Tory Bruno talks about Rocket Engines and ULA's Business philosophy - Smarter Every Day

hey it's me Destin welcome to the second channel here on smarter every day the video you're about to watch is the leftover footage from the United Launch Alliance rocket factory tour I took of the Decatur facility that's where they create Atlas Rockets Delta Rockets they're working on the new Vulcan rocket it's an amazing tour with the CEO of ula Tory Bruno Tory is a extremely intelligent person he is a sharp dude if you haven't watched that you need to go watch the main factory tour there were so many questions I wanted to ask because Rockets are something that get me really excited but but it didn't really fit in the main video because some of its like talking about other companies or political issues and things like that or how you do guidance and control for a rocket and how well specifically ula does it ula is well known for being very very accurate with their orbital insertions with their Rockets so the first little topic we're going to talk about here is that then we get into some rocket engine discussion and then after that we talk about Torre Bruno's competitors and the strategy he sees and where he sees himself in the market so all this is incredibly fascinating stuff from the horse's mouth Torrey Bruno I call him a space cowboy he likes horses and stuff he is a cowboy out west but he also runs a rocket company so it's an amazing thing to have access at this level so I hope you enjoy this I'll do my best to ask good questions and I'll see you at the end of the video so the brains that drives the Centaur where is that at are you integrating GNC at this point we are so on the back end of that is a flight controls computer and you know inertial measurement sensor and other sensors rate sensors that are the guidance system they're always attached to the upper stage obviously because if you attached him to the booster and separated you would have lost your brains so they're always up here got it and when does the software get loaded the software will get loaded before we go down to the Cape but then it gets of course checked out there and we have the ability to update parameters in that software literally less than 60 seconds before ignition and the reason we do that is because we handle winds a little bit differently than other launch providers do so the conventional way to deal with winds is you program your software in your trajectory you look in the Almanac for the forecast from NOAA about what the Jetstream will be doing at the time you intend to launch and then you load in a trajectory that can accompany Lyth that so if you have a very high velocity wind you might steer into it and then come back out and then you get there you launch balloons during the countdown to make sure that the wind is not in a direction or a strength that you can handle based on that programming you put in six months earlier we're different we launch the balloons see what it's doing discover oh look the wind is different than was anticipated we reprogram those parameters on the fly run it through our simulation lab back in Colorado recertify that trajectory load it back onto the rocket like I said is less than a minute before launch as possible and then away we go so you have adaptive guidance and control systems how do you redo but the software configuration control is huge it is so how do you recertify on the fly so those are parameterised so we're not changing the base code we're changing constants within the code and the way we certify our software to begin with is with a hardware in the loop simulation laboratory and we have that lab up running in with people staffing it throughout the countdown so that if we need to change the parameters we do that's amazing I never would have guessed that that's what you do yeah when that's all on the pad once the rocket is flying it can also reprogram its own parameters autonomously and adjust its own trajectory so some customers will say to us okay here's what I need you to do I need you to you know get me to this inclination and perhaps this Apogee this argument and that'll be good but gosh you know if I could have a little bit steeper inclination or a little bit more altitude that would be better if the rocket happens to perform better that day or the conditions and wind allow that I wish I could have it if you have it that's actually what you did for Parker Solar Probe exactly ended the life of the mission because of that fella so we load that in ahead of time and then as the rocket is flying it measures its own performance and says oh look I don't need as much propellant reserve I will commit that to the mission reprogram reshape my own trajectory and burn that all the way to depletion and it's all inertial writing essays ya know it is it's all inertial and it's all autonomous we do bring in GPS but for really range safety purposes in later versions of the rocket we may have a blend of navigation system so coming back to this business of oxygen-rich so traditionally american-made engines have been fuel rich always because the combustion is more stable you can operate it a little bit lower pressure and most importantly they run cooler and are less corrosive in the engine itself the Russians actually pioneered the oxygen-rich cycle when you use it as an oxygen-rich sort of slightly above the ideal or stoichiometric mixture ratio you get more of the fuel burned less of it goes through the engine without combusting so right away you're getting more energy you run it a little bit hotter and so you just get much much higher performance higher ISP higher ISP the downside is it is much more corrosive and so the Russians found it necessary to put all kinds of sort of complex coatings inside the engine in order to survive that environment and at the end of the Cold War when the United States government didn't want the Russian rocket scientists wandering off to places like North Korea they asked us if we could use that rd-180 engine and we said why yes we'd love to and we put it under the Atlas as we move forward to Vulcan this engine gets retired and it gets replaced with an american-made engine also be an oxygen-rich stage combustion cycle got so we're bringing that technology ashore with better manufacturing technology to go with it so I've always wondered why you used Russian engines and the question for me was do we not have the technology to make the engines and you're saying that it was a strategic decision it was yeah at the time at the time it was the highest performance engine of that class that would be appropriate for a booster that was actually available and because the State Department wanted that as an element of their diplomacy with the now former Soviet Union we were asked to use it and we were happy to do so yeah because despite all the stuff that's going on I mean space is the one place where partnerships still exist and and exactly yeah it's a big deal so so you are still ordering Russian rocket engines for apples we've ordered our last but the Russians are still delivering that and what about Delta so Delta has an american-made Aerojet Rocketdyne rs-68 engine on it also a great engine great performance but the other kind of engine cycle so a fuel rich cycle that's it and so if I understand correctly the Vulcan rocket is going to use your competitor fully origin yes it's going to use their engine yes and I know you well enough to know that that's strategic it is okay no what's the idea so you've got Blue Origin that you're you're attaching yourself at the hip with Blue Origin we are to fly your rocket what are you doing Tory yeah so the funny thing about our industry is it's really