Main Engine Cut Off - T+45: 2018 Air Force Launch Vehicle Contracts, and the Dim Future of Antares

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

As the award date approaches for the 2018 Air Force launch vehicle development contracts, we keep hearing from Congress about how they would like to see it go. And I discuss the future of Antares and the Next-Generation Launch Vehicle in light of the continuing flights of Cygnus on Atlas V. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 9 executive producers—Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, and four anonymous—and 42 other supporters on Patreon. House Members Ask Air Force to Fund Vehicles, Not Components - Main Engine Cut Off House members ask Pentagon to stay the course on launch vehicle development - SpaceNews.com Thornberry Walks Back Vulcan Intervention - Main Engine Cut Off The Alabama Launch Alliance - Main Engine Cut Off Cygnus, Antares, Atlas V, and NGL - Main Engine Cut Off Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Subscribe on iTunes, Overcast, or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, episode T plus 45. I am Anthony Colangelo, and I want to start off this week with a little bit of meta discussion of sorts, because I would be remiss to not mention that this episode is releasing one year to the day after the very first episode of the podcast, and I was breaking down some news out of the 32nd Space Symposium last year. So that was a long time ago. Please do not go back and listen to that episode again. I have not went back and listened in probably about a year, and I'm not going to do that because I would be terrified to listen to me

talk to myself for 20 minutes for the very first time. You know, it has been a learning process this year. So thank you so much for listening, for reading the blog, for supporting the show, for interacting on Twitter or email. Thank you for all of that over this past year

as I figured out what the hell I'm doing here. You know, I started, it was just a podcast, and I got the urge to write about things that I didn't cover on the podcast. So I launched the blog a few weeks later, got the newsletter going a little bit after that. And just last week, I added the shop over at shop.mainenginecutoff.com, which I'll talk about in a bit. But it's really just been a year of figuring out what I'm doing here, figuring out what it is that you out there like to hear about, like to talk about. So thank you for coming along for the ride, for being part of this. And I'm excited for what the future holds. I'm making some plans right now for some launch attendances this year, some conference attendances. So hopefully we can talk about that

in the coming weeks, coming months. But for right now, I'm really excited for the future. And I just wanted to say a big thank you to start the show to all of you out there. Now, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about the NASA Deep Space Gateway, the Deep Space Transport, all of those plans that they started to talk about

for SLS Orion in the 2020s. I'm not yet ready to do a podcast about those. So if you want to see what I'm thinking, head over to the blog at mainenginecutoff.com. Read about what I'm thinking about, about these NASA programs. But I am in the process of working on some interviews that I think would be very, very interesting

when discussing the Deep Space Gateway in particular. And I don't want to do a podcast too early because I think that it would be kind of shortchanging it if I didn't wait for those interviews. Just need a few more days to sort all of that out. So hopefully we can get into that discussion soon. But for today, I want to get back into the meat and potatoes of Main Engine Cutoff and talk about launch vehicles. Because that really has been the main topic of this show.

And I think for good reason. This is a very tumultuous time in the launch vehicle landscape. There's a lot of changing of the guard going on. There's a lot of trends that are coming to a head at the same time. And it's really one of the most important aspects for the near future of what we're doing in space is launch vehicles, how things are changing with the age of reusability really coming to full fruition just a few weeks ago with the launch of reusability, you know, really coming to full fruition just a few weeks ago with the launch of SES-10. This is a big time for launch vehicles. So I do not feel at all bad that that has been one of the primary focuses of this show. So we're going to get into

it today and talk about this Air Force contract, some politicking around it, and how things might shake out over the next year. Now to set the scene for that all, you have to remember a few weeks back when Mac Thornberry of Texas and Mike Rogers of Alabama sent a letter to the Air Force basically saying that if they were going to fund any part of ULA's new rocket Vulcan, that they wanted oversight and say about what components went into that rocket. And this was specifically targeted at making sure that ULA chooses the Aerojet Rocketdyne AR-1 engine instead of the Blue Origin BE-4. And they were going to get very involved in this and say that if Vulcan is getting any funding, then you're forced to use the AR-1.

