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SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

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Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#21

Post by mikeash »

FrojoS wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.

Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what…

I believe they've said that the second stage is about 25% of the total cost. Not cheap by any means, but just being able to reuse the first stage will be a huge boon. Even more so for Falcon Heavy, which still has a regular second stage, but has three first stage cores.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#22

Post by krschultz »

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa....

I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#23

Post by mikeash »

arikrak wrote: post #5
cloudwalking wrote: post #4

"It's about a 30% increase in performance, maybe a little more." That's pretty amazing increase in performance for an existing platform. Also interesting to see that the Falcon Heavy boosters are literally just Falcon 9s strapped to the sides of a larger rocket. They will be producing just two separate rockets on the factory floor. This is how SpaceX will really squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies. Given the Falco…

That was their original plans for the shuttle. Not saying they won't be able to save money this time, but it's never that simple.

The Shuttle pushed the envelope in a dozen different ways and always operated right on the edge, which made it incredibly complicated and caused it to require extensive refurbishment after each flight.

If you look at costs relative to constructing new launchers, reusing the Shuttle was quite cost effective. Cost per launch was in the neighborhood of $500 million, while the cost of building a new orbiter was in the neighborhood of $2 billion. The trouble was just that the system was so expensive that even the reused cost was really high compared to expendables.

None of that applies to Falcon. It's a conservative system and it's already one of the cheapest out there without any reuse. If they match the Shuttle on cost reduction (launching a reused vehicle costs 25% of the original) then they'll have substantially dropped the cost of getting things into orbit, because they're starting at ~$60 million per vehicle, instead of billions.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#24

Post by justicezyx »

krschultz wrote: post #22

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa... . I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

Given the long-time of stagnant situation of space exploration, it really makes sense to PR like this. Otherwise SpaceX is already dead.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#25

Post by Tuna-Fish »

nickhalfasleep wrote: post #20
FrojoS wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what…

I wonder if instead of letting the second stage burn up, they could dock them in space somewhere to serve as material and fluid storage. They might not work for long term cryogenic storage, but a ton of pure aluminum has to be worth something up there.

They launch to specific orbits desired by the customers. It might well be extremely expensive to move the second stage from these orbits to some common one where could dock.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#26

Post by rst »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
martythemaniak wrote: post #8

Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used ro…

The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.

It's going to be cheaper, but still in the millions, and not just because you still need to pay for a new second stage. There's also nontrivial cost associated with range safety, payload setup, and so forth (which are operations that still involve lots of highly trained personnel, with limited opportunities for automation because, among other things, the payloads aren't all alike).

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#27

Post by toomuchtodo »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #25
nickhalfasleep wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if instead of letting the second stage burn up, they could dock them in space somewhere to serve as material and fluid storage. They might not work for long term cryogenic storage, but a ton of pure aluminum has to be worth something up there.

They launch to specific orbits desired by the customers. It might well be extremely expensive to move the second stage from these orbits to some common one where could dock.

Yes, definitely cost prohibitive from a fuel perspective to change orbits, but the vehicle could be safed for future use. I do not have enough information as to whether though would be valuable unless Tesla as some way to produce fuel on-orbit for the waiting, safed second stages.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#28

Post by [deleted] »

krschultz wrote: post #22

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa... . I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#29

Post by ChuckMcM »

krschultz wrote: post #22

SpaceX continues to be a PR machine. This news comes barely 24 hours after a significant delay due to a helium tank problem - http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/03/17/spacex-puts-off-next-fa... . I'm not saying SpaceX has a fundamental problem, I just find it interesting how obvious PR planted articles are.

You realize that both of the stories, the delay and the discussion of the engine came out of the same luncheon right?

From the linked article : "In a luncheon talk at the Satellite 2015 show in Washington March 17"

From the Spaceflight Now article : "Speaking at a luncheon in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday"

So really it was just a update where all the information came out and different reporters chose different things to report on.

Re: SpaceX's New Spin on Falcon 9

#30

Post by pqomdv »

U.S. House Armed Services Committee Hearings - Assuring Assured Access to Space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ff_5jF_3QU&feature=youtu.be...

This isn't the talk by Gwynne mentioned in the article, however it is a government hearing that happened on the same day by the same person.

( Gotta love the title: AAA - Assuring Assured Access... )

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