Red Dragon confirmed!!

[fredinno]

16 hours ago, John JACK said:

NASA is not only space agency on our planet. There are more countries that want and can make stuff to put in space than launch service providers.

Funny fact: in 2015 Turkmenistan launched it's first satellite. On a Falcon, of course. And there were things like SMAP, Earth monitoring is more than just cameras. New applications are developed constantly, and someone need to launch them.

Universities also launch tons of stuff. Mostly sounding rockets and cubesats, but several institutions combined can afford pretty big satellite.

We talk ramping launches by several per year for a start. It will reduce costs, make reuse more advantageous and —  after several years — at last increase demand. And reducing costs is always good for profit.

Right, just like it was obvious from the beginning, Musk has a dream, and SpaceX make money to support a dream. And we here can either marvel their achievements, or waste time trying to prove they do not.

Interplanetary used Dragons cost cheap, but provide priceless experimental data. And maybe even some bonus science.

Yeah? But how many more will new entrants end up launching? 1x more launches a year total?

SpaceX already has several per year. Technically ULA also does several a year.

And Interplanetary Dragons are a one-time thing. Unless Elon also wants to do a moon landing, or is willing to waste a few billion on stunt flights (each Red Dragon costs around $500 million) of the Dragon V2 (that would be cool, but probably not economical.)

16 hours ago, PB666 said:

Its not going back on topic no matter how hard you try, we are talking abount the economy of going to mars, part of which is the reuse and reliabity issue because it determines profitability, alas and we back. The Mars mission has a window of 2018' which if they cannot make enough money by then to afford  then they have to postpone two years. Seems to me that they have about 7 months to duplicate the canaveral launch pad on boca chica if they want to keep their contracts current to 2018. 

It's not economy. Red Dragon likely costs around $500 Million. If SpaceX hasn't made enough money for that by 2018, they're probably not managing their money well.

The problem is making sure the modifications and landing systems are completed and throughly tested (especially the landings- a circumlunar Dragon V2 might be cool to see, but that's probably not happening).

Dragon V2 is operational 2018. I don't think Red Dragon will ever go before the first orbital test of a propulsive landing system on the Dragon V2.

16 hours ago, tater said:

Absolutely. A few a year, maybe. So they might get up to more than 1 launch per month. Awesome, and fine within the current pricing. This conversation is about the fantasy of charging grossly less than current pricing, and somehow making more money...

SpaceX is already more than 1 launch a month, and is at the max. (empirically proven) modern rocket pad launch rate of around 14x a year for large rockets.

Edited May 10, 2016 by fredinno

[kunok]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

The capsule is the payload for the launch vehicle

The capsule here is the transfer spacecraft, is not the part of the payload at all. It has no use after landing. And has a lot of disadvantages compared to a proper scientific probe. That's why some of us aren't hyped at all.

You know what i was expecting? I was expecting that they discard the idea of a red dragon capsule and made a "mars bus" derived from the dragon, based only in the heat-shield, and maybe the lower part of the structural frame. There is no use for the rest of the capsule, and will limit a lot the scientific capabilities.

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

10% is a lot close to 0.1% than it is to 100%

The way i see is closer to 100% than to 0,1%, one is only a order of magnitude of difference the other is two.

[fredinno]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

You're not replying to the context of my statement. I was explicitly addressing BEO missions only.

I also addressed that. SpaceX will likely never get any. Look at my quoted comment for an explanation why.

3 minutes ago, kunok said:

You know what i was expecting? I was expecting that they discard the idea of a red dragon capsule and made a "mars bus" derived from the dragon, based only in the heat-shield, and maybe the lower part of the structural frame. There is no use for the rest of the capsule, and will limit a lot the scientific capabilities.

That's pretty pointless, at that point, the modifications needed means you're better off making a new Mars Bus entirely. Hopefully with a seperatable covering to protect it from dust upon landing.

[kunok]

4 minutes ago, fredinno said:

That's pretty pointless, at that point, the modifications needed means you're better off making a new Mars Bus entirely. Hopefully with a seperatable covering to protect it from dust upon landing.

