NASA STUDY SUMMARY: "Advanced Multipurpose Large Launch Vehicles Technical Report"

[luke strawwalker]

Here's a summary of the major 431 page monster report on the monster boosters proposed for after Saturn V... in fact Saturn V wouldn't even be a good size STRAP-ON BOOSTER for this monster! 100 million pounds of thrust at liftoff from TWELVE 260 inch SRM's and the core engines!

Enjoy! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is the baseline core vehicle, and the core vehicle plus injection stage... 71.7 feet in diameter!


Pic two is the core vehicle with the TWELVE 260 inch SRM strap on boosters, each producing 9 million pounds of thrust...


Pic three is the construction of the multichamber plug nozzle vehicle-- basically the equivalent of 24 F-1's clustered around an inverted cone...


Pic four is different strap on boosters looked at in the study-- liquid pressure fed single chamber designs and the 260 inch Aerojet SRM...


Pic five is the injection stage, with its nested toroidal LH2/LO2 tanks and engines arranged circumferentially around the perimeter... capable of being stacked as "wafers" to increase the stage capacity depending on the payload, and easily adding additional engines.


More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is the arrangement of the multiple chambers around the plug nozzle base of the first stage...


Pic two is the toroidal aerospike engine thrust chamber surrounding the plug aerospike nozzle...


Pic three is the main stage configuration...


Pic four is a comparison of different arrangements of LOX tank and common bulkhead-- all previous stages having common bulkheads placed the LOX tank aft, but this study proved that placing the LOX tank forward (since the LOX is MUCH MUCH denser and heavier than the LH2) gave MUCH better controllability to the vehicle, by putting the engines farther from the CG giving a longer moment arm to control motions. Doing this reduced the gimbal requirements from 21 degrees to just 4 degrees. This concept would be carried forward into the design of the shuttle's ET...


Pic five is the study of different length/diameters and their effects on the vehicle...


More coming! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one looked at different mixture ratios in the engines and their effect on vehicle design...


Pic two is a closer look at the pressure-fed liquid booster design...


Pic three is a cutaway drawing of the vehicle core with the 12 SRMs clustered around it. Part of this study looked at different methods of attaching the SRMs to the core. It was found that with the LOX tank forward, placing the main thrust force transfer structures from the SRMs into the core vehicle at the forward skirt would lighten the structure significantly, since the LOX tank had to be heavier to handle the loads anyway, and the LH2 tank would be in tension and therefore had the same loads as the core vehicle alone (no boosters). The forward skirt had to be significantly stronger (and therefore heavier) but it saved considerable extra weight in the hydrogen tank walls if they didn't have to support the extra forces of the SRMs transferring their thrust into the aft end of the vehicle and through the hydrogen tank walls. This idea would be carried forward on the space shuttle, which transfers the thrust forces of the SRB's through the FORWARD attach points into the intertank beam, which supports the heavy LO2 tank above it. The lighter LH2 tank below the intertank beam remains in tension until SRB burnout and SRB jettison, when it comes under compression loads from the SSME thrust, but by this time it's half empty (at least) and the loads are far more manageable. (it's a little more complicated than this, but it makes the point). To negate the extra weight added to the forward skirt of the heavier beefed up booster-thrust absorbing version, a second lightweight version was proposed for when the vehicle flew alone without boosters...


Pic four is an enlargement of the back half of the drawing...


Pic five is an enlargement of the fwd half of the drawing...


More to come! OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is another cutaway of the vehicle, with labels...


Pic two is the multichamber thrust structure with labels...


Pic three is a top quarter view of the multichamber thrust structure...


Pic four is the toroidal thrust structure in cutaway with labels...


Pic five is the injection stage in cutaway with labels...


More to come... OL JR

[luke strawwalker]

Pic one is another labeled cutaway...


Pic two is the launch concept proposal... the thing was SO powerful the setback distances were pretty big...


Pic three is some of the launch site proposals...


Pic four is the reusable first stage design and flight profile...


That's it for this one! Later! OL JR