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Blue Origin Thread (merged)


Aethon

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15 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

That is the time it takes today (first try), when spacex not even have scheduled and planned its logistics on that matter.
By the way, that can be easily solved with my fixed solid sea platform proposal, which also reduce the cost of faring recovery and increase the chance of stage recovery in any weather.

A fixed platform is only valid if all your rockets fly the same trajectory and always land in the same location. Trajectory varies with orbital inclination and apogee, therefore your platform needs to be mobile. In that case, a large platform like an oil rig takes way more than 2 days to move around.

It will take at least a couple of days to check out the stage, clean-up, purge, test, re-stack, re-tank, etc... If you are launching one rocket per day (which is totally nuts), you just need to have a queue of as many stages as your total turnaround time requires: 7 days of turnaround = 7 rockets, plus a couple of spares.

If you relaunch from a drone ship or platform, you will need to go through à lot of that processing work twice, once for the ferry flight and once for the actual launch, which is likely to cost you more time than you will save. In addition to building a mobile sea-based launch platform with cryo facilities and resupply ships, you will need to add a nose-cone to the stage and do some redesign work so that the landing legs can be folded back (they currently have to be removed and reassembled at the factory) and so that you can actually refuel it (including hydraulic fluid and helium) from the bottom. I doubt you could do without some sort of maintenance hangar and an launch tower. You would have to either process the rocket vertically (which would require further modifications to the rocket) or add operations to rotate the rocket from vertical to horizontal and back to vertical again, which would be time-consuming. And all this has to be done on an ocean-based platform, which makes everything much more complicated, high-maintenance, and hazardous.

I really don't think you will be able to save two days in processing once you have factored in the logistics and safety requirements, nor would it be worth the cost of developing all that infrastructure.

 

 

Edited by Nibb31
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The other thing about reuse is how it impacts production costs. If you are reusing rockets, then you don't have to manufacture as many---but manufacturing most efficiently requires that you are always making rockets (like most everything, you have employees that need to be paid all the time so you retain that capability). What will the impact of this be? We have no idea.

So they save a certain % on reuse, but how much to they lose by dragging their feet on new production?

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If actual launch costs plummet with reuse, and it's fixed costs like pad rent and mission control crew that drag up the overhead, I wonder if spaceX will attempt "infrastructure imporvement" in space on their own dime. For example, launching an orbital fuel depot so they offer it as a service.

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4 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Are they going to have to remove the legs every time, or is that just for special inspection of this booster?

The legs aren't designed to fold back. They probably have a one-way latching system for safety and to save weight, so they would need to remove them and reassemble them in a folded position.

 

Edited by Nibb31
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5 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

The legs aren't designed to fold back. They probably have a one-way latching system for safety and to save weight, so they would need to remove them and reassemble them in a folded position.

 

.... Which goes against the rapid turnaround (refuel, refly) that they hope to achieve someday. So they'll either need to modify the design, or have another set ready to swap on while they slap another second stage on. 

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5 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

.... Which goes against the rapid turnaround (refuel, refly) that they hope to achieve someday. So they'll either need to modify the design, or have another set ready to swap on while they slap another second stage on. 

Rapid turnaround only makes sense in a fantasy world where launch rates explode, which isn't going to happen under current conditions. There simply isn't a market for that many launches.

Even if we get to a point where SpaceX gets to launch once a week (which is totally unrealistic), they will soon have 4 launch sites, so each site only gets to launch once a month. A launch site could easily process 2 or 3 vehicles in a queue, so rapid turnaround isn't a big deal.

(and there is more to a launch than refuel and refly).

Edited by Nibb31
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1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

A fixed platform is only valid if all your rockets fly the same trajectory and always land in the same location. Trajectory varies with orbital inclination and apogee, therefore your platform needs to be mobile. In that case, a large platform like an oil rig takes way more than 2 days to move around.

Point taken, my idea was a fixed platform, but I forget about different launch inclinations.
I will like to know what are the most common path.

