Atlas V set for final missions ahead of retirement
Date:
Thu, 31 Oct 2024 18:30:02 +0000
Description:
United Launch Alliance (ULA) will soon close out production of its Atlas V rocket, completing The post Atlas V set for final missions ahead of
retirement appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .
FULL STORY ======================================================================
United Launch Alliance (ULA) will soon close out production of its Atlas V rocket, completing a stock of 15 boosters set to fly on contracted missions. With ULAs future focus on the Vulcan rocket, Atlas V will aim to end on a high, adding to over one hundred successful launches.
The last Atlas V Common Core Booster will shortly be completed in Decatur, Alabama, at the United Launch Alliance (ULA) manufacturing plant. The final booster will be tested and then held in readiness for its eventual mission. ULA will then have fifteen complete Atlas V boosters in stockall of which are already sold and assigned to a mission. The remaining missions are mostly allocated to Amazon for Project Kuiper and Boeings Starliner.
Atlas V first flew on Aug. 21, 2002. Many of its subsequent missions have
been for the United States Air Force (USAF). The USAF has used many Atlas Vs to launch both classified and unclassified payloads, taking full advantage of the rockets ability to do its job. Bitter sweet. The final Atlas V is making its way through the factory. There are 16 AV missions to go. They will all be built this year, making more room for #Vulcan rate production pic.twitter.com/loYE8yV9da
Tory Bruno (@torybruno) June 12, 2024
Background
The requirement for Atlas V was created under the 1994 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) launch system program. The program was anticipated to develop affordable and dependable vehicles for the United States military,
who in turn, were developing ever larger and more complex satellites. The
EELV was expected to produce vehicles that used common fairings, solid rocket boosters, liquid fuels, and upper stages. The $3 billion program eventually produced the Boeing Delta IV and the Lockheed Martin Atlas V. Each vehicle
has a range of configurations that use a distinct set of common parts.
In 2006, events beyond the scope of this article led to the creation of a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which became the United Launch Alliance. Each company retained a 50 percent share in the new venture, which would own and operate the two launch vehicles.
While Lockheed Martin had been producing Atlas boosters in Littleton, Colorado, ULA moved production of Atlas V to the 1999-2000 built Boeing Delta rocket production facility in Decatur. The 1.6 million-square-foot factory employs around 1,000 people. Ten to twelve Atlas V boosters were built at the plant each year, alongside the Delta family of rockets.
Construction
Earlier versions of Atlas boosters had made use of balloon tanks, which require pressurizing to retain their structural strength. Atlas Vs first
stage is constructed in the now conventional manner, utilizing plates of computer-milled aluminum with an iso grid pattern to produce lightweight yet strong panels. The panels are then pressed into curves by specialist workers operating a large hydraulic press. A computer milling machine creates iso
grid patterns on a sheet of aluminum. (Credit: ULA)
The parts are friction stir-welded into stages that possess sufficient structural integrity to stand upright and unpressurized. The stages measure 3.7 meters in diameter and 32.5 meters in length. The boosters are powered by a single RD-180 engine with two nozzles, propelled by liquid oxygen and kerosene. The engine burns for around four minutes and produces 4 MN of thrust.
The RD-180 engine was developed in Russia by Energomash from the RD-170
engine used on the Zenit boosters of the Energia rocket. The engines were
sold to Lockheed Martin and later ULA. These deals ensured that ULA received its engines in batches. Consequently, ULA had sufficient stock of RD-180s to fulfill its needs when sales were halted as a result of the political unrest in Ukraine.
The Atlas V booster uses the Centaur III or Common Centaur upper stage, powered by Pratt & Whitneys RL10 engine which burns liquid hydrogen and
liquid oxygen. The Centaur has been in use since 1962 and continues today
with Centaur V, which flies atop Vulcan.
Variants
As specified in the EELV requirements, the Atlas V variants include many common parts. The design allows for up to five strap-on solid rocket boosters to be added, each increasing the available thrust by 1.27 MN for 94 seconds.
Both Aerojet AJ-60A and Northrop Grumman GEM 63 solid rocket boosters have been used, with the GEM 63 replacing the AJ-60A since November 2020.
The fairings used are variable in size. Initially, the fairings were
available in 4.2 meters diameter and lengths of 9, 10, and 11 m. However, a 5.4 m diameter fairing was developed by RUAG Space of Switzerland. This fairing envelops the Centaur upper stage as well as the payload. Versions of this larger fairing are available in 20.7, 23.4, and 26.5 m length variants. Schematic of the Atlas V 500 series. (Credit: ULA)
Each flight is allotted a three-digit configuration code: The first digit is either 4 or 5 to indicate the fairing diameter, or N if a crew capsule is being used and no fairings are required. The second digit provides the number of solid rocket motors being used, and the third digit signifies the number
of engines fitted on the Centaur upper stage either 1 or 2.
