totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Codraroll]

On 1/16/2024 at 6:39 PM, magnemoe said:

sending an huge truck filled with rocket fuel flying trough the air. 

In a way, that is exactly what it's built for, after all. For some value of "truck", anyway.

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

2 min

Liftoff

coming up on MECO, etc

 

MECO SEP SES-1

Boostback and RTLS, BTW

[Spaceception]

I watched this through just after liftoff to Dragon separation. It was a good launch, I like that crewed missions use RTLS, it's my favorite type of landing. And with the Helios tug that Impulse released supposed to debut in a couple years, it'll boost Falcon 9 performance for certain orbits, and a lot more commercial flights might end up becoming RTLS

[Shpaget]

Leg extension was a bit out of sync.

Another good launch.

[Cuky]

This is the first launch since they started streaming exclusively on X that I did not forget to watch. Launch went well as usual, recovery as well. But I am super disappointed by the stream. When they were on YouTube it was always nice and crisp in full screen no matter where I was watching (smartphone, 1440p PC monitor or 4K TV). On X it looked as if the stream was in 480p or 720p at max and it really felt as a step back in comparison to my previous experiences.

[Spaceception]

There's a lot more than just SpaceX news in here, but Payload space estimates a full stack for Starship to cost $90 million, including engines and labor.

A little bit below that, Aerojets RS-25 is noted to cost $100 million for a new engine.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/

Edited January 19 by Spaceception

[Nuke]

that's the thing about government funded rockets. things cost more when you spend someone else's money. 

[Pthigrivi]

15 hours ago, Nuke said:

that's the thing about government funded rockets. things cost more when you spend someone else's money. 

I mean, SpaceX is also a government contractor.  The dragon program, HLS, numerous government funded satellite launches are also 'spending other people's money.'  The difference here is economy of scale, iterative design, and vertical integration. I think we can leave the politics out of it. Its also important to not confuse initial manufacturing costs vs per-launch costs when we talk about reusable rockets. To date SpaceX has spent 3 billion dollars on Starship, so one could say the current per-launch cost is 1.5 billion. Of course the idea is that those initial development costs will be amortized over hundreds of launches, but lots of things could interrupt that: RUD on the pad, fundamental conceptual failures that make full reusability infeasible, lack of demand, or an unexpected disruptive competitor. 

Edited January 20 by Pthigrivi

[StrandedonEarth]

1 minute ago, Pthigrivi said:

I mean, SpaceX is also a government contractor.  The dragon program, HLS, numerous government funded satellite launches are also 'spending other people's money.' The difference here is economy of scale and vertical integration. I think we can leave the politics out of it.

Well yes, but no. SpaceX received fixed-price contracts to develop and/or provide services, with some payments dependent on reaching milestones. They used these funds together with their own funds, to develop and launch vehicles. The Starship program has been largely funded by private investments in SpaceX, with the Starlink revenue stream  as a more traditional business model to attract and de-risk those investments.

SLS was developed and operated on a cost-plus basis (as far as I know) where contractors did not have "skin in the game," but instead billed the gov't for all costs incurred, plus a percentage for profit. They simply couldn't lose money on it, unless they didn't bill for some costs, and it incentivized inefficiency and cost bloating. There was no incentive to keep costs down ($100 million per RS-25)

Boeing, a traditional cost-plus contractor, entered the fixed-price Commercial Crew contract contest, and is losing their shirt on it in the process. They apparently don't know how to work without simply billing Uncle Sam for cost overruns. Granted they had unforeseen difficulties and setbacks, but so did SpaceX...

[Pthigrivi]

7 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Well yes, but no. SpaceX received fixed-price contracts to develop and/or provide services, with some payments dependent on reaching milestones. They used these funds together with their own funds, to develop and launch vehicles. The Starship program has been largely funded by private investments in SpaceX, with the Starlink revenue stream  as a more traditional business model to attract and de-risk those investments.

SLS was developed and operated on a cost-plus basis (as far as I know) where contractors did not have "skin in the game," but instead billed the gov't for all costs incurred, plus a percentage for profit. They simply couldn't lose money on it, unless they didn't bill for some costs, and it incentivized inefficiency and cost bloating. There was no incentive to keep costs down ($100 million per RS-25)

Boeing, a traditional cost-plus contractor, entered the fixed-price Commercial Crew contract contest, and is losing their shirt on it in the process. They apparently don't know how to work without simply billing Uncle Sam for cost overruns. Granted they had unforeseen difficulties and setbacks, but so did SpaceX...

True, contract structure is critical but to say SpaceX isn't also spending taxpayer money isn't accurate. I don't think its difficult to argue even the overabundance of private equity streams due to fed and tax policy comes with its own hidden costs to the public, but again thats getting a bit close to the P word. 

[tater]

33 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I mean, SpaceX is also a government contractor.  The dragon program, HLS, numerous government funded satellite launches are also 'spending other people's money.' 

