SpaceX Falcon Heavy

[Airlock]

As far as the central core returning to pad, I would assume there's a step being left out- landing on the automated spaceport drone ship Just Read the Instructions, being refueled, and launching again back to the pad.

Fixed.

10char

[AngelLestat]

Is your KSP Falcon modeled to the exact same weight ratios and engine performance as in real life? Does it get damaged by reentry heat? Are you flying your payloads to GTO or high inclination orbits?

Hi Nibb, how are you doing?

heh, my falcon9, and falcon heavy from ksp are made in Stock size kerbin, I said that when I post the images here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108756-SpaceX-Falcon-Heavy?p=1699114&viewfull=1#post1699114

I said:"This was not Real solar system mod, so it was a terrible comparison, but even with that I had the hunch that longer booster as we can see in the page had no sense."

The thing that you are answer me was a recomendation to @Frozen_Heart after I read its estimations.

Because everybody thinks that you burn up a lot of fuel to return the stage, but there are not taking into account that you do it with only the dry mass of the single tank. The speed component and distant that you need to counter is not much, and the earth still rotates, so the launch site comes to you (is not much, but it helps).

My experiment with the stock version help me to understand the maneuvers involve, some rought aproximation to the fuel ratio and the fact that was not point in make the booster biggers as Elon musk commented before.

And I was right about the boosters. It does not have point from the trajectory point of view, and it does not have a point from the economic and manufacture point of view.

If you reduce the cost by 20%, which is what reusing the first stage of a Falcon 9 might achieve optimistically, then the price goes from 60 to 50 million dollars. That is not going to spawn new markets.

Keep saying that, you drop an airplane to the trash in each fly and you just reduce a 20% the cost of the tickets?

As I said, your developing cost is wrong, that comes from the investments, it does not have any effect in the launch cost and you ignore complety the testing cost with many other cost reductions that you get doing many launchs.

In fact Elon Musk said that it is very important to reuse all stages, because if you drop always one, your launch rate does not increase, this increase your cost a lot by many reasons that I explain already.

The launch cost is typically less that 25% of a satellite project. The satellite itself is approximately 50%. The rest is ground systems and operations. So the saving for the customer is 20% of 25%. That's nice for the operator's bottom line, but it's not revolutionary.

If you launch many rockets, it seems that ground systems are working fine. So there is not need to make weeks of test over and over.

I already explain the cost of satellites and all the new market that will arise.

SpaceX is a great illustration actually. In 2014, their launch prices are practically 50% lower than the competition, which is a great achievement. The only effect is that it is drawing existing customers from the traditional launch providers, but it isn't doubling the number of launches per year.

Because they still can not launch rockets so often Duuh!

The test involves for each launch take a lot of time and they have limit number of employees.

If they can launch craft more often, then they can steal clients to the other agencies, doing more launch they have a certain profit assure so they can reduce the cost, plus testing cost cut, etc..

You can reach the theoretical 1/100 reduction, it would take at least 15 years, but they would do it.

Since a year that I read you to make critics about spacex and skylon economical benefics, which you stand that are pointless.

It must be frustrating for you to see how these project are still going without understand the reasons behind.

It's as close as makes no difference. Excluding transport to ISS (which is based on NASA demands, and obviously not going to change due to price, commercial non-GSO launches in the past ten years averaged less than six a year, much of that small vehicles. GSO averages over 14, and much larger rocket classes.

There is no way to show you light inside that box. You should understand that this is not the only use for space.

There are huge markets waiting for a little extra cost reduction, some other for a big cost reduction...

Edited January 28, 2015 by AngelLestat

[magnemoe]

Can it fly (is it technically possible)? Probably.

Will it fly (is it practically possible)? Probably not for the forseeable future, beyond tests. There is NO market demand for satellites in that weight category, there is no sightseeing tourism passenger capsule, there is no space hotel to go to, there is no advanced nearly done science missions that require it, there is no asteroid mining, no moon base to support and so on. It will probably only fly often and seriously, if the US/NASA and / or Europe/ESA decides to put something big into space, and that takes time to build.

This makes the reusable boosters relevant, perhaps even center stage but that will have to be an barge landing anyway.

You can sacrifice plenty of cargo capacity to add reuseability and cutting cost and still have an pretty heavy launcher, say 30 ton to LEO.

Still its heavier than most payloads, payloads are also build after rockets.

Note that satellites in GEO has been gaining weight even with no new launchers, this is a problem for Ariane 5 as it getting problems doing the dual satellites its designed for.

