Beal BA-2 |
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Beal Aerospace
Technologies
The BA-2 is a very large
new commercial launch vehicle. It is being developed by Andrew Beal Aerospace Technologies.
The BA-2 is a three-stage launch vehicle designed to carry heavy spacecraft with
5.80 tons to GTO. The engines are pressure-fed instead of using complex turbopumps.
Hydrogen peroxide and kerosene (Jet-A) propellants are used for simplicity. The
BA-2 will launch from a new facility built on Sombrero Island, in the Caribbean.
The BA-2 is scheduled to perform
two test flights beginning in early 2001. The structural elements of each stage
are built almost entirely of filament-wound graphite composite materials. Each
stage has a single engine. The engines are fixed, using liquid-injection thrust-vector
control (LITVC) instead of nozzle gimbaling to provide a simple method of steering.
The third stage has an electromechanically actuated nozzle gimbal system.
The payload fairing (graphite-epoxy composite) has the largest usable diameter of
any space launch vehicles.
Beal planned to develop the smaller BA-1 for LEO missions first, and then develop the Ba-2 later.
Beal Aerospace pulled out of the development of the BA-2 satellite launcher.