A small ceremony took place yesterday at the site of Snecma Moteurs in Vernon, France, to mark the beginning of industrial production of the Vulcain 2 engine, designed for the new Ariane 5 ECA and Ariane 5 ES ATV launchers
Basically the rocket can put up to 10 tons into GEO wich will allow it to lift more than any current rocket.
Η ζωή, η ζωή εδω τελειώνει!
"Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14" strap-on" - Masuka 'Dexter'
"Angela is not the woman you think she is Gabriel, she's done terrible things"
"So have I, and I'm going to do them all to you." - Sylar to Arthur 'Heroes'
Basically the rocket can put up to 10 tons into GEO wich will allow it to lift more than any current rocket.
Except the Delta IV Heavy, of course: Unfortunately, that launcher will be reserved purely for US Government payloads for the forseeable future. I hope we eventually see an Atlas V Heavy as well, but if the commercial launch market stays the way it is, I'm not too optimistic about that...
The M2HB: The Greatest Machinegun Ever Made.
HAB: Crew-Served Weapons Specialist
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
Basically the rocket can put up to 10 tons into GEO wich will allow it to lift more than any current rocket.
Except the Delta IV Heavy, of course: Unfortunately, that launcher will be reserved purely for US Government payloads for the forseeable future. I hope we eventually see an Atlas V Heavy as well, but if the commercial launch market stays the way it is, I'm not too optimistic about that...
Yup a delta 4 heavy can put 12 tons or so I think off the top of my head. I actually ment for civilan launch systems. My bad
Firefox wrote:Long ago I saw that the Heavy Atlas V variant had been cancelled. I hope we'll see that up and running, as well.
It's not actually cancelled: LockMart has already done all the preliminary design work on the HLV variant, and they claim they can have one available within 30 months of an order, but oviously if an order never comes then it'll never get built. Another strike against it is that the Delta IV Heavy is already available...
The variant that was definitivly canned was the Atlas V Light, which would have had a 3m fairing, and use an Agena 2000 upper stage instead of a Centaur.
The M2HB: The Greatest Machinegun Ever Made.
HAB: Crew-Served Weapons Specialist
"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope." --P.J. O'Rourke
"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --J.S. Mill
