SpaceX--Spacecraft, rockets, and Mars

[Ghjhero]

I ran into a friend from high school the other day who seriously doesn't believe we landed on the moon, there's no reasoning with those people. 

[SpaceChampion]

 

[SpaceChampion]

Video from a fairing as it falls back to Earth (not all the way down, unfortunately):

They're trying to recover these, but there was an issue with the parachute in the last attempt.  SpaceX hopes to nail it by the end of the year.

[SpaceChampion]

Expendable launch of Falcon 9 attempting today, scheduled for 7:36PM EDT, taking Intelsat 35e to GEO.  Would be the 3rd launch in 10 days by SpaceX.  After that, there's a bit of gap to the next launch about six weeks later.  Annual scheduled maintenance to the pad 39A & radar installation in the mean time I think.  Presumably SpaceX will use the time to work on pad 40 as well, prepping for moving F9 operations over to it eventually so 39A can be used for Falcon Heavy launches.

Webcast:

 

[Altherion]

Today's launch was postponed to tomorrow due to some navigation or guidance problems. I wonder what went wrong and whether they'll be able to fix it quickly.

[SpaceChampion]

Tonight's webcast:

 

8:40PM update:  Another computer-initiated launch abort.  Probably different issue, but yet to hear word.  They are in the process of de-fueling the rocket and making the payload safe and secure; retry tomorrow for a July 4th launch.  Stressed out rocket engineers will have to work tomorrow.

[SpaceChampion]

Third try's the charm -- successful launch of Intelsat-35E on Falcon 9.

 

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Third try's the charm -- successful launch of Intelsat-35E on Falcon 9.

 

Right on, nerds. Right on.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Stupid question.  If you've read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson I wonder if, given the progress made by SpaceX over the last year if he'd have to change the way he thinks things would play out in that novel?  Would he have to factor up the amount of "stuff" we'd be able to get up to the cloud ark, would there be a greater ability to put people into orbit.  

Just something I'm thinking about as I'm doing a re-read of Seveneves.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Right on, nerds. Right on.

Does it cost more or less, per customer, to use a return first stage?

[SpaceChampion]

I haven't read Seveneves.  Yes, up-mass certainly changes everything for our future prospects in space.  Being able to cheaply bring up tech to mine and manufacture in space will be part of that change.

It certainly costs less per customer to reuse a first stage.  SpaceX seems to be charging those customers around 30% less.  Over time they can bring that down further as they amortize their development costs.  They're working on fairing recovery and will do a hail Mary attempt on 2nd stage recovery at least once.  If they do all that they can get a 90% reduction in cost, probably.  The first stage is 75% of the cost, the fairing about 10% and the 2nd stage I'd guess about 12%.  Recovering 97% of the cost and flying each 10 to 100 times...  It's 1000 to 10,000 fold cost reduction.  How much should be passed on to the customer is an exercise for the accountants, while still amortizing Falcon development and paying for ITS development.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

28 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I haven't read Seveneves.  Yes, up-mass certainly changes everything for our future prospects in space.  Being able to cheaply bring up tech to mine and manufacture in space will be part of that change.

It certainly costs less per customer to reuse a first stage.  SpaceX seems to be charging those customers around 30% less.  Over time they can bring that down further as they amortize their development costs.  They're working on fairing recovery and will do a hail Mary attempt on 2nd stage recovery at least once.  If they do all that they can get a 90% reduction in cost, probably.  The first stage is 75% of the cost, the fairing about 10% and the 2nd stage I'd guess about 12%.  Recovering 97% of the cost and flying each 10 to 100 times...  It's 1000 to 10,000 fold cost reduction.  How much should be passed on to the customer is an exercise for the accountants, while still amortizing Falcon development and paying for ITS development.

 

You'd enjoy Seveneves.  I'd love to hear your take on how the story should be changed to match current conditions if SpaceX is factored in.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

I haven't read Seveneves.  Yes, up-mass certainly changes everything for our future prospects in space.  Being able to cheaply bring up tech to mine and manufacture in space will be part of that change.

It certainly costs less per customer to reuse a first stage.  SpaceX seems to be charging those customers around 30% less.  Over time they can bring that down further as they amortize their development costs.  They're working on fairing recovery and will do a hail Mary attempt on 2nd stage recovery at least once.  If they do all that they can get a 90% reduction in cost, probably.  The first stage is 75% of the cost, the fairing about 10% and the 2nd stage I'd guess about 12%.  Recovering 97% of the cost and flying each 10 to 100 times...  It's 1000 to 10,000 fold cost reduction.  How much should be passed on to the customer is an exercise for the accountants, while still amortizing Falcon development and paying for ITS development.

 

Not quite. If a rocket is fully re-used 10 times, then it is a 10 times cost reduction - i.e. the manufacturing cost of the rocket is spread over 10 launches. If it flies 100 times, it is a 100 fold cost reduction. But this assumes full reuse, and doesn't include other launch costs such as ground crews, pad operations, fuel etc. And we know the current F9 will not achieve full reuse. Its upper stage doesn't have enough juice for re-entry and landing burns.

So the best we can expect from the F9 Block 5 is likely a drop from the current $60m per launch, cost to customer, to probably in the region of $20m per launch, cost to customer. That's assuming fairing recovery and reuse, but no upper stage recovery. That's still an amazing breakthrough, and will kill all of their existing competitors.

