Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 8 March 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports. It surveys the history of space access concepts, covering hypersonic gliders, air-breathing and rocket propulsion, materials, launch options and operating costs. The report argues that reliable, schedulable access to low Earth orbit is mainly a hardware and organizational problem rather than a technology problem.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/8/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD is a historical and conceptual survey of space access systems, contending that the main barrier to routine access to space is a failure to build durable, reliable, operational hardware and the supporting infrastructure needed for regular service to and from low Earth orbit. The report reviews earlier launch and aerospace concepts, especially reusable and aircraft-like approaches, and suggests that U.S. space access development became too strongly centered on expendable rockets derived from ballistic missiles rather than bespoke systems designed for repeated space access and payload delivery. Its central claim is that meaningful future progress will depend on creating a purpose-built space transportation infrastructure, including frequent round-trip capability and orbital support networks, rather than continuing to rely on one-off launch vehicles. Overall, the document presents a forceful case for infrastructure-first space development, though its characterization of past technological choices is more assertive than a fully neutral account of past U.S. space programming.
“Cooper”3 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ /EAR Q6fi1Clt.k Ulilii QptL\f overhaul was necessary. It, too, met its end in a government-terminated program, lost to future space launcher designers. Two air-breath ing rocket propulsion systems permit exam ination of a rocket-powered vehicle as an operationally viable commercial system with low-noise airport operation, reduced operational weight, and global deployability for a space-based FedEx or UPS (cargo is economically viable, passengers yet to be determined). The earliest of these is a rocket system that operates as an air-breathing rocket below mach 5.5. This concept dates to the late 1950s and the Marquardt Company. The termination of the first aerospace plane halted this work, but John Ahern 15 continued his work, as did John Leingang 16 at the U.S. Air Force Aero Propulsion Laboratory. Much of Le ingang's work was kept out of the techn ical literature in the 1960s, so th is is a current reference establishing that earlier work. John Ahern was one of the first analyzers of the Liquid Air Cycle Engine (LACE) concept, and one who identified the sources of irreversibility and approaches to minimize them. In Russia, Keldesh Institute independently began, conducting experiments with LACE systems, as reported at the 2002 conference sponsored by the Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France and also by Rudakov 17 • 18 and Balepin. 19 In Japan, NAL Mitsubishi and ISAS conducted experiments that were leading to an air-breathing rocket system, and an impressive, ice-free, 1- cubic-meter liquefying heat exchanger was demonstrated for the NASP visiting team in 1988. 20, 21 With only one hydrogen test stand in Sen di, LACE development was deferred until the problems with the H-1 engine were solved. However, by then interest was lost. In India, research organizations used all of the published LACE documents to arrive at a credible system configuration and performance. 22 Unfortunately, India at the time did not have the manufacturing skill and methods to make a functional LACE System. There are two types of air-breath ing rockets, both of which are based on using the recoverable energy in the liquid hydrogen to drive the systems, as diagrammed in Figure 29. In both systems, the liquid hydrogen absorbs the thermal energy in the inlet air stream to reduce the air temperature to nearly saturation in an upstream heat exchanger. In the LACE, as the name implies, a second heat exchanger liquefies the cold gas and a turbopump pressurizes the liquid air to the correct working pressure required by the rocket motor. The thermal energy is picked up by the hydrogen in cooling the gas, and the rocket (including the combustion chamber) is used to drive the expansion turbines powering the turbopumps (left sketch in Figure 29). In the Japanese system, a low-pressure ratio compressor pressurizes the cold gas before it enters into the downstream heat exchanger, increasing the quantity of liquid air produced per unit liquid hydrogen. With a heat exchanger in the rocket motor combustion chamber, there is sufficient thermal energy to power the expansion turbines compressing the saturated or liquid air and deeply cool or liquefy the incoming air to at least mach 5.5. In the deeply cooled system (Rudakov and Balepin), a turbocomp ressor compresses the cold gas to the injection pressure required by the rocket motor. The thermal energy picked up by the hydrogen in cooling the gas and the rocket (including the combustion chamber) is used to drive the expansion turbines powering the turbocompressor (right sketch in Figure 29) . One of the difficulties with Bond's HOTOL (horizontal takeoff and landing) engine compared with Rudakov and Balepin was that HOTOL avoided the combustion heat exchanger at the expense of having the air-breathing rocket operate to less than mach 4, increasing the to-orbit weight ratio and gross weight and thereby making the concept less viable. In both UNCLASSIFIED/ ,,roA. OfifilCIOk flili ODIL¥ 26
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 56 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.