 Hello everyone, welcome to tomorrow. So first off, I wanted to acknowledge that Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, died on February 4th after a short illness, just one day before the 45th anniversary of his landing on the moon with his crewmate Alan Shepard. He was 85 years old when he passed away. So in the spirit of open-mindedness, which Edgar Mitchell was famous for, I wanted to examine some new rocket study contracts that the United States Air Force has been awarding to help replace the RD-180 engine that's used for national security payloads. This is your space pod for February 9th, 2016. So the RD-180 engines are used on the Atlas V launch vehicle. Ever since the United States imposed economic sanctions against Russia, the United States Air Force has been looking at multiple ways to ensure that they have access to space for large, sensitive payloads. Part of that ties in to certifying SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for national security payloads, and they still have access to the Delta IV rocket. However, the Delta IV rocket is planned to be retired in the 2020s, and the United States Air Force wants to make sure that they have at least two launch providers. Several small-class launchers exist and are used for this purpose, but for these new contracts, this is specifically focusing on medium-to-heavy-class space launchers. Although the primary focus of these new contracts is a new first-stage engine for the Atlas V rocket, several smaller contracts, worth less than $1 million but more than $500,000, are looking at different subsystems, advanced manufacturing, and other technology advancements. But some of the larger contracts may yield some unexpected results. The first of these contracts were awarded on December 23rd, 2015. Northrop Grumman received a contract worth about $5.5 million, although I don't know what they will specifically be working on. Northrop Grumman does have a long legacy of working on ICBMs, and they recently helped co-design an experimental rocket plane for DARPA, the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. And if anyone can lead me to more information about this specific contract for this Air Force program and what Northrop Grumman is going to be doing for it, I would highly appreciate it because I was unable to find very good information. Orbital ATK also won a contract worth about $3.2 million, and it draws on the fact that Orbital ATK manufactures composite structures, engine nozzles, propellant tanks, and booster separation motors for United Launch Alliance. And all of these essential technologies would improve the entire rocket systems for the Atlas V, Delta IV, and future Vulcan rockets. Aerojet Rocketdyne also received a contract for about $6 million, and interestingly is going to be used to define the standards to qualify 3D printed rocket parts. 3D printing, or otherwise known as additive manufacturing, can greatly reduce the amount of time and money spent to reduce complex rocket parts, and Aerojet Rocketdyne is working on 3D printed parts of their own. Aerojet Rocketdyne is working on their AR-1 engine as a possible replacement for the RD-180 engine on the Atlas V, and even if not selected because it seems like United Launch Alliance is favoring Blue Origin's BE-4 engine, all the different processes and techniques that they come up with while working towards the development of the AR-1 engine could help them to define the standards for 3D printed parts, and maybe even come up with some unexpected innovations as well. In 2014 the company successfully hot-fired tested an engine made entirely with additive manufacturing that had 5,000 pounds of thrust, and in 2015 the company used additive manufacturing to replicate the injector of the gas generator used on the Apollo F-1 rocket engine to demonstrate that a proven design can be built at a competitive cost without sacrificing performance. Those first contracts, including the smaller ones I didn't talk about, all together were worth about $17 million, and again those were awarded on December 23rd of 2015. Now fast forward to January 13th of 2016, and the Air Force awarded two much larger contracts, one to SpaceX and another one to Orbital ATK, although for different reasons than for the first contract they received, and all together these two contracts were worth about $80 million. Orbital ATK's second contract is worth almost $47 million, and it's for the development of a new solid rocket propulsion system prototype in support of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program for National Security Payloads. The Air Force award does look at some additional upgrades as well, valued up to $133 million, and the company Orbital ATK is going to be contributing some of their own funds for this program as well. The main part of the new work under this contract is for something called a common booster segment, main stage, in other words the creation of a new solid rocket first stage core that could compete in the medium to heavy class launch vehicles for the United States Air Force National Security Payloads, in direct competition to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. Are we seeing some sort of revival of the Ares-1 slash Liberty rocket idea, or is this something else altogether? Part of Orbital ATK's work that will support United Launch Alliance is to help the development of their new Graphite Epoxy Motor 63, or GEM 63 solid rocket strap-on boosters, which in the future is going to replace the AJ-60 Aerojet Rocketdyne solid rocket boosters, which is currently used on the Atlas V. And then the GEM 63 XL, an extended version, is planned to be used as the strap-on motors for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket as well. It makes me wonder if these boosters could be used on the Antares rocket. Interestingly, Orbital ATK is also working on an extendable nozzle for Blue Origin's BE-3 rocket engine. That rocket engine is being considered as an upper stage engine for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket, and on top of that Orbital ATK is also considering using the rocket as an upper stage for their as of yet unnamed rocket that's going to be using that new solid fuel common booster segment. But Blue Origin itself is already planning on using the engine as an upper stage for their Orbital rocket. So no matter which way it's implemented, United Launch Alliance, Orbital ATK and Blue Origin all stand to benefit from that. Now SpaceX's contract is worth about $33.6 million, and is for the development testing of the Raptor upper stage engine. The Raptor, which is a liquid oxygen and liquid methane fueled engine, is designed for use on SpaceX's Super Heavy Lift launch vehicle, the one that will be used for the company's Mars Colonial Transport vehicles. But under this contract, however, SpaceX will develop the Raptor prototype to be used on Falcon 9's and Falcon Heavy's. SpaceX is going to be contributing $67.3 million towards this jointly funded program, but if the Air Force decides to exercise additional options under this contract, they could fund SpaceX up to $61.4 million. However, at this time, I do not know what those additional options might be. Now the United States Air Force will be awarding more contracts throughout the year under this program as they sort out all of the different proposals that they've received for this. But it seems to me like Blue Origin is a likely candidate for a contract and seems like United Launch Alliance itself would be a likely contender as well. Who do you think might be an additional company that would receive a contract for this program? Thank you for watching this video. My name is Michael Clark and please let us know what you think about all of these different rocket contracts. What do you think that Northup Grumman is doing under this contract? Do you think that Orbital ATK will be able to compete with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX? Let us know in the comments section below and on any of our social media. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you're able and willing, please consider contributing to our Patreon campaign. This show is entirely crowdfunded and a huge, huge thank you to everyone who has been supporting the show already. Without your guys' contributions, we would not be able to be talking about all of this really cool space stuff, so thank you so much to everyone who is making this possible. Thank you again for watching this video and hopefully you know just a little bit more today than you did yesterday, thanks to tomorrow. Keep moving onwards and upwards everybody and I will see you in the future.