Obviously, you know, there was a lot of politics going into that with Aerojet Rocketdyne being a big lobbying power in these congressmen in their districts and kind of being a big impactor for them over the years. So that was just a few weeks ago. Since then, Thornberry has stepped back that statement and said that they're actually not going to get involved and that they're going to let ULA do what it pleases. So that was just a few weeks ago. And now we've kind of got the return fire from the other side of Congress. A group of House members sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense that said that the Air Force should focus on funding complete, robust launch systems rather than

specific components. And this was sort of the response to that AR-1 ULA Vulcan letter from Mac Thornberry and Mike Rogers saying that the Air Force should just invest in a launch vehicle and let the providers figure out how they're going to build that, what they're going to use to build that. Now, the context for this is that a few years back when the RD-180 ban was all the rage and the Air Force was looking to get more American propulsion into the industry, they put out some contracts with different companies to develop different propulsion elements that could be used on future launch vehicles. Notably, one of those was Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR-1, which is a rocket

engine still in search of a use. ULA does not seem keen on picking that for the Vulcan project. They're not going to use it on Atlas V. They have enough RD-180s to cover them until they transition to Vulcan. So the AR-1 was kind of this thing that was funded by this Air Force program that doesn't have a particular use in mind and is one of the greatest examples of, you know, basic government pork at this point. When it started out, you know, maybe you can make an argument that it made a lot of sense. At this stage in its life, it's pretty porky looking. The other things that they funded in that were the SpaceX got a contract to develop the Raptor

specifically as an upper stage engine for the Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets. That was specifically just for the rocket engine, as all of these are, not an upper stage. So they were developing a Raptor for upper stage use, not a Raptor upper stage. Very small but important difference there. They also put some funding towards Orbital ATK and their next generation launch vehicle, and specifically included in that was some funding to develop an extendable nozzle for Blue Origin's BE-3U, the vacuum version of the BE-3, because that would be the thing used on Orbital ATK's upper stage. So those contracts were all out there to develop these different components of launch vehicles.

And now these members of Congress are writing the Air Force to say, don't do that this time around. Fund a complete launch system, not an individual component. So this is pretty squarely targeted at eliminating the funding for the AR-1 specifically. Not to say that the AR-1 wouldn't be picked, because if the Air Force funded Vulcan and Vulcan picked AR-1, the AR-1 would still be funded via this contract. But the contract can't be directly with Aerojet Rocketdyne unless they were to propose a full launch vehicle. So let me read a chunk from the full letter that was sent to the Secretary of Defense. In its budget for fiscal year 2017, the Air Force requested $1.2

billion across five years to invest in domestic launch systems. The end goal of these investments is two long-term domestic commercially viable launch providers that meet national security space requirements. Now this letter was sent by representatives from Colorado, where ULA is based, Washington State, where Blue Origin is based, and Texas, where Blue Origin and SpaceX have a presence, along with Johnson Space Center, as we know. So it's pretty clearly that this is sent from the positions that matter for ULA, Blue Origin, and SpaceX specifically. And in a lot of cases, this is squarely targeted at the AR-1, though maybe that isn't the primary purpose here. Now before we dive into what vehicles might get funded out of this program, I want to just bring up one point from that bit of the letter. The goal was to have two launch providers. Now, that doesn't mean that they're going to fund only two launch providers with these contracts. In fact, I think they should fund at least three. Because if you

think about how investors work, think of the Air Force like an investor in this case. Investors invest in a bunch of different companies in the hopes that a smaller number will become viable. So it would be a little silly to invest in only two launch providers if you're hoping to get two launch providers out of it, because there's a good chance that there's other factors at play, as there are with all of these launch providers talking about. There's other factors that go into whether they will stay commercially viable. So it would be kind of silly for the Air Force to invest only in two of them if they want to in the long term. It doesn't specifically say how many they're going to invest in. My guess would be three, maybe even four, depending on who submits proposals for this program.