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

It will take at least a couple of days to check out the stage, test, re-stack, re-tank, etc... If you are launching one rocket per day (which is totally nuts), you just need to have a queue of as many stages as your total turnaround time requires: 7 days of turnaround = 7 rockets, plus a couple of spares.

They are looking launch a rocket each week..  your seven days example is still far in the time.

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

If you relaunch from a drone ship or platform

Nobody said nothing about relaunch from a platform..  in the platform you can have a crane to move the stage to a special boat which will carry that to a special port close to launch site.
In this case you move a ship and not a whole platform or barge, because that small barge will not be enough to guaranty safe recovery of the stage and the barge.
And if you increase the barge area and stability, not sure how much will be the cost of that + move and operation.
A fixed concrete platform is cheap, maybe you can have even 3, you just need to adjust a little more your fuel reserve.

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

I really don't think you will be able to save two days in processing once you have factored in the logistics, nor would it be worth the cost of developing all that infrastructure.

It could save days if they have an special port to unload the stage close to launch site.  Avoiding in the future all the refurbish and testing inside the hangars. 

53 minutes ago, tater said:

The other thing about reuse is how it impacts production costs. If you are reusing rockets, then you don't have to manufacture as many---but manufacturing most efficiently requires that you are always making rockets (like most everything, you have employees that need to be paid all the time so you retain that capability). What will the impact of this be? We have no idea.

So they save a certain % on reuse, but how much to they lose by dragging their feet on new production?

If they increase launch rate, those operators will be equally busy.

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34 minutes ago, AngelLestat said:

Point taken, my idea was a fixed platform, but I forget about different launch inclinations.
I will like to know what are the most common path.

The majority are ISS launches (51°6) and GEO launches (as low as possible).

Quote

They are looking launch a rocket each week..  your seven days example is still far in the time.

I don't know what the lead time for processing a Falcon stage is going to be. I pulled the 7 days out of my back area for the demonstration.

If they get to launch every week, they have 4 launch sites, so they can do 1 launch per month at each site. If they have a fleet of 4 stages, then they can take one month to process each stage. If they have 8 reusable stages, they can take 2 months, etc...  

So even if they launch every week, fast turnaround is not a major requirement.

Quote

Nobody said nothing about relaunch from a platform..  

Actually, you were replying to a post where I was answering a question about relaunching from the barge back to the launch site instead of shipping it back.

My answer was demonstrating that ferry flights made no sense, so we are pretty much in agreement here.

 

Edited by Nibb31
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1 hour ago, AngelLestat said:

If they increase launch rate, those operators will be equally busy.

That seems incredibly unlikely. They have been making ~6-7 rockets a year, launching one every other month---and we don't know if that was the max they could make, or if the manufacturing people were needlessly idle. If they immediately started full reuse, with a 2 month turn around and a doubled launch rate, they'd be out of the manufacturing business for a few years until they used up the lifespan of the boosters. If the turn around drops considerably lower than 2 months, then they stop needing rockets even faster. They will not take every launch (there were 82 successful launches last year) on earth.

What are they saying for reuse, 20 launches? Let's say 10 for kicks, and that the max they can make in a year with the current crew is 8 (since they stopped early last year after the accident).

So they make 8 per year, and they get reused 10 times. That's 80 launches. So they'd have to idle manufacturing every other year unless every single launch on Earth uses only the Falcon 9. That's not even remotely plausible. At best they double launch rate to 12-ish. They need 2 F9s, and maybe a few extra for expendables if that is needed. Manufacturing must suffer unless it is very scalable downwards.

Edited by tater
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If they were able to scale up there launches through reusing Falcons that would not shutter their manufacturing as the Second stage is expendable. They could divert manufacturing from the Falcons to build enough second stages to keep up with the increased frequency. Not to mention that they are already planning the next generation of launch vehicles. 

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The next gen is really FH, which is more boosters. But again, 8 a year being used only 10 times is every current launch on earth. There is not a need for vastly more launches.

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12 minutes ago, tater said:

The next gen is really FH, which is more boosters. But again, 8 a year being used only 10 times is every current launch on earth. There is not a need for vastly more launches.

