New European capsule thread

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Yup, all of which have - individually, even - raked up the same number of flight hours as Orel.

For much bigger money, with same result, and unlike Oryol to the date, finally abandonned.

30 minutes ago, tater said:

One useful factor for them is that they are designing it to be launch vehicle agnostic.

Like LKS, like Spiral, Like Maks...

Unlike Buran, which indeed had performed a flight.

Edited December 30, 2023 by kerbiloid

[Scotius]

And people wonder why older European spaceflight enthusiasts tend to be bitter LOL

I still remember how happy pretty pictures of HOTOL and Hermes made me feel. They seemed in arm's reach...

[kerbiloid]

I was reading about these projects in my school years, das was fantastisch. I can't forgive them Hotol.

Edited December 30, 2023 by kerbiloid

[tater]

Maybe this time will be different. They actually have a subscale test vehicle set to be launched by ISRO in January 2024.

Unsure when F9 launch is.

Edited December 30, 2023 by tater

[tater]

They've signed an agreement with Axiom as well. They say delivery to Axiom/ISS by NET late 2027 (which we all know means 2028, lol). So aiming for a test flight to station in 4 years?

[Codraroll]

3 hours ago, tater said:

They've signed an agreement with Axiom as well. They say delivery to Axiom/ISS by NET late 2027 (which we all know means 2028, lol). So aiming for a test flight to station in 4 years?

Let's see ... late 2027, that's four years away. Any space-related promise relating to delivery more than two years in the future, has a roughly 50% chance of not happening at all. But for the remaining 50%, we can apply the rule for the next time window (delivery between six months and two years from now): add 50% to the time elapsed from the present day to the promised delivery.

So overall, I'd say a 50% chance of delivery by late 2029. Still better odds than Oryol.

[kerbiloid]

17 hours ago, tater said:

They've signed an agreement with Axiom as well. They say delivery to Axiom/ISS by NET late 2027

Taking piece of bread from Dragon and CST-100.

13 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Still better odds than Oryol.

Russia already has a spaceship, and is regularly using it in practice, not in theory.
So, the need in Oryol is not that urgent.
Will the NYX be, or won't it be, it doesn't compete with Oryol in any sense. Their owners will be anyway using their own ships.

But I can't understand your gloating.
Dragon, Starliner, Dreamchaser, and all that crowd of American companies. who are competing to each other in visiting the depleted (almost derelict) ISS, and the planned Axiom. They are, who you are laughing at. They are NYX competitors.

Are you sure they will find enough suicidal maniacs space tourists for all of them?
SpaceX, Boeing, maybe ULA, and other US developers are who should (actuall, not) worry about the new (like if there was an old) European xapsule.

That's why I believe that NYX will more probably join the glorious company of Hotol, Hermes, Saenger...
Not because Russia will stop it. Because American capitalists will.

Edited December 31, 2023 by kerbiloid

[SunlitZelkova]

14 hours ago, tater said:

Maybe this time will be different. They actually have a subscale test vehicle set to be launched by ISRO in January 2024.

I wouldn't put money on it because of that. Japan's HOPE spaceplane, the counterpart to Hermes, had subscale test vehicles too, and got cancelled anyways.

[Codraroll]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Dragon, Starliner, Dreamliner, and all that crowd of American companies. who are competing to each other in visiting the depleted (almost derelict) ISS, and the planned Axiom. They are, who you are laughing at. They are NYX competitors.

The Ariane rockets also face stiff competition from Falcon 9 and other US rockets, but Europe will still pay for its production, to maintain its own launch capacity. For the same reason, NYX will probably be funded despite competition from the US capsules. Earlier, there was a certain willingness to fall back on Soyuz for that task (as Russia was seen as a relatively European country), but that option is now off the table, making NYX more urgent than its cancelled predecessors.

[kerbiloid]

Just now, Codraroll said:

The Ariane rockets also face stiff competition from Falcon 9 and other US rockets, but Europe will still pay for its production, to maintain its own launch capacity.

They launch satellites. They don't send people to... Where to?.. Only ISS, and maybe later Axiom, where a whole line of human deliverers is breathing into each other's back-of-head. They will be very glad to see another one in the touristic flight schedule.

[tater]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They launch satellites. They don't send people to... Where to?.. Only ISS, and maybe later Axiom, where a whole line of human deliverers is breathing into each other's back-of-head. They will be very glad to see another one in the touristic flight schedule.

NASA seems interested in becoming an anchor customer for some alternate station. Axiom will probably meet milestones, it's not like they are starting from scratch, Thales Alenia is fabricating their modules (and they are already being manufactured). So I have reasonable confidence in Axiom being there, then free-flying. So the primary "tourists" would be NASA/ESA astronauts I bet.

