He’s going to say something about SpaceX at the National Press Club at 1 PM. Before I heard the venue, I was speculating on Twitter that it was about recovering the stage, but I don’t think he’d do that at the Press Club. Must be something big. Taking the company public? I thought he’d decided that he couldn’t risk losing control. Commenters are welcome to speculate here.
[Update during presser]
So far just announcing success of soft landing on the ocean. As I guessed last week, it was subsequently destroyed by the waves. Saying that it’s a very positive development for reusability. Next time he’ll get a bigger boat. In principle should be able to refly the same day.
[Update after the presser]
OK, the purpose of the press conference was to announce that SpaceX is filing suit to force the Air Force to compete the block buy for EELV that they just issued to ULA late last year. SpaceX didn’t find out about the contract until the day after last month’s hearing on the Hill. It will be interesting to hear what General Shelton has to say.
[Update a while later]
Oh, the other news: they are definitely planning to fly out of Brownsville, within a couple years. Bad news for Shiloh fans, I guess.
[Update a while later]
In response to the question in comments, yes they could probably launch in Texas and land in Florida with a good performance advantage, though it would slow down turnaround. But it just occurs to me that if they do that, they could probably just refuel there and self-ferry back, if the FAA lets them.
Could be an IPO announcement. I bet a lot of people would like to buy their stock, which would get them a lot of money to play with.
Except he’s said that he doesn’t want to give up control in a way that an IPO would require. He’s concerned that a public company will be too concerned with profits and lose the vision.
Going public means losing some control, yes, but you can certainly keep doing business as usual in a lot of respects if you structure things right. Look at Amazon, for instance.
Because of all of the SEC and other nonsense that goes along with going public, I’d hesitate to do it, but the influx of capital might make it worthwhile, especially if it could make SpaceX less dependent on its #1 client.
Amazon is in business to make money. SpaceX is in business to send people to Mars.
Amazon is in business to make money. SpaceX is in business to send people to Mars.
SpaceX is not that dependent on NASA. Its commercial business is expanding rapidly. In fact, he just announced at the EXIM conference this morning that he’s now got a significant segment of the global launch market.
I hear you and agree that they are diversifying their client base, but I also think SpaceX has to be a business first, no matter what it’s overall mission may be. We’ve had enough of nonmarket forces controlling spaceflight, I think. If an IPO helps them get to cheap access to orbit faster, then it makes sense. If not, then it doesn’t.
I’m just telling you what Elon has said in the past. There was talk years ago of going public, but he’s since changed his mind.
This is Mars week in DC.
Red Dragon? Mars Colonial Transport?
Wouldn’t surprise me. Wasn’t the Falcon Heavy also announced at a National Press Club event?
Whatever Raptor is powering is my guess…
Fuel Depot.
Hey, we’re speculating here 😀
Elon likes BFRs.
While watching a BFR take off is no doubt impressing, wether it was a Saturn 5, shuttle or
Energiya i’m not sure the economics are there.
Fly more cheaper usually works out in the sims.
Fly more cheaper usually works out in the sims.
Agreed. SpaceX is busily demonstrating that for NSBFR’s (Not So Big F***ing Rockets). When they get around to bending serious metal for Elon’s BFR it’ll be because they see a way clear to do the same thing on a grander scale.
Until they switch propellants it does not make a lot of sense for them to have fuel depots I think. Perhaps after they switch to LOX/LCH4 they would be more open to the idea.
To fully compete in the DoD services market they need a Delta IV Heavy class launch vehicle. Otherwise the other vendors can hold the DoD hostage to their products. I have seen some claims that you can have enough business with a vehicle with double the payload, most for launching reconnaissance platforms and space station modules, but anything bigger than that seems to be a complete waste of time. I think those proposals are only paper studies.
“To fully compete in the DoD services market they need a Delta IV Heavy class launch vehicle.”
Raptor powered second stage for Falcon 9?
