Reuse vs Expend discussion (and other cost related issues)

[PB666]

I wanted to post this in an F9 thread but there wasn't one, SpaceX thread is a dirty laundry list as it is, and the BFR thread is already polluted by off-topic discussion of cost.

Here is a link to the cost of the Falcon 9. http://spacenews.com/spacexs-reusable-falcon-9-what-are-the-real-cost-savings-for-customers/

Its from two years ago and prices have gone up.

What we can surmise from a variety of sources is that

Falcon9 expendable runs 62 million dollars, this is not the cost but what SpaceX charges. There have been varying reports some reporting that spaceX make 2 to 5 million on the launch, some report they make 25 million, I would more predict they are making in the low millions, but other cost of doing business are not included, for example Autonomous drone ships, Boca Chica development, product testing.
A falcon heavy is 90 million about 28 million dollars different, be we know this is not just the cost of the boosters, it also includes the cost of reinforcement. There have been estimates on the internet concerning the profit SpaceX makes per launch, these range from 24.8 million (see above) to losses in the 10s of millions, what is known is that besides Musk investors are pooring money in and spaceX is contracted to launch 70 public sector satellites worth 10 billion, which it can now do at the rate of about 3 to 5 per month. Assuming these are all F9 thats 142 million dollars per satellite. Another company offers that SpaceX has 12 billion dollars worth of contracts for 100 contracted launches, 2 which we know of are falcon heavy, so from this we can argue that they are gathering somewhat less than 120,000,000 per F9 launch. Some of these include the cost of the dragon vehicle, which is either currently recyclable or will be recyclable in the future.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/small-business/011717/space-exploration-technologies-corp.asp

http://www.vault.com/company-profiles/aerospace-and-defense/space-exploration-technologies-corporation/company-overview

Thus is appears that 62M is the base sticker price, that price dealers put on the car that always seems to at the back of the repair lot when they ask the salesman to see it. If we work between the two extremes, 37 - 67 m then we have a confidence range for the core, based on the statement of Elon Musk that 75% of the cost is the core-booster, then we can guess at the cost of the booster as 27 million to 46.5 million.So bring the the cost of the boosters in-line with some reasonable fraction of the core the cores being each 10 million or so each then the core cost should not exceed 40 million. We can also add to this the 4 to 6 million dollar cost of the fairing, which means the reusable costs in the vehicle range from 31 to 46 million dollars. It is nearly impossible to judge the cost of the vehicle with profit estimates based on offered price and sale prices so widely divergent. We have to basically assume that the cost of the F9 is 62 million and thus the cost of the core is <46.5 and the cost of the fairings 5 million dollars. The cost of the boosters for the FH should be less than <14 million dollars. 

There are two basic models, the first model is Elon the sly businessman model, in this model he is charging the customers cost for expendible but gives no discount for reusing a rocket, the installation cost of the core is 5 million and the recycling cost is 5 million. While recycling the fairing changes the shape of the curve (higher saturation limit), because he is so overcharging the customers on the reuse, there is little relative to be gained after 10 launches and he would be better off vending it as an expendible. If he discounts the reusable flight then the gain in profit will be more slowly

Model  - - - - cost/l -  - -profit/l                      

Maiden        62         0     
1 reuse        48.8     13.25
2 reuses      44.7     17.7
3 reuses      42.1     19.8
5  reuses     39.9     22.1
10 reuses    37.9     24.1
20 reuses    36.9     25.2

IN this same model, if he offers reusable rocket for 50 million, then we would see a -12 millon dollar average profit for the first launch 11.5 million/l by the 10th reuse and 13.2 mil/l by the 20th, and 13.6 by the 30th reuse, after which the marginal gain for continued reuse versus expending it at 62 million dollars (for a customer who wants higher dV). Lets say they could reuse the core every two months, the means that for the additional 10 more flights earning just .5M more for flight the would have to forgo the interest of there immediate gain of 12 million dollars. So it is really marginal to keep reusing the rocket, if there is an immediate interest in selling the whole rocket for more money. Not to mention the insurance underwriter for the rocket is probably back there saying they will get some discount if they expend the rocket and start over with a new one. There will also be improvements over time.

