This is great but landing the rocket is just a step in efficiency. Will they be able to do it in a way that lowers costs and leads to high numbers of resues all while competing in the market?
Given that they don’t expect to have this flying before the 2028-2030 time frame, by which time BFR should have rendered every other launch vehicle on the planet obsolete, I would say not.
Good to see both the Euros and the Chinese accepting that reusability has become the new normal. But the timing of both is far from optimal and initial operational capability of even Falcon 9-class vehicles is most probably a minimum of most of a decade away. By that time, the Falcons will be museum exhibits and SH-Starship will be on its fifth or sixth round of upgrades and extensions. There might even be a stainless steel version of the original 12-meter ITS concept in service.
A decade hence, NGIS will absolutely be gone and ULA will only survive in any form if Blue Origin buys it in the interim. The Russians will be a non-factor with no manned program left and barely the ability to launch a few of their rickety antiques every year to keep bare steerage way on their milsat population.
Where the Euros still go wrong is in their ambivalence. They still intend to press on with Ariane 6 despite tepid customer reviews and insufficient early orders. If they were genuinely committed to Themis, they’d simply drop Ariane 6 and turn all hands to getting Themis up and running ASAP. In Europe, though, hustle seems to be just a dance from the 70’s.
I think the old chestnut anent dancing bears is appropriate once again – “it is less surprising that the thing is done badly than that it is done at all.”
Good points!
Regarding Arianespace proceeding on Ariane 6 in the face of low customer interest and reviews (and a highly dubious price estimate), I recall Airbus doing the same on the A380 superjumbo. That did not end well for them.
Nice for the passengers though. I would bet Ariane 6 launches will be offered at a loss because EuropeCo can’t make hard decisions.
Meeting customer demand is irrelevant in a socialist economy, because they get paid either way.
I don’t think the Russian manned program will go away. Thay’ve been flying Soyuz for fifty years now, and they can keep flying it as long as they want to. National prestige has always been an important factor in space flight, and they have a great deal of national prestige bound up in their manned program. They dealt with Soyuz looking like a biplane next to the Shuttle, they will deal with it looking like a biplane next to BFR.
“…it’s unlikely to debut before 2028 or 2030.”
By that point, Elon will be opening his first Tesla dealership on Mars.
Heh. But I do think that is no worse than an even money bet.
One serious obstacle they face is they won’t be able to exploit pricier expendable launches as much to debug the recovery maneuvers of the first stage, like SpaceX did. Prices are lower now because SpaceX has already done that.
Ariane 6 will be launched a fair number of times simply because they have no other viable alternative to it. I think had EU governments funded the ESC-B upper stage for the Ariane 5 instead of relying on Soyuz at Kourou to launch Galileo and other medium weight payloads they would not be in the mess they are now.
Europe did have proposals for reusable launchers with LOX/Methane first stages over a decade ago. The Prometeus rocket engine is actually simpler than the proposals back then.
I also think you guys overestimate the progress SpaceX and Blue Origin will make over the next couple of years. I don’t see the BFR in service earlier than 2-3 years from now if ever.
Even if takes CNES 5 years to make a reusable engine it will still be ok.
It is quite likely the launch market will contract over the next years as usual. The space launch market is a lot more inelastic than some people think.
Get back to me on 1-1-2020 and we’ll talk.
You would be lucky if they test the upper stage demo vehicle for BFR by then like they are supposed to.
The last time someone did a rocket as large as that without any ground testing resulted in that failure the Soviets called N1.
Nobody thinks BFR will be in service in less than 2-3 years, and 4-5 will not surprise me, but, whenever it happens, the first time a BFR takes wing, it renders every other launcher in the world obsolete, as surely as the first steam ship did to all sailing vessels.
Too many unknown unknowns. Besides even if it does become operational there’s the question of what you’ll use such a large launch vehicle for. In the past operators with large launch vehicles have not fared all that well.
This is great but landing the rocket is just a step in efficiency. Will they be able to do it in a way that lowers costs and leads to high numbers of resues all while competing in the market?