Some type of Mars/BFR announcement along with some info on the latest F9 CRS-3 booster retrieval efforts thrown in since there is interest. The next big thing is a push to move more payload outward. Perhaps a joint development plan with Bigelow. Any rumors of Bigelow people being there?
Oh yeah, While I’m at it. Plans to absorb Pad-39A at KSC into SpaceX.
Tuned in late but so far only about F9 CRS-3 first stage recovery.
EELV Block Buy Lawsuit. No surprise there really….
This lawsuit will strengthen the argument of the anti-commercial space guys who have been saying for years that there are too many companies pursuing too few dollars all off the government taxpayer. They will say this helps prove their case that there is not a viable commercial market big enough to allow SpaceX to ignore EELV. I don’t agree but I need to be prepared to counter the argument. It may be true than EELV is the only game in town that will allow the technology to bridge to a viable commercial sector, but that is only a transitional game not a permanent one IMO.
I think these contracts would have opened up naturally as SpaceX demonstrated their capabilities. Mr Must seems to be a little impatient and the military is understandably risk adverse. How many years does this block buy cover?
Repeat after me…
“Risk averse. Risk averse. Risk averse.”
There are no “D”s anywhere in this phrase (let alone this comment), other than the one in capital letters and quotation marks.
Lol, sorry. I hope people keep misusing it so that it becomes proper English.
5 years I think. Would you be interested in waiting that long?
I don’t have a choice. All I can do is wait for things to happen 🙂
Would the anti-Commercial people be wrong?
So far small sat launchers haven’t been able to find a market large enough to sustain given the
technology and operational approaches.
Strictly speaking, that market has sustained its legacy providers, it’s just that the costs of the traditional approaches taken to serving said market have been high enough to keep the total size of said market fairly trivial because of the seven-figure mission costs. That appears to be in the process of changing. Small orbital launchers have traditionally just been mini-copies of their larger siblings; expensive, owing to limited production, and expendable because no one invested in reusabiliy. Both Virgin and XCOR will field smallsat launchers with much-improved economics owing to the reusability of the carrier air/spacecraft.
Of course, to play devil’s advocate, some would argue that Pegasus showed that the theory of reusable air-launch platforms doesn’t match reality. On the other hand, of course, Pegasus is a terrible launcher design.
I’d be inclined to agree. The worst part was launching it from a converted airliner. A solid rocket with a wing has all the ISP compromises, plus side-loading due to the pull-up trajectory. Too damn big and heavy. They either needed to design something X-15-ish as a second stage that could have launched a small, wingless third stage to orbit, or dispensed with the airliner entirely and gone with something like the NF-104 that could get high enough and fast enough to do an XCOR or Virgin-like smallsat orbital booster release. Virgin is going the 3-stage route with the first two stages (White Knight 2, SpaceShip 2) being reuseable. XCOR’s Lynx is going the NF-104 2-stage route.
“Both Virgin and XCOR will field”
With all due respect Virgin has had a decade and a whole lot of money
without a lot to show. XCOR has had 15 years and reasonable chunks of money
without a lot to show.
In terms of product in the hands of customers, or services delivered, I haven’t seen a
whole lot. Pity.
Yeah, that’ll be true right up until the moment one or the other or both actually put something into orbit. Then it won’t be. Say what you will about Branson, but he’s proven he’s a tenacious bastard. Anybody who got into the space busines on a lark would have bailed out years ago. I don’t see him folding the tent at this late date. Ditto XCOR. They’ve always played long ball. I wouldn’t be surprised if XCOR is the first of these two to put up a smallsat off the Lynx, but I think both will have done so within 24 months.
That’s not much of an argument, Dave. Essentially, it says “There’s not enough business to sustain two suppliers so let’s keep paying outrageous rates to the legacy guys and ignore these upstarts in Hawthorne.” The obvious rejoinder is to say, “Even if you’re right and there isn’t enough business for two suppliers, let’s quit raping the taxpayer and give all the business to the low-price guys.” Good luck to the “anti-commercial space guys” refuting that one in the court of public opinion.
