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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
According to Justin Ray's Spaceflightnow report at
"http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/scisat1/status.html", about today's (8/12/2003) planned Pegasus XL launch: "The launch costs are $21.6 million. The price tag for the SciSat spacecraft, its instruments and two years of mission operations is $40 million." Most of the previous sources I've seen listed Pegasus launches in the $12-14 million range. $21.6 million seems a bit steep for putting a 150 kg payload into a 650 km deg orbit (inclined 73.9 degrees). That's $144,000 per kg! Taurus, designed to launch three times as much as Pegasus, was supposed to cost $20-25 million. The spacecraft/mission cost seems quite reasonable by comparison. (Maybe Canada should develop its own space launcher, eh?) - Ed Kyle |
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
Most of the previous sources I've seen listed Pegasus
launches in the $12-14 million range. It varies depending on what services you want Orbital to provide, but the price has definitely gone up. I gave a $20M estimate in a recent paper, and the senior fellow at Orbital who reviewed it didn't challenge that. Matt Bille ) OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR |
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
"ed kyle" wrote in message om... According to Justin Ray's Spaceflightnow report at "http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/scisat1/status.html", about today's (8/12/2003) planned Pegasus XL launch: "The launch costs are $21.6 million. The price tag for the SciSat spacecraft, its instruments and two years of mission operations is $40 million." Most of the previous sources I've seen listed Pegasus launches in the $12-14 million range. $21.6 million seems a bit steep for putting a 150 kg payload into a 650 km deg orbit (inclined 73.9 degrees). That's $144,000 per kg! Taurus, designed to launch three times as much as Pegasus, was supposed to cost $20-25 million. The spacecraft/mission cost seems quite reasonable by comparison. (Maybe Canada should develop its own space launcher, eh?) Pegasus is the most expensive launcher in the world on a per-pound basis. It's due to the way Orbital procures its parts and sub-assemblies, as well as the fact that avionics for rockets just ain't cheap and don't scale down with the rest of the rocket. -Colonel K |
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
Colonel K wrote: "ed kyle" wrote in message om... According to Justin Ray's Spaceflightnow report at "http://www.spaceflightnow.com/pegasus/scisat1/status.html", about today's (8/12/2003) planned Pegasus XL launch: "The launch costs are $21.6 million. The price tag for the SciSat spacecraft, its instruments and two years of mission operations is $40 million." Most of the previous sources I've seen listed Pegasus launches in the $12-14 million range. $21.6 million seems a bit steep for putting a 150 kg payload into a 650 km deg orbit (inclined 73.9 degrees). That's $144,000 per kg! Taurus, designed to launch three times as much as Pegasus, was supposed to cost $20-25 million. The spacecraft/mission cost seems quite reasonable by comparison. (Maybe Canada should develop its own space launcher, eh?) Pegasus is the most expensive launcher in the world on a per-pound basis. It's due to the way Orbital procures its parts and sub-assemblies, as well as the fact that avionics for rockets just ain't cheap and don't scale down with the rest of the rocket. -Colonel K However, Pegasus is frequently the least expensive launcher for a specific mission. It has the advantage of being able to fly to a specific area and head in a direction that might require a propellant expensive "dog leg" from some land launch points. And so far SeaLaunch does not provide a small launcher capability. Mike Walsh |
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
"Michael Walsh" wrote in message ... However, Pegasus is frequently the least expensive launcher for a specific mission. It has the advantage of being able to fly to a specific area and head in a direction that might require a propellant expensive "dog leg" from some land launch points. And so far SeaLaunch does not provide a small launcher capability. Absolutely true, and I should've indicated that in my post after I qualified my comment with the "per pound" tag. SciSat - and many, many other small satellites - would still be waiting to bum hitchhike rides on bigger LVs if it weren't for Peg. -Colonel K |
#6
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
George William Herbert wrote:
Alex Terrell wrote: Aren't avionics mostly electronics - in which case why aren't they all on a $100 chip? Even if you use MEMS gyros and acellerometers it's not quite that compact yet. It's not far off. The guidance package can probably be fit in 10g, with quite a lot of effort, I think to go an order of magnitude lower would need at the least making it into one multichip module. 100g is easy, and possibly achievable using just standard parts, without much design. A guidance package the size of some chips (say the same size as the athlon processor I'm using to compose this post) is quite possible. Aside from that, the best way would be to get the volume up, which won't happen till the price comes down. Or, design to lower priced components from the beginning... In some cases it's a case of relaxing the specs, and getting by using combinations of sensors. The gold standard is certainly an inertial guidance system that can get to a tightly specified orbit without needing any outside help other than its position before launch. This pretty much requires fiber optic gyros and other complex items, which are neither light, or cheap, some of which for pretty fundamental reasons. However, while this may be entirely appropriate for some things (ICBMs where it may be launching through a nuclear fireball, and maybe manned flight), is it really needed in all cases? If you just allow the addition of sun sensors, and magnetometers, even basic commercial grade $5 each accellerometers, magnetometers and cameras are perfectly adequate to get you into some sort of orbit. If you then add a GPS reciever, it can be as accurate as the gold-standard one, for a very small fraction of the mass and cost, with the caveat that if GPS goes off during the launch, it