Tim Furniss/LONDON
RUSSIA'S NK-33 liquid-oxygen/kerosene engines, developed for the N1 Moon rocket project, may be used on two new re-usable satellite launchers being proposed in the USA.
The NK-33s, being modified and marketed with US company Aerojet, have been selected, to power the Kistler Aerospace satellite launcher and the Kelly Space and Technology Eclipse Astroliner sub-orbital spaceplane.
The two launchers will be used to capitalise on the projected $8 billion market for placing satellites into low-Earth orbit by 2002. Launches on the K-1 rocket being developed by Kistler of Kirkland, Washington will be marketed at $20 million. Flight tests are scheduled to start in 1998, with operations following a year later.
The project will be financed from private investment, says Kistler, which is staffed by several former high-ranking NASA executives, including George Mueller, who spearheaded Project Apollo.
The components of the two-stage K-1 will be recovered and re-used. The first stage is designed to parachute to a touchdown aided by a landing bag after its launch from the former Nevada nuclear-test site. The second stage will make a similar controlled touchdown after deploying its satellite payload of up to 1,730kg into low-polar Earth orbit or 1,927kg into a 28í-inclination orbit.
While the K-1 lacks a firm customer, the Eclipse operator, Kelly Space of San Bernardino, California, has secured an order from Motorola, which will be worth a total of $89 million, provided that it can launch 20 Iridium mobile-communications satellites into low-Earth orbit on ten Eclipse flights. Further Iridium launches may then be secured.
The 38m-long EclipseE-100 Astroliner will be towed to an altitude of 40,000ft (12,200m) by a Boeing 747 before its NK-33 engine is ignited. It will then be flown to 400,000ft.
The spaceplane will then be used to deploy two Thiokol Star 48B and Star 63F solid-propellant second and third stages and their Iridium satellite payloads. The Eclipse will then glide back to Earth.
Other possibilities for the first-stage engine role are the Rocketdyne Aerospike or RS-27, and Russia's Energia RD-108.
Kelly Space, formed by two former TRW executives who plan first launches in 1999, claims that its launches will cost $10 million. Towed proving flights, funded by a US Government grant of $110,000, will use a modified delta-winged NASA F-106 fighter and a Lockheed C-141 cargo aircraft from Edwards AFB, California.
The fighter may eventually be used to launch small science payloads on sub-orbital missions, to be followed by launches of 100kg-class satellites under the code name Eclipse Sprint, for which the F-106 will be rocket powered.
Full development of the $130 million Eclipse Astroliner may then follow.
Source: Flight International
