US considering West -> East launches over over continental US

[DocM]

Cape Canaveral is maxing out its capacity, and will be pretty much full after LC-46 (originally to be LC-39C, a NOVA pad) opens up for Starship launches. Now the Space Force is seriously considering low inclination launches from Vandenberg over the CONUS (continental US). 

https://spacenews.com/space-force-looks-at-options-for-relieving-cape-canaveral-launch-congestion/

Quote

 

[...] the Space Force studied the ability to conduct launches to polar orbits, traditionally flown from the Western Range at Vandenberg Space Force Base, from Florida. “It turns out you can,” he said, with SpaceX launching several Falcon 9 missions to polar orbits in recent years from Florida.

“So we did the reverse: can you launch East Coast missions off the West Coast, from Vandenberg? Fascinatingly, you can,” he said. Such launches had traditionally been ruled out because of trajectories that would take vehicles over land.

He didn’t elaborate on the analysis in his presentation, but said it “opened the door” for long-term discussions about eventually conducting launches to lower-inclination orbits from Vandenberg. “As we continue to hone safety analyses for the ranges, and as some particular launch providers have got a large number of successful launches, we’ve been able to narrow the boxes more and more,” he said, referring to exclusion zones for launches.

>

 

 

[+rdlenk Subscriber²]

I hadn't heard anything about this, but I can say the FAA and Range safety is all about probabilities. Picking the right trajectory overflying sparsely populated areas of central California and Nevada could get their probability calculations under the 30 in a 1,000,000 threshold. This path would likely restrict the possible inclinations a bit without a large dV burn from the 2nd stage, but sure, there is certainly no technical limitation to flying East off the West coast. However, the public land impact requirement would have to be completely removed; as written now it makes no allowance at all for debris falling on privately owned land.

[DocM]

On 19/05/2023 at 23:31, rdlenk said:

[...] the public land impact requirement would have to be completely removed; as written now it makes no allowance at all for debris falling on privately owned land.

The wording is sly, but pretty obviously they're talking about SpaceX.

If they can build some landing pads in Nevada or Utah the odds during a nominal launch seem against anything dropping on private land other than the fairings. Not much private land in Nevada, 85.9% is controlled by the feds. Utah is 66.48%.

Another wrinkle is a SpaceX has announced all their Crew Dragon missions going forward will do return to launch site (RTLS) landings. This starts with the upcoming AX-2 mission. Sounds like they have an excess of performance.

Edited May 20, 2023 by DocM