probably won't make the orbit you want. What else: - Redesign the engine for larger scale production Yep. Think really hard about the end product, not the process. Do you care if the nosecone is made of oak, or it burns 10 times as much fuel as the 'proper' one should, or that it's painted bright pink, if it delivers what it should on time and budget? - Reengineer the supply chain, and incentivise suppliers to improve component costs. Use non traditional aerospace vendors. And possibly also design and manufacture. Someone who makes trumpets for a living just might know how to get your engine bell just the right shape for $5. COTS. COTS is your friend. Often with conformally coated circuit boards, but it's still your friend. A week ago, I bought a camera that would suit as a sun-sensor, perhaps it needs the addition of some aluminised mylar. Including the lens, it masses a couple of grams, and cost around $(us)10. -- http://inquisitor.i.am/ | | Ian Stirling. ---------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------- The fight between good and evil, an epic battle. Darth vader and Luke, suddenly in the middle of the fight, Darth pulls Luke to him, and whispers "I know what you'r getting for christmas!" Luke exclaims "But how ??!?" "It's true Luke, I know what you'r getting for christmas" Luke tries to ignore this, but wrenches himself free, yelling "How could you know this?", Vader replies "I felt your presents" -- The Chris Evans breakfast show ca. 94 |
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
Michael Walsh wrote:
And so far SeaLaunch does not provide a small launcher capability. Hmmm.... Now maybe there's a market to consider aiming for. D. -- The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found at the following URLs: Text-Only Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html Enhanced HTML Version: http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html Corrections, comments, and additions should be e-mailed to , as well as posted to sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for discussion. |
#8
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
"Derek Lyons" wrote in message ... Michael Walsh wrote: And so far SeaLaunch does not provide a small launcher capability. Hmmm.... Now maybe there's a market to consider aiming for. SpaceX Falcon. -Colonel K |
#9
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
Ian Stirling wrote:
George William Herbert wrote: Alex Terrell wrote: Aren't avionics mostly electronics - in which case why aren't they all on a $100 chip? Even if you use MEMS gyros and acellerometers it's not quite that compact yet. It's not far off. It's further off than you think, unless there have been some advances in the last week or so. The guidance package can probably be fit in 10g, with quite a lot of effort, I think to go an order of magnitude lower would need at the least making it into one multichip module. 100g is easy, and possibly achievable using just standard parts, without much design. A guidance package the size of some chips (say the same size as the athlon processor I'm using to compose this post) is quite possible. MEMS by itself isn't good enough yet. You really want FOG, and those are kilogram by the time you have all three axies going. Aside from that, the best way would be to get the volume up, which won't happen till the price comes down. Or, design to lower priced components from the beginning... In some cases it's a case of relaxing the specs, and getting by using combinations of sensors. The gold standard is certainly an inertial guidance system that can get to a tightly specified orbit without needing any outside help other than its position before launch. This pretty much requires fiber optic gyros and other complex items, which are neither light, or cheap, some of which for pretty fundamental reasons. Oh? FOG are light, cheap, etc by comparison to old gyros. $10k range for a good unit, a bit over a kilogram, etc. However, while this may be entirely appropriate for some things (ICBMs where it may be launching through a nuclear fireball, and maybe manned flight), is it really needed in all cases? If you just allow the addition of sun sensors, and magnetometers, even basic commercial grade $5 each accellerometers, magnetometers and cameras are perfectly adequate to get you into some sort of orbit. If you then add a GPS reciever, it can be as accurate as the gold-standard one, for a very small fraction of the mass and cost, with the caveat that if GPS goes off during the launch, it probably won't make the orbit you want. I think you want to study the problem a bit more. COTS IMUs and GPS are just fine for the mission, now. Really. What else: - Redesign the engine for larger scale production Yep. Think really hard about the end product, not the process. Do you care if the nosecone is made of oak, or it burns 10 times as much fuel as the 'proper' one should, or that it's painted bright pink, if it delivers what it should on time and budget? - Reengineer the supply chain, and incentivise suppliers to improve component costs. Use non traditional aerospace vendors. And possibly also design and manufacture. Someone who makes trumpets for a living just might know how to get On a hundred thousand pound thrust rocket motor? Do you know how *big* those are? your engine bell just the right shape for $5. COTS. COTS is your friend. Often with conformally coated circuit boards, but it's still your friend. A week ago, I bought a camera that would suit as a sun-sensor, perhaps it needs the addition of some aluminised mylar. With all due respect, sun sensors and magnetic sensors are the Wrong Answer. Look at IMUs, look at GPS units that are on the shelf now. Sun sensors are the wrong question. Honest. -george william herbert |
#10
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Pegasus/SciSat Launch Cost
How would one go about creating a less-costly smallsat
launcher? Liquid propellant? Hybrid? Funny you should ask. We just delivered a paper on that to the Conference on Small Satellites. Email me at work address ) if anyone wants a copy. Actually, this year's conference theme was launch, and when the Proceedings are issued, there will be a batch of papers and presentations on this. Matt Bille ) OPINIONS IN ALL POSTS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE AUTHOR |
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