I know, but is the heatshield and the frame attached to it (for the superdracos basically, i may not explained enough before), the only parts that makes some sense. In that way they could say "Hey we have a dragon derived mars lander" that is good for something, not a pure PR stunt.

[fredinno]

16 hours ago, PB666 said:

As it is if SX cannot get a recycle on the fairings they are going to have to double down on carbon fiber fabriation facilities. Butbif they can they will have a huge advantage over the competition. 

Not really, considering fairings cost ~6-8 million.

A 30% savings is $1.3 Million saved. 

10 hours ago, 78stonewobble said:

I did say 4 tonnes, didn't i? Which the F9 supposedly can according to that graphic. I'd probably bet it won't be at the price listed there offcourse...

Dragon V2 is 6T without payload.

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

A: And no, we don't add $62 million to the FH launch cost; the $90 million pricetag is the cost of all three boosters, plus the second stage, plus launch services and launch support. $90 million is the price for a Falcon Heavy launch regardless of whether they can recover the boosters.

However, that's the price for a completely new launch vehicle. SpaceX will be reusing cores for the Red Dragon mission. A reused launch comes with a discount -- probably 30-40% for F9Ft. Let's say 30% to be conservative, and let's say that the center core is new, so only the side boosters (which will be recoverable for the Red Dragon mission) are reused. That's 18 of the 28 engines being re-launched (rather than 9 out of 10 engines as in a Falcon 9FT) so we will reduce that discount to 21%. The FH launch price can thus be estimated at $71.1 million, less than 41% of the Atlas V 541.

"What about the capsule?" you say. Uh...what about it? The capsule is the payload for the launch vehicle. The 3.9 tonnes of Mars Science Laboratory wasn't the downmass to Mars; that was the launch mass of the entire transfer spacecraft: cruise stage, cruise propulsion system, battery and solar array, heat shield, EDL, and the Curiosity rover. The price of the spacecraft was not part of the Atlas V ELV.

B: The dry mass of a Dragon V2 is nearly double the MSL mass, at 6.4 tonnes. Add 1400 kg of propellant and the claimed 4 tonne payload to Mars, and you have a launch payload mass of 11.8 tonnes. So on a price-per-kg basis, the Falcon Heavy's payload to Mars is 13% the price of an Atlas V payload to Mars.

I'd say that's transformative.

C: Oh, but wait...according to this source, NASA paid $215.1 million for launch services associated with MSL. So actually, that's 10.9% on a per-kg basis.

Again, it depends on how you look at it. 100% of SSME flights required a rebuild. Let us suppose that only 10% of Merlin flights require a rebuild, and 0.1% of airline engine flights require a rebuild. 10% is a lot close to 0.1% than it is to 100%, wouldn't you agree? Looking at it on a percentage basis means that as long as you have more than two flights between rebuilds, you're closer to the 0% point (infinite reusability) than the SSMEs.

How accurate is that 0.1% number, anyway? The airline industry uses a metric called Time Between Overhaul, or TBO. This represents the runtime (usually given in standardized hours) before an engine needs to be removed, disassembled, and overhauled. For high-performance jet turbofan engines, the TBO is around 3,000 hours. Let's take an eight-hour transatlantic flight as an example. That means 375 flights between engine overhauls, or 0.27% of flights requiring a rebuild. Again, 10% is a lot closer to 0.27% than it is to 100%.

D: Let's also take into account that restarts and shutdowns produce high stress on an engine. The SSMEs could not be restarted in flight and had to be refurbished after each test firing, and most airline engines only start and shutdown once per flight. The Merlin 1D, on the other hand, is usually test-fired twice before each launch, and the central engine fires up to four times per flight (for RTLS profiles). The CRS-8 booster will do ten test-fires before reuse, but let's say that eventually we'll be looking at closer to four test-fires before reuse. That means ten restart/shutdown cycles per flight. If they can manage the projected 10 launches before refurbishment, then we're looking at 100 cycles before refurbishment, or 1% of all cycles requiring a rebuild. 1% is within an order of magnitude of 0.27% and quite far from 100%.

