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Reusable Booster System Review and Assessment (2012) / Chapter Skim
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1 Background
Pages 6-9

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From page 6...
... 1.1 SPACELIFT REQUIREMENTS AND OBJECTIVES FOR NATIONAL SECURITY PAYLOADS Assured access to space is an overarching requirement for national security payloads, and it is Air Force policy to provide launches for them. The present manifest1 for these payloads, which is illustrated in Table 1.1, comprises five different functional requirements, a variety of final orbits, and an average annual launch rate of eight per year.
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From page 7...
... SOURCE: Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, SMC Developmental Planning, "Reusable Booster System Costing," presentation to the committee, February 15, 2012. Approved for Public Release.
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From page 8...
... A brief review indicated that implementation of higher performance in-space propulsion or disaggregation of payloads would enable the Falcon 9 to deliver all or most of the national security payloads shown in Table 1.1. The reliability of the vehicle and its associated launch costs for Air Force payloads are not established, although it is noted that SpaceX has entered a fixed-price contract with NASA for 12 cargo missions to the ISS for $1.6 billion.5 The 2011 price for a Falcon 9 launch of a commercial COMSAT is $54 million.6 Perhaps more important, commercial launchers (1)
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From page 9...
... The items to be addressed include these: · Criteria and assumptions used in the formulation of current RBS plans; · Methodologies used in the current cost estimates for RBS; · Modeling methodology used to frame the business case for an RBS capability, including -- The data used in the analysis -- The models' robustness if new data become available; · The impact of unclassified government data that had not previously been available; · The technical maturity of elements critical to RBS implementation; and · The ability of current technology development plans to meet technical readiness milestones. Accordingly, the NRC formed the Committee for the Reusable Booster System: Review and Assessment, which consists of experts independent of current RBS activities but with experience in the areas of launch vehicle design and operation, research and technology development and implementation, space system operations, and cost analysis.
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Key Terms

  • expendable upper
  • expendable launch
  • force space
  • earth orbit
  • launch rate

  • launch vehicles
  • evolved expendable
  • rbs concept
  • upper stage
  • security payloads

  • annual launch
  • average launch
  • launch vehicle
  • launch costs
  • launch approaches

  • rbs program
  • space command
  • government accountability
  • upper stages
  • aerospace corporation

  • nrc evaluation
  • smc developmental
  • accountability office
  • space launch
  • force spacelift

  • lower launch
  • potential expendable
  • launch capability
  • air forces
  • reusable boost


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