EELV Cost Almost Doubles

wrote in news:1097733246.146234.189550
@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

What are these companies thinking??

(c) They plan to abdicate the 5T payload market, and concentrate on the
Heavy versions for which there is no competition. This worked for the
Titan family of rockets for a while.

What's to keep SpaceX from using three Falcon V first stages to
make a Super Falcon and go after the heavy payload market? Well, they'll
need to make a serious upper stage upgrade, but that might just be
using two RL-10s and larger tanks, or stretching the new version
of the kero/LOX upper stage.

They may not chase this market for a while, but if the market's
there and they can take share I'm sure they've thought about the
possibilities.

(e) They have their skunk works working on low cost rockets. 5T to GTO
for $20M? Bahh! We'll sell you 6T for $20M. This would be the ideal
response in a capitalist world, but I doubt it's happening.
Any insight into their corporate frame of mind??

Big companies have trouble acting like smaller competitors
with less overhead; I'm sure they're looking at ways to reduce
costs but there's only so much they can hope to do in the
current market. If Falcon is reliable, they'll be difficult
to match, or even approach.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

--Damon

wrote:
What are these companies thinking??

The latest AV week, 11 Oct 04, pg. 36, has SpaceX offering 5 tons to
LEO for $12M, and 5 tons to GTO for $20M. (That's the same class as the
smaller Delta-IVs). The Delta and Atlas teams can hardly be unaware of
this. Furthermore, SpaceX is an American company, so many of the
restrictions that keep the military and government away from other low
cost rockets do not apply. So what are they thinking?

(a) Ignore SpaceX entirely. However, head-in-the-sand is usually a
recipe for business disaster.

(b) They hope SpaceX fails. However, wishful thinking is not a great
business strategy, either

(b') They believe SpaceX must fail, because it's just too hard to
build rockets in their opinion, and therefore SpaceX must be
deluded or miscalculating.

(b'') They believe SpaceX may succeed but its cost structure will
eventually resemble theirs rather than the current rosy predictions,
therefore the market risk is low.

I have heard variations on both of the above from various
Dinosaur personel not specifically responding to SpaceX,
but to other launch startups in the past.

(c) They plan to abdicate the 5T payload market, and concentrate on the
Heavy versions for which there is no competition. This worked for the
Titan family of rockets for a while.

(d) Use the "I don't need to outrun the bear, I only need to outrun
you" strategy. Here they would assume the government will not allow
only one launcher, and hence will continue to support one of
Atlas/Delta even if they are ridiculously expensive. They just need
to be slightly less ridiculously expensive than their competitor.

(e) They have their skunk works working on low cost rockets. 5T to GTO
for $20M? Bahh! We'll sell you 6T for $20M. This would be the ideal
response in a capitalist world, but I doubt it's happening.
Any insight into their corporate frame of mind??

(f) SpaceX and other Mammals catching up to them and beating them
starting at the low end of the business may offer them the opportunity
to exit the painful and sometimes not very profitable space launch
business sector.


-george william herbert

On 14 Oct 2004 07:09:28 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(George William Herbert) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

(e) They have their skunk works working on low cost rockets. 5T to GTO
for $20M? Bahh! We'll sell you 6T for $20M. This would be the ideal
response in a capitalist world, but I doubt it's happening.
Any insight into their corporate frame of mind??

(f) SpaceX and other Mammals catching up to them and beating them
starting at the low end of the business may offer them the opportunity
to exit the painful and sometimes not very profitable space launch
business sector.

Yes, I suspect that Boeing wouldn't mind getting out of the business
entirely (at least the Delta part, if not Sea Launch), if the Air
Force would let them.

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
wrote:
What are these companies thinking??

The latest AV week, 11 Oct 04, pg. 36, has SpaceX offering 5 tons to
LEO for $12M, and 5 tons to GTO for $20M. [...] So what are they thinking?

(b') They believe SpaceX must fail, because it's just too hard to
build rockets in their opinion, and therefore SpaceX must be
deluded or miscalculating.

But other small companies such as Orbital have made rockets work.
Does SpaceX have a smaller percentage of people who 'know what they
are doing' than Orbital does?

(b'') They believe SpaceX may succeed but its cost structure will
eventually resemble theirs rather than the current rosy predictions,
therefore the market risk is low.

The Russians have been building relatively reliable, low cost rockets
for years. Presumably, some of this is design, and some is low labor
costs. Does anyone have any idea how much a Russian design would cost
if built in the USA?

(c) They plan to abdicate the 5T payload market, and concentrate on the
Heavy versions for which there is no competition. This worked for the
Titan family of rockets for a while.

It occurred to me this will be even a worse problem for Ariane. They
don't really have an option (c) since they have no heavy government
payloads. Also, if SpaceX can undercut their 'two at a time' launch
costs (something it looks like Delta and Atlas cannot do), then the
additional hassle of coordinating two payloads will work against them.
If the Falcon V GTO version works, I think they are in big trouble.