Tory Bruno let it be known that ULA has unofficial nicknames for some of the variants. Bruno later confirmed on X that the names included:
551 Bruiser; 541 Beast; 531 Thunderer; 421 Sprinter; 411 Slider; 401 Slick Atlas
Missions
Atlas V flew its missions from dedicated pads on both US coasts. The West Coast base is at Space Launch Complex (SLC) 3 East, in Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida remains in use today on the East Coast, now shared with Vulcan, the successor to Atlas V.
With 101 missions all flown successfully, Atlas V has made a huge
contribution to American spaceflight. Capable and dependable, the vehicle has delivered a spectrum of mission profiles from low-Earth orbit to interplanetary for over twenty years.
Notable Atlas V payloads have included Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, New Horizons, Mars 2020, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The launch roster contains familiar names such as Landsat, NROL, GOES, TDRS, and Cygnus. Scientific payload highlights have been LUCY, OSIRIS-REx, and Juno.
The final Atlas V to launch from the West Coast was the JPSS-2 weather satellite JPSS-2 weather satellite . Launched on Nov. 10, 2022, this flight was also the last to utilize the 4-meter fairing.
The final classified mission to fly was USSF-51. The lift-off occurred on
July 30, 2024, from SLC-41.
Crewed Missions Starliner launches on Atlas V. (Credit: Mike Deep for NSF)
The campaign to certify Atlas V for crewed flights took a long and tortured path. As early as 2005, NASA had considered Atlas as a Space Shuttle replacement in the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). Based on
the heavy Orion spacecraft, NASA thought the vehicle unsuitable for crewed missions at this time, but meanwhile, Atlas V continued to launch uncrewed payloads with unfailing reliability. See Also ULA Missions NSF Store Click here to Join L2
In 2011, ULA signed an unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA to work toward crew certification. The Agreement examined the use of vehicles such as the Dream Chaser, Boeing CST-100 Starliner, and Blue Origins spacecraft being flown aboard Atlas V.
This process continued to certification to launch Starliner. NASA and ULA
took until 2018 to pass the Design Certification Review (DCR) . The
subsequent launch of the uncrewed Orbital Flight Test 1 for Boeings CST-100 Starliner spacecraft occurred in December 2019.
Four more years would pass before the first crewed launch, Starliners Crewed Flight Test. This mission eventually lifted off on June 5, 2024, 22 years after Atlas Vs first flight.
The certification and successful flights have come late in Atlas Vs history, and only a few further crewed flight opportunities remain, with a maximum of six additional Starliner missions available.
Incidents
Atlas V is one of the most reliable vehicles produced. Only two missions have been affected by hardware issues, and only one of these was booster-related.
The first mission to suffer an issue was the 2007 launch of the NROL-30 classified payload mission. The payload of a pair of spacecraft was deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit when the Centaur upper stage shut down ahead of schedule.
Cygnus-6 became the sole (to date) mission to suffer any kind of issue with the booster. Its RD-180 engine shut down six seconds early as it lifted the Cygnus spacecraft toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station. The ULA engineering team has reviewed the data and has determined an anomaly with the RD-180 Mixture Ratio Control Valve (MRCV) assembly caused a
reduction in fuel flow during the boost phase of the flight, noted the company, pointing to the assumed issue with the fuel ratio causing the early shutdown.
The Centaur upper stage was able to extend its burn and delivered Cygnus to the desired orbit. However, with less residual fuel available, the stage was deorbited to a contingency debris zone south of New Zealand. The Decatur factory is hopping!! Kind of a nice family photo #DeltaIV , #VulcanCentaur , #AtlasV pic.twitter.com/rjwORQlePv
Tory Bruno (@torybruno) September 22, 2019
The Future
At the time of writing, there are only 15 Atlas V missions outstanding. One
is for ViaSat, eight for Amazons Project Kuiper, and the remaining six for Boeings Starliner missions to the ISS. Many of these boosters have already been delivered to Cape Canaveral and are in storage, ready for use. The timetable could see Atlas V still flying as late as 2030.
Recently, further delays were announced to Starliners schedule. Following the issues experienced on the CFT-1 mission, Boeing requires more time before flying the spacecraft again. It is conceivable that the ISS could be decommissioned before Boeing has had time to fly all of its expected missions to the Station. This situation could find ULA with several spare Atlas Vs.
(Lead image: Atlas V 531 (AV-090) launches the NROL-101 mission. Credit: United Launch Alliance)
The post Atlas V set for final missions ahead of retirement appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .
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https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/10/atlas-v-history/
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