Centaur Operations At The Space Station Cost And Transportation Analysis Final

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.

A study was conducted to expand on the results of an initial study entitled Centaur Operations at the Space Station. The previous study developed technology demonstration missions (TDMs) that utilized the Centaur G-prime upper stage to advance OTV technologies required for accomodations and operations at the Space Station. An initial evaluation was performed of the cost to NASA for TDM implementation. Due to the potential for commercial communication satellite operation utilizing the TDM hardware, an evaluation of the Centaur's transportation potential was also performed. Unspecified Center NASA-CR-182128, NAS 1.26:182128, GDSS-SP-88-006 NAS3-24900...