Omega (rocket)

The Omega (stylized: OmegA ) is a heavy rocket under development by the US space company Northrop Grumman Space Systems . It is to be built in two variants: the Omega Intermediate with its maiden flight in 2021, and the Omega Heavy for particularly heavy geostationary payloads (approx. 2024 ).

background

Since the mid-2000s, most of the US military and intelligence satellites have been launched by the Atlas V rocket. This made the USA dependent on the Russian RD-180 engines, which are used in the Atlas first stage . For political reasons, the US legislature decided to end this dependency: From 2022, Russian engines will no longer be allowed to be used in US military space travel.

Four companies are now competing for the successor to the Atlas V with their launch vehicles, including the Omega, which has been specially developed for this market since 2016. The other three are SpaceX's Falcon family and the Vulcan and New Glenn projects . Only two of these rockets will be awarded the contract for a total of 25 planned launches between 2021 and 2026. The three new developments are funded by the US Air Force with around 2.25 billion dollars, of which 792 million for Omega.

Structure and technical data

The Omega consists of three levels and up to six additional solid boosters . In the first two stages, solid propulsion systems are used, which are derived from the side boosters of the space shuttle system : The Castor  600 in the first stage of the Omega Intermediate , the Castor 1200 in the first stage of the Omega Heavy and the Castor 300 in all second stages . The third stage has two RL-10 engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne ; these are operated with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and oxygen .

Northrop Grumman specifies a maximum payload of the Omega Intermediate as 22.8 tons. The rocket should be able to transport up to 9.2 tons in geostationary transfer orbits (GTO). With the Heavy version, these performance data increase to 23.2 or 14 tons.

Facilities

The rocket's solid propellants are manufactured in a Northrop-Grumman facility in Utah , and the third stage in the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans .

As a starting place for low orbital inclinations is Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida provided. Higher slopes are to be approached later from Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California , the current west coast launch site of the Delta IV rocket .

Planned launches

As of April 7, 2020

date	Missile type	Launch site	payload	Type of payload	Orbit 1	Remarks
Spring or mid-2021	Intermediate	KSC LC 39B	2 × NationSat	Communication satellites
2021	Intermediate	KSC LC 39B
approx. 2024	Heavy

¹ Interruption orbit of the payload, not necessarily its destination orbit.

See also

• Comparison of the most powerful launch vehicles

Web links

• OmegA Rocket on the Northrop Grumman website
• OmegA (Orbital-ATK NGL) on Gunter's Space Page

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Sandra Erwin: Air Force awards launch vehicle development contracts to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, ULA . Spacenews, October 10, 2018.
2. ^ ^{A b c d e} Robert Z. Pearlman: Northrop Grumman test fires new OmegA rocket second stage motor in Utah . Space.com, February 27, 2020.
3. ↑ Technical data of the rocket , presented by Northrop Grumman at the International Astronautical Congress 2019 (Twitter message from Thomas Schumann)
4. ↑ Northrop Grumman to launch Omega rocket from ULA's Delta 4 pad at Vandenberg . Spacenews, October 26, 2019.
5. ↑ Northrop Grumman lands customer for first OmegA rocket launch in 2021 . Techcrunch, December 12, 2019.
6. ^ ^{A b} Assessing the Impact of US Air Force National Security Space Launch Acquisition Decisions . RAND Corporation, 2020; Page 23.