credit National Space Security Office
If you can get yourself to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for 24-26 February you could attend the Rapid Delivery of Military Capabilities via Space technology forum. And if you have near-term commercial systems that can deliver military capabilities via space then the US Department of Defense's Department of the Air Force wants to receive information about your transport technologies by 15 March
The DOD has published its request for information about such a capability and it says
Can individual vehicle capabilities be man-rated to enable the insertion of a squad-sized,combat-equipped team into any global contingency? If so, describe a notional spiralevolution to the future capability?
And it asks responders for information on near-term systems that could one day be prepared for flight in 2h and then have a 2h flight time to a destination about 5,000nm away. These near term systems should be able to deliver at least a 200kg (440lb) unmanned air vehicle or unmanned ground vehicle that fits into a volume of 2 cubic metres or less
Now there are a range of commercial systems that could deliver that, and I won't list them now, but the RFI refers to some, asking the question whether government furnished equipment in the form of United Launch Alliance Atlas or Delta rockets could be integrated with the vehicles to be deployed?
And all this is put into a 2025 timeframe. The RFI asks responders to describe a spiral development process that could lead to a 13,636kg (30,000lb) suborbital delivery for unmanned payloads to any point on the globe, including the poles [italic emphasis added]
This RFI follows in the footsteps of SUSTAIN, which according to the RFI was designated as a formal need and documented in the US Marine Corps' universal need statement of July 2002
Now I come across some quite, forward thinking shall we say, research contracts during the course of my job but this wide, all encompassing request for info about systems and technologies that can launch an unmanned or manned vehicle of anything up to about 15,000kg in mass into a low Earth orbit and either loiter there or immediately reenter to a point on Earth has to standout as, well, challenging
But, if you think you have the tech to make it happen then your point of contact is paul.damphousse@osd.mil
on February 11, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply
I'm not aware of any current or near-term commercial system that can do this. It is an extremely challenging problem, requiring at least half of orbital delta-v to attain, or Mach 12+. Most near-term suborbital systems are in the Mach 3-4 range, with about 1/10th to 1/15th the needed energy. Most of them also couldn't set down a pair of marines, nevermind a squad or platoon, and they would be highly visible sitting ducks coming in either ballistically or as a glider at those velocities. It's possible you could make a bigger crew capsule for an existing EELV or Falcon 9, able to carry 25 or so marines in a sub-orbit trajectory, but that's a lot of money for a little firepower. The strategic usefulness is suspect.
on February 11, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply
Let's just say you can get a squad of Marines inserted to some far distant embassy under attack, or a remote village where the #1 bad guy of the day is hiding. How do you get them out? You'd have to provide some kind of ground transportation in the delivery vehicle, reducing the weight allowed for troops, food, ammo, fuel, etc. Or, have other assets close enough to move in and support, in which case why have an expensive, rapid delivery system?
Until the delivery system becomes a two-way process, this will not be feasible.
on February 11, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply
If you look at the online presentations the theory is to have a airlift return, I guess they assume while it might take a few hours to get to the target zone the return, once the bad guy is either, a, dead, or b, captured, you'll have the time to wait for an aerial pickup.
on February 12, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply
"Let's just say you can get a squad of Marines inserted to some far distant embassy under attack, or a remote village where the #1 bad guy of the day is hiding. How do you get them out? You'd have to provide some kind of ground transportation in the delivery vehicle, reducing the weight allowed for troops, food, ammo, fuel, etc."
Who says that you have to launch their return transportation in the same vehicle? Why not two launch vehicles, one with the troops along with their supplies and the other with the return transportation? That way there is no reason for "reducing the weight allowed for troops, food, ammo, fuel, etc."
on February 13, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply
the futuristic side:
Anybody remember Heinleins Book ( not the botched movie )
Starship Troopers, the Mobile Infantry
in Powered Armor and their drop capsule deployment?
on the s*y side of the equation:
And as always it is based on the assumption that
beating other in the nose is preferable
and superior to fair and polite interaction.
uwe
on February 15, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply
Hold on, the slide says "Loiter times necessitate transport via LEO." From the jpg's two sided arrow and that line it sounds like they are suggesting keeping Marines in space, ready for pickup and deployment. That would be pretty amazing! Maybe hypersonic scramjets will eventually enable SSTO for this type of activity?
on February 15, 2009 8:50 PM | Reply
Yes, quite, I can't wait for the RFP that Flight's DC personnel have been told is on its way.
on February 17, 2009 2:21 AM | Reply
Great post Rob.
This is about getting to the target as fast as possible, pickup would be secondary to the primary mission. There are times marines have to hoof it out after they hit the LZ.
Do you think the military could do this before suborbital tourism conditions Americans about suborbitial flight?
on February 17, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply
No. I think, bar anything catastrophic, Virgin Galactic will be flying early in the next decade and senior USAF academics tell me that this son-of-SUSTAIN military suborbital stuff won't get any funding. But then with the US "not getting any funding" can still mean a $1 million feasibility study...
on October 29, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply
Why not just keep them on orbit as a stand-by crew in something bigger, in a few various orbits. Like how submarines are always prowling. Then when they're needed: boom they get dropped off quick-like.
As for escape transportation, just give them all some high-speed dirt-bikes that they can ride double on until they get out to a safer zone. If that doesn't work, land a small rocket-powered aircraft beside their landing pod which can shoot them a few hundred kilometers after their strike operation is done.