A decade after its
founding, TGV Rockets of Norman, Okla., has moved from the back-of-the-napkin
stage to serious design work, but company officials acknowledge they still have
a long way to go before fielding the reusable launch vehicle of their ambitions.
TGV's focus is on a
baseline vehicle concept known as the Michelle B, or Modular Incremental
Compact High Energy Low-cost Launch Example. Pat Bahn, TGV's chief executive
officer, describes it as a clean-sheet design that nevertheless draws upon
lessons that were learned from the Delta
Clipper Experimental, or DC-X program, an experimental reusable rocket
designed for vertical takeoffs and landings. The program, which culminated with
several tests of an advanced version known as the DC-XA, ran from 1993-1996.
The program was funded jointly by NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense.
"We're just a little
grayer and a little balder ... a little more experienced," Bahn said, noting
that the company's first five years were capitalized by personal credit cards.
"American Express
was our biggest investor in the company; they just don't know it yet,"
Bahn told Space News in an April 16 telephone interview that also included Earl
Renaud, TGV's chief operating officer.
The Michelle B has moved
from an early cocktail napkin cartoon to preliminary design of the spacecraft,
its avionics and control and landing gear in addition to engine work and
thermal protection system prototyping. "We're about $15 million into a $75
million development and test program," explained Renaud, and a non-trivial
effort remains to bring the vehicle to flight.
But the company also
declines to disclose how far along any of that work is or identify its
customers or those otherwise paying for some of that work. "It is
technology research and development primarily for Department of Defense
customers," he said, although the group's Web site lists as "client
history" such organizations as the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Naval Center for Space Technology.
According to TGV's Web
site, the company received an initial design study contract for a reusable
launch vehicle from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, in 2003 and
has continued to expand that work.
Tactical imaging and
reconnaissance
The market envisioned for
TGV's suborbital Michelle B is on-demand tactical imaging and tactical
reconnaissance. "The punch line we've used in talking to the Department of
the Defense is that this would be a one-star general officer's personal
satellite ... to revolutionize tactical imagery," Bahn said.
While suborbital science
and microgravity hardware testing are interesting markets, "they are not a
killer application," Renaud said.
TGV is marketing Michelle
B as a reusable, quick-turnaround suborbital rocket able to launch an optical
package to an altitude of 100 kilometers providing quick-look, low-cost imagery
for both military and commercial applications.
"All of a sudden we
are wildly competing with satellite-based imagery, without any latency or
without any of the high-fixed upfront costs," Renaud said. "This will
transform everything."
The company has been
ground testing its TGV-RT30 reusable throttleable rocket engine. A series of
tests were carried out in mid-2007 at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi under a reimbursable Space Act Agreement.
"We were the first
engine to fire at the stand after Hurricane Katrina,"
Bahn said. "It was a big morale boost for them as well as us."
Bahn said the data from
those tests — 20 short-duration engine runs — "was stellar, beautiful and
clean and cost-effective ... and we're trying to get back on the stand there
right now."
The RT30 uses JP-8 jet
fuel and liquid oxygen to churn out 30,000 pounds of thrust, a figure TGV
officials believe to be the ideal powerplant for operationally responsive
spacelift.
TGV, Bahn said, also is
taking on a role as the exclusive agent in the United States for test,
development and marketing to the U.S. government of the CHASE-10, a South
Korean methane-liquid oxygen rocket engine. The 22,000 pound thrust motor was
developed by the Korea-based C&Space Inc.
Over the past few years,
the employment level at the company has bounced between 12 to 30 individuals,
depending on work load. And over those years, TGV has undertaken more
technology development than originally envisioned by company officials, Renaud
said.
"We opened the doors
at TGV to build a vehicle," Renaud said, but over the years the company
also has migrated to building technological expertise in-house. That has led to
the firm having more engineering research, development and services than first
anticipated, he said.
Nevertheless, the company
ultimately sees its future in developing hardware rather than just providing
engineering services. Renaud said TGV wants to be perceived by industry and
government "as a viable, low-cost, agile alternative to the established
larger aerospace companies."
For its work-force needs,
TGV draws in part from a large pool of Oklahoma
talent tied to nearby Tinker Air Force Base, a major maintenance, repair and
overhaul site that relies on aerospace-qualified machine shops, heat treating
specialists, metal dealers and welders.
As for the longevity of
TGV, there's no secret at work, Renaud said. The firm's approach is to convince
people that they have a decent technical idea, obtain risk reduction dollars,
quietly carry out necessary research and development, and then tell people
about successes.
Given the
10 years to sustain themselves as a small entrepreneurial space company, Bahn
said his advice for other private space ventures is straightforward, even if it
is somewhat tongue in cheek: "The principal lesson for anyone who wants to
be a space entrepreneur is that revenues greater than expenses is a really good
idea."