In the next model far less money because the core is a smaller part and there is more labor on installing the booster and recycling the booster than the above model, in this model recycling the fairing makes a considerable difference, but not to be included in order to focus how many flights to reach a point of marginal gain.

Model  - - - - cost/l -  - -profit/l    
Maiden        62         0     
1 reuse        58.5     3.5
2 reuses      57.3     4.7
3 reuses      56.7     5.3
5  reuses     56.2     5.83
10 reuses    55.6     6.4
20 reuses    55.4     6.65
30 reuses    55.8     6.8

In this model there is very little room to discount, so that if the offer is made to expend the rocket, there is little profit margin. But still after 20 to 30 flights, there is probably some utility and sending the rocket on an expendible mission there is just no profit in doing it.

One of the advantages of selling expendibles is to provide a basis for rocket manufacturing, this model assumes that low price will stimulate demand which will then cause increase usage, if not the manufacturing part of the business will suffer, and eventually will not be profitable, whereas a robust manufacturing process can support more capital.

Of course as we see the contract prices are way higher than 62 million dollars per launch, which means they are providing other services that may be the cash cows of the operation, marginal profit of the core is trivial, what they really want to achieve is more customers (like themselves in a satellite telecommunications business). The other thing that appears to be in this rather opaque business model is that customers who use a reused rocket will get a discount, but how much is not clear because they are paying more for other services, and so the discounts may come on the other services. Again there is some information, but the information on the cost and pricing is not complete. We see that F9 is bing offered for 62 million, but the customers are contracting for much higher prices for other services.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sh1pman]

I think that 62M price tag is only for payloads where booster recovery is possible. That’s why the contract prices are higher on average: some of them fly expendable, costing more to SpaceX, which in turn charges more for launch. No idea how much more, but if FH with 3 recovered boosters costs 90M, and something like 150M expendable, then one recovered booster should amount to something like 20M savings to SpaceX, more or less. Probably a bit less because of extra recovery and refurbishment costs.

That brings F9 expendable cost to ~80M per launch. I don’t think there’s a discount for flying on a reused booster.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/elon-musk-spacex-falcon-heavy-costs-150-million-at-most.html

Edited March 6, 2018 by sh1pman

[PB666]

1 hour ago, sh1pman said:

I think that 62M price tag is only for payloads where booster recovery is possible. That’s why the contract prices are higher on average: some of them fly expendable, costing more to SpaceX, which in turn charges more for launch. No idea how much more, but if FH with 3 recovered boosters costs 90M, and something like 150M expendable, then one recovered booster should amount to something like 20M savings to SpaceX, more or less. Probably a bit less because of extra recovery and refurbishment costs.

That brings F9 expendable cost to ~80M per launch. I don’t think there’s a discount for flying on a reused booster.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/12/elon-musk-spacex-falcon-heavy-costs-150-million-at-most.html

When I was trying to look up the price of the FH heavy expendable, I found a range of prices, on the high end it was 150 million on the low end it was 132 million and just expending the core was much lower even still. Even at that 150 minus 90 is 60 million, much of which is in the core and core upgrades, this means a booster could be in the 14 million dollar range, if that was the case then the value to the company in the core could be in the 32 million dollar range. But he claims that 75 percent of the cost of the rocket is in the core, so a unmodified core would be cheaper (28-30M maybe) thus the cost of a F9 would not be 80 million, but 40 million. This is what I am saying, there are alot of contradictory statements, you will have to do some statistics on the flights secured from now once block 5 is up and running seeing how much are expendable or not. But at between 120 million and 132 million per contract launch he is either offering great opaque perks, they are making alot of money or what they put out on their flyer in meaningless. On of the potential purchasers mentioned they would be the first to buy a ride on an expendable for 30 million, I don't think SpaceX took them up on that, but that may be reflective of what the actual cost of an expendable is.

My guess is that the final price on a FH is in the 120 to 150 range, on the expendable is 150 to 200 (again, not sure what is being paid for, maybe lavish vacations at some Seaside resort in the Sechelles for the purchaser) this is based on the average contract price for the F9 of 120 to 132 million dollars.