But I'm going to go with saying that they're probably going to select three different proposals to fund. So to start with, ULA's Vulcan is almost a lock with this program. I would be hugely shocked if Vulcan was not selected as part of this program. It's been a big focus for ULA. They're phasing out the Delta IV. They're going to phase out the Atlas V in favor of Vulcan. It's in the Air Force's best interest if Vulcan does become a thing. So it would be hugely shocking to me if Vulcan was not chosen for this. So let's go ahead and assume that they're in on the program and that Vulcan and ULA get funding. What does that mean for AR-1? Well, if ULA does downselect the BE-4 as is expected within the coming months, then BE-4 would be part of Vulcan, which would be funded by this program. AR-1 would no longer be part of the Vulcan program and would be left out in the cold

with no additional funding from the Air Force here. and I will leave the speculation for where that leaves AR-1 as a whole for a future discussion, but let's just say for now, that would put Blue Origin's BE-4 engine on the Vulcan, funded by the Air Force, and AR-1 left out in the cult. Next would be Orbital ATK, who has been doing a lot of talking lately about the next generation launch vehicle, which is possibly the worst, if not maybe the second worst named rocket behind SLS. It's just an absolute horrible name. It's obviously not a name yet. So we'll go ahead and call it the Stick, as everyone seems to be calling it. That was a name that kind of stuck from the old days when they were discussing building a rocket out of these shuttle boosters.

And they've been doing this. They've been talking about this new rocket a lot. They showed it off at the Space Symposium just a few weeks ago. And they are going to enter this round of contracting for the Air Force to develop this new launch vehicle. So when you're talking about Orbital ATK and a new launch vehicle and potential government contracts, it's important to remember a few things. Orbital ATK is not going to build this rocket unless they get funding for it from the government.

They aren't going out of their way to fund this themselves. This doesn't seem to be something that they are super interested in building if they don't have to. And that's going to be the second half of the show is talking about how they're managing launch vehicles. But obviously, NASA, because Orbital ATk is a big contractor for sls and the department of defense because orbital atk is a big defense contractor they both have a vested interest in keeping orbital atk around and keeping them developing new technologies new ways of working and new

viable launch vehicles in any regard. They are a huge contractor for NASA and the Department of Defense, so there's a big vested interest in them sticking around. And when you look at where the SLS program is right now, they're going to need some new solid rocket boosters in just a handful of launches if the SLS does indeed make it that long. And the front rudder right now is Orbital ATK with something like a Caster 1200 solid rocket booster, which would be the basis for the next-generation launch vehicle.

So if the U.S. government is looking forward into the future and seeing how important something like this would be from Orbital ATK, it might not be a bad idea for them to go ahead and invest in that up front. And for the same reason, the Department of Defense might need some future work done by Orbital ATK, and it's always a smart idea for them to keep investing in the people that they want to stick around for technological, political, for whatever reason that is. And when you look at who is going to be submitting bids for this air force contract it's extraordinarily unlikely for blue origin to submit their own bid for new glenn they seem to be off developing that on their own they have no interest in getting outside funding they don't

want the constraints or the distractions that come with that sort of contract so if you're looking at who's a potential entrant for this contract, and you want to fund at least three, you start to run out of options quick. We just covered ULA, we're talking about Orbital ATK now, we'll cover SpaceX next. I don't know who else would go for a bid. So it seems pretty likely that Orbital ATK would win a contract if the Air Force does indeed want to fund three different options. They are one of the obvious three. So for the vested interest reason from the Department of Defense and NASA, and for the who else is there reason, I would expect to see a contract heading Orbital ATK's

way to develop the next generation launch vehicle. As I said, that upper stage on that launch vehicle is powered or is probably going to be powered by Blue Origin's BE-3U which they previously got funding to develop an extendable nozzle for it would be a shock if they switched to the RL-10 though I guess probably not that shocking considering Orbital ATK is in the old Insiders Club with Aerojet Rocketdyne if Aerojet Rocketdyne is shut out of this contract they might do some finagling to get themselves back in a launch vehicle. Who knows how that will shake out. I'm going on the assumption that it will use the BE-3U since they've already put effort into developing that extendable nozzle for the BE-3U. So most likely, Blue Origin will find themselves with both of their engines funded for this program. The BE-4 would be on Vulcan and

would be funded through the Vulcan development, and the BE-3 would be on the next generation launch vehicle and funded through its development of this program. So Blue Origin, who would totally not put themselves in the running for this program, is going to find themselves having funding indirectly, though sort of directly, for both of their rocket engines that will be useful for New Shepard and New Glenn. So that leaves us with SpaceX, as last but not least. In the last round, as I mentioned, they got funding for a prototype version of the Raptor engine for use on an upper stage of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. So we don't know the particulars of that, but it sort of seems to be a scaled down version of the Raptor than what would be on the ITS. So that's an interesting wording that has been perplexing us for years since that happened.