For fixed price services. COTS was the best ~$360M NASA ever spent (then cost per flight as a service, obviously). NASA literally spent >$250M on the white paper bid submission from Dynetics for their lander, which in turn generated... nothing. Nothing at all. The alternate case is cost-plus in this space, and the differences are huge. "Government funded" means "cost-plus."

 

36 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

To date SpaceX has spent 3 billion dollars on Starship, so one could say the current per-launch cost is 1.5 billion. Of course the idea is that those initial development costs will be amortized over hundreds of launches, but lots of things could interrupt that: RUD on the pad, fundamental conceptual failures that make full reusability infeasible, lack of demand, or an unexpected disruptive competitor. 

To the taxpayer their dev cost is irrelevant except to the extent it's amortized into launch costs for gov payloads. Gov projects along these lines—Shuttle, Constellation, and SLS being the "recent" examples over the last ~50 years—have NASA has a highly involved customer, paying as they go. Their cost calculators overestimate private dev costs by what, an order of magnitude?

[tater]

Wonder if instead of sticking to subject matter of interest I should post statements as facts with zero evidential support where anyone disagreeing answering them is off limits?

Nah.

[Pthigrivi]

27 minutes ago, tater said:

 "Government funded" means "cost-plus."

I would just argue "Government Funded" means "Government Funded".  The distinction is cost-plus vs fixed bid, not who is paying for it. I 100% agree the US should have revised its bid process like 40 years ago.

Edited January 20 by Pthigrivi

[StrandedonEarth]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

Wonder if instead of sticking to subject matter of interest I should post statements as facts with zero evidential support

Guilty as charged; too lazy and/or time-constrained to research the sources I read it in, although generally the sources were previously linked upthread somewhere. But I’m certainly open to rebuttals. 

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I would just argue "Government Funded" means "Government Funded".  The distinction is cost-plus vs fixed bid, not who is paying for it. I 100% agree the US should have revised its bid process like 40 years ago.

I agree, but I meant in the specific case he was talking about. SLS is a government program, even though it obviously involves contractors. It's the details of the way the entire process goes.

5 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Guilty as charged; too lazy and/or time-constrained to research the sources I read it in, although generally the sources were previously linked upthread somewhere. But I’m certainly open to rebuttals. 

It was not directed to you at all.

[StrandedonEarth]

Just now, tater said:

It was not directed to you at all.

Yeah, didn't think so, just acknowledging the principle.

[Pthigrivi]

34 minutes ago, tater said:

It was not directed to you at all.

No I take your point. There's this gray area where economics and financing blur into politics, where for instance SpaceX can leverage the promised revenue stream from government contracts into its private equity rounds, and politicians have influence over those kinds of decisions. We can only really talk about one side of that coin here. 

Edited January 20 by Pthigrivi

[18Watt]

Several recent posts in this thread have gone far off-topic, and include political discussions and links.  Which are both clearly not allowed per our Community Guidelines .  The posters doing this have been on the forums for a while, and should know better.

Please keep the discussion on topic, and keep political discussions out of the KSP Forums.

Some posts have been removed.

[Pthigrivi]

I missed what happened but its kinda my fault. It's hard to dance around it sometimes. I probably shouldn't play so close to the edge. Anyway back on topic any word on timing for the 3rd launch?

Edited January 21 by Pthigrivi

[Flavio hc16]

10 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

 Anyway back on topic any word on timing for the 3rd launch?

Internally they said they will be ready by end of the month, and soon after will be ready report-wise, NET February, IMHO it will be tail end of February/ start of march

[CBase]

10 hours ago, Flavio hc16 said:

Internally they said they will be ready by end of the month, and soon after will be ready report-wise, NET February, IMHO it will be tail end of February/ start of march

SpaceX was required to submit a mishap report for IFT-2, if I recall it right. The last time when FAA accepted the mishap report it took SpaceX 2 days to submit all paperwork that corrections are performed and FAA 7 weeks for 63 issues to check the paperwork. If I read above statement as by end of Jan they will have the latest mishap report completed, it will depend on how many issues are on the list. Certainly less than last time, so 1-2 weeks should be realistic for checking all paperwork that all corrective tasks are completed. And finally it might take SpaceX as well some days to find ideal conditions. Yeah last week of Febuary sounds likely.

Edited January 21 by CBase

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Posting this so I can come back here.

Kraken-ban still in effect.

Please don't report this post for being off topic.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, CBase said:

SpaceX was required to submit a mishap report for IFT-2, if I recall it right. The last time when FAA accepted the mishap report it took SpaceX 2 days to submit all paperwork that corrections are performed and FAA 7 weeks for 63 issues to check the paperwork. If I read above statement as by end of Jan they will have the latest mishap report completed, it will depend on how many issues are on the list. Certainly less than last time, so 1-2 weeks should be realistic for checking all paperwork that all corrective tasks are completed. And finally it might take SpaceX as well some days to find ideal conditions. Yeah last week of Febuary sounds likely.

I say IFT-2 went much better than 1, so less paperwork.