Beal Aerospace (R.I.P., a well done)

various ^ | 1997 through present | various

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Status	Name	Nationality	Thrust**	Propellants	Notes
Out-of-production	F-1	USA	1.7 million	Liquid Oxygen - Kerosene	5 used in each Apollo Saturn Stage 1. Flown between 1967 to 1973.
Development stopped	RD-270	USSR	1.5 million	Nitrogen Tetroxide – UDMH	Tested, but never flown. Largest single-chamber engine designed by USSR.
Development stopped	M-1	USA	1.2 million	Liquid Oxygen – Liquid Hydrogen	Designed as replacement for F-1. Program canceled in 1966.
In production	BA-810	USA	810,000	Hydrogen Peroxide - Kerosene	Stage 2 engine of BA-2 launch vehicle. First test 1Q 2000; first flight 2002.
In production	RS-68	USA	745,000	Liquid Oxygen – Liquid Hydrogen	Currently in development and production for use on Delta IV launch vehicle.

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[SunkenCiv]

Courtesy the web archive, the company's defunct: The BA-2 Beal Aerospace The BA-2 is a heavy-lift, three-stage launcher that stands 236 feet tall. The vehicle has the capacity to lift approximately 13,200 pounds to GTO and 37,400 pounds to LEO. It has a diameter of 20.4 feet and a payload fairing that is considered huge by industry standards. The large payload fairing even allows side-by-side placement of larger satellite payloads. The vehicle employs one centerline engine per stage. Stages 1 and 2 utilize liquid injection (LITVC) for steering and stage 3 has a gimbaled engine with the ability for multiple restart. Reusable technologies will be utilized for primary stage recoveries at sea. The BA-2 uses hydrogen peroxide and standard aviation fuel as propellants, providing tremendous environmental advantages. Propellant is fed to Beal Aerospace Technologies-built engines using helium pressure. This reliable pressure-fed technique negates the use of costly and complicated turbo pumps. Propellant tanks are composite filament-wound structures, making them very lightweight, durable and strong. Beal operates one of the world's largest filament winding machines at its facility in Frisco, Texas. Performance Capability The BA-2 has a restarting third stage, which enables multiple satellite deployments, Hohmann transfer orbit injections, and GTO targeted Earth-escape missions. For GTO and Earth escape missions, a 200 km circular orbit is used as a parking/phasing orbit. Hohmann transfer missions use an elliptic parking orbit where the perigee is 200 km and the apogee is the final orbit altitude. Upon reaching apogee, a second burn is executed to circularize the orbit.

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Statement From Andrew Beal

We wonder where the computer industry would be today if the U.S. government had selected and subsidized one or two personal computer systems when Microsoft, Inc. or Compaq, Inc. were in their infancy. Other significant and uncontrollable risks we face include (1) federal laws mandating our potential liability for pre-existing environmental contamination at the only available cape canaveral launch pads, and (2) uncertainty over U.S. government state department approval to launch from our own launch facilities in the foreign country of Guyana.

Remember Beal Aerospace?

Asking NASA to develop low cost space access is analogous to asking Amtrak to develop new low cost locomotives or the US Postal Service to develop new low cost electronic mail systems... I was appalled that former NASA engineer Dennis Tito had to pay a foreign country to access the ISS. Let’s all be thankful that Congress never funded NASA to develop the automobile. If it had, I suspect that the use of these dangerous vehicles would be restricted to "autonauts" and we common citizens would revel that highly trained “autonauts" could operate these incredible high performance automobile machines.

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"The Dallas Morning News -- January 18, 2000 -- The newspaper provides an update to Beal Aerospace's proposed launch sites in Cape Canaveral, Sombrero and Guyana, and discusses the company's partnership with noted experts to design launch facilities in concert with local environmental goals. The overview, however, does not fully describe the depth of environmental research and study that has been done in support of the launch site on Sombrero Island. A detailed Environmental Assessment, involving more than two years of study and hundreds of thousands of dollars, was completed by one of the world's most respected environmental consulting firms. Despite criticisms by a few individuals, it is, by far, the most detailed research ever conducted on Sombrero Island."