We've been wondering what the status of that contract is, what it really is intended to be used for in the long term, or was this just a way for the Air Force to fund some future tech out of a promising company? We don't know, but let's look into what they might do for this new Air Force contract. With the constraints of this contract being a new launch system or development of a launch system. The most obvious thing that they would put into the running, and I'm not even sure that they would put this into the running, but at a certain point, if this seems relevant to their interests, what do they have to lose? The most obvious thing they would put into the running is a new variant of the Falcon family with a brand new Raptor powered upper stage. This would be a Falcon 9 first stage, Falcon Heavy first stage and boosters

with this new upper stage on top. The upper stage, the second stage of Falcon 9 has been historically a sore point for SpaceX. It's been the cause of two different failures and it is the weakest part of the Falcon family of rockets. Got great thrust on that Merlin 1D vacuum engine, but in terms of upper stage engines that we have out there, very low ISP, which really limits what it can do. And as of yet, they have not demonstrated a direct geo capability, which is important for some Defense Department contracts. And there's a lot of thought that they might be doing that on the Falcon Heavy demo mission, though that seems somewhat unlikely with Elon Musk's comments

about potentially bringing the second stage back from that demo mission to be reused. There's a lot of confusion as far as that goes. We don't really know if Elon's just talking about doing that because he can, or if that's a serious plan that they have going on within the company. But either way, a new variant of the Falcon family with a Raptor-powered upper stage is something that I could see possible if they're going to double down on the upper stage reuse thing and they want a new design of that second stage. This would be a really good way to have some additional funding for that work, for that development work. And it would be a really good way to get some additional focus on that upper stage without having to eat away at all the other stuff they're doing right

now. And, you know, it would be a lost center if they didn't have any external funding for that. And in this way, they could promote it to a full-on project that is funded that is an important piece of what SpaceX is working on. And I certainly could see them going into the development of a new upper stage with reuse a priority. If reuse is coming back into favor at SpaceX as something that is worth developing and they have a project to develop a new upper stage it would seem completely silly if reusability wasn't something factored into that project. I don't know what that means in terms of how it would be structured, how it would fly, how it would compare to the current

upper stage, but that is, altogether, that idea is the most likely thing they would throw into the running for this Air Force contract. The way, way less likely option, and an option that's potentially so crazy that I sound dumb saying it, but they could go for a Hail Mary pass and propose something in the realm of ITS development. I don't know if that means full-scale ITS development or scaled-down version of the ITS. Who knows what that would entail, especially because the Air Force seems to be focused on the traditional EELV sized launch vehicles, and they're not looking for something crazy super heavy in this contract. And $1.2 billion spread across five years spread apart across multiple providers means that it wouldn't be much funding

in terms of ITS. I don't know how any of that would work, but SpaceX is known for the unexpected. So I wouldn't be at all shocked if they threw a Hail Mary and did something in the realm of ITS. I don't know what that would mean again. Could mean just an upper stage Raptor with composite tanks that can share some sort of technical heritage with ITS to build up some knowledge base for future ITS development to kind of bring in this synchronized development with a Raptor upper stage and ITS tanks and things like that. Who knows how that could shake out. But what's interesting is Elon Musk did say that they're going to be releasing some updated plans for the ITS

in the coming weeks. So when that comes out, we're going to be taking a close look to see if there's anything in there that could fit in the realm of this contract from the Air Force. So to sum that all up, I think Vulcan is in. I think next generation launch vehicle is in. Blue Origin will not put their hat in the ring. SpaceX is the big variable here. If they are going to decide to do something, my bet would be on proposing a new Falcon family variant with a Raptor powered upper stage. But there are also things out there that could be completely unexpected proposed from people that are throwing Hail Mary passes of their own, specifically Aerojet Rocketdyne. They aren't

