The Air Force wants to cut launch range operations costs to below $2 million with its simplified, rail-guided, small launch vehicle called Super Strypi, according to a key officer.
Air Force Col. John Anttonen, director of the Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office, said Friday range operations cost for a standard space launch typically run between $3 million and $5 million. The original goal of Super Strypi, he said, was to drive down that range operation cost to below half and the Air Force should have a good demonstration of that for Super Strypi’s first launch in October.
Anttonen said Super Strypi is a throwback to the 1960s, a simpler time for launch vehicles. At a Peter Huessy breakfast series event on Capitol Hill, Anttonen said Super Strypi features rail-guided, fixed-trajectory launch, which saves money and engineering hours by changing the flight termination system and reducing the termination, or risk, area of launch. It also simplifies rocket assembly, he said, as putting stages together on a traditional vertical launch stand can take a long time.
“I don’t have to do that,” Anttonen said. “I can assemble the whole thing, I can push it on the rail and it elevates itself. So that really simplifies my operations.”
Anttonen said using rail-guided launch also spin stabilizes the launch vehicle upon liftoff, which he said reduces the cost of the avionics system.
The core mission of Super Strypi is to deliver a robust launch system as simply, and cheaply, as possible, which Anttonen said has a target cost of $15 million per launch. The Air Force said it desires $12 million per launch.
Super Strypi is to deliver payloads in the range of 300 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), or 475 km, according to the Air Force. For the Air Force’s ORS-7 mission, Anttonen said Super Strypi will use three new solid rocket motors designed by Aerojet Rocketdyne [AJRD]: LEO-1, -7 and -46. The University of Hawaii’s HiakaSat will fly as the primary payload on the integrated payload stack with an additional 12 CubeSats flying as secondary payloads.
The launch of ORS-7 includes core mission goals like demonstrating the Super Strypi launch capability, establishing baseline performance of Super Strypi, demonstrating flight performance of the three solid rocket motors, developing and installing the rail launcher at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii, delivering HiakaSat to orbit and utilizing excess lift capacity for CubeSats and ORS test objective.
The ORS office is promoting commercialization of Super Strypi, according to an April ride-along notice posted on Federal Business Opportunities (FBO). The government owns the intellectual property (IP) of the launch vehicle, rail launcher and transportation/upload carriages. After completion of the ORS-4 mission, the government plans to release this IP, in coordination with mission partners, to qualified and interested vendors for further development and commercialization. The process for releasing the data is still to be developed.
The ORS office will allow limited access to a small number of companies to observe pre-launch reviews and launch processing at the range. The office will consider participation of one person each from up to four companies.