Yes. At this point they’re reduced to arguing reliability, but that argument gets hard to make with every successful SpaceX flight, and even if there’s a launch failure, you can buy a lot of extra satellites and probably lower-cost ones for the money you’re saving on launches.
It’s a real problem though of “Devil you know versus, Devil you don’t”.
SpaceX has a flight capable vehicle, the Falcon 9. It’s capable of doing EELV Light
and Medium missions to Leo, however, it’s not really a good GEO launcher yet.
No doubt, they will get there.
however they need a Falcon 9 Heavy, so it’s more work. No Doubt SpaceX can do that too.
but USAF wants a really big production capacity some 50 birds/year. they want top secret clean rooms, control rooms, etc,,,,
if SpaceX does that costs will rise.
I’m agnostic on the whole thing, I don’t care about ULA or SpaceX, but, if ULA closes up shop,
SpaceX will raise prices. I view the whole thing as a spat between Ultra-Corporation and Billionaire.
It’s vaguely like watching TV Wrestling. I have no real skin in that game.
It would seem SpaceX would be best off building track record, growing capability and
picking off the occasional USAF launch. NASA will keep SpaceX fed for a few more years,
and they are better off chasing commsats.
Disagree about the suitability of F9 as a GEO hauler. Given the trend toward lighter, electric propulsion GEO comsats, the Falcon 9 v1.1 seems perfectly situated to capture nearly all of that market. Proof is that SpaceX doesn’t seem to need to “chase comsats” anymore, comsats are chasing them.
More to the point, most of the DoD/USAF/NRO payloads don’t go anywhere near GEO, so the F9’s suitability has to be assessed against the actual orbits that are required. A lot of the recon stuff is LEO, for example. GPS birds are MEO. The F9 can’t handle everything on the U.S. government manifest, to be sure, but the FH should be first-flighted within a year and the USAF will probably take nearly that long to finish sprinkling holy water on the F9 missions SpaceX has already flown, never mind the even larger number they will have flown by the time the first FH lights off. The missions SpaceX is suing ULA about don’t start for another year or two anyway. SpaceX will have put a lot of new facts in orbit and on the ground by then.
I’d be interested in any sources you can provide for the idea that the gov’t requires a 50 – 100 cores/year production capacity for EELV’s. I don’t think ULA can get anywhere near that and even SpaceX is only working toward a 40-core/year production rate for F9/FH. Even assuming the accuracy of your assertion, however, I fail to see how meeting such a large surge production requirement would raise costs. Ramping up production is the usual way that costs of manufactured goods fall.
If ULA closes up shop, the shareholders will lose their shirts, but ULA’s assets will not evaporate. They’ll be sold for a few cents on the dollar to some other management team and, with a reasonable cost basis after some pruning of non-essential staff, the firm, under some other name, will resume cranking out rockets. ULA dead and resurrected is likely to be more formidable competition for SpaceX than ULA alive. Creative destruction of the marketplace and all that.
ramping up does reduce costs, but if you are sized to produce a lot
and you are only producing a little, then it’s expensive.
A factory with a production line is a very low cost bulk producer
but it’s very expensive if you are only making small lots.
ULA dead and resurrected is likely to be more formidable competition for SpaceX than ULA alive.
Especially if it is no longer controlled by two parent entities whose interest it is to stifle innovation by it.
>OK, the purpose of the press conference was to announce that SpaceX is filing suit to force the Air Force >to compete the block buy for EELV that they just issued to ULA late last year. SpaceX didn’t find out about >the contract until the day after last month’s hearing on the Hill. It will be interesting to hear what General >Shelton has to say.
We need to get all of our National Security payloads on station before we run out of Russian Rocket Motors?
“This lawsuit will strengthen the argument of the anti-commercial space guys who have been saying for years that there are too many companies pursuing too few dollars all off the government taxpayer.”