E: The central booster will probably not be reused on the Red Dragon shot, and they definitely will not land the FH core as a single piece. Rather than using crossfeed, the center booster will throttle down rapidly after launch to maintain closer to constant acceleration on the vehicle as a whole; this will leave it with a large fuel reserve at separation, but not so much that it has trouble maintaining acceleration.

A: But SpaceX is making the cost estimate ASSUMING Booster reuse. It already accounts for it- why wouldn't they, the F9R is set to reuse a booster in a few months, and companies love to make biases to make themselves look better.

B: Only you would never use the Red Dragon to carry 4T to Mars due to power and hatch restrictions.

C: Probably because it was NASA making the contract. Let's assume that's not the case to compare apples to apples.

D: Yes, it's a great idea to make SpaceX cut costs on reliability! Satellite Operators hate reliability! That's why they love Proton!

In any case, the F9 actually does way more than 2 burns on launch- it's closer to 5-6.

Also, landing and launch puts more stress on a booster than static fire.

E: Apparently the core can do a high-speed barge landing with the Red Dragon.

Edited May 10, 2016 by fredinno

[tater]

27 minutes ago, fredinno said:

SpaceX is already more than 1 launch a month, and is at the max. (empirically proven) modern rocket pad launch rate of around 14x a year for large rockets.

Nonsense.

2015: 7 launches, 1 failure.

2014: 6

If they continue at this rate, then you are correct, but we have no idea if that is the case. Also, they use 2 pads (KSC and Vandenberg). My statement was 100% correct, they might exceed 1 launch per month in the future (over a year, we were talking about total launches per year), possibly even this year. We'll have to see, but 1 per month is double what they have done in the recent past.

26 minutes ago, fredinno said:

I also addressed that. SpaceX will likely never get any. Look at my quoted comment for an explanation why.

We're talking about Red Dragon, so we're not talking about F9 in that category at all, only FH. FH could presumably take some BEO missions at some point, but again, they'd be lucky to get even one such mission every few years (which was what I said that you originally quoted). So in the indeterminate future, when FH is a thing, SpaceX might get a FH launch from NASA every few years. In context, this was about launch rates, and lower prices, and I was replying to the idea that somehow they could sell more launches to NASA, as if NASA is gonna crank out more BEO probes just because launch costs have dropped by 20% (which they won't  ).

Edited May 10, 2016 by tater

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, kunok said:

The capsule here is the transfer spacecraft, is not the part of the payload at all. It has no use after landing. And has a lot of disadvantages compared to a proper scientific probe. That's why some of us aren't hyped at all.

I was replying to a comment where they were comparing the Martian downmass payload of the Dragon V2 to the transfer spacecraft launch mass of MSL on Atlas V 541. If you want to count the downmass only, then count the downmass only (899 kg for Curiosity vs ~4 tonnes in Red Dragon), but if you're counting the total mass into HMTO from the launch vehicle, count that. Otherwise you're very much apples-to-oranges.

28 minutes ago, kunok said:

You know what i was expecting? I was expecting that they discard the idea of a red dragon capsule and made a "mars bus" derived from the dragon, based only in the heat-shield, and maybe the lower part of the structural frame. There is no use for the rest of the capsule, and will limit a lot the scientific capabilities.

I think it's more about "look what we can do without incurring huge development costs for modifications" than "look at the maximum possible scientific payload we can put on Mars". Suppose I've built a revolutionary new ground effect hovercraft for sending heavy shipments across the Atlantic. If I decide to do a trans-Pacific flight just to show I can, it will be more impressive if I make fewer modifications to my vehicle.

I can certainly see them stripping away a lot of the structural mass. Won't be quite as lightweight as a purpose-built Mars Bus but it will be improved.

32 minutes ago, kunok said:

The way i see is closer to 100% than to 0,1%, one is only a order of magnitude of difference the other is two.

