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/ /FOlt OFFICIAL USE Oilti Russian HOTOL. However, NPO Molnyia provided a unique approach to space access by decoupling the attachment to a few fixed base operations and opening up space access to a global clientele, and not from a remote nation, but from Russia. NPO Molnyia's approach also removed the noise and smoke from a rocket launch to a mundane takeoff of a turbofan-powered transport. The upper payload limit of the An-225 is 300 metric tons for the structural mounts on the top of the fuselage. With a conventional rocket, that limit was reached for the Russian HOTOL at 5.45 metric tons, not the 7 tons desired. With the addition of an air breathing rocket to the initial part of the trajectory and the FDL-7/Model 176 configuration, that limit now is not reached with even an 11-ton payload . The An-225 has the empennage modified from the An-124 single vertical and horizontal to an 'H' configuration . This permits the powered hypersonic glider to easily lift off the top of the veh icle, as the MBB Sanger wind tunnel test demonstrated. A second modified transport would be modified to carry the liquid hydrogen and liquid air to fuel the hypersonic vehicle, along with maintenance and support crew. The intent was to use the automatic launch checkout the author witnessed at Baikanour in 1988, wherein a Soyuz that arrived on its train carrier at 0500 hours launched carrying a Progress capsule at 1715 hours the same day. That should make a local launch possible within hours of arriving at the specified airport launch departure site . Again, we can thank the Russian design bureaus for arriving with a concept that might be the first economically viable global launch concept not tied to a fixed geographical launch site that emp loys robust, proven carrier aircraft. As illustrated in Figure 31, a LACE system operating to mach 5.5 that has the same operational weight empty and ?-metric ton (15,435-lb) payload as an all-rocket reduces the liftoff gross weight of a HOTOL concept operating from atop a transport by 150 metric tons (330,000 lb). That enables a transport launch platform to carry an orbital launcher with a functional payload greater than 11 metric tons (24,225 lb). Payloads greater than 11 tons are determined by the size of the launcher atop the transport. The launcher can become too large for the transport to mainta in stability and control. The exhaust temperature and therefore velocity of a LACE rocket are less than those of a hydrogen/oxygen rocket, resulting in a quieter launch and making launch from a transport more favorable. The LACE-powered vehicle is physically smaller than the rocket vehicle because the propellant weight and volume are less. The green line in Figure 31 is the propellant weight for the sized LACE orbital launcher. The important thing to remember is that the air-breathing rocket motor is the same as the all -rocket motor; only the propellant mix is different. UNCLASSIFIED/ (FOR OFFICIO! 1!SE All! Y 28
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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.