 

[kerbiloid]

Question #1: Really possible number of reuses per rocket.

 

 

 

 

[tater]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Question #1: Really possible number of reuses per rocket.

1 reuse is certain of stage 1, it's now been demonstrated several times.

I am unsure, but I assume they must have test fired a booster after a second return. They have certainly test fired Falcon stage ones multiple times.

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

1 reuse is certain of stage 1, it's now been demonstrated several times.

No, no. Per manufactured rocket. So, currently ~0.15 (say, ~8 reuses per ~50 rockets), And it's unclear if they haven't replaced 15% of the rocket reused. Say, 1 engine, 1 leg, etc.

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

No, no. Per manufactured rocket. So, currently ~0.15 (say, ~8 reuses per ~50 rockets), at it's unclear if they haven't replaced 15% of the rocket reused.

They've only landed what, 18? So they've reused 6-8 out of 18, and many of the others are waiting to be reused. You cannot count earlier stages that were never able to be landed, or failed landing.

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

They've only landed what, 18?

What's the difference how many was landed.
Reuse/produce ratio makes sense.

Say, for shuttles reuse count/produced ~28

Total flight count is comparable, btw: 140:50

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

23 landings so far (!). 6 landings have been reused stages. So for 23 landings, 17 unique stages.

9 boosters have been reflown.

 

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

23 landings so far (!). 6 landings have been reused stages

= 17 landings of aluminium scrap never reused again, unless they will reuse them in future.

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

What's the difference how many was landed.
Reuse/produce ratio makes sense.

1. every single reuse so far has been experimental. The reusable S1 is block 5, flying next month for the first time.

2. You cannot count the reuse of of F9s when the bulk were either not able to ever be reused, or those intentionally expended, or between F9 variants. That would be like quoting accident statistics for 777s using 747 data.

Just now, kerbiloid said:

= 17 landings of aluminium scrap never reused again, unless they will reuse them in future.

They are sitting in hangers for the most part.

They've reflown 9 of the 17 landed stages that were not already used once. So far that means 50% of landed stages have been reflown. the first was a museum piece, they never bothered to try, so call it 9/16 since that was never going to be reused for historical reasons.

Of the remaining 7, a couple might have been harmed too much to bother with reuse, but the rest will be reused.

[kerbiloid]

30 minutes ago, tater said:

1. every single reuse so far has been experimental.

So far = already 50 flights, btw. Many other rockets have finished their career much earlier than this experimental phase lasts.
Space Shuttle was reusable since the 1st flight, everyone of them.

30 minutes ago, tater said:

2. You cannot count the reuse of of F9s when the bulk were either not able to ever be reused, or those intentionally expended, or between F9 variants. That would be like quoting accident statistics for 777s using 747 data.

Both 777 and 747 have tens thousands reuses per plane, so we could painlessly include into the accident statistics even Sopwith Camel.

And anyway 6..9/23 = 0.30 +/- 0.05

Upd.
Say, you are making a reusable rocket.
Say, you've spent 99 of them for experiments.
Then the 100th one has flied 100 times.

How many reuses were there?

From the Record Table pov = 100 (max) - 1 (maiden) = 99. One rocket has been reused 99 times max.
From practical pov = (199 -100) / 100 = 1. 100 rockets spent, 199 flights, 2 flights /rocket
What's important? The latter.

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

9/16 = 56% (the first landed was never to be reused)

9/17 = 53% 

Do you count Enterprise in Shuttle stats?

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

So far = already 50 flights, btw.

NO.

You cannot count earlier F9 variants that they never even tried to reuse.

They didn't even have a place to land one until the 14th flight. No drone ship, and no permission to land in FL. So the first 13 could never have been landed (the parachute tests early on, perhaps, with huge refurb, I suppose). Flight 20 was the first success landing. 

They have landed 22/32 flights starting at the 1st success (1 flight had 2 landings, hence difference from booster landing count, I added FH to F9 to get 51 flights, starting with first landing @ flight 20). Of the remaining flights, 3 were landing failures on the drone ship, and 7 were intentionally expended. 

Edited March 7, 2018 by tater

[kerbiloid]

26 minutes ago, tater said:

Do you count Enterprise in Shuttle stats?