Reducing cost for the taxpayer while bringing commercial launch back to the US? Out competing the Chinese, the Russians *and* Europe? Do it with on-shore manufacturing in the US?
What is not to like from the US tax payer point of view?
“Reducing cost for the taxpayer while bringing commercial launch back to the US? Out competing the Chinese, the Russians *and* Europe? Do it with on-shore manufacturing in the US? What is not to like from the US tax payer point of view?”
Well I’ll play along as devil’s advocate. Mind you I don’t agree with these arguments but I’m sure we will see them.
1) By allowing commercial companies to bid against each other and then sue each other or the government over the outcome of the procurement process will only needlessly hinder the Air Force’s ability to launch national security payloads on a timely schedule. It may also hinder national security objectives because of the procurement delays these lawsuits will inevitably produce.
2) Will the government be precluded from being able to conduct “block-buy” purchases in the future w/o being sued for providing the selected vendor a competitive advantage? (I think the way fighter aircraft are bid and contracts awarded would be a good counter-argument to this one).
3) It is not really a “free” market out there, never was and this proves the point. Why isn’t Elon going after the ESA for national security payloads for France, Great Britain or any ally not bound up in ITAR restrictions? Why is he suing the US DoD / ULA? Because he knows he has a chance at winning this one and none at all elsewhere. This proves exactly the point that this is “by-nature” a highly regulated and “non-free” market. Free market in military aerospace and rockets in particular is a fiction. Governments have too much at stake to risk on the whims of market-forces. The fact that ULA is dependent on the Russian RD-180 is *exactly* the kind of problem you get when you give commercial providers too much leeway.
OK, refute away folks! I’m not going to color the rebuttals with *my* biases….
Okay, I’ll have a go.
(1) The problem is there was no bidding. ULA saw SpaceX coming up fast on the outside in their rear view mirror and thought they’d get their brass-hat friends to block buy four or five year’s worth of booster cores to preserve their high-price monopoly for at least that much longer, plus keep that billion a year subsidy money coming. A straightforwardly corrupt bargain that ass-rapes the U.S. taxpayer – i.e., business as usual in the defense contracting world. Good luck to ULA trying to portray SpaceX as the predator on this one.
(2) The problem with this block buy is that it was obviously concluded quickly, at the behest of the incumbent monopoly contractor, for the exclusive benefit of said contractor in an effort to stave off competition and squeeze every last sheckel possible out of the long-suffering taxpayer. Pointing out that the same companies behind ULA have been doing the same thing forever on other defense contracts is not going to be a good defensive move in these current straightened times. Good luck trying to pursue a PR strategy based on selling the taxpaying public on the sacredness of “traditional graft”.
(3) It’s not really a free market now. The appearance of SpaceX makes it possible for it to become one like it was originally supposed to be. This whole ULA nonsense was a sop to Boeing and LockMart after the commercial U.S. launch services market cratered along with the dot-com bubble. Launch services now being capable of being a real market again, it should be restored to said status ASAP so the taxpayer gets his money’s worth. What the Europeans want to do about European government launches is up to the Europeans and not relevant to what the U.S. governmet should do about U.S. government launches. Being Europeans, they will doubtless continue to do what Europeans usually do; something statist, mercantilist and monopolistic. Ho hum.
As for the ludicrous dependence on the Russian RD-180, that has nothing to do with the allegedly commercial nature of ULA. It made all of the relevant decisions as a purpose-built monopoly. Buying cheap Russian engines just made their already cozy sole-source deal even cozier. Oh yeah, somebody really ought to ask exactly what “capabilities” have been “maintained” all these years by that $1 billion subsidy ULA gets every year. Capability to reverse engineer Russian engines doesn’t seem to have been on the list. Maybe they ought to give all that money back as it seems not to have bought anything of value to the U.S. taxpayer.
