A US company ATK has combined with European space company Astrium to propose a launch vehicle, tagged ‘Liberty’, that will lift US astronauts to orbit (see also blog entry about Alan Bond’s Skylon on 8 January 2011). The consortium offers a vehicle which uses Shuttle and Ariane 5 components to lift a payload of the order of 20 tonnes to low Earth orbit. The configuration is a Ares-1 look-alike, with a first stage comprised of a shuttle-derived solid propellant booster, and a second stage based on the liquid propellant core stage of the European Ariane 5 launcher (see accompanying diagram). The proposal suggests that manned flights could take place as early as 2015, despite the status of the Ariane as a non manned-rated vehicle.
Clearly the European end of the team don’t have experience of crewed missions, and you could ask if a US/Europe lineup is doomed to failure under the current ITAR restrictions? Aside from these issues, Liberty is capable of lifting the Orion command module (at 9 tonnes), but not the combined Orion command and service module configuration with a mass in excess of 21 tonnes.
Perhaps the political dimension of an international programme will save the day, but unfortunately my guess is that the days of Liberty are numbered.
Clearly the European end of the team don’t have experience of crewed missions, and you could ask if a US/Europe lineup is doomed to failure under the current ITAR restrictions? Aside from these issues, Liberty is capable of lifting the Orion command module (at 9 tonnes), but not the combined Orion command and service module configuration with a mass in excess of 21 tonnes.
Perhaps the political dimension of an international programme will save the day, but unfortunately my guess is that the days of Liberty are numbered.
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