falcon 9

[Kryten]

How many times has anything put 10+ tons into LEO, including dual launch?

[magnemoe]

How many times has anything put 10+ tons into LEO, including dual launch?

The commercial marked for large satellites is GEO, LEO is for stuff you need to have in space but don't care much where in space, this is science stuff.

Low to medium polar is nice if you want to observe earth. or spawn an net of satellites. The large recon satellites are probably the primary none science payloads.

here weight has been growing even if capacity has not. Ariane 6 is an response as its start getting hard to getting two payloads of fitting size.

Note that with an huge payload capacity and spiderfab to make the antennas you could do stuff who is impossible today like streaming high bandwidth to mobile devices.

[Kryten]

Exactly. Pushing about capacities to LEO is usually nothing better than ....-waving, especially in this case; the only US LEO payloads with firm orders that are above 10 tons are the KH-11 follow-on sats; which are already booked for Delta IV Heavy.

[Reddragon]

Falcon Heavy would be able to lift a surprising 53 tonnes to LEO, 19 tonnes to GTO, or 13.6 tonnes toward Mars.

That only applies to the propellant crossfeed capable version but they will hardly need to use that, if ever. It's good to have a rocket which is able to much more than normal with minor modification when needed though.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Reddragon

[Frozen_Heart]

SLS will be ready a good time before that's necessary.

1 - The SLS is optimised for deep space, not LEO or GEO

2 - You really want to launch 10 - 20 tons modules on a vehicle than is $500 million per launch, non reusable, and has a capacity of 70 - 120 tons.

Using the SLS to launch space station modules and satellites is about the worst use of it I can come up with.

[Reddragon]

Won't SLS cost '500 million' per launch with Orion included? Also, which version of SLS will cost that much? Not to mock anyone, I'm just curious.

[Nibb31]

500 million is a low estimation of the cost of an SLS launch, excluding the payload and fixed costs.

With one flight every two years, most people believe it will be much more than that. Maintaining all the infrastructure (VAB, 39A, etc...) for such a low flight rate means that each launch carries to burden of two years of fixed cost, which will put the cost of a single launch well over a billion.

[Bill Phil]

500 million is a low estimation of the cost of an SLS launch, excluding the payload and fixed costs.

With one flight every two years, most people believe it will be much more than that. Maintaining all the infrastructure (VAB, 39A, etc...) for such a low flight rate means that each launch carries to burden of two years of fixed cost, which will put the cost of a single launch well over a billion.

Which version has a flight rate of one every two years? All of them?

Then they wouldn't be very effective logistically. Block I would only deliver 35 tonnes to LEO per year, if the flight rate is 1 every two years. Block II would do much better, with 65 tonnes per year minimum.

Existing rockets could probably do better, on a per year basis, if given the funding.

This doesn't even factor in costs, it's just a measurement of the effectiveness of a logistics system (a system that gets things from point A, in this case Earth's surface to point B, in this case LEO).

- - - Updated - - -

1 - The SLS is optimised for deep space, not LEO or GEO

2 - You really want to launch 10 - 20 tons modules on a vehicle than is $500 million per launch, non reusable, and has a capacity of 70 - 120 tons.

Using the SLS to launch space station modules and satellites is about the worst use of it I can come up with.

If it has high flight rates (comparable to Saturn V), then using it to launch stations is a great use for SLS. Less dockings, a Skylab-like station, with possible expansion later on. But this is only great if the SLS launches fairly often, which it won't.

[Nibb31]

Which version has a flight rate of one every two years? All of them?

It's the flight rate for the SLS program, regardless of the version, that was used to size the manufacturing and sourcing capacity. The max you can go is maybe one launch per year, but the logistics aren't scaled to go any faster.

To achieve that flight rate, you have to assume that SLS has stuff to launch. Currently, only two flights are manifested: EM-1 (2017) and EM-2 (2021). It's unlikely that ARM will be EM-2, so I guess that would be EM-3 (around 2023 if they stick to the two year schedule and if the SEP mission is on schedule).

Then they wouldn't be very effective logistically. Block I would only deliver 35 tonnes to LEO per year, if the flight rate is 1 every two years. Block II would do much better, with 65 tonnes per year minimum.

I doubt Block II will happen. It takes about 10 years to design and build a large payload and none are in the pipeline. If you want to launch something on the 2015 SLS slot, you would need to start planning it now, which isn't happening. In fact, the Advanced Booster program for Block II has already been cancelled...