Lou Scheffer

Check it out;

http://members.aol.com/cv192/engine.html

A nitrous oxide and rubber NOX/HTPB (R45M rubber) is reported to
produce 235 second Isp. This is equal to an exhaust velocity of 2,307
m/sec. The Oxidizer Fuel ratio is reported to be 6.0

http://www.airliquide.com/en/busines...x.asp?GasID=55
http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_materials.htm


NOX density = 1,222.8 kg/m3
HTPB density= 1,522.0 kg/m3

6.0 O/F means 6,000 kg of NOX for every 1,000 kg of HTPB.
4.907 m3 NOX for every 0.657 m3 of HTPB
7.469 m3 NOX for every 1.000 m3 of HTPB
1,258.1 kg/m3 propellant - average density

Nitrous oxide and rubber cost around $5.00 per kg when purchased
through suppliers, $0.50 if self-produced in large quantities.

To achieve orbital velocity a vehicle must overcome atmospheric drag
and gravity losses. A good number to shoot for is 9.2 km/sec which
permits the vehicle to achieve over 7.6 km/sec once air drag and
gravity losses are subtracted.

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publ..._contract.html

A four stage vehicle may be considered. If all stages are equal in
performance and mass ratio, we can design each stage to achieve 9200/4
= 2300 m/sec.

With an exhaust speed of 2700 m/sec we can calculate the mass ratio of
the vehicle.

u = 1 - 1/EXP(Vf/Ve) = 1 - 1/EXP(2300/2700) = 0.5733

Assuming 10% of the total mass of the vehicle is structure, this means
each stage can loft a payload equal to 0.3267 the wieght of the entire
vehicle.

If we assume a 10,000 kg payload, we can see that the first stage is
30,616 kg, with 17,554 kg of propellant and 3,062 kg of structure.
The propellant would cost between $10,000 and $100,000.

Dividing the 17,554 kg by 7 obtains; 2,507.7 kg of rubber and
15,046.3 kg of NOX. This equates to volumes of 12.304 m3 of NOX and
1.647 m3 of HTPB

Now, we multiply everything by 1/0.3267 to obtain the scaling factor
between stages.

So, we have; 10,000 kg payload STAGE PROPL'T STRUCT
30,616 kg Stage 4 20,616 17,554 3,062
93,692 kg Stage 3 63,103 53,731 9,370
286,782 kg Stage 2 193,155 164,467 28,679
877,816 kg Stage 1 591,230 503,418 87,782

Each launch would cost about $400,000 in propellant costs to
$4,000,000 in propellant costs depending on whether you made the
propellant yourself or bought it through some distribution network.
That's $40 to $400 per kg.

A commercial launch operator might consider buying a NOX plant and
then buying the rubber components and molding the sleeves for the
engine's combustion chamber.

The volume of the vehicle would be

PROPELLANT VOLUME DIAM(sphere)
17,554 kg 14 m3 3.00 m
53,731 kg 43 m3 4.26 m
164,467 kg 131 m3 6.17 m
503,418 kg 401 m3 8.95 m

If a common engine design is used throughout, you would have 1 engine
for the last stage. Three engines (they're throttable) for the third
stage. Nine engines for the second stage. Twenty-seven engines for
the first stage.

This assumes a 60,000 kg thrust engine.

If we go with 10,000 kg thrust engines the numbers of engines go;

6 - S4
18 - S3
54 - S2
162 - S1

The design I have in mind is very similar to the toroidal H2/O2
spaceships proposed back in the 60s

http://www.astronautix.com/engines/aeroster.htm
http://www.friends-partners.org/part...vfam/vtovl.htm

In the old SSTO concepts you had a huge spherical tank of Hydrogen
since that was so low-density, and a donut shaped oxygen tank ringing
the bottom.

In my concept here you have a huge spherical tank of NOX and a ring of
rubber cylinders like bullets in a six shooter - cylinders located in
combustion chambers comprising the fuel for the NOX oxidizer. The
ring of nozzles exit in a toroidal aerospike arrangement.

The truncated aerospike can also operate as a heat sheild during
re-entry!

Varying thrust around the rim of these nozzles would provide
directional control.

I envision truncated cones with an appropriate opening angle so that
they stack on top of one another.

The first stage would be 10 m in diameter at the base and 15 m tall
and 7 m forward. The second stage would be 7 m in diameter at the
base, and 10.5 m tall and .5 m forward. The third stage would be 5 m
in diameter 8 m tall and 3 m in diameter at forward. The fouth stage
would be 3 m in diameter 5.6 m tall and 3m in diameter forward. The
top stage would be topped by a payload canister 3 m in diameter of
variable length depending on the payload.