Like I said, it depends on how you're measuring. Are you look at percentage points, or orders of magnitude, or gross subtraction? And recall that if you count engine restart cycles rather than flights, it's closer to 0.3% vs 1% vs 100%.

13 minutes ago, fredinno said:

SpaceX is making the cost estimate ASSUMING Booster reuse. It already accounts for it- why wouldn't they, the F9R is set to reuse a booster in a few months, and companies love to make biases to make themselves look better.

The posted prices are for a brand new rocket in a mission profile that allows a chance of partial reuse. The discount is applied when you elect to use recovered boosters.

15 minutes ago, fredinno said:

In any case, the F9 actually does way more than 2 burns on launch- it's closer to 5-6.

Also, landing and launch puts more stress on a booster than static fire.

The central engine does four burns on RTLS flights: launch to MECO, boostback, re-entry, and landing. Plus two preflight test fires and an estimated average of four postflight test fires.

17 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Apparently the core can do a high-speed barge landing with the Red Dragon.

Citation? Last I heard, Elon said that the side boosters could "probably" be recovered.

[KSK]

17 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

A single university isnt going to pay to put 20 tons into orbit. But each of 50 state university programs can pitch in $800,000, and split 400kg each in a big multilaunch. And thats assuming no educational discount.

Ouch. Much as I'd love it to be true, I don't see this going anywhere. $800,000 is still a hefty chunk of change that could be put to many many other uses at a university. Not to mention that you'd probably spend about the same again in staff time, getting the necessary contract(s) negotiated and signed. Getting something signed between two universities can be like herding cats - getting fifty state university programs to sign the same document might happen before the heat death of the universe but I wouldn't bet on it.

Disclaimer - I work in a university tech transfer department, so for once I do know something about what I'm posting about other than whatever I've been able to fish out of Wikipedia!

[kunok]

9 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I think it's more about "look what we can do without incurring huge development costs for modifications" than "look at the maximum possible scientific payload we can put on Mars". Suppose I've built a revolutionary new ground effect hovercraft for sending heavy shipments across the Atlantic. If I decide to do a trans-Pacific flight just to show I can, it will be more impressive if I make fewer modifications to my vehicle.

So you admit that is purely a publicity stunt without no real use? That's why I don't understand the hype.

[KSK]

It's publicity but there is a serious purpose behind it too. SpaceX talks a lot about Mars - showing that they can land a decent sized piece of hardware there makes that talk look a little more credible. NASA is allegedly on a Journey to Mars and can realistically claim Red Dragon as an important stepping stone for that - and one that the taxpayers aren't footing the bill for either.

Red Dragon might not be the greatest science platform around (as has been extensively discussed on this thread) but properly packed, it would seem to make a serviceable enough uncrewed supply craft for any eventual Mars plans. Mostly though it's a testbed for the propulsive landing. Unlike parachutes, sky cranes, airbags etc. propulsive landing is also scalable to larger craft (or so NASA thinks and I'm not about to argue with them) which means it'll probably be the method of choice for crewed missions to Mars, if they ever happen. 

Testing the landing is the science here, I believe. Glue a thermometer to the hatch if you like and pop it open once you land for bonus data. Grumbling that Red Dragon won't be able to do much on the surface is missing the point in my opinion. It's rather like complaining that the LCROSS impactor wasn't much good for anything once it got to the Moon.

Edited May 10, 2016 by KSK

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Nonsense.

2015: 7 launches, 1 failure.

2014: 6

If they continue at this rate, then you are correct, but we have no idea if that is the case. Also, they use 2 pads (KSC and Vandenberg). My statement was 100% correct, they might exceed 1 launch per month in the future (over a year, we were talking about total launches per year), possibly even this year. We'll have to see, but 1 per month is double what they have done in the recent past.