going to go quietly into the good night and watch the AR-1 just quietly fade out. I could see them proposing something with AR-1 as the basis of a new launch vehicle family or maybe even taking over some of the Atlas V heritage

as ULA phases that out and maybe put their AR-1 on that and make that a new launch vehicle. I don't think any of those ideas are good ideas but it is always possible that they throw their hat in the ring as well. So my bet would be Vulcan next generation launch system. My stretch bet would be Falcon family within Raptor powered upper stage. I can't wait to see who does put themselves in the running for this contract and who does win it. We've got a while to wait. They are going to award these

contracts the beginning of next year. So we've got a little while to wait and keep reading the tea leaves. But I've just been thinking about this a lot. So I wanted to get this out here so that we can keep it in mind as we go through the rest of 2017. Now, relatedly, I want to get into the future prospects for Antares and Orbital ATK's next generation launch vehicle and how all of these things play together. But before I do, I want to say a huge thank you to the 51 patrons out there of Main Engine Cutoff over on Patreon. This episode of Main Engine Cutoff was produced by nine executive producers. We are adding like one a week right now. It's kind of crazy. The executive producers are Pat, Matt, George, brad ryan and four anonymous executive producers they made this episode of main engine

cutoff possible and i could not do it without their support and the support of the 42 others of you out there uh so if you want to join the ranks of supporters head over to patreon.com slash miko and give as little as one dollar a month all of your support helps this show keep going you This is a listener-supported show. I'm not up here reading ads for subscription products like razors or underwear or anything weird like that. But more importantly, I'm not reading ads from any groups in the industry, be it manufacturers or different lobbying groups. I'm not reading ads from any of those. I'm beholden to nobody but you out there listening. So I'm free

to speak my own mind. I don't have to worry about being ad-friendly or talking about Aerojet Rocketdyne in a way that they might sponsor again, that sort of thing. I am free to say whatever I want, talk about whatever I want, free to read out any of your feedback that is critical of anyone out there. And that is something that I find very, very important. And that is why I'm going the Patreon route with this show. So thank you so much to all of the patrons and if you want to support Miko in another way head over to the shop shop.mainenginecutoff.com I've got some swag up there I've got two t-shirts right now the centaur planetary shipping code t-shirt and the falcon hardware restoration t-shirt sort of jo Hardware Restoration t-shirt.

Sort of jokey references, but great shirts that I think you'll love. So shop.manageandcutoff.com, buy a shirt, buy some rocket socks. Those are great items and that will all help support the show. So let's get back into it and talk about the future of Antares, the future of next generation launch vehicle, and how Atlas V and Cygnus play into all of this. I've been thinking a lot lately about the future of Antares as we see more and more Cygnuses fly on Atlas V. It made a lot of sense for Orbital to take advantage of the open Atlas V slots after Antares failed on Orb III. It made a lot of sense because it was going to be a long period

of downtime for Antares. They had to get new engines on the launch vehicle, which was going to take a while. So it made a lot of sense for them to go out and find another launch provider. You know, Cygnus was always designed to be flown on Atlas 5 from the start, so it was an easy integration for them. And it made them able to fulfill their contract while Antares was down. So that made a lot of sense. And then after OA5 last fall, Orbital ATK and ULA announced that they were going to take advantage of the first rapid launch slot from ULA for a flight again of Cygnus

up to the ISS. Now, they said that this was because NASA needed an extra upmass. You know, we had some failures on the way up to the ISS. Now, they said that this was because NASA needed extra up mass, you know, we had some failures on the way up to the space station. And Orbital said that they could eliminate the need for one extra Antares flight because of the additional up mass. So it made economical sense for them. You know, if you could have fewer, more expensive flights, if you could have fewer more expensive flights that beats more less expensive flights in the long run and i think all those reasons were valid but i also think that they were hiding some additional reasoning going on behind the scenes antares has an incredibly low flight rate it is only used for cygnus flights right now. It has never flown another mission, and it probably won't

