Huebner, Larry | Engineering Papers

NASA NTRS2015

Soldier-Warfighter Operationally Responsive Deployer for Space

The Soldier-Warfighter Operationally Responsive Deployer for Space (SWORDS) project was a joint project between the U.S. Army Space & Missile Defense Command (SMDC) and NASA. The effort, lead by SMDC, was intended to develop a three-stage liquid bipropellant (liquid oxygen/liquid methane), pressure-fed launch vehicle capable of inserting a payload of at least 25 kg to a 750-km circular orbit. The vehicle design was driven by low cost instead of high performance. SWORDS leveraged commercial industry standards to utilize standard hardware and technologies over customized unique aerospace designs. SWORDS identified broadly based global industries that have achieved adequate levels of quality control and reliability in their products and then designed around their expertise and business motivations.

Davis, Benny↗

NASA NTRS2011

Horizontal Launch: A Versatile Concept for Assured Space Access

The vision of horizontal launch is the capability to provide a mobile launch pad that can use existing aircraft runways, cruise above weather, loiter for mission instructions, and achieve precise placement for orbital intercept, rendezvous, or reconnaissance. Another compelling benefit of horizontal launch is that today s ground-based vertical launch pads are a single earthquake, hurricane, or terrorist attack away from disruption of critical U.S. launch capabilities. The study did not attempt to design a new system concept for horizontal launch, but rather focused on the refinement of many previously-studied horizontal launch concepts. Because of the large number of past horizontal launch studies, a process was developed to narrow the number of concepts through prescreening, screening, and evaluation of point designs. The refinement process was not intended to select the "best" concept, but rather to establish the feasibility of horizontal launch from a balanced assessment of figures of merit and to identify potential concepts that warrant further exploration.

Bartolotta, Paul↗