We're talking about Red Dragon, so we're not talking about F9 in that category at all, only FH. FH could presumably take some BEO missions at some point, but again, they'd be lucky to get even one such mission every few years (which was what I said that you originally quoted). So in the indeterminate future, when FH is a thing, SpaceX might get a FH launch from NASA every few years. In context, this was about launch rates, and lower prices, and I was replying to the idea that somehow they could sell more launches to NASA, as if NASA is gonna crank out more BEO probes just because launch costs have dropped by 20% (which they won't  ).

1.Oh, whoops. Forgot that the F9 failure prevented the 1-time a year launch manifest for 2015.

It would have otherwise.

2. Still doubt it, considering SpaceX is cranking up the launch rate- and any use for FH is generally covered by SLS (excpet maybe things that would otherwise go on Delta IV Heavy.)

15 minutes ago, KSK said:

Red Dragon might not be the greatest science platform around (as has been extensively discussed on this thread) but properly packed, it would seem to make a serviceable enough uncrewed supply craft for any eventual Mars plans.

I think a 4T payload is too small for even a 4-man Mars base, especially since Launch windows open every 2 years...

48 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

A: I can certainly see them stripping away a lot of the structural mass. Won't be quite as lightweight as a purpose-built Mars Bus but it will be improved.

B: The posted prices are for a brand new rocket in a mission profile that allows a chance of partial reuse. The discount is applied when you elect to use recovered boosters.

C: Citation? Last I heard, Elon said that the side boosters could "probably" be recovered.

A: What is the point to a Dragon V2 bus derived lander? Really, there's not much on a Dragon V2 to use. Once the shell is gone, the computer equipment is junk (it's resistant to vacuum, but not designed for it.)

B: Citation?

C: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/2bz9dw/what_is_the_leo_payload_of_a_fully_reusable/

According to this, you "should" be able to recover the core if you do a high speed landing. Just speculation though.

Edited May 10, 2016 by fredinno

[kunok]

2 minutes ago, KSK said:

Unlike parachutes, sky cranes, airbags etc. propulsive landing is also scalable to larger craft

How a sky crane is not a propulsive landing?

Also that link that says that FH would have his first launch in 2013 doesn't look like they analyzed how feasible are the spaceX claims, and there is no single calculation provided in that article. If there are done the extensive modification suggested in the article, why not dischart most of the capsule anyway, as i said a few post ago?

 

10 minutes ago, KSK said:

It's publicity but there is a serious purpose behind it too. SpaceX talks a lot about Mars - showing that they can land a decent sized piece of hardware there makes that talk look a little more credible. NASA is allegedly on a Journey to Mars and can realistically claim Red Dragon as an important stepping stone for that - and one that the taxpayers aren't footing the bill for either.

Or they need to keep the claim going so they "waste" this money in sending a earth reentry capsule to land in mars with is overkill.

Disclaim I'm not really denying that claim, I'm only putting in doubt, because I want proofs no claims. I would love interplanetary colonization (i would prefer venus thought). But I also see that claims is very profitable to Elon for having cheap and overworked workers, attracting investors and nasa's funding, so I see a reasonable doubt here. To me spaceX claims about mars colonization are as serious as Mars one's or even less, mars one at least showed a plan.

And I repeat I would love some serious plan, but I don't see any.

[tater]

I doubt it, too, we're on the same page, actually, I was saying that best case, they get the number of launches they can possibly get... maybe a dozen a year, plus then some crew missions once they fly D2 manned, and if FH is up, then maybe they get a few BEO missions now and again. Maybe. The total number of possible launches for customers seems to be fairly limited.

 

[PB666]

2 hours ago, tater said:

I doubt it, too, we're on the same page, actually, I was saying that best case, they get the number of launches they can possibly get... maybe a dozen a year, plus then some crew missions once they fly D2 manned, and if FH is up, then maybe they get a few BEO missions now and again. Maybe. The total number of possible launches for customers seems to be fairly limited.