in its near future. So it's tough for Orbital to bring the costs down for Antares. It's tough to bring it down when you're using it so infrequently, when it's so specific to what it's flying. At the same time, ULA was making huge strides in cost reduction. Over the period of time between the Orb 3 failure and where we stand now, the Atlas V price has come way down. That's been the biggest focus for ULA in that same time period. Tori Bruno came on board, and that was the focus, was get our costs down, make us competitive, specifically with SpaceX, but make us competitive. And that was the same time that Antares had an issue on Orb 3, that they had a down period, and that Antares' price was stagnant while ULA's was plummeting. So by the time they flew this flight that just happened this week, the Atlas V base price, the 401 configuration, which they fly,

the base price for that is down to $109 million. I assume, and I've seen some stats though, they are unverified. I assume that in a flight of Cygnus to the ISS on an Atlas V, when all said and done, is somewhere between $150 and $200-ish million. Seems to be the figure that makes the most sense for this kind of flight. We don't really know the price of Antares, and specifically with the engine upgrade, we don't know the exact price, but it seems to be a flight of Antares Cygnus is around that same $200 million mark. So before, when Atlas V was, you know, $250, $300 million, it was a lot more economical to fly with Antares. But now with Atlas 5 sitting at $109 million base price, Antares looks ridiculous by comparison. If they can get

a cost-effective Atlas 5 with more up mass, they could make out way better on their cargo contracts. So if you look at that general time period and the trends going on there with Antares stagnant and not that useful, and Atlas V plummeting in price and still just as useful, and even more useful to Orbital ATK when talking about cargo contracts, that's a bad mix for the future of Antares. Antares' Achilles heel is its low flight rate and its lack of use. But it's in that position because the honest truth is it's not that useful of a launch vehicle. It has a low payload capacity, a small fairing, and it only flies out of wallops, which means it's only really good for higher inclination,

low earth orbit flights, but not even polar flights. It doesn't fly out of Vandenberg like the Atlas V does for polar flights. It doesn't fly out of Vandenberg like the Atlas V does for polar flights. It doesn't fly out of Kennedy like the Atlas V does for better geosynchronous flights. And it has that tiny payload capacity, so it can't really make up for those things in any other way. The other factor that goes in Antares and its potential future is that it uses RD series engines. You know, the Atlas V uses an RD-180, and that has had a hell of a time over the past couple of years with the potential ban in place. You know, they have to phase it out because of its use. So the Antares using similar engines would kind of disqualify it for future

Department of Defense contracts if it were able to fly them. And the first stage is constructed in Ukraine, which is not the most politically stable environment right now. Specifically when it comes to launch vehicles, they're having a very, very tough time. The manufacturers there have been kind of entangled in a lot of issues. So when you look at even the parts of Antares, it's in a tough spot. Bad launch locations, small payload capacity, small fairing, trouble in the supply line, high costs. That is an absolute recipe for disaster. So if you've noticed that Orbital ATK is talking about the next generation launch vehicle a lot more lately than they're talking

about Antares, that's for a particular reason. The next generation launch vehicle is kind of designed in a way that solves all of the concerns about Antares. It'll be all American propulsion. You know, everything will be in-house except for the upper stage engine, which will be coming from Blue Origin. It is able to launch out of Kennedy Space Center. It'll launch from Pad 39B. And they are talking about using Space Launch Complex 2 over at Vandenberg. So they would be able to fly polar flights or higher inclination flights like that and geosynchronous flights out of Kennedy. And

they even list direct geo as a capability of the next generation launch vehicle. It also would fly with a five meter fairing and a much increased payload capacity, something that's in the range of the EELV class rockets, not just below it like Antares. So in every way, it's designed to be competitive with the Atlas V. Whether or not this is a good technical solution, whether or not you think it's going to be economically viable, and I don't agree with either of those positions. But that's an entirely different discussion than whether it is more useful than Antares, because Antares is set up for absolute failure. And the next generation launch vehicle has, you know, it ticks all the checkboxes for what it

would need to be able to compete for contracts. With the setup that they're talking about now, they would be able to put their hat into the ring for a contract from the Air Force or things like that. Whether it's economically viable, whether different commercial people are going to be buying flights on the next generation launch vehicle, that's a different issue than whether they are able to submit a bid for an Air Force contract. Antares is never going to be able to do that, given the status it is now, given where it flies out of, all the things that I've listed. Next Generation Launch Vehicle is designed to be useful for all of these different contracts. So if it can do that and be cheaper than Antares, then Antares does not have a long future. Antares seems like it's going to be abandoned

