sevenperforce Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 @sh1pman @Ultimate Steve (re: ongoing price discussions) The markup, I think, is between Falcon 9 (w/ recovery) and Falcon Heavy (w/ recovery). SpaceX needs to recoup its investments into FH, so even though actual operating costs for a Falcon Heavy with full recovery may only be $5M or so (assuming high amortization value on the side boosters), they price FH at $90M rather than $67M so they make more profit. After all, they can charge pretty much whatever they want; they are literally the cheapest game in town. Also, keep in mind that amortization fraction may not be a constant. On the one hand, the FH core is different from the F9 core and probably costs more to make. But the stresses on the side boosters is far lower than the stress on a F9 core. So you have to look at higher refurbishment costs and fewer uses for a F9 core than for a FH side booster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1pman Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 4 minutes ago, sevenperforce said: @sh1pman @Ultimate Steve (re: ongoing price discussions) The markup, I think, is between Falcon 9 (w/ recovery) and Falcon Heavy (w/ recovery). SpaceX needs to recoup its investments into FH, so even though actual operating costs for a Falcon Heavy with full recovery may only be $5M or so (assuming high amortization value on the side boosters), they price FH at $90M rather than $67M so they make more profit. After all, they can charge pretty much whatever they want; they are literally the cheapest game in town. Also, keep in mind that amortization fraction may not be a constant. On the one hand, the FH core is different from the F9 core and probably costs more to make. But the stresses on the side boosters is far lower than the stress on a F9 core. So you have to look at higher refurbishment costs and fewer uses for a F9 core than for a FH side booster. So, what’s our best guess about the F9 expendable price? Musk said in his tweet that it’s a bit lower than 95M. That means F9 expendable and FH recoverable prices (for a customer) are very close, maybe even 90M both. And since F9 expendable can put heavier payload to GTO, there’s really no reason to switch to FH for GTO payloads lighter than 8.3t and LEO payloads lighter than 22.8t. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 6 minutes ago, sh1pman said: So, what’s our best guess about the F9 expendable price? Musk said in his tweet that it’s a bit lower than 95M. That means F9 expendable and FH recoverable prices (for a customer) are very close, maybe even 90M both. And since F9 expendable can put heavier payload to GTO, there’s really no reason to switch to FH for GTO payloads lighter than 8.3t and LEO payloads lighter than 22.8t. SpaceX will price F9 expendable slightly higher than FH reusable, to incentivize FH flights. And FH reusable outperforms F9 expendable to all destinations. The numbers online are an early sandbag. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1pman Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 Just now, sevenperforce said: And FH reusable outperforms F9 expendable to all destinations. The numbers online are an early sandbag. You think the numbers on SpaceX’s own web page are wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 7 minutes ago, sh1pman said: You think the numbers on SpaceX’s own web page are wrong? The FH base performance numbers are absolutely wrong. Those are the same numbers that were originally listed for Falcon Heavy before F9 was uprated and they have not increased. Block V FH with all-stage recovery performs much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 2 minutes ago, sh1pman said: You think the numbers on SpaceX’s own web page are wrong? Given @sevenperforce‘s sage words about SX being able to charge whatever they want, I think the numbers on their website are highly negotiable. Once the current inventory of obsolete boosters is gone, SX doesn’t want any more expendable flights. They want to keep all the boosters they can so they can shut the assembly line down to build BFR’s. We might rarely see a partially expendable FH launch, but unless some unforeseen problem turns up with that launcher, that will be the end of expendable F9’s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1pman Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 1 minute ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Given @sevenperforce‘s sage words about SX being able to charge whatever they want, I think the numbers on their website are highly negotiable. Was talking about the GTO performance numbers, not price numbers @sevenperforce So, what GTO performance can Block V FH have? 10t maybe? And they’ll still need to produce Merlin engines and upper stages, so they can’t completely shut down the F9 production line. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted March 29, 2018 Share Posted March 29, 2018 11 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Given @sevenperforce‘s sage words about SX being able to charge whatever they want, I think the numbers on their website are highly negotiable. Once the current inventory of obsolete boosters is gone, SX doesn’t want any more expendable flights. They want to keep all the boosters they can so they can shut the assembly line down to build BFR’s. We might rarely see a partially expendable FH launch, but unless some unforeseen problem turns up with that launcher, that will be the end of expendable F9’s. He meant payload numbers, not pricing numbers. They won't completely shut down F9 core production; they've got to have a decent fleet operating. But yes, reuse has been as much about increasing launch cadence (without making operating costs skyrocket due to much larger staff) as anything else. I expect their assembly lines will not shrink significantly; they are already skeleton-crew in that department now. 4 minutes ago, sh1pman said: Was talking about the GTO performance numbers, not price numbers @sevenperforce So, what GTO performance can Block V FH have? 10t maybe? And they’ll still need to produce Merlin engines and upper stages, so they can’t completely shut down the F9 production line. Around 11 tonnes IIRC but I haven't re-crunched all the numbers yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Also, this: Apparently with a stopover at your mom’s house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 what's the meaning of that ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 11 minutes ago, YNM said: what's the meaning of that ? this tweet (top right corner) 1 hour ago, tater said: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 7 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said: this tweet (top right corner) Yeah, that's my question... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DAL59 Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Also, this: Apparently with a stopover at your mom’s house. "I believe he is tooling with you, sir" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 This means that SpaceX has to fly 2213 of these birds within 6 years of today, or the constellation freezes at whatever they have deployed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 7 minutes ago, tater said: This means that SpaceX has to fly 2213 of these birds within 6 years of today, or the constellation freezes at whatever they have deployed. https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-weapons/satellite-database#.Wr27TkxFxhE There are currently about 1800 active sats. So SpaceX has to more than double that number in six years... talk about pressure. So if these things are 400kg each (I heard that number somewhere, I may be wrong), and a reusable Falcon 9 can get a bit less than 10 tons to LEO, leaving some room for the dispensers, that's 20 sats per launch, requiring 111 flights of Falcon 9. That's about 20 flights per year just for Starlink. And that's not even considering the volume limitation of the fairing! Although, who knows... Maybe BFR will be able to help by 2024, imagine a hundred or more sats per launch... And 2213... Why such a weird number? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 15 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said: And 2213... Why such a weird number? Half of the 4425 total. Hmm, that's like 885,000kg. So just a tad more than one BFR launch, even.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Half of the 4425 total. Hmm, that's like 885,000kg. So just a tad more than one BFR launch, even.... Plus the whole volume issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NSEP Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 SpaceX might cram starlink sats in every launch. Wherever there is space. Also, considering there are 10,000 planes in the sky right now. 4500 sats in the sky doesn't seem like much of a concern to me. Sats don't have pilots unfortunately... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nefrums Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Like all other plans ever in history. It will be changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1pman Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Iridium-5 launch livestream Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Props are loading. No constraints. 1 hour ago, Nefrums said: Like all other plans ever in history. It will be changed. True, but this is a hard, regulatory limit. Use it, or lose it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insert_name Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Hope this launches before I get hit by the fog and can't see Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michal.don Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Launch at a reasonable time, hooray Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 This is the first time that they've ever explicitly said they plan to attempt fairing recovery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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