 

But on the other hand the Mars transfer window is periodic not continuous, so if even if are ready to something by mid/late 2018, all plans have to be deferred 2 more years. I think they need to get Boca Chica up and running fast if they want to create a window to work in the Mars stuff, otherwise they will be fighting the technological and backlog problem at the same time. If they can catchup on all backlogged flights then the have money to burn. The total number of contracts in the next 2.3 years could change rapidly, but the total obligation to fulfill before the Mars launch window for 18 expires should end soon. Still, if the have delays, it won't matter.

[Rakaydos]

Red Dragon isnt a manned mission- but it can be a pre-supply probe for one.

Say SpaceX clears the entire mars window of commercial launches, on both the bo chika and florida pads, and that they have cores lined up for launching on a weekly tempo from each pad. (certantly not in 2018, but 2026, perhaps.). Over a 2 month launch window, they put 16 Red Dragons onto mars intercept orbits, for 32+ tons of supplies, as well as a number of livable pressure vessels.

Send a MAV on one SLS, and a MDV on another, and you should have a decent manned mission every 4 years.

[fredinno]

9 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Red Dragon isnt a manned mission- but it can be a pre-supply probe for one.

Say SpaceX clears the entire mars window of commercial launches, on both the bo chika and florida pads, and that they have cores lined up for launching on a weekly tempo from each pad. (certantly not in 2018, but 2026, perhaps.). Over a 2 month launch window, they put 16 Red Dragons onto mars intercept orbits, for 32+ tons of supplies, as well as a number of livable pressure vessels.

Send a MAV on one SLS, and a MDV on another, and you should have a decent manned mission every 4 years.

But why would you do that? I'd be a lot better for the crew if they had one big storage vessel than a lot of small ones, spread out over a km wide landing zone. Not to mention Dragon V2s use low isp propellant, and the small size, conbined, make it very mass inefficient. 

They also lack unpressurized cargo space (it's in the ejected trunk),

Just use a modified MDV/HAB to store cargo. Problem solved, and that simplifies the mission enormously.

 

Maybe SpaceX could replace the core + upperstage of the SLS with a 8m diameter RP-1 or CH4 tank to make their own LV for the first manned missions to Mars- the tanks being made by SpaceX in NASA faciliities,a nd the engines at SpaceX? Probably not realistic, but would be good to build up a cheaper Mars mission capability quickly before MCT.

 

Either that, or a cluster of F9 tanks (1st and 2nd stage) using a Saturn IB arrangement of 7 F9 cores and 7 F9 2nd stages, for a ~10m diameter rocket with 63 Merlins on the bottom.

 

What a sight. Jeb would be proud.

[SargeRho]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

But why would you do that? I'd be a lot better for the crew if they had one big storage vessel than a lot of small ones, spread out over a km wide landing zone. Not to mention Dragon V2s use low isp propellant, and the small size, conbined, make it very mass inefficient.

Redundancy. If you drop 20 Dragon 2s, and of those, 2-3 resculpt Mars a little, you still have most of your cargo. If your single cargo ship decides to lithobrake, you're screwed.

[Darnok]

On 9.05.2016 at 6:33 PM, tater said:

Cutting costs is a goal that people theoretically want, but how does it serve the interest of SpaceX? It's like diamonds. They should be cheap, but they are held artificially high. If I found 100 metric tons of perfect diamonds in my basement, I'd be a fool to dump them on the market.

SpaceX needs to sell launches and make money, they have no incentive to reduce retail price below what customers would be happy to pay. The only alternative is a bottomless mass market... seeing many trips for a small price. I doubt such a market exists, except maybe passengers some day, assuming there was a destination, and it was perceived as very safe.

This is where free market and competition comes and make things better... but we don't have those just like you said price collusion is common practice between corporations starting from fixed oil prices to advanced technologies.

[PB666]

2 hours ago, Darnok said:

This is where free market and competition comes and make things better... but we don't have those just like you said price collusion is common practice between corporations starting from fixed oil prices to advanced technologies.

If you had 100 metric toones of diamonds in your basement the you'de have a pretty damn big basement. 

Diamonds are not that rare anymore, high grade diamonds in the whites are. Whose going to stamp them cut them, distribute them? What about declarations. 