[Frozen_Heart]

the Advanced Booster program for Block II has already been cancelled

which means the they can no longer keep boasting about how its going to be the most powerful rocket ever built. Without the advanced boosters the Saturn V still beats it.

[Reddragon]

The more I hear about SLS the less enthusiastic I am about it. Looks like the best option we have to leave LEO again is with reusable ships having very high ISP engines assembled in orbit. Probably 20-30 years from now... I doubt SLS will live the 30's this way.

[Rune]

1 - The SLS is optimised for deep space, not LEO or GEO

2 - You really want to launch 10 - 20 tons modules on a vehicle than is $500 million per launch, non reusable, and has a capacity of 70 - 120 tons.

Using the SLS to launch space station modules and satellites is about the worst use of it I can come up with.

Regarding point #1... I've seen that thrown around a lot, especially in Congress hearings. It's boop, mostly. Yeah, it has a huge energy cryogenic upper stage (by today's standards). That means exactly zilch regarding its supposed "deep space optimization". You and I, KSP players both, now very well that having a big efficient stage can be exactly the same, or underperform, compared to having two smaller, more inefficient ones each having similar mass ratios than the other one. What really matters is the given payload compared to the required Delta-V, and the mass ratio you end up with, the farther from "e" you go, the less efficient. The SLS is just heavy launch, and that's it. I mean, it's a 2.5 stage rocket with high isp on its upper stage, a parallel-burning core, and low isp on the boosters. A crossfed F9h would have 3 effective mid-high isp kerolox stages. They should get similar delta-v's out of similar payload fractions, but the SLS lets much more of the burn to orbit come from its oversized core. So if anything, it is more inefficient, mass-wise.

And we all know its cost effectiveness is abysmal, so I won't even get into that. It reminds me also of how the Delta IV is, in metrics of payload fraction (weight on the pad for a given payload), the most efficient rocket in the world, yet it is going to be retired because it won't ever be cost efficient to launch stuff with it.

Rune. Know your metrics, people, and never trust the affirmations of politicians.

[Findthepin1]

In case anyone's wondering, this may or may not have something to do with the poll I put up a few days ago.

[Kerbal01]

F9 LEO is more like 16 tons (American), the quoted 13.7 tones is with the reusabilty margin taken out, according to discussion in NSF.

[maccollo]

They should get similar delta-v's out of similar payload fractions, but the SLS lets much more of the burn to orbit come from its oversized core. So if anything, it is more inefficient, mass-wise.

With the EUS the SLS will get a significantly higher payload fraction than FH to every destination, except LEO where it gets a 13 tonne penalty for having to carry an empty EUS. For every every destination beyond LEO SLS beats FH with a significant margin.

For example, the SLS 1b should get about 30% more payload fraction to TLI than FH, 40% more to Mars (with a C3 of 11), and around 50% more payload to Jupiter via Earth gravity assist... You know, should you ever be called upon to throw 25 tonnes to Jupiter:rolleyes: This performance gap continues to increase until right about until you get to a direct transit to Saturn, which is about the max range possible for the FH.

Well... That's if you count the wet mass anyway. If you count the dry mass instead then FH throws more payload per kg of hardware mass, and SLS doesn't catch up until you get to direct transit to Jupiter/Europa.

[Linear]

Won't SLS cost '500 million' per launch with Orion included? Also, which version of SLS will cost that much? Not to mock anyone, I'm just curious.

$500m is a wishful estimate of block 2.

[Rakaydos]

With the EUS the SLS will get a significantly higher payload fraction than FH to every destination, except LEO where it gets a 13 tonne penalty for having to carry an empty EUS. For every every destination beyond LEO SLS beats FH with a significant margin.

For example, the SLS 1b should get about 30% more payload fraction to TLI than FH, 40% more to Mars (with a C3 of 11), and around 50% more payload to Jupiter via Earth gravity assist... You know, should you ever be called upon to throw 25 tonnes to Jupiter:rolleyes: This performance gap continues to increase until right about until you get to a direct transit to Saturn, which is about the max range possible for the FH.

Well... That's if you count the wet mass anyway. If you count the dry mass instead then FH throws more payload per kg of hardware mass, and SLS doesn't catch up until you get to direct transit to Jupiter/Europa.

Payload fraction is not the same as payload mass.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Rakaydos

[maccollo]

Payload fraction is not the same as payload mass.

I wasn't talking about payload mass.