Centaur G Prime Technical Description

CENTAUR G-PRIME TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: A HIGH-PERFORMANCE UPPER STAGE FOR THE NASA SPACE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMThe well-known and powerful Centaur upper stage, used with the Atlas and Titan boosters for decades, was a natural choice for an upper stage for the Space Shuttle. A new version of the Centaur, Shuttle-Centaur (aka STS-Centaur), was built by General Dynamics/Convair. The first Shuttle-Centaur stage and its payload (the Galileo mission to Jupiter) were being prepared for flight at Kennedy Space Center on the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. A suddenly more risk-averse NASA cancelled the Shuttle-Centaur program shortly thereafter.Two versions of the Shuttle-Centaur were to have been made: one for the military (G), one for NASA (G-prime). This report, prepared for NASA by the Convair Division of General Dynamics, provides a wealth of details about the structure, operation and processing of Shuttle-Centaur in general, and of G-Prime in particular.This report was originally published in 1984 as a spiral bound manual. This Expanded Edition (2014) has been enhanced by the addition of figures and rare photographs from the Shuttle-Centaur program, and two short reports:• Centaur for the 1980s, by John E. Niesley (Convair Division, General Dynamics); and• A High Energy Stage for the National Space Transportation System (NASA Tech. Memo. 83795), by Andrew J. Stofan (Lewis Research Center, NASA).

NOTE: This is NOT a vintage document. It is a reprint of a document available as a pdf file online for FREE. This book offers the convenience of printing and binding the pdf file at a reasonable price - nothing more. DESCRIPTION: The Centaur G-prime upper stage, designed for use in the Space Shuttle, never flew. After the space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, NASA decided that the Centaur was too risky to fly in the shuttle. Initiated before Challenger, this report describes plans for developing Centaur G-prime as an OTV (orbital transfer vehicle) that would be serviced and refueled at the Space Station. Proposed specific TDMs (Technology Demonstrations Missions) that would involve the Space Shuttle, the Space Station and a Titan-Centaur are described in some detail. These missions would have also required a Co-Orbiting Platform (COP) and ultimately culminated in an orbital launch of the Centaur with a payload.

The Centaur G-prime upper stage, designed for use in the Space Shuttle, never flew. After the space shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, NASA decided that the Centaur was too risky to fly in the shuttle. Initiated before Challenger, this report describes plans for developing Centaur G-prime as an OTV (orbital transfer vehicle) that would be serviced and refueled at the Space Station. Proposed specific TDMs (Technology Demonstrations Missions) that would involve the Space Shuttle, the Space Station and a Titan-Centaur are described in some detail. These missions would have also required a Co-Orbiting Platform (COP) and ultimately culminated in an orbital launch.