If i had a 100 metric tonnes of diamonds in my house i would sell the house with a disclosure agreement to the largest diamond dealer in NY. 

[tater]

You'd sell them in bulk to DeBeers so they could dump them in the Atlantic.

The point was meant to be exaggerated that if they could sell launches ridiculously cheaply, they'd be fools to do so.

[PB666]

44 minutes ago, tater said:

You'd sell them in bulk to DeBeers so they could dump them in the Atlantic.

The point was meant to be exaggerated that if they could sell launches ridiculously cheaply, they'd be fools to do so.

They dont have a basement that big, lol. Your argument is reductio ad absurdum and is self invalidating. 

To get even to the point we can consider market saturation too limiting factirs need to be considered, 1 the backlog of unlaunched contacts with rtf payloads, and the lag between price reduction and market response.

The cost to the buyer is not only the launch price, but also vehicle wear waiting, the cost of money waiting, and the lack of an ability to spend time and resources in other places while waiting. While this may seem to support you case if their net profit increases because of recycling then they can afford to extend their facikities a lower the turnaround time lower the costs tonthe buyer. It the risk to the buyer and the price to the buyer decrease more buyers will enetr the market. 

[78stonewobble]

4 hours ago, SargeRho said:

Redundancy. If you drop 20 Dragon 2s, and of those, 2-3 resculpt Mars a little, you still have most of your cargo. If your single cargo ship decides to lithobrake, you're screwed.

It also increases the risk of something going wrong... Not just lithobreaking... Just landing too far away as to render the cargo unavailable. It is much easier to land 2 things on target, than it is to land 21 things on target.

[78stonewobble]

21 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

1. Each SRB adds about $10 million to the ELV price, supposedly. The five-meter fairing used for MSL is also a touch pricier than the four-meter fairing. So we have $172.4 million as our total estimated vehicle price. I'm going to round up to $175 million to account for the increased cost of support on a Martian launch; I think that's conservative.

2. The contract price for ISS deliveries is part of a long-term contractual arrangement and includes priority provisions for NASA. For example, SpaceX can carry multiple payloads in one ISS-delivery launch, but they have to give NASA priority and must scrap the secondary payload if NASA says to. Such a contractual price is not indicative of the price for a one-off mission like a Mars payload.

3. And no, we don't add $62 million to the FH launch cost; the $90 million pricetag is the cost of all three boosters, plus the second stage, plus launch services and launch support. $90 million is the price for a Falcon Heavy launch regardless of whether they can recover the boosters.

4. However, that's the price for a completely new launch vehicle. SpaceX will be reusing cores for the Red Dragon mission. A reused launch comes with a discount -- probably 30-40% for F9Ft. Let's say 30% to be conservative, and let's say that the center core is new, so only the side boosters (which will be recoverable for the Red Dragon mission) are reused. That's 18 of the 28 engines being re-launched (rather than 9 out of 10 engines as in a Falcon 9FT) so we will reduce that discount to 21%. The FH launch price can thus be estimated at $71.1 million, less than 41% of the Atlas V 541.

5. "What about the capsule?" you say. Uh...what about it? The capsule is the payload for the launch vehicle. The 3.9 tonnes of Mars Science Laboratory wasn't the downmass to Mars; that was the launch mass of the entire transfer spacecraft: cruise stage, cruise propulsion system, battery and solar array, heat shield, EDL, and the Curiosity rover. The price of the spacecraft was not part of the Atlas V ELV.

The dry mass of a Dragon V2 is nearly double the MSL mass, at 6.4 tonnes. Add 1400 kg of propellant and the claimed 4 tonne payload to Mars, and you have a launch payload mass of 11.8 tonnes. So on a price-per-kg basis, the Falcon Heavy's payload to Mars is 13% the price of an Atlas V payload to Mars.

I'd say that's transformative.

Oh, but wait...according to this source, NASA paid $215.1 million for launch services associated with MSL. So actually, that's 10.9% on a per-kg basis.