[StrandedonEarth]

Ok, so, Space is building a launch facility in Texas. I understand Florida is too far for an F9 booster to land there, but would it be practical for the center core of an F9H to land at the Cape? It would save a lot of flyback.

[magnemoe]

Maybe the question to ask is "Do governments want to maintain a government-space agency-monopoly on spaceflight? Although the U.S. gives lip service to the developing space industry, the increase of regulations, nearly oppressive government oversight, and now differing approvals required by differing agencies beg to differ. I read on Space.com about a year ago that for every test flight by a civilian space company (such as Virgin Galactic, SpaceX), the FAA requires a detailed flight plan, NASA requires suborbital and orbital trajectories and mission plan, the EPA wants a complete environmental impact study (to include various materials used, what the environmental hazards could be, the plans to clean up in the event of a disaster, etc.), the DoD wants information, the NTSB wants detailed reports on evacuation procedures of human passengers and pilots, and nearly a dozen other agencies with some report and documentation required BEFORE each launch.

Let's face facts, while we like to say that the federal government (in the case of the U.S.) wants to keep things safe, reduce liability, and manage risk, could there be more to this story? Could the nations of the world realize that there are many of us that are willing to risk everything for the opportunity to settle on the Moon, Mars, and beyond? What would happen to these same nations if those colonies declared independence, much like what happened in North and South America between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Could it be that maybe the spacefaring nations are afraid of an uncontrollable exodus or new sources of unregulated wealth if these companies begin mining asteroids and the Moon? Could it be a little of both?

If the governments of Europe had placed so many restrictions on the early explorers, North and South America would have never been settled by Europeans. If the various governmental bureaucracies existed at the turn of the twentieth century, the Wright brothers would never have made the first flight by powered aircraft.

Why should the various organisations have the same goal?

Even internally departments disagree this is obvious in any larger company.

EPA deals with pollution, its their mission, they don't care about other stuff neither should they.

NASA leadership want private actors in the launch business, this might be pressure from above as not all in NASA like this especially not the ones doing launches.

The ones doing space missions like it as it will give cheaper launches and more missions.

Add that aerospace is heavy regulated on all levels, know one who own a sea plane and do some charter missions and its is pretty under the table simply to not be an airline company because then he would need two secretary and he only do it to get more flight time while paying part of the cost of the plane.

And any regulating organisation always want to increase their mandate like small drones and FAA, low altitude and away from airports has always been unregulated, closer to airports is an other issue of obvious reasons, know this from experience, same guy with the plane and we wanted to look at an area and got an window from air control as we was too close too the approach to an airport.

[Kryten]

There are huge markets waiting for a little extra cost reduction, some other for a big cost reduction...

Commercial imaging got their cost reduction-they got it by shrinking their sats to the point that they became negligible in launch statistics. Science missions are constrained by national budgets and tend to have very high relative spacecraft and operational costs; what else do you think there's going to be?

Edited January 28, 2015 by Kryten

[J.Random]

what else do you think there's going to be?

Googlenet satellite network!

[Francesco]

You should play with KSP RSS and try the Falcon Heavy in reusable way..

Delusional fanboy detected.

You're talking with some actual engineers in this thread.

Maybe you should get yourself some real world knowledge, instead of presenting the "it works in Kerbal Space Program" argument?

http://xkcd.com/1244/

About the Falcon Heavy:

SpaceX's website reports 53 tons to LEO and 21 tons to GTO in expendable mode (?),

yet the pricing page reports 85 millions $ for a 6.4 tons payload to GTO - I guess by reusing all three cores?

So that would place the LEO capability of a reusable Falcon Heavy at about 20 tons?

Also, I wonder what's the point of a slight increase in GTO capability: Falcon 9 can already lift 4.8 tons to GTO, is that increase by one-and-a-half ton relevant for the satellite market?

[Kryten]

Also, I wonder what's the point of a slight increase in GTO capability: Falcon 9 can already lift 4.8 tons to GTO, is that increase by one-and-a-half ton relevant for the satellite market.

Last year, 10/16 sats commercially put into GTO were in the FAA's heavy weight class; >5.4 tons. Ariane lower payloads now regularly break the 6 tons mark.

[Frozen_Heart]

SpaceX's website reports 53 tons to LEO and 21 tons to GTO in expendable mode (?),

yet the pricing page reports 85 millions $ for a 6.4 tons payload to GTO - I guess by reusing all three cores?

So that would place the LEO capability of a reusable Falcon Heavy at about 20 tons?

As SpaceX isn't doing reusability yet I'm assuming that the $85 is for expendable. That seems logical as the Falcon 9 expendable is $60.