For 100-fold cost reductions, you need to wait for the ITS, which, with full reuse and an internal cargo bay (therefore no need for fairing recovery), will certainly achieve that on a cost/kg launched to orbit basis. Bringing it down to around $100/kg, eventually, or perhaps even lower, which is 100 times lower than the $10,000/kg or more that is currently the norm.

[SpaceChampion]

26 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Not quite. If a rocket is fully re-used 10 times, then it is a 10 times cost reduction - i.e. the manufacturing cost of the rocket is spread over 10 launches. If it flies 100 times, it is a 100 fold cost reduction.

I don't think manufacturing cost is the greatest cost in the price though.  Development (ie. salaries for your engineers, costs for test stands, pad costs, unrecoverable costs for flying test rockets without paid payload) is much more, but once you have your final design every reusable rocket pays that down.  So you are not reducing over 10 or 100 flights, but 1000s.  This is why SpaceX is planning on an internet satellite constellation of it own, to be it's own best customer.  They intend to launch 100s of times a year from 4 different launch pads.

Certainly though they are not going to lower the price so much that they're not making a profit.

 

@Ser Scot A Ellison

Quote

You'd enjoy Seveneves.  I'd love to hear your take on how the story should be changed to match current conditions if SpaceX is factored in.

I'll put that on my list to read then. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

50 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Not quite. If a rocket is fully re-used 10 times, then it is a 10 times cost reduction - i.e. the manufacturing cost of the rocket is spread over 10 launches. If it flies 100 times, it is a 100 fold cost reduction. But this assumes full reuse, and doesn't include other launch costs such as ground crews, pad operations, fuel etc. And we know the current F9 will not achieve full reuse. Its upper stage doesn't have enough juice for re-entry and landing burns.

So the best we can expect from the F9 Block 5 is likely a drop from the current $60m per launch, cost to customer, to probably in the region of $20m per launch, cost to customer. That's assuming fairing recovery and reuse, but no upper stage recovery. That's still an amazing breakthrough, and will kill all of their existing competitors.

For 100-fold cost reductions, you need to wait for the ITS, which, with full reuse and an internal cargo bay (therefore no need for fairing recovery), will certainly achieve that on a cost/kg launched to orbit basis. Bringing it down to around $100/kg, eventually, or perhaps even lower, which is 100 times lower than the $10,000/kg or more that is currently the norm.

Who is manufacturing the ITS?

Just found this:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13078230/spacex-mars-interplanetary-rocket-spaceship-video

[Free Northman Reborn]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who is manufacturing the ITS?

Just found this:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13078230/spacex-mars-interplanetary-rocket-spaceship-video

It's the next generation SpaceX Mars vehicle. But the ITS terminology is actually already outdated. Gwynne Shotwell in her latest interview stated that they have returned to the "BFR" name for it. Anyway, when Elon talks about two orders of magnitude reductions in launch costs, that is the vehicle he is talking about. Not the current Falcon 9 or even the Falcon Heavy, which is launching soon.

The BFR will make all of these vehicles obsolete, as it brings a whole new economy of scale and full reuse into the picture. But that is still a few years away. Probably 10 years away, if one is realistic. But very, very exciting.

In the interim we are probably looking at cost reductions in the region of 3-fold for the Falcon 9, and maybe twice that for the Falcon Heavy, if they can figure out a way to bring the fairing and perhaps the 2nd stage back on some missions. But that would likely have to wait for the Raptor engine, which will likely only see the light of day in the next generation vehicle.

[SpaceChampion]

They have a contract with the US Air Force to prototype a Raptor engine on the 2nd stage of F9 and F-Heavy, presumably to allow for military / security payloads that require even more thrust.  They've already made a one-third scale prototype, so I think a full scale prototype is a lot more closer to use than you are saying.  It's suppose to be completed by end of 2018.  The contract doesn't specify an actual flight, just ground tests, but I can easily see SpaceX using one of its Falcon Heavy demo flights to fly it.
 

[Free Northman Reborn]

33 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

They have a contract with the US Air Force to prototype a Raptor engine on the 2nd stage of F9 and F-Heavy, presumably to allow for military / security payloads that require even more thrust.  They've already made a one-third scale prototype, so I think a full scale prototype is a lot more closer to use than you are saying.  It's suppose to be completed by end of 2018.  The contract doesn't specify an actual flight, just ground tests, but I can easily see SpaceX using one of its Falcon Heavy demo flights to fly it.
 

Possibly. It is a fierce debate being waged at the moment, among fans. There are pro's and con's to diverting R&D resources to such a step. It seems an intermediate "mini" BFR with both first and 2nd stages running on Raptors is the more prevalent view among armchair critics at this point in time. But Gwynne did say in her Space Show interview recently that the utility of using Raptor on the Falcon architecture is being investigated, so who knows.

[SpaceChampion]

Yes, before that interview I was doubtful.  All indications prior was that they'd dismissed it as not really possible without spending a lot of money to save maybe $8-12 million per 2nd stage, and still not be able to do it for all missions such as those to GEO.  Perhaps the real savings though is found freeing up their production line from making as many 2nd stages as they'll need, if it were reusable.  Might be an insurance thing too by getting as much experience as possible flying a methalox engine to prove down the risk to the insurers before BFR.

[Jace, Extat]

12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Does it cost more or less, per customer, to use a return first stage?

It costs just the right amount.