As to why Elon chose to bring suit now, it’s because ULA chose to pursue this anti-competitive block buy deal now. Not that Elon wouldn’t probably also relish a bit of payback for past ULA aggressions including their recent sock-puppetry with Blue Origin over the LC-39A lease, but also going back as far as Falcon 1 days when SpaceX was at least temporarily squeezed out of a spot at V’berg and had to make do with Kwaj. Payback’s a bitch.
Bloody well put.
The EELV capability money is aimed at cranking out 100 EELVs per year.
So a lot of factory space, a lot of long lead items and a trained work force.
now why a 100 birds per year? Go ask space command.
I can guess why. Imagine an adversarial power like China or Russia uses an ASAT system to knock down all US space assets. Still I think if you had a system to cope with a situation like that you wouldn’t use something which requires a complex prepared pad out in the open like EELV.
“So a lot of factory space, a lot of long lead items and a trained work force.”
Long lead times are a detriment to the rapid deployment of space based assets. This is why we are seeing interest in things like cube sat swarms, the x-37b, and airships. Things that can be deployed quickly to cover a specific geographic area and could operate outside the debris field of a satellite Armageddon.
I don’t know where you got this idea, but I can find no basis for it. I found a document dated Sept. 15, 1998 that outlines the whole (as of that time) projected EELV program. I’ve reproduced three relevant paragraphs having to do with launch rates:
4.1.10 Launch Rate (Basic).
The Basic Launch Rate (highest planned rate) is the EELV portion of the National Mission Model and it varies for each coast. As a threshold, the EELV system must have the capacity to provide 12 launches at Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS) per year, which may include one heavy mission, and 6 launches at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) per year, which may include one heavy mission. EELV shall be capable of achieving the Basic Launch Rate as a normal course of operations with routine maintenance. The launch rate must be achievable taking into account maintenance of the system and its infrastructure, weather delays, launch range conflicts with other spacelift systems, and other typical launch delays. Methodology is presented in Appendix D.
4.1.10.1 Resiliency (Max. Sustainable Launch Rate).
Resiliency is the increase in launch rates above the Basic Launch Rate and gives the maximum sustainable launch rate (with scheduled maintenance and non-routine operations) that is timely, efficient, and dependable. EELV must be resilient enough to accommodate additions to the NMM and to recover from a downing event or other delays which could cause the system to not meet the EELV portion of the NMM. As an objective, 5 additional launches (2 medium and 1 heavy, East Coast and 1 medium and 1 heavy West Coast) above the basic Launch Rate.
4.1.10.2 Crisis Response (Surge or Peak Capacity).
A crisis may require an increase in launch rates above the maximum sustainable rate to provide on-orbit support to the warfighter. This capacity could be above the maximum sustainable rate (Resiliency) and be used for a short duration and not be sustainable. It will allow the call-up of unscheduled payloads into the schedule with minimal delay of previously scheduled payloads. The objective is to be able to call-up and launch 3 unscheduled medium payloads (2 East Coast and 1 West Coast) within a 2-month period every 12 months and be back on the annual schedule within 6 months (assuming currently launching at the maximum sustainable rate).
So, to borrow Navy terminology, full speed ahead is 18 launches/year, flank speed is 23 launches/year, emergency speed is 26 launches/year. ULA intends to launch 8 Atlas V’s and 4 Delta IV’s this year including one Delta IV Heavy. ULA has never flown more than one Delta IV Heavy in any given year. The current flight rates for both Atlas V and Delta IV are high by historical standards. Since both rockets became operational in 2002, the average flight rate for both has been half or less of the current figure, but the increased launch tempo does seem to be intended as the new normal for ULA. Still, it’s well short of even the low-end flight rate stipulated in the 1998 document. If ULA is getting a $1 billion/year to be able to crank out 50 to 100 cores, they are not delivering. I think they’re getting the money just to “cover their nut” as it were. There seems no evidence to support any other alleged purpose behind this subsidy.
It’s interesting that SpaceX’s announced production goal of 40 cores/year would be sufficient to meet even the high end flight rate requirement stipulated in the 1998 document and still leave about 10 cores for non-government customers. And that’s without any reuseability.