Also the 4.8 tons to GTO is also expendable. (13 tons LEO) The falcon 9 struggles to put anything useful into GTO in reusable mode which is why the Falcon Heavy is needed. The Falcon 9's smaller size is also why they can't reuse the second stage. It would just take too much off the payload for it to be relevant anymore.

Yet another reason to switch to a 'Raptor 9' single core vehicle...

[Albert VDS]

Not the smallest, and nobody has the exact numbers, but an educated guess suggests that the actual manufacturing process of the first stage isn't the most expensive part of launching a rocket.

The biggest cost factor is probably the R&D. And even in the manufacturing process, the largest cost factor isn't the raw materials to build the rocket, it's the workers. By reusing rockets, you need less of them, but you still need to maintain a factory and a decent workforce to run it, so you don't necessarily make huge savings there. And the manufacturing workers are only a small part of your total workforce. The highest salaries are in the R&D and mission control departments. And you are still going to need hundreds of people to do all the logistics, transportation, payload integration, testing, and other administrative work. There is also the cost of maintaining facilities. Launch sites, research centers, factories, mission control centers, aren't cheap.

So, even if the actual hardware is 50% of the total launch cost, the first stage is probably around 70% of that, which would make it 35% of the total launch cost (not the price!). The price of a launch, is $60 million, so to simplify, let's consider that the cost without reusability is around $50 million, so you save $17 million on each reusable launch. If you reuse your first stage 10 times, it brings the average cost of a launch down to around $36.5 million ((1x50+9x33)/10), which results in saving about 30%.

But that is a highly optimistic estimation. It assumes zero refurb cost, zero transport, and a constant unit price for the actual reusable unit. It also assumes 10 time reuse, which is also optimistic.

Don't forget that the cost of each unit increases as you reduce the number of units produced. If a factory is sized to produce 400 engines/year and you only build 40, then your costs are not optimized. Your fixed costs take a larger part of your total costs and ou also don't get large volume discounts from your suppliers. So your unit cost increases, which also eats into the savings that you might get compared to launching 400 disposable engines. There is a balance to be found somewhere, and until SpaceX has some real data about the recovery and refurbishing costs in an operational environment, nobody really knows how much reusability will save.

So it's more likely that in the end, you're looking at something like the 20% figure I quoted above. Conveniently, when applied to the public launch price, it brings the $60 million figure down to $50 million, which is what SpaceX was charging last year.

Let's take the Falcon 9 as an example and see where the money goes for a non-reusable rocket.

R&D: $300 million which is paid for* - SpaceX estimated that development costs for Falcon 9 are on the order of $300 million

Raw materials: $1224000 materials accounting for no more than 2 percent

Manufacturing cost: ?

Testing and checking: ?

Logistics: ?

Mission control: ?

Administrative work: ?

Upkeep facilities: ?

Profit: ?

Fuel: $183600 fuel is only 0.3 percent of the total cost

Total rocket cost: $61.2 million

*R&D cost is well paid for by NASA,past launches and future launches.

This contract, designed by NASA to provide "seed money" for developing new boosters, paid SpaceX $278 million to develop the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, with incentive payments paid at milestones culminating in three demonstration launches.

As of December 2013, SpaceX has a total of 50 future launches under contract. ...and each of those contracts provide down payments at contract signing...

$300m - $278m(NASA) - (40*$0.55m)

**The least amount they can ask as down payment per future client to take R&D out of the picture and then I'm not even including the other past launches.

So we know the fuel and raw materials which total to $1,407,600

That leaves $59,792,400 for testing and checking, logistics, mission control, administrative work, upkeep facilities and profit.

What would be a sensible part for manufacturing?

part - cost - for other parts

10% - $5,979,240 - $53,813,160

20% - $11,958,480 - $47,833,920

30% - $17,937,720 - $41,854,680

40% - $23,916,960 - $35,875,440

50% - $29,896,200 - $29,896,200

60% - $35,875,440 - $23,916,960

70% - $41,854,680 - $17,937,720

80% - $47,833,920 - $11,958,480

90% - $53,813,160 - $5,979,240

10% sounds ludicrous, but does 90% more sensible. Is it more than that or less.

[Dkmdlb]

Are payloads usually measured in metric tons? Is that why I'm so confused right now - I'm thinking about short tons?

[Kryten]

If you do all of your manufacturing in-house, as SpaceX at least attempts to do, there's no meaningful 'manufacturing cost' separate from raws material et.c.; only constant staff costs.

EDIT:

Are payloads usually measured in metric tons? Is that why I'm so confused right now - I'm thinking about