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Continuing drop in prices?



 
 
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Old May 20th 18, 09:58 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Continuing drop in prices?

JF Mezei wrote on Sun, 20 May 2018
13:44:12 -0400:

On 2018-05-19 07:25, Jeff Findley wrote:

LOL yeah, not much you can do except toss the other US providers some US
Government launches as part of DOD's strategy of having at least two
certified launch providers.


Please enlighten me. Apart from SpaceX, who, of the newbies have an
established and running commercial launch business in USA ?


Do you want 'newbies' or 'established'? Your question contradicts
itself.


And BTW, why is Orbital ATK not using its Antares rocket for commercial
launches? Did getting 2nd stage contract for ULA's Vulcan entail a no
compete clause? Does the transaction with Northrop Grunman change things?


They've only launched half a dozen of them, for Christ's sake! The
fourth launch failed catastrophically and led to a temporary stand
down of some duration. To use it for commercial launches someone
would need to contract with them for a commercial launch. It's early
days...


If ULA can't turn around and develop a competitor to Falcon9, then it is
likely they will just buy SpaceX.


Yeah, and monkeys might fly out your butt (with equal likelihood).


BTW, will ESA respond to SpaceX, or will they stick with Arianne 5?


You know, this stuff is not hard to find out. I looked for less than
five minutes. Look into Prometheus, Adeline and Ariane 6. Prometheus
(a reusable Methane/LOX rocket engine) and Ariane 6 (which will use
said engine) are already well into development. Adeline, which is a
recovery scheme for the engine modules Ariane 6 (or pretty much any
liquid fuel rocket) is in conceptual design. Another reuse concept,
the German LFBB to replace the solid boosters on Ariane 5 was
cancelled. ArianeSpace thinks they can get around a 30% cost
reduction with Adeline.


In the meantime, Boeing and Lockheed will lobby themselves to continued
military contracts, finding some feature that their launch vehicles has
that Falcon9 doesn't to justify the exhorbitant pricing.


You mean ULA, which is the space business spun off by Boeing and
Lockheed. The only thing they'll have that SpaceX doesn't is that
they're not SpaceX.



Yeah, but partial reuse on a vehicle which still depends on solid strap-
ons isn't going to be able to compete with Falcon 9 Block 5 and Falcon
Heavy.


partial re-use might yield results similar to the Shuttle with more work
needed to reuse engines. From a hardware point of view, is adding
ability to land very difficult?


Yeah, and we all saw what it did for price per kg to orbit.


-Is it hard to give engines ability to ignite multiple times in flight?


Depends on the engine type. It certainly takes some additional
hardware and a lot of testing.


-apart from landing legs and fins, is there much more hardware needed
that gave Falcon9 the ability to land?


See the list of stuff changed for Falcon 9 Block 5. Most rockets
don't try to land. Why do you think that is? Even given the example
of SpaceX, big players (ULA, ESA) are going with bringing back engine
modules rather than complete stages. Why do you think that is?



to construct New Glenn launch vehicles. It will likely take another 5
years before we'll be able to judge the success of New Glenn.


I know that there is a huge difference between real orbit with payload
and a joy ride that goes up/down.


How nice for you. Relevance?


However, from a re-usability/landing if 1st stage point of view, is New
Shepard pretty much "mission accomplished" and that experience/software
can be transfered to New Glenn ?


It's hard to classify a vehicle that has never flown operationally as
"mission accomplished". New Glenn is very different from New Shepard.
While some knowledge will be transferable, there are significant
things Blue Origin will have to work out.


Or in other words, in terms of difficulties/stress/heat, does the Falcon
9 1st stage experience stresses/heat on re-entry that are significantly
different from what New Shepard experiences?


Those are certainly other words, to the point of being a different
question. The answer is 'Yes'.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
 




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