Deep Space Operations Enabled by a Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle

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Use of well understood, legacy elements of the Space Shuttle system could yield a near term, high confidence Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle (HLV) that offers significant performance, reliability, schedule, cost, risk and work force transition benefits. Several substantial studies of such Side-Mounted Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle concepts have been completed over the past 25 years. The authors have significantly refined the design and flight characteristics of the HLV concept to deliver 73 mt of net payload to low earth orbit. This HLV could be developed with high confidence within 5 years for less than $8B. With the addition of a “barge” transfer stage, the HLV could deliver 66 Mt of payload to the International Space Station, including the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) plus a wide range of pressurized and unpressurized cargo. Adding an Earth Departure Stage (EDS) enables human lunar missions with capabilities similar to the Project Constellation baseline by using 2 HLV launches. With this EDS, the HLV could also deliver 32 mt to the Earth-Moon Libration point 1 (L-1). An HLV supported Propellant Depot at L-1 could service a CEV and lunar lander, providing an efficient architecture for human exploration of the Moon, as well as enabling a commercial space propellant market place that would revolutionize space commerce. By adding a high performance ion propulsion transfer stage to the EDS, the HLV could deliver 30 mt payloads to geo-synchronous orbit (GEO). The HLV could thus enable flight demonstrations of large space solar power satellites at GEO. This paper describes the history, configuration, performance, operations, schedule, cost, and development risks for the HLV concept, along with a wide range of deep space missions enabled by this foundational Heavy-lift Launch Vehicle.