small and we have a word we like to use competi mate and so it is not unusual for us to have a competitor that is also in our supply chain or is buying missions from us and so in the case of Blue Origin developing an engine from scratch is a giant investment and it takes a lot of time to work that technology and they had been working on that engine for years before we got together on this new Vulcan rocket so we were able to shorten our development cycle by several years they brought most of the investment to develop the engine and then the two rockets that we will fly are in very different classes so even though we are competing it's not exactly one to one and together because they intend to bring all of their engines back then we will start out at least initially as an expendable together we have enough production rate to make the engine affordable which you're also there's also some cleverness there because Congress sets the laws that gives you money and so you're tying yourself to Blue Origin are you trying to be too big to fail no no that really wasn't part of it that really wasn't whose mostly about the price of the engine on a recurring basis and building enough engines every year to make that affordable without us the engine price would be very very high and it would make their rocket much less affordable than with us together and you picked on the engine but I'll point out also that the solid rocket booster is kind of in the same situation so Northrop Grumman which is now owns ATK that's one company makes our SRBs they are also a competitor in the launch market with their aunt our aids vehicle that flies cargo and with their new offering for national security space in this launch service procurement competition is going on right now and it kind of the same story in a way they brought all of the investment for that SRB that I'm going to use themselves and together we have enough rate to make it affordable I know the internet you know the internet everybody's thinking about SpaceX because they've got it really good social media game let's be honest you also have really interesting Rockets if I understand the rocket science you are building Rockets for specific missions we are in an effort to set yourself apart and get a niche part of the market can you just quickly describe what that is I mean I understand different payloads and lift capacity sure yeah what are you doing because there's some strategy yeah so you could think of the marketplace as having two big domains one is commercial markets for commercial spacecraft operators and builders things like Dish TV Direct TV you know broadband internet that's you know sitting out at geo stationary orbit that's its own kind of market with lots of international providers that become your customers then there is a national security space market that is much closer to the NASA exploration market and they use different capabilities there's a little bit of overlap providers in both places can fly some of the other guys missions but we have really centered over here because what's important to us is to serve the national security in exploration needs now we want to do that personally we want to do it as a team from a business point of view it's a much more stable market place then you're able to to provide higher performance rockets that deliver more exquisite payloads and therefore it's a little bit better it from a business standpoint of what you're able to build and therefore charge this other marketplace is so much more volatile it goes up it goes down right now it's in a big long multi-year slump so we have made a deliberate choice that this market where we are the experts when you look at the national security space constellations that are in orbit today you can find one GPS satellite that was launched by somebody else everything else is us we've been doing this for decades we're really really good at it we know exactly what they need and we like being there and it's a more stable market so we're gonna leverage our capability to be the top competitor there and let the other guys focus on that commercial marketplace and occasionally launch a national security payload so so what would you say to the person on the internet that when they think rockets in space they think SpaceX and Elon yeah what what's your what's your response to that well I think first of all that it's great to have competition it really is it makes the industry healthier it's part of why I'm developing a new Vulcan rocket and it's good for the taxpayer so all that's good I'll also point out that as we look into the future in national security the country has a new challenge space is now contested and in fact it is now considered a war fighting domain just like land air and sea that's a big deal the last time we had a new war fighting domain was a hundred years ago when air was added and as the country faces into that challenge having a broader industrial base to meet that with is a good thing for us as Americans so you're you're gearing yourself up for multi-domain operations you got it so space force you have it exactly okay so you're thinking about the space force even though it doesn't exist right now that's right and I am investing in capabilities not just in Vulcan but after Vulcan as it involves evolves that we're not talking about today that are really for that challenge the country has in front of it alright that's it I hope you enjoyed this video thank you for watching this the second channel if you would consider subscribing to smarter every day to hear that's where you get the in-depth stuff like the raw data from slo-mo or like real detailed stuff having to do with science and interviews like this so big thanks to Tori Bruno from United Launch Alliance feel free to follow him on Twitter you can follow the smarter every day on Twitter if you're into that sort of thing we interact quite a bit there and a big thanks to all the patrons of smarter every day that support smarter every day at patreon.com slash smarter every day I'm grateful for all the support and I'm grateful that you took the time to watch this video feel free to hit the bell here on the second channel there's not a lot of people subscribe to this channel but I'm cool with that this is for like the people that really like science anyway I'm Destin I appreciate you have a good one bye

Channel: Smarter Every Day 2

Views: 743,279

Rating: 4.9803247 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: DQaPOIQLEUo

Length: 14min 47sec (887 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/grootman1]

There is a longer version video about ula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0fG_lnVhHw . At minute 45 there is what appears to be a fully automatic system for welding stainless steel bulkheads. They use kuka robots. Isn´t tesla using a ton of these? So elon should be getting those easily. Do you think that he will build such a system at boca chica?

[u/fanspacex]

Excellent video, even for Spacex fan. Tory is a cool guy.

Interesting information, ULA factory was designed for 40 rockets per year output. Spacex going for 100 starships per year capacity is somewhat within the norms.

Just by looking at all the fixtures required for these "small" diameters, when done horizontally, Starship construction would triple its costs and slow down a lot, if done the traditional way. The vertical friction stir welding stand looks like a 100 million dollar operation.

[u/dhurane]

It'll be pretty ironic if Destin does end up being an Astronaut and his first ride is a Crew Dragon.

[u/proteanpeer]

Comments about ULA's niche in the marketplace and SpaceX specifically start at 10m11s.

[u/yawya]

<3 Tory and Destin!