Dick
All I can say, is i’ve interviewed people at USAF SMC, and ULA and they talk about that high rate capability as a operational driver.
It is explicit policy of the EU to have indigenous launch capability for national security payloads. I doubt this policy will change. Of course purely civilian satellite companies like Eutelsat will and do compete launches in the open market.
As for the US military market being more open to European products do not delude yourself. After what happened in the Boeing vs Airbus tanker contest can you even say that with a straight face?
As for the US military market being more open to European products do not delude yourself. After what happened in the Boeing vs Airbus tanker contest can you even say that with a straight face?
Who do you imagine to be saying this at all, straight-faced, smirking or laughing out loud? Nobody here, that’s for sure.
There has always been a lot of mercantilism associated with defense production and even (Airbus) civilian air transport production. Far from denying this, a lot of us here are smply pointing out that domestic politics also figure in these matters, not just international politics. ULA can’t be remotely competitive on price even with the USG picking up their annual overhead. So to buy themselves a few more years of monopoly profits, ULA reaches out to their friends in the scrambled egg hat brigade who are approaching retirement and would doubtless like nice cushy positions as “Executive Vice Presidents in Charge of Playing Golf with Congressmen” when they retire to civilian life. Elon, having no drones on his payroll, would prefer not to employ any in future, either, and seeks to break the old-boys club open by other means.
I am guessing they want to consolidate as much as they can at the new site so they don’t have standing armies at each launch site for refurbishing. Separating commercial from government launch sites is a great idea. Hard to see how they could do same day turnaround from a NASA facility.
Can they launch from Texas and land in Florida?
I wondered the same thing when I first heard of them wanting to launch from Brownsville. Using a spreadsheet that I found online a long time ago with Brownsville as the launch site and Naples, Florida as the landing site (~1550 km), you’d need a delta-v of about 4.1 km/sec (~9,170 MPH) to fly a ballistic trajectory. That’s considerably faster than a Falcon 9 V1.1 at staging but might be about right for the center core of a Falcon Heavy. It seems easier to return the outer cores to the launch site and try for Florida for the center core. For a regular Falcon 9, it might depend on the trajectory.
given the primary market for Falcon 9 right now is ISS Resupply does it work?
Hitting 51.6, seems like you take a heck of a dogleg out of texas.
Not true. The primary market for Falcon 9 is satellite launches. That’s what the first three F9 v1.1 missions were for and it’s also what the next three missions will be for. The CRS contract is significant, but it hardly dominates SpaceX’s manifest. The Brownsville site is, according to SpaceX, going to be entirely dedicated to non-gov’t. missions. That leaves the current Canaveral and V’berg pads, plus LC-39A for gov’t. work. This will include CRS missions, F9 and FH missions for DoD, USAF and NRO and crew transport to ISS. That would be a dozen to a dozen and a half missions a year just for the U.S. government. Brownsville will probably be handling twice that rate of traffic within two years of going operational.
“Brownsville will probably be handling twice that rate of traffic within two years of going operational.”
It should be interesting to see how many pads they construct and if they move manufacturing facilities. Maintaining facilities in different states makes sense for lobbying but consolidating operations as much as possible has to be a money saver, especially if the same workforce that constructs cores does the refurbishing.
I expect some reorganization will take place after lobbying is less critical to their survival.
The launches out of Brownsville will almost certainly all be going to GTO. The trajectory should go just to the south of Florida. Brownsville is a little closer to the equator than the Cape resulting in a small performance increase mostly from not having to change the inclination as much to achieve GEO.
Launches to the ISS will be from the Cape due to launch azimuth constraints with polar/sun synchronous launches from Vandenberg. National security payloads will likely take place from the Cape Canaveral AFB or Vandenberg AFB for security reasons.