The payload cannister with fourth stage might be equipped with
deployable winglets for glide return to Earth.

This is one design, others are possible of course.

But it seems extending the technology used in SpaceShipOne that we
might achieve very low launch costs (and very large profits) within
two years or so.

Downrange recovery occurs by powered touchdown similar to DC-X. The
First Stage would execute a 'bounce back' maneuver. It comes with
extra 30% extra rubber in its engines - and the NOX tank gets fueled
to 30% its original load at the downrange recovery point, and S1 flies
back to the launch center. The other two stages that are recovered
further downrange are small enough to be retrieved by aerial recovery
and towed by to the launch center by air, without ever touching down.
The orbiter is equipped with wings and glides back to the launch
center after de-orbiting. At launch the entire system looks like an
old vonBraun launcher at lift-off.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/vonbraun.htm

A fleet could be built for $100 million or so - and provide two
launches per week at a recurring cost of $500,000. That's $50 million
per year in launch costs.

So, fleet build out and 1 year's operation would be $150 million. If
20 people were on each orbiter, that would be 2,000 in the course of a
year. Scaled Composites estimates 3,000 people would pay $100,000 per
flight to go on an X-15 style suborbital ride to space. If the same
number would spend the same amount to go into orbit for a day, that
would be $300 million over 18 months.

Assuming the same 30 month development cycle for this vehicle system
as SpaceShipOne, we basically could offer investors the ability to
double their money in 48 months!

The cool part is that you'd still have a useable fleet of spacecraft
at the end of the 48 months! Then, you could compete with existing
space launchers at something like $25 million per launch for putting
up 10 metric tons into LEO.

Just a thought.

NOX is self pressurizing to 700 psi. HTPB rubber is almost an ideal
solid fuel. Isp is 285 seconds. Add some aluminum powder to the
rubber, and Isp will exceed 300 seconds (if the low-cost carbon-carbon
composite nozzles can take the heat!)

I posted in parallel a detailed breakdown of a 10,000 kg payload
lifting 4 stage stacked vehicle.

One can also have ganged stages with NOX cross-fed to rubber filled
combustion chambers (2 cf of rubber require 15 cf of NOX, so the
chambers are pretty tiny)

I'm imaginging something like this in configuration - although the
masses and such are totally different;

http://www.friends-partners.org/part...s/pegvtovl.htm

You have a ring of NOX tanks feeding into a ring of HTPB filled
combustion chambers, forming an aerospike engine /heat sheild at the
base of the vehicle. The more NOX centrally located, along with a
payload up front.

The tanks (unlike the Icarus) fall away and deploy winglets like a
cruise missile. They are then snagged mid-air downrange by tow planes
and towed back to the launch center by those planes.

Let's see, you need four stages each one approximately 3x larger than
the last. So, you have;

TOTAL PROP STRUCT
Payload 1.0
S4 3.0 1.7 0.3
S3 9.0 5.1 0.9
S2 27.0 15.3 2.7
S1 81.0 45.9 8.1


In terms of tank masses the central tank on S4 is normalized to 1, so
S3 becomes 3 and S2 becomes 9 and S1 becomes 27

The differences become;

1 - internal to the central stage
2 - outboard - S3
6 - outboard - S2
18 - outboard - S1

27 tanks altogether. Each massing 1.7x the payload mass.

So, 10,000 kg payload implies a 34,000 kg propellant mass in each of
13 outboard tanks - complete with rocket engines.

Each of the outer tanks would be around 6' in diameter and 36 feet
long. Say 45 feet with tail and nose sections added. They would form
a ring 24 feet in diameter, and allow an 12' diameter central section
to be located at the center. This central section would consist of a
small 17,000 kg (37,400 lb) tank at its base and a low-density payload
bay volume forward of it. Perhaps a piloted section at the nose of
the central rocket.

9 external tanks, then 3, then 1 would be dropped in sequence. The
fourth stage at the base of the central vehicle makes it to orbit.

Each of the ETs would be dropped and deploy wings when they slowed to
subsonic speeds, and be retrieved by aircraft mid air, and towed back
to the launch center immediately following launch.

Each tank has its own engines and produces up to 135,000 kg of thrust.
Thus, up to 1.5 gees may be produced at liftoff.

Since rubber cannot be cross-fed, we won't cross feed propellant here.
Though NOX could be crossfed, it would mean engines would be unique
to each stage - and this proposal is to use the same engines
throughout.

Lou Scheffer wrote:
(George William Herbert) wrote:
wrote:
What are these companies thinking??

The latest AV week, 11 Oct 04, pg. 36, has SpaceX offering 5 tons to
LEO for $12M, and 5 tons to GTO for $20M. [...] So what are they thinking?

(b') They believe SpaceX must fail, because it's just too hard to
build rockets in their opinion, and therefore SpaceX must be
deluded or miscalculating.

