RL-10 cost...

[tater]

I posted in the Launcher thread about their kerolox engine that is a thrust clone of RL-10, with ans Isp of 365 (100s lower than RL-10). None the less, this engine is 3d printed and likely quite cheap.

The cost of RL-10 is often posted with wild differences in cost. Can't find anything definitive, but it matters when costing upper stages for ULA, SLS, etc.

This PDF from the 80s lists the cost as 2.5 M$, which corrected for constant dollars is about 6M$ now (publication is '89, but quoted figures are from all over the '80s).

This says that the number is 38M$, a number I frequently see.

This article says NASA paid 17M$ each for RL-10s.

Wish we knew what the actual number was.

[mikegarrison]

If it's like most things, there's probably one price to buy one, and a different per-unit price to buy 100.

[tater]

35 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

If it's like most things, there's probably one price to buy one, and a different per-unit price to buy 100.

Yeah, certainly true, but it's my understanding until they get their own 3D printed version in production (RL-10C-X), they are all hand made (brazing, etc). Not sure what even a possible range is. Fair to say that that 80s PDF that maps to 6M$ now is likely in the ballpark, since the possible competing engine is supposed to be cheap at 6M$.

Makes a difference when the amounts vary by a factor of 3-6, though from the low end possibility.

We know ICPS stage cost is like 175M$ (from a doc I saw and posted elsewhere) 1 RL-10 engines. Gives a sense of bottom line cryo stage cost, minus engines if we know the engines. So the tanks/avionics/RCS might be ~150M, or might be 169M...

Edited November 11, 2019 by tater

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, certainly true, but it's my understanding until they get their own 3D printed version in production (RL-10C-X), they are all hand made (brazing, etc). Not sure what even a possible range is. Fair to say that that 80s PDF that maps to 6M$ now is likely in the ballpark, since the possible competing engine is supposed to be cheap at 6M$.

Makes a difference when the amounts vary by a factor of 3-6, though from the low end possibility.

We know ICPS stage cost is like 175M$ (from a doc I saw and posted elsewhere) 2 RL-10 engines. Gives a sense of bottom line cryo stage cost, minus engines if we know the engines. So the tanks/avionics/RCS might be 100M, or might be 150M...

Since when does ICPS have two RL-10s?

[tater]

3 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Since when does ICPS have two RL-10s?

Sorry, one RL-10, was thinking of the Centaur for Starliner.

EUS has 4, however.

post edited

Edited November 11, 2019 by tater