6. Again, it depends on how you look at it. 100% of SSME flights required a rebuild. Let us suppose that only 10% of Merlin flights require a rebuild, and 0.1% of airline engine flights require a rebuild. 10% is a lot close to 0.1% than it is to 100%, wouldn't you agree? Looking at it on a percentage basis means that as long as you have more than two flights between rebuilds, you're closer to the 0% point (infinite reusability) than the SSMEs.

How accurate is that 0.1% number, anyway? The airline industry uses a metric called Time Between Overhaul, or TBO. This represents the runtime (usually given in standardized hours) before an engine needs to be removed, disassembled, and overhauled. For high-performance jet turbofan engines, the TBO is around 3,000 hours. Let's take an eight-hour transatlantic flight as an example. That means 375 flights between engine overhauls, or 0.27% of flights requiring a rebuild. Again, 10% is a lot closer to 0.27% than it is to 100%.

Let's also take into account that restarts and shutdowns produce high stress on an engine. The SSMEs could not be restarted in flight and had to be refurbished after each test firing, and most airline engines only start and shutdown once per flight. The Merlin 1D, on the other hand, is usually test-fired twice before each launch, and the central engine fires up to four times per flight (for RTLS profiles). The CRS-8 booster will do ten test-fires before reuse, but let's say that eventually we'll be looking at closer to four test-fires before reuse. That means ten restart/shutdown cycles per flight. If they can manage the projected 10 launches before refurbishment, then we're looking at 100 cycles before refurbishment, or 1% of all cycles requiring a rebuild. 1% is within an order of magnitude of 0.27% and quite far from 100%.

The central booster will probably not be reused on the Red Dragon shot, and they definitely will not land the FH core as a single piece. Rather than using crossfeed, the center booster will throttle down rapidly after launch to maintain closer to constant acceleration on the vehicle as a whole; this will leave it with a large fuel reserve at separation, but not so much that it has trouble maintaining acceleration.

1. So... guesswork?

2. So... List prise isn't all there is to it?

3. The price is still set on the promise of as much reuse as possible. Sure, spacex can burn money on an individual launch... but they cannot do that indefinately, sooner or later the price will catch up, if reuse doesn't work out as planned.

4. The cores might have been reused before... but throwing them away before end of life, is less profit. Also again... The reuse comes at the price of less payload. The graphics on nibb31's graphic are entirely misleading in that regard.

5. So...  what you're saying is... it's gonna cost more than the list price in nibb31's graphic?

And apart from the guesswork... what is the final price on sending red dragon to mars?

6. "If they can manage the projected 10 launches before refurbishment...", not to mention as of yet incalculable cost and effort in maintenance other than complete refurbishment.

 

[Nibb31]

50 minutes ago, 78stonewobble said:

It also increases the risk of something going wrong... Not just lithobreaking... Just landing too far away as to render the cargo unavailable. It is much easier to land 2 things on target, than it is to land 21 things on target.

If they were dropping 20 Dragon 2s on Mars, that's at least twice the number of Dragon 2s they are going to be flying for NASA. They would be better off designing a whole new purpose-built mass-produced disposable lander bus for 20 Mars missions rather than modifying a reusable crew taxi that is only going to fly half a dozen times.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Nibb31

[CptRichardson]

21 hours ago, fredinno said:

And Interplanetary Dragons are a one-time thing. Unless Elon also wants to do a moon landing, or is willing to waste a few billion on stunt flights (each Red Dragon costs around $500 million) of the Dragon V2 (that would be cool, but probably not economical.)

 Red Dragon likely costs around $500 Million. If SpaceX hasn't made enough money for that by 2018, they're probably not managing their money well.

Why would it cost '500 million'? We already have SpaceX's figures for the worst-case launch of a FH, and it's less than a sixth of that. Do you REALLY think the capsule itself would make up the balance? Please, they'll be mass-producing that, too. A SpaceX mission to drop a RD on mars would probably be $120 million-ish at most, possibly down to only half of that if they get re-use properly working.