pretty soon. You know, when they got new engines from Energomash, when they had the issue on Orb 3 and they swapped out the engines for the RD-181, the RD-191, they signed a contract for 20 engines, which is 10 flights, and they had two options for 20 engines each. It would not at all surprise me. In fact, I expect Orbital ATK to retire Antares after that initial contract is up. They're putting so much effort in the next generation launch vehicle, and they're flying Cygnus so much on the Atlas V that it seems like they're setting up to use Atlas V for Cygnus flights until they have next generation launch vehicle flying, and then transition to that and retire Antares. I want to read a blurb from an article by Jeff Faust of Space News.

It's an article he wrote about Cygnus before the OA-7 launch. Culberson said that the company expects to hear from NASA in the near future about the mix of launch vehicles it wants for those missions, talking about the CRS-2 missions that Orbital ATK won a contract for. On CRS-2, NASA hasn't actually told us exactly which missions they'll want on which vehicles. We're waiting to see which way they'd like us to go, whether it's a mix or all on one or the other. We hope to hear that pretty soon. So they're even floating the idea that CRS-2 could fly all on Atlas V, that none of the CRS-2 flights would fly on Antares. That is an option being floated by the company right now. So that, plus the fact that they focus so much on the next generation

launch vehicle, plus the fact that Antares is a horrible fit for the market and that next-generation launch vehicle is designed to to get rid of all those fears, all of that adds up to a mix that Antares is going away pretty soon. So when we look back, when we're you know when we're 10, 20 years out, and we look back at the Antares era of Orbital ATK, I think we will see that Orb 3 killed Antares, but it wasn't the explosion that really did it. It was the timing of the explosion. That timing really hurt. It timed up perfectly with the strides on cost reduction that ULA was making. It timed up like that so that they could even think about doing a flight on Atlas 5. And eventually, by the time Antares was back flying, Atlas 5 was more cost effective than

Antares. So at that exact time that the explosion of Orb 3 happened, they were set up to be convinced that Antares was no longer worth it. And they started putting effort in this next generation launch vehicle again because they could see how ill fit Antares was for the market. So when Orbital ATK does get this contract from the Air Force like I expect them to for Next Generation Launch Vehicle, we might start to hear more about how Antares is going away, how it's going to be phased out. And I, for one, would not at all be sad to see that go. It is not a useful rocket. I have a good time driving down to Virginia to watch the launches, but it's not that useful of a launch vehicle in this market. The other thing that I have in mind about the next generation launch vehicle is that

it is listed in the payload guide that they put out there. Direct-to-geo is an option. And that's something that right now only the Atlas V and Delta IV offer. The Falcon family of rockets has not yet shown that they can do it. But it's interesting for Orbital ATK because they are the ones that are working on the mission extension vehicle, which is a satellite servicing kind of venture. Direct geo would be very useful for them to fly on their own mission. So if they are able to develop the next generation launch vehicle,

I could see them using it quite a lot for their own purposes, putting a mission extension vehicle directly into geostationary orbit rather than doing the transfer orbit like all of the providers seem to do today. That would save them a lot of fuel. It would give them the opportunity to make a lot more money on those kind of missions. So it seems like it's something that is pretty core to the future of orbital ATK if they hope to get into satellite servicing, if they hope to change the kind of markets they're in now. And none of that at all would be possible with Antares. And I think as they see how much more cargo they can fly on Cygnus with Atlas V, they start to see how useless Antares is in their lineup. So it would be very smart of them to retire that sooner rather than later, rather than keeping it around like they have done with Pegasus and various other launch

vehicles that they offer. So if you've got any thoughts on any of that, how Antares is going to play out, how next generation launch vehicle is going to play out, how this Air Force contract is going to play out with Vulcan and potential Raptor powered upper stage, either send me a tweet over on Twitter at WeHaveMiko or email in anthony at mainenginecutoff.com. Don't forget to check out the shop at shop.mainenginecutoff.com. And thank you very much for listening. Thank you for the last year of this project, and I will talk to you next week. Thank you.