Wiki SpaceX Manifest and Launch Cadence

[Electroman]

e.g. you have to be able to launch from both coasts)

Forget both the coasts. You have to be able to launch and send something beyond Karman line.

 

[Electroman]

Tory Bruno has stated that recovering the engines is a huge cost savings win.

How are they recovering the engines? fishing it out from the ocean bed?

 

[JB47394]

How are they recovering the engines? fishing it out from the ocean bed?

Detach the base of the first stage (leave the tanks behind), deploy a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, recover at sea. The HIAD thingie has been demonstrated. The net result is supposed to be a 65% cost savings on the first stage. We'll have to wait and see how viable the approach is in practice.

 

[Electroman]

okay.. thanks for that video.

So this is still in drawing board. Make it happen and then we will talk about reusability, cost savings etc..

 

[scaesare]

No Blue Origin contracts, but they may not have bid. I think the requirements were far beyond Blue Origin's ability (e.g. you have to be able to launch from both coasts). Here's a page that summarizes tons of launch contracts, and if you search for "(NSSL) Phase 2", you'll see what they have on these launches. I was interested in the launch vehicles, and ULA is going exclusively with Vulcan Centaur, while SpaceX is using mostly Falcon 9 Block 5, with four Falcon Heavies expending their center core. I saw at least one Falcon 9 with a return to launch site, so the mass being lofted varies significantly.

Something that surprised me is that Falcon 9 is $67 million, Falcon Heavy is $97 million (fully expended is $150 million), and Vulcan Centaur is between $100 and $200 million, depending on how many solid rocket boosters they use. So Vulcan Centaur is undoubtedly more expensive per kilogram of payload, but not insanely so. Here's a video on how ULA wants to make Vulcan Centaur partially reusable. Tory Bruno has stated that recovering the engines is a huge cost savings win.

As an aside, in October 2018, the NSSL program awarded $967 million to ULA for Vulcan Centaur development. Blue Origin and Northrup Grumman also received hefty sums. This was apparently at the time when the government was just starting to move away from buying rockets and instead contracting out launches. I hope that's the last time the government will have to pay for rocket development.

Oh, and the government is taking bids on December 15 for NSSL Phase 3, which consists of 90 launches.

So... ten launches on a proven, less expensive platform, operated by a company that has demonstrated exceptional launch cadence ability.

And ELEVEN launches on a platform that's 2-3X more expensive, has NO track record, and is years behind schedule.

Makes sense...

 

[JB47394]

Makes sense...

There are lots of reasons for not cutting ULA off at the knees and switching en masse to SpaceX. For starters, SpaceX is affected by the whim of Elon Musk, and that's enough to give anyone pause. The government knew that ULA would do whatever they needed, while Elon may elect to not launch that orbiting nuclear weapons platform. So the government wants to keep ULA alive with contracts until they have enough confidence in its replacement(s). They'll slowly wean off ULA and switch to SpaceX, Blue Origin and any other provider that can do a needed job well.

 

[Cosmacelf]

There are lots of reasons for not cutting ULA off at the knees and switching en masse to SpaceX. For starters, SpaceX is affected by the whim of Elon Musk, and that's enough to give anyone pause. The government knew that ULA would do whatever they needed, while Elon may elect to not launch that orbiting nuclear weapons platform. So the government wants to keep ULA alive with contracts until they have enough confidence in its replacement(s). They'll slowly wean off ULA and switch to SpaceX, Blue Origin and any other provider that can do a needed job well.

That isn’t a thing. SpaceX is heavily regulated. The govt can simply deny SpaceX access to space at any time if Elon doesn’t play ball. Not to mention that the military can invoke a national security emergency and force SpaceX to launch. But none of that would ever come to pass, everyone knows the rules they all work under. No, they just want a second source for national security because SpaceX could have a rocket blow up which could easily delay launches for many months, so they need a backup.

 

[bxr140]

Forget both the coasts. You have to be able to launch and send something beyond Karman line.

Good one!

 

[scaesare]

There are lots of reasons for not cutting ULA off at the knees and switching en masse to SpaceX. For starters, SpaceX is affected by the whim of Elon Musk, and that's enough to give anyone pause. The government knew that ULA would do whatever they needed, while Elon may elect to not launch that orbiting nuclear weapons platform. So the government wants to keep ULA alive with contracts until they have enough confidence in its replacement(s). They'll slowly wean off ULA and switch to SpaceX, Blue Origin and any other provider that can do a needed job well.

Sure... but I think there's a difference between "cutting ULA off at the knees", and giving them the majority of contracts despite the negative factors I mentioned...

 

[TunaBug]

Sure... but I think there's a difference between "cutting ULA off at the knees", and giving them the majority of contracts despite the negative factors I mentioned...

This might be a reach, but can we agree that there needs to be a dual source? Not just for the sake of the specific program, but as a investment toward future stability.

For picking a dual source SpaceX is the obvious first choice for reasons you have said: price, cadence, reliability. The question then is who is the second source. It's a choice between ULA and some other US launch provider. BO? Firefly? Relativity? The list gets sillier the deeper you go. I'm for ULA.

