totm dec 2019 Russian Launch and Mission Thread

[DDE]

5 hours ago, sh1pman said:

I wouldn’t mind political gambits if they resulted in nice rockets, not stupid outdated rockets

They result in rockets that fit the requirements. Said requirements amount to assured access to space at any cost, and nothing else. There is no reason for anyone involved to jump over their heads and try to design something that is competitive.

...except that Irtysh is of course competitive, because all of Musk’s rockets are being faked in a Pentagon parking lot, or whatever.

[kerbiloid]

It's still not obvious if the rocket reusability makes any economic sense for such small rockets and such small launch count.

The reusability will definitely make sense for ~1000 t payload rockets, or for a Daily Falcon schedule.
Also it makes sense for a Corporative Launch System, when you company has a rocket in the garage, and uses it once per month, landing on the backyard.

But these conditions anyway require space nukes as a current normality. Otherwise it's nothing to lift even if the rocket is cheap.

And unlikely this will get possible until 2050s.

So, that's no need to cosplay Space-X.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

It's still not obvious if the rocket reusability makes any economic sense

...overall, in Roscosmos’s point of view. They see only two billionaires toying around with reusability while every “credible” space program at best pays lip service to the idea (Vulcan’s engines, the proposed Ariane engine flyback...), and thus they decide (buttressed by skepticisim dating back to the Buran era) that reusability is a “fancy marketing trick”.

At which point @sh1pman punches the screen.

[kerbiloid]

24 minutes ago, DDE said:

that reusability is a “fancy marketing trick”.

Until the Steelship starts shuttling, nothing has disproved this. The cost difference looks like a +/-.

[sh1pman]

24 minutes ago, DDE said:

...overall, in Roscosmos’s point of view. They see only two billionaires toying around with reusability while every “credible” space program at best pays lip service to the idea (Vulcan’s engines, the proposed Ariane engine flyback...), and thus they decide (buttressed by skepticisim dating back to the Buran era) that reusability is a “fancy marketing trick”.

At which point @sh1pman punches the screen.

Did Soviet engineers who designed Energia-2 concepts care about marketing? 

I really don’t get this “marketing trick” mentality. “Hey, we’re saving a ton of money for ourselves by landing our stages!”. As a potential customer, I wouldn’t care. I’d only want my satellite in space. The only potential benefit of reuse is for the launch provider. And if there’s a competition, reuse allows to lower the prices and be more competitive. If Roscosmos is a for-profit agency, with budget problems at that, it makes all the sense for them to explore the reuse possibility. If they’re waiting for someone else to prove that it works, then that someone will also leave Roscosmos without commercial payloads, which is kinda already happening.

[DDE]

3 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Hey, we’re saving a ton of money for ourselves

And that’s where you part ways with Rogozin (good riddance?). The average Musk basher will argue, foaming at the mouth, that they can’t possibly be saving money because muh refurbishment costs and muh lost payload fraction.

Never really tried bringing up Soviet reusable designs with them (which would have been myself, were I arguing out of nationalism rather than general jadedness). Could turn out interesting.

3 hours ago, sh1pman said:

If they’re waiting for someone else to prove that it works

Technically they are: they’re waiting for NIIMash and all of the other learned and respectable people that are part of Roscosmos. No-one else’s claims (or deeds) will do - the solipsism of a conspirologist.

Naturally, they’ll keep waiting for a while.

Edited March 13, 2019 by DDE

[sh1pman]

Roscosmos techpriest. 

[magnemoe]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Until the Steelship starts shuttling, nothing has disproved this. The cost difference looks like a +/-.

Falcon 9 shows that reuse works very well. No SpaceX has no reasons to offer launches as cost efficient rates just much lower than others. 
Fairly obvious to me that inside of 20 years you do second stage recovery or you are not an player in the launch marked. 

Not saying that national space agencies are pointless, only that they just serve an military / intelligence role only.  
Reuse is pretty obviously better as long as refurbishment don't cost more than an new stage ala shuttle. 
Note that for military purposes an cheaper cruise missile might win over an reusable drones as you can do an larger first strike and you expect high losses anyway. 

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

5 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Roscosmos techpriest. 

That jacket passed "tacky" at mach 1 and circled all the way back around. Where can I get one?  

[kerbiloid]

8 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Falcon 9 shows that reuse works very well.

Nobody says it doesn't work technically (for the 1st stage). It did it in early 1990s.
But can you show that the launch costs much less for such range of payloads?