Brownsville is an excellent choice for a launch site. But a landing site in Florida is not necessary when you have these dotting your landscape already:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_platform
Most of these are situated above oil fields that just happen to be in favorable positions for likely trajectories out of Brownsville. Current law requires decommissioned oil platforms to be dismantled. Along comes SpaceX with an offer. A win/win for both. The seller rids himself of a white elephant that’s going to cost him money to tear down and SpaceX gets a ready-made landing platform with a lot of the heavy structure and equipment already in place to handle returning boosters. Oh and did I mention the non-existent NIMBY problem?
Sorry wrong link. This map is the one I intended to forward:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gulf_Coast_Platforms.jpg
I wonder if hurricanes would pose a problem.
Only while they were occurring, which might result in a launch delay of a day or three. Oil rigs are designed to handle hurricanes.
SeaLaunch didn’t repurpose an aging off shore drilling rig, instead they ended up
building a new one. I suspect by the time you are done modifying an oil rig,
you may find it is cheaper to build a new one.
That would depend a lot on how deep the water is the rig is designed to operate in. Jack-up rigs, that operate in fairly shallow water aren’t – by oil rig standards – very expensive, but they’re also not very suitable as landing platforms for rocket boosters; at least part of each jack-up leg is usually sticking well up above the main platform deck. Other, deeper-water designs tend to be pricier, but some are flatter on top. Given that landing rockets doesn’t require a lot of equipment that oil drilling does, it might well be cheaper to put together something bespoke than to order off the wildcatter’s standard menu.
Elonn has a few good lawyers on hi payroll, ( see Tesla cases ) and they need to earn their keep.
This is best investment of their resources at this time, simple. Risk/reward
Given the comparatively short track record of the F9 compared to the ULA launchers, I could understand if, say, NRO preferred ULA for now for lofting multi-billion dollar sats.
But that’s not what happened. The block buy isn’t for just high-price sats. And, most glaringly, it looks as if it was put together in the dark, and at ULA’s behest.
BTW, anyone have a ballpark for what the government actually pays for ULA launches? I’m thinking that the subsidy needs to be factored in. If it’s, as reported, a billion a year (listed as a launch capability maintenance fee), then would a fair way to do it be divide the billion by the number of ULA launches in a year, and add that to the cost per launch? If we use 2013 (their busiest year to date) we get 11 launches. That’d mean adding 90 million to each launch price tag, which the Washington post estimates to already be around 400 million per launch (granted, that’s for a broad mix of vehicles, including some heavy versions of Atlas and Delta with three cores.)
Incidentally, the bad blood between SpaceX and ULA goes back a long way. Remember when ULA was formed by merger in 2005? It was SpaceX that sued to try to stop it. Eventually, the suit was dismissed on the grounds that, due to not having a launch vehicle, SpaceX had no standing to sue.
You people keep forgetting the Delta III and Delta IV Heavy launch failures. ULA partners certainly do NOT have a spotless launch record. Atlas does have a good launch record but it uses Russian RD-180 engines.
The Delta III wasn’t an EELV but an intended follow-on to the highly successful Delta II. It’s failures shouldn’t be counted in with the ULA EELVs. The first Delta IV Heavy was a partial failure because the first stages shut down too soon, resulting in the final orbit being lower than intended and the loss of a couple small secondary payloads. IIRC, a Delta IV carrying a GPS satellite had its Centaur shut down early. The satellite used its own propellant to reach the final operational orbit. I don’t recall any similar problems with the Atlas V.
Godzilla said; You people keep forgetting the Delta III and Delta IV Heavy launch failures. ULA partners certainly do NOT have a spotless launch record. Atlas does have a good launch record but it uses Russian RD-180 engines.
Whoa there. I’m not forgetting that at all, and I agree with you in the main. But, given the number of launches compared to failures, they do have a pretty good track record. What SpaceX lacks is a statistical significant sample – so far. It’ll be there within a year. So, *for the moment*, I do see NRO preferring ULA for the high value (2 billion plus per bird) class launches. But, that’s three to four launches a year so most ULA launches aren’t in that range, so I do think there’s plenty of room for allowing other launch providers in.