But other small companies such as Orbital have made rockets work.
Does SpaceX have a smaller percentage of people who 'know what they
are doing' than Orbital does?

Orbital didn't fundamentally break new ground in either cost
or capabilities. The air launch offers some neat features,
but a lot of people looked at Pegasus as functionally a
heavier and more convenient Scout class vehicle.

Orbital spent about $175 million 2004 dollars to develop Pegasus
initially, and more on the XL version (some of this was spent by
suppliers as investments, that was the total R&D cost, not the
Orbital outlays alone).

SpaceX seems to be spending about a factor of four to seven
lower than that (Musk hasn't released the details publically,
but his headcount and projects are known to good enough ranges).

(b'') They believe SpaceX may succeed but its cost structure will
eventually resemble theirs rather than the current rosy predictions,
therefore the market risk is low.

The Russians have been building relatively reliable, low cost rockets
for years. Presumably, some of this is design, and some is low labor
costs. Does anyone have any idea how much a Russian design would cost
if built in the USA?

US workers cost more but we use more factory automation.

Figure about the same, to slightly more (1.5x?).

(c) They plan to abdicate the 5T payload market, and concentrate on the
Heavy versions for which there is no competition. This worked for the
Titan family of rockets for a while.

It occurred to me this will be even a worse problem for Ariane. They
don't really have an option (c) since they have no heavy government
payloads. Also, if SpaceX can undercut their 'two at a time' launch
costs (something it looks like Delta and Atlas cannot do), then the
additional hassle of coordinating two payloads will work against them.
If the Falcon V GTO version works, I think they are in big trouble.

If it works and demonstrates adequate reliability.

The cost of insurance and opportunity costs of lost business
of birds dropped in the ocean make it very hard for comsat
operators to go with new unproven launchers. They risk more
than they save by doing that. You have to prove out the
vehicle first, basically, and that means several successful
flights in a row of some non GEO comsat payloads (government,
larger LEO payloads, deep space missions, whatever).


-george william herbert

wrote in message roups.com...
What are these companies thinking??

(b) They hope SpaceX fails. However, wishful thinking is not a great
business strategy, either


I think that they expect SpaceX to fail - financially if not
technically. They figure it would be just fine for SpaceX to
succeed in developing a sound launch technology and then going
bankrupt. SpaceX and its rocket technology could then be
bought at a fire-sale price. The buyer could then either
up-price Falcon and fly it, or scrap the tooling so that no
one else could.

On paper they seem likely to be correct. Mr. Musk has to
be burning through tens and tens, if not a hundred or more,
million bucks. He can't possibly keep that up, nor can he
possibly recover his costs or even turn an operating profit
at $6 million per shot, and the other players know it.

- Ed Kyle

(McLean1382) wrote in message ...
The new Air Force estimate is that EELV (Delta IV or Atlas V)
costs for the next round will increase from $70 million to
about $138 million for a Medium version, will rise from
$100-ish million to $192 million for an "intermediate"
version, and will skyrocket from $150 million to $254 million
for a heavy version.


So the heavy has skyrocketted to half the price of a Titan IV?


It has skyrocketed to the price they said Titan IV would
cost before it flew - then the costs doubled. Note that
neither EELV Heavy has yet flown ....

It seems the Air Force has traded in the costly Titan IV
program for two parallel programs that together will
almost certainly cost more than Titan IV in the end.
And since both programs have failed completely in the
commercial launch market, the Air Force gets to pay for
the whole ball of very expensive wax. In fact, since
there are now two launch systems where there once was
one, EELV could very well end up costing the Air Force
*twice* as much as Titan IV. Unless, as I have long
believed is inevitable, NASA gets one of them.

- Ed Kyle

"ed kyle" wrote in message
om...
(McLean1382) wrote in message
...
The new Air Force estimate is that EELV (Delta IV or Atlas V)
costs for the next round will increase from $70 million to
about $138 million for a Medium version, will rise from
$100-ish million to $192 million for an "intermediate"
version, and will skyrocket from $150 million to $254 million
for a heavy version.


So the heavy has skyrocketted to half the price of a Titan IV?


It has skyrocketed to the price they said Titan IV would
cost before it flew - then the costs doubled. Note that
neither EELV Heavy has yet flown ....

And remember, Titan IV made Shuttle look like a bargain. :-)



It seems the Air Force has traded in the costly Titan IV
program for two parallel programs that together will
almost certainly cost more than Titan IV in the end.
And since both programs have failed completely in the
commercial launch market, the Air Force gets to pay for
the whole ball of very expensive wax. In fact, since
there are now two launch systems where there once was
one, EELV could very well end up costing the Air Force
*twice* as much as Titan IV. Unless, as I have long
believed is inevitable, NASA gets one of them.

- Ed Kyle