Given that they don’t expect to have this flying before the 2028-2030 time frame, by which time BFR should have rendered every other launch vehicle on the planet obsolete, I would say not.
Good to see both the Euros and the Chinese accepting that reusability has become the new normal. But the timing of both is far from optimal and initial operational capability of even Falcon 9-class vehicles is most probably a minimum of most of a decade away. By that time, the Falcons will be museum exhibits and SH-Starship will be on its fifth or sixth round of upgrades and extensions. There might even be a stainless steel version of the original 12-meter ITS concept in service.
A decade hence, NGIS will absolutely be gone and ULA will only survive in any form if Blue Origin buys it in the interim. The Russians will be a non-factor with no manned program left and barely the ability to launch a few of their rickety antiques every year to keep bare steerage way on their milsat population.
Where the Euros still go wrong is in their ambivalence. They still intend to press on with Ariane 6 despite tepid customer reviews and insufficient early orders. If they were genuinely committed to Themis, they’d simply drop Ariane 6 and turn all hands to getting Themis up and running ASAP. In Europe, though, hustle seems to be just a dance from the 70’s.
I think the old chestnut anent dancing bears is appropriate once again – “it is less surprising that the thing is done badly than that it is done at all.”
Good points!
Regarding Arianespace proceeding on Ariane 6 in the face of low customer interest and reviews (and a highly dubious price estimate), I recall Airbus doing the same on the A380 superjumbo. That did not end well for them.
Nice for the passengers though. I would bet Ariane 6 launches will be offered at a loss because EuropeCo can’t make hard decisions.
Meeting customer demand is irrelevant in a socialist economy, because they get paid either way.
I don’t think the Russian manned program will go away. Thay’ve been flying Soyuz for fifty years now, and they can keep flying it as long as they want to. National prestige has always been an important factor in space flight, and they have a great deal of national prestige bound up in their manned program. They dealt with Soyuz looking like a biplane next to the Shuttle, they will deal with it looking like a biplane next to BFR.
“…it’s unlikely to debut before 2028 or 2030.”
By that point, Elon will be opening his first Tesla dealership on Mars.
Heh. But I do think that is no worse than an even money bet.
One serious obstacle they face is they won’t be able to exploit pricier expendable launches as much to debug the recovery maneuvers of the first stage, like SpaceX did. Prices are lower now because SpaceX has already done that.
Ariane 6 will be launched a fair number of times simply because they have no other viable alternative to it. I think had EU governments funded the ESC-B upper stage for the Ariane 5 instead of relying on Soyuz at Kourou to launch Galileo and other medium weight payloads they would not be in the mess they are now.
Europe did have proposals for reusable launchers with LOX/Methane first stages over a decade ago. The Prometeus rocket engine is actually simpler than the proposals back then.
For example this talks about the LOX/Methane and LOX/LH2 engines that were being considered as competition with the US Space Launch Initiative launcher.
http://www.lpre.de/resources/articles/Eur_lpre_evolution.pdf
https://spacenews.com/france-russia-sign-launch-technology-deal/
I also think you guys overestimate the progress SpaceX and Blue Origin will make over the next couple of years. I don’t see the BFR in service earlier than 2-3 years from now if ever.
Even if takes CNES 5 years to make a reusable engine it will still be ok.
It is quite likely the launch market will contract over the next years as usual. The space launch market is a lot more inelastic than some people think.
Get back to me on 1-1-2020 and we’ll talk.
You would be lucky if they test the upper stage demo vehicle for BFR by then like they are supposed to.
The last time someone did a rocket as large as that without any ground testing resulted in that failure the Soviets called N1.
Nobody thinks BFR will be in service in less than 2-3 years, and 4-5 will not surprise me, but, whenever it happens, the first time a BFR takes wing, it renders every other launcher in the world obsolete, as surely as the first steam ship did to all sailing vessels.
Too many unknown unknowns. Besides even if it does become operational there’s the question of what you’ll use such a large launch vehicle for. In the past operators with large launch vehicles have not fared all that well.