[kerbiloid]

12 minutes ago, tater said:

So the primary "tourists" would be NASA/ESA astronauts I bet.

Falcon will deliver Nyx instead of Dragon?

Or expendable European rockets (Eurockets?) will be as cheap as reusable Falcon?

[tater]

7 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Falcon will deliver Nyx instead of Dragon?

Or expendable European rockets (Eurockets?) will be as cheap as reusable Falcon?

SpaceX is happy to launch anyone writing a check. I would imagine a crew launch will be more expensive than a retail sat launch as well.

SpaceX is launching some Amazon Kuiper satellites, for example, in direct competition with Starlink. They will probably fly Dream Chaser as well. And aren't they flying Cygnus, too (cargo Dragon competition).

When Ariane 6 is actually flying, I assume this flies on that as well—the US flies SLS, after all, and it's not even close to being a cost-effective vehicle.

(assuming Nyx actually exists to fly )

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

SpaceX is happy to launch anyone writing a check.

To get just a part of the billionaire's money instead o the whole price.

To launch sats (which will anyway be launched by somebody), and to deliver tourist bus instead of your own...

[tater]

1 minute ago, kerbiloid said:

To get just a part of the billionaire's money instead o the whole price.

To launch sats (which will anyway be launched by somebody), and to deliver tourist bus instead of your own...

Not sure what you are saying here. SpaceX sells Falcon 9 launches to offset costs for their actual mission (which has nothing to do with making money, since the launch market is chump change).

Why "to deliver tourist bus instead of your own" when Dragon is in fact the current NASA crew vehicle? It is no more a "tourist bus" than Soyuz is (which has also flown non-cosmonaut "tourists" for money—and NASA astronauts for money as well).

I would assume the majority of seats will be bought by actual space programs that lack their own crew vehcile to send their country's astronauts.

[kerbiloid]

52 minutes ago, tater said:

Why "to deliver tourist bus instead of your own" when Dragon is in fact the current NASA crew vehicle?

Because a space hotel has limited capacity, and even three (Dragon, Starliner, Dreamchaser) US ships exceed it.

When SpX launches some sats, these sats will be anyway launched by some space agency, and it will receive the money. So, why not launch them, even they belong to some SpX competitor.

But in case of tourism, SpX is at once the Dragon owner, and the Falcon owner.
So, every Falcon flight for Nyx means minus one Dragon flight with tourist, because that Dragon will fly next time, because the space hotel is not made of rubber.

P.S.
Additionall funny is how everyone here is ready to use billionaires as cheap free testers for every ship which somebody made, lol.

Feels like a dot.com.

Edited December 31, 2023 by kerbiloid

[tater]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Because a space hotel has limited capacity, and even three (Dragon, Starliner, Dreamchaser) US ships exceed it.

So what?

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

When SpX launches some sats, these sats will be anyway launched by some space agency, and it will receive the money. So, why not launch them, even they belong to some SpX competitor.

But in case of tourism, SpX is at once the Dragon owner, and the Falcon owner.
So, every Falcon flight for Nyx means minus one Dragon flight with tourist, because that Dragon will fly next time, because the space hotel is not made of rubber.

If true tourism, the more demand, the better. If demand was meangingful, expand station (or different station flies), and the rising tide lifts all boats.

If the "tourism" is in fact just a privatized ISS, or competing privatized stations (which is a good thing, since instead of an old station, we'd see station innovation), then the primary customers are in fact national/international space programs—NASA, ESA, JAXA, etc. NASA already prefers multiple providers (except Boeing has done a lousy job so far).

Your argument seems predicated on the notion that SpaceX is primarily motivated by revenue. As has been said many times, the launch/spaceflight market is chump change. Maybe over $10B (gross) if you captured all or increased demand. It's not a money maker.

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Additionall funny is how everyone here is ready to use billionaires as cheap free testers for every ship which somebody made, lol.

We're having this conversation because rich people initially had computers, now everyone does. Or phones to smart phones. Expensive at first, eventually everyday items. Real space tourism—meaning accessible to non-billionaires—will be a huge win, likely funded first by the wealthy (or states, which are also wealthy even if it is 100% someone else's money) until economies of scale (and improved safety) drop prices. That doesn't happen very soon.

[darthgently]

13 minutes ago, tater said:

Your argument seems predicated on the notion that SpaceX is primarily motivated by revenue. As has been said many times, the launch/spaceflight market is chump change. Maybe over $10B (gross) if you captured all or increased demand. It's not a money maker.

Additionally, as SpaceX launches of OneWeb and Kuiper proves out, they are perfectly willing to "help" the competition.  Musk basically related in both situations that the more the merrier and it was no skin off SpaceX's back