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Old June 6th 17, 03:44 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Rob[_8_]
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Default GSLV III Successful Launch

Fred J McCall wrote:
Rob wrote:

Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

India has successfully launched their GSLV III booster. This is a
rocket in roughly the same class as the Falcon 9, with a payload of 4
tonnes to GTO. The goal of this program is to save India money on
heavy satellite launches and to perhaps enter the market space that
Falcon 9 (and others) are in.

I haven't seen any data on actual cost to launch, but it is all
expendable and uses two big solid strap-ons, so I can't see it
approaching the costs of a Falcon 9. Time will tell.

Same. India is in the same boat as every other launch company when it
comes to reuse. But, labor costs are far lower in India than in most
other countries launching payloads into orbit, so I'm betting they'll be
able to get away with being all expendable longer than say the US or
Europe (Russia is hard to tell).


It is always hard to tell. The cost per launcher of course goes down
when you make more of them, re-using launchers reduces the number being
produced and increases the cost per launcher. Re-usable launchers could
be more expensive to begin with. There are also costs for refurbishing
the recovered launchers (it is not like they are simply hoisted back on
the pad and re-filled) and there may be an increased risk of failure.
Making the launcher recoverable also reduces its performance.


So you drive your car until the gas tank is empty and then throw it
away and buy a new one because that is 'cheaper'? That's essentially
what you're asserting above.


Not at all what I am saying. Read it more carefully.

Only the very naive will think "this launcher costs 50 million so when
we use it twice we go down to 25 million per launch and using it 10 times
our launch costs go down to 5 million".


Only the very silly will think designing to throw away everything will
result in cheaper costs to space than reusing big chunks of the
vehicle with minimal refurbishment will. Yes, you can build a
'reusable' vehicle that is more expensive than building new, but you
really have to work at it in a very wrong-headed way to do that.


Not at all what I am saying. Read it more carefully.