OK, let it be ~23 instead of 28.

26 minutes ago, tater said:

They have landed 22/32 flights (1 flight had 2 landings, hence difference from booster landing count, I added FH to F9 to get 51 flights, starting with first landing @ flight 20). Of the remaining flights, 3 were landing failures on the drone ship, and 7 were intentionally expended

Though someone could consider "intentionally expended" and "failures on the drone ship" as enough poor excuses from SpX, because all these are parts of the Falcon launch kit, but let it be so.

22 landings. 6.. 8 reuses.

6..8/(22 - 6..8) = ~0.5 reused/produced

(I've updated my previous post)

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[PB666]

He's right though, Block 5 is the first full production for reusability, It will be interesting to see what their actual reusability or expendability prices will be say in a year or two from now.

 

Edited March 7, 2018 by PB666

[tater]

The remaining landed boosters are still to be reused. Since they are not designed for optimal reuse, they will be used once more, likely all expended to get rid of them. Block 5 will give us some real reuse data, I imagine.

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

22 landings. 6.. 8 reuses.

9 landed stages have been successfully reused. It's not 9/22, since some of the stages landed were in flown twice. 17 unique stages have landed. Of those, 9 were reflown, and 5 were landed a second time.

Of the remaining 8 landed boosters, 1 is at Hawthorne (B1019, the first landed) as a museum piece. 4 are currently awaiting launch, 2 are in storage, 1 is retired. Looks like 3 were landed once, then immediately retired. they were all pre block 4, and GTO launches with hot landings.

[kerbiloid]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

The remaining landed boosters are still to be reused. Since they are not designed for optimal reuse, they will be used once more, likely all expended to get rid of them. Block 5 will give us some real reuse data, I imagine.

N-1 was to be launched, and Space Shuttles were to fly once per fortnight.
Statistics counts only the past, not the future.
Current state is: 50 full-scale rockets (doesn't matter if they had legs or not) were produced, ~20 were landed, 6..8 9 reuses happened.
Maybe in future they will be re-flying once per fortnight, but currently not.

10 minutes ago, tater said:

9 landed stages have been successfully reused. It's not 9/22, since some of the stages landed were in flown twice. 17 unique stages have landed. Of those, 9 were reflown, and 5 were landed a second time.

9 reused / 17 unique = ~0.5 reuse/produce.

(Even if forget about ~30 experimental ones, though they probably cost almost the same money, so economically it doesn't matter were they true Falcon or experimental ones)

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

It's important to remember that rocket reuse is a new thing. SpaceX has taken a path of empirical testing, so they use up boosters that every other provider throws away anyway.

Shuttle was reused from the start, but at extreme cost. The cost of a shuttle launch was over 1 billion $ (close to 1.4) including all the program costs.

I expect that if FH gets used much, the entire point is not the added mass, it's not the use for interplanetary probes, it's to throw stuff to GEO with full booster reuse in a way that doesn't stress the boosters as much as the GTO landings seem to. This is block 5 FH, I mean, where reuse is not something they tacked on to an existing rocket, but something much more thought out WRT that booster.

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, tater said:

It's important to remember that rocket reuse is a new thing. SpaceX has taken a path of empirical testing, so they use up boosters that every other provider throws away anyway.

Of course. But this just explains why the current state of things is:
~0.5 reuse/produce for a Falcon-type rocket — if count only the landed ones.
~0.15 reuse/produce — if count total production of Falcons including Protofalcons.
Nobody says that some another nowaday company could do this better.

Maybe later will be better.

P.S.
Shuttle was mentioned here just to demonstrate the reuse limits, not like "shuttle is better than falcon".

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[tater]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Maybe in future they will be re-flying once per fortnight, but currently not.

Last year they flew what, 19 times? That's every 2.7 weeks (1.4 fortnights ).

This year they expect 30, so even a little light, they exceed every fortnight.

The type of rocket absolutely matters. If they had decided to change the name with each variant for clarity, we'd have a few of each name. (there will only be a total of 7 block 4 boosters, for example)

You realize that the first booster reuse was March 30, 2017? Not even a year ago.