Edited March 14, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Falcon 9 shows that reuse works very well. No SpaceX has no reasons to offer launches as cost efficient rates just much lower than others. 

 

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Reuse is pretty obviously better as long as refurbishment don't cost more than an new stage ala shuttle. 

So, SpaceX DOES NOT show that reuse works well and that the Falcon isn’t another Shuttle. And even if they did undercut the market price, Roscosmos would just accuse him of selling at a loss thanks to Pentagon subsidies on his natsec launches.

As they already do.

[tater]

 

 

Regarding reuse, SpaceX has zero incentive to reduce cost to the customer much, that is not an indicator at all of the efficacy of reuse. If a typical launch costs X, as long as they are very slightly below X, they win, and pocket the difference. We can say reuse makes sense for the simple reason that they continue to do it. If it didn’t make financial sense, they’d abandon it, they are a business, not a charity.

Edited March 14, 2019 by tater

[DDE]

4 hours ago, tater said:

If it didn’t make financial sense, they’d abandon it, they are a business, not a charity.

I honestly don’t think Roscosmos understand the concept. If Musk were motivated by profit, he’d be embezzling from his own business... wait, can a person even own their business yet be more than a shopkeeper? Does not compute.

While the more business-minded state companies attract the more capitalist-minded individuals with their stability and relative generosity, even there politics, whether international or interdepartmental, and often personal enrichment, matter far more than profits of the overall organization. Now imagine how that works in an organization staffed largely with economic illiterates born under socialism and taught that evil capitalists aren’t in it for the profit but UNLIMITED POWER...

Suffice it to say, the world looks rather different to them.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, tater said:

We can say reuse makes sense for the simple reason that they continue to do it. If it didn’t make financial sense, they’d abandon it, they are a business, not a charity.

Spoiler

 

[sh1pman]

56 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The beauty of cost-plus pricing strategy. 

[wumpus]

10 hours ago, DDE said:

 

So, SpaceX DOES NOT show that reuse works well and that the Falcon isn’t another Shuttle. And even if they did undercut the market price, Roscosmos would just accuse him of selling at a loss thanks to Pentagon subsidies on his natsec launches.

As they already do.

I find it difficult to believe that the cost to re-launch a Falcon 9 2-4 times is cheaper than rebuilding the booster each time.  There have been a few claims that whatever the entire reuse program cost, it hasn't yet (and possibly not  during Falcon 9's existence) won't be recouped by flying block 5 3-4 times each.

Musk's response would be that his goal remains to colonize Mars, and that quibbling over whether or not he developed the tech needed to reuse a rocket "for free, or at some slight cost" is entirely pointless.  He now knows how to reuse rockets, and that is absolutely necessary for high volume space travel.

Typically this cost analysis makes a ton of sense in government programs that don't allow companies to use them for their own R&D.  You have to justify each program entirely on its own without regards to any other program (doing otherwise typically involves fraud).  It might have influenced some NASA types, but I'm sure investors just laughed and saw things the same way Musk would.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

I'm sure investors just laughed and saw things the same way Musk would.

Google.exe has attempted to access laugh.dll and stopped working. Please reboot system.

 

[sh1pman]

Looks like they're doing rocket cams now.

Edited March 14, 2019 by sh1pman

[DDE]

Rogozin hints at using we-know-whose American ships for cosmonaut flights, and visa versa... after they get “certified”. Uh-hm.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3910211

Time to see how much mud can be raked up by a participant in the ISS Treaty.

[tater]

 

[DDE]

The US-Russian Venera-D project is still nominally ongoing despite all the pressures

https://www.rt.com/news/454179-life-traces-venus-mission/

[DDE]

Someone is apparently still working on Venera-D.

https://www.rt.com/news/454179-life-traces-venus-mission/

[sh1pman]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Someone is apparently still working on Venera-D.

https://www.rt.com/news/454179-life-traces-venus-mission/

Well, best of luck. Hopefully it won't end up like most other Russian interplanetary missions, on the bottom of the ocean. stranded in heliocentric orbit with no comms. exploded at launch. all of the above.

Edited March 19, 2019 by sh1pman

[DDE]

2 hours ago, sh1pman said:

on the bottom of the ocean. stranded in heliocentric orbit with no comms. exploded at launch. all of the above.

A Venus crash-landing would be a first.

[Codraroll]

14 hours ago, DDE said:

A Venus crash-landing would be a first.

Given a landing on Venus, a crash is just the quickest way to arrive at the final fate of the craft. It's not like it would be in any better shape a year or so after a soft landing.