bits in 1998, and STILL ISN'T FINISHED A DOZEN YEARS LATER-- and which has ballooned to well over $100 billion bucks, with little to show for it. I got excited about Bush I's SEI "moon, Mars, and beyond" program, and again with Bush II's VSE "moon, Mars, and beyond" program, both of which dissolved into nothingness amidst a budget morass and a NASA incapable of successfully designing and managing a program.

I've had SO much koolaid over the years my poop has turned green! (Anybody who's drank massive amounts of Gatoraide will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!)

I'm not drinking Koolaid anymore... still "get excited" about space, but NASA certainly is prone to disappoint. I believe in results, not cheap talk. Once I see some results, then I'll listen to what they have to say. That's why I've gone from EXTREMELY skeptical of SpaceX to saying "give 'em a shot at it!"-- because they've PRODUCED RESULTS.

This JPL NOVA vehicle (and most of the other NOVA and Saturn improvements for that matter) were aimed at a long-term deep-space exploration program. It wasn't meant for a short term "flags and footprints" moon mission, which is what the space program devolved into... and which seems to have become mired in since 1972... It's sad really...

Maybe that'll be a slogan... NASA 2012-- 40 years of spinning our wheels...

Later! OL JR :)

[Jerry Irvine]

Drinking the koolaid seems to be the national passtime now...

I've had SO much koolaid over the years my poop has turned green! (Anybody who's drank massive amounts of Gatoraide will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!)

I'm not drinking Koolaid anymore... still "get excited" about space, but NASA certainly is prone to disappoint. I believe in results, not cheap talk. "If you want to go to space, build rockets." - Charles Pooley, Microlaunchers

Just Jerry