SpaceX's wild success is, unfortunately, going to lead to even more money going to the rest of the industry, since everybody else' future is less likely to be funded by industry. If SpaceX didn't completely pwn the market then perhaps they'd have gotten a bigger share of the contract based on merit.

And besides, none of us has a good crystal ball. The Commercial Crew Program seemed wasteful for throwing money to SpaceX, since obviously Boeing was going ace the project.

 

[spacerfc]

No Blue Origin contracts, but they may not have bid.

They're not eligible since they're not in NSSL Phase 2. Each phase runs for 5 years, and awards only go to companies that are selected for that phase. There're only 2 slots in Phase 2, SpaceX and ULA each won a slot, Blue tried to get in but lost, so Phase 2 launches can only be awarded to SpaceX and ULA.

Blue Origin lobbied congress to add a 3rd slot in Phase 3 which they hope to win, it would give them a handful of launches starting from 2025 or so.

 

[ggr]

Detach the base of the first stage (leave the tanks behind), deploy a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, recover at sea. The HIAD thingie has been demonstrated. The net result is supposed to be a 65% cost savings on the first stage. We'll have to wait and see how viable the approach is in practice.

The ironic thing I got from that video is that the will lose about 50 engines per year until they get re-usability right. SpaceX loses more than that in just second-stage MVAC engines, while saving and re-using 10 times as many.

 

[scaesare]

Sure... but I think there's a difference between "cutting ULA off at the knees", and giving them the majority of contracts despite the negative factors I mentioned...

To follow up on my position on this, Berger's Ars Article makes the point that they did indeed award more of the lauch contracts to SpaceX than originally planned... making it 46 vs 54% as opposed to the 40/60 split originally called for.

While it may not seem like much, in the comments Berger adds:

I think the fact that they bent, even a smidgeon, from the 60-40 split is a huge deal. That's not something the military would normally do for launch and it speaks volumes about their disappointment at Vulcan's delay.

 

[adiggs]

Sure... but I think there's a difference between "cutting ULA off at the knees", and giving them the majority of contracts despite the negative factors I mentioned...

Any bets on how many of those ULA launches get performed by SpaceX due to ULA delays?

I figure there has to be some internal mechanism for moving launches back and forth due to lack of performance or similar. I realize its not a last minute choice as the hardware to connect to the launcher has at lease some differences, but is Space Force ready to leave those 11 missions on the cutting room floor if ULA can't handle them all? I sort of doubt that.


Sort of how SpaceX has been handling all of NASA crew requirements for ISS so far.

 

[Grendal]

Latest update (to Starlink 6-29):

Falcon 9 Standard Boosters
B1058.18
B1060.17
B1061.16 Vandenberg booster
B1062.16
B1063.15 Vandenberg booster
B1067.15
B1069.11
B1071.12 Vandenberg Booster
B1072.0 New - Being held for Cygnus launch in Dec '23
B1073.11
B1075.7 Vandenberg booster
B1076.9
B1077.8
B1078.5
B1080.4
B1081.2
B1082.0
B1083.0

Falcon Heavy Exclusive Cores and Boosters
B1064.4 Side - USSF-52 and Europa Clipper (Expended)
B1065.4 Side - USSF-52 and Europa Clipper (Expended)
B1084.0 Core - USSF-52

Statistics
275 Falcon 9 launches
8 Falcon heavy launches
255 Consecutive successful launches (Since Amos-6 pad failure)
247 Successful landings
173 Consecutive successful landings since last failure (Starlink Group 1-19)
219 Booster reuses (F9 & FH)
Better than 90% launches with booster reuse for the last 3 years.

 

[scaesare]

Elon said:

It's looking pretty close... it's tracking out to about 98 thus far (including the IFTs)...

 

[Grendal]

Elon said:

View attachment 992950

It's looking pretty close... it's tracking out to about 98 thus far (including the IFTs)...

SpaceX sure beat the heck out of last years number. Realistically, I think the launch cadence proves that Elon's "24 hour turnaround" between launches was unnecessary for Falcon 9.

 

[JB47394]

Realistically, I think the launch cadence proves that Elon's "24 hour turnaround" between launches was unnecessary for Falcon 9.

Why does launching at a cadence of once every four days make a cadence of four launches per day "unnecessary"?

 

[mongo]

Why does launching at a cadence of once every four days make a cadence of four launches per day "unnecessary"?

The 24 hour turnaround goal was for the rocket, not the launch site. With the number of active boosters, they don't need to reuse them that rapidly.

SpaceX targeting 24-hour turnaround in 2019, full reusability still in the works

 

[JB47394]

With the number of active boosters, they don't need to reuse them that rapidly.

They have a need to reuse them that rapidly if they want to get Starlink up as fast as possible. There's no limit to need on fast turnaround. Instant turnaround would be best.

I'm not saying that it makes sense to do it with Falcon 9, for a variety of reasons, but the initial statement was that there was no need for faster turnaround. There certainly is, and that's why SpaceX is building Starship. The need is to get tons on orbit as fast as possible.

That linked article is a great example of how Elon's aspirations are often wildly mismatched to what actually plays out. I wonder if there will be another iteration of vehicles after Starship that will be even better suited to Elon's plans for a Mars colony.