I suspect if launches were vastly cheaper the number would increase...

Edited by Basto
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41 minutes ago, Basto said:

I suspect if launches were vastly cheaper the number would increase...

In economical studies, that concept is called market elasticity. The space launch market is considered to have very little elasticity.

A typical commercial satellite program costs around $500 million, launch included. SpaceX has already divided the average launch price by two. That hasn't doubled the number of launches. 

Even if they managed to save another 20% with reusability, that would still only represent a $10 million saving out of a $500 million project. Sure it's a step in the right direction, but it's not going to spawn a spaceflight revolution.

Edited by Nibb31
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2 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

In economical studies, that concept is called market elasticity. The space launch market is considered to have very little elasticity.

A typical commercial satellite program costs around $500 million, launch included. SpaceX had already divided the average launch price by two. That hasn't doubled the number of launches. Even of they managed to divide by two again with reusability (which is very unlikely), that would still only represent a small saving for final customers.

The issue is that actual price is so high that no one can buy it. Quantuty of demand is high, but that quantity is for cheap launches.

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2 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The issue is that actual price is so high that no one can buy it. Quantuty of demand is high, but that quantity is for cheap launches.

Actually, no. Demand is low and the market is saturated. Even if the launch price was $10 million, demand would still be low.

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1 hour ago, tater said:

So they make 8 per year, and they get reused 10 times. That's 80 launches. So they'd have to idle manufacturing every other year unless every single launch on Earth uses only the Falcon 9. That's not even remotely plausible. At best they double launch rate to 12-ish. They need 2 F9s, and maybe a few extra for expendables if that is needed. Manufacturing must suffer unless it is very scalable downwards.

Each Falcon Heavy is considered 3 Falcon 9 launches at once. So it works out to about 20 Falcon Heavies and 22 Falcon 9s a year at "maximum rate", according to your numbers.

That actuually lines up fairly well with Elon's claim of "launching a rocket every week."

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7 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Actually, no. Demand is low and the market is saturated. Even if the launch price was $10 million, demand would still be low.

Demand is not quantity of demand. A lot of people would be willing to buy a spacecradt and launch it, but the price is prohibitive. That and a lack of good advertising... Plus the difficulty of the paperwork to launch something.

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So half the launches on Earth will be SpaceX? Of the 82 in 2015, 21 were Chinese. Zero of those stop being Chinese. 3 or 4 were Japan... ditto. 24 were Russian launches of Russian payloads (I'm counting ISS resupply, but not crew, since commercial crew will reduce those. I'm not counting any launches with non-russian payloads included, we'll put those out for bid). 11 more are clearly nationalistic launches (Iran, etc) not up for grabs.

So of 82 launches in 2015, 60 are completely off the table for SpaceX to have launched.

That leaves 12 launches up for grabs.

Edited by tater
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So what's the lower bound- Assuming fixed costs like employee salaries, facility upkeep and so on remain constant (and Elon just overworks the people he already has), and they  spend literally nothing on inspections  and checks over 80 launched cores (8 cores reused 10 times each- 20 FH launches and 20 F9), how much does SpaceX have to make per launch (on average)to break even?

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Perhaps this is worth mentioning: I remember reading an article about Bigelow not too long ago (the guys who built the BEAM module that was just put on the station), they say their biggest stumbling block to further expansion at the moment is simple lack of manned launches. At the time, and now, the Russians are the only ones with the capability and their dance card is already full. With a semi-reusable low cost way to put commercial astronauts in space like the D2, I could foresee a significant increase in demand. 

Then there's Skylon, Dreamchaser, etc... they wouldn't be under development if their developers didn't see some sort of demand for them...

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Yeah, tourism would certainly be a game-changer, but the costs would have to be vastly cheaper. At 10M a launch, that's 1.43 M$ a seat on D2. I have no idea where the market becomes meaningful... they talk about a few hundred grand in propellant costs, plus you need to amortize the LV. How much would people pay to go to a Bigelow Hotel, including transportation? A couple hundred grand? More?

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