Wonder what the turn around time is on block 5. Rapid will demonstrate that they are not really refurbished. Note that the last few "sooty" boosters have been left so to demonstrate what little is being done to them. they clean stripes to monitor the welds, for example, replace grid fins, etc.

I'm just saying that if reuse looks anything like Shuttle, then reuse is not useful, lol. That was far too expensive.

I treat all pre-block 5 F9 boosters as free dev costs. Free because the launches were paid for, so they were destined to be destroyed, and any excess life is a bonus. I suppose as long as the refurb cost (averaged) is such that they didn't lose money on the launches. If they did (because they were still testing, and it was costly), then that total cost is the reuse dev cost.

 

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

The type of rocket absolutely matters.

Do they cost absolutely different money? How many times? 60 M$/launch is mentioned since the very beginning.
If they cost the same, economically there's absolutely no difference if they are of the same type or not, they are just "A rocket: 1 piece, 50 mln USD".

6 minutes ago, tater said:

Wonder what the turn around time is on block 5. Rapid will demonstrate that they are not really refurbished. Note that the last few "sooty" boosters have been left so to demonstrate what little is being done to them. they clean stripes to monitor the welds, for example, replace grid fins, etc.

Probably, this will be so, but still will. Statistics doesn't count future events.

[tater]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

Do they cost absolutely different money? How many times? 60 M$/launch is mentioned since the very beginning.
If they cost the same, economically there's absolutely no difference if they are of the same type or not, they are just "A rocket: 1 piece, 50 mln USD".

I'm at a loss what your point is, honestly.

At first I thought you were wondering how many reuses they might get (which is a block 5 question in the future, since none of the pre-block 5s were ever to be used more than twice).

All the reused rockets were paid for as expendable rockets. Unless refurb cost more than fabricating a new booster on average, reuse just means SpaceX made more money per reuse launch. Free testing.

Block 5 is where the rubber meets the road in terms of the economics of this. They are to be reused more than once, and with minimal refurb. The extent to which that pans out decides how good a thing reuse is for F9 operations.

[kerbiloid]

25 minutes ago, tater said:

At first I thought you were wondering how many reuses they might get

I just was trying to list the proven (not expected) statistics of rocket reuse.

Though actually, the list is very short: Shuttle and Falcon.

Shuttle gives us a practically proven number: 23 flights per produced vehicle.
Yes, it was expensive and so, here is just what is practically proven to be technically possible. 
(Though, we can see the cost of such possibilty, and it doesn't inspire.)

So we can see that ~20 flights per rocket is not a sci-fi, it's real, it's already proven.

Next, we have Falcon, the only reusable rocket nowadays.
Maybe it can be reused a hundred times.
But currently it has been reused only once per rocket , ~0.5 times per rocket intented to be reused, ~0.15 times per rocket of this family and more or less the same cost (9 Merlins, but of different versions).
Block 5 maybe great even maybe will be reused 30 times, but at the moment this is in future, not in fact.

So, my point was to say that the table
 

7 hours ago, PB666 said:

Maiden        62         0     
1 reuse        48.8     13.25
2 reuses      44.7     17.7
3 reuses      42.1     19.8
5  reuses     39.9     22.1
10 reuses    37.9     24.1
20 reuses    36.9     25.2

for the moment could be 5 lines shorter.

A chief economist doesn't care if the rockets are of Block 1 or 5 or whatever the engineers are trying to put into his/her ears,
He/she doesn't care how many of them are for test, for usage, and for fun.
He/she just counts how many rockets are to be paid and how many launches can be sold.

Edited March 7, 2018 by kerbiloid

[YNM]

The easiest way to tell "is F9 making money ?" is by auditing Musk's wealth. If any of you reading this text happens to be his personal accountant, please get in touch, don't be too hesitant if it turns out you have figured it.

Edited March 7, 2018 by YNM

[magnemoe]

9 minutes ago, YNM said:

The easiest way to tell "is F9 making money ?" is by auditing Musk's wealth. If any of you reading this text happens to be his personal accountant, please get in touch, don't be too hesitant of it turns out you have figured it.

No, SpaceX is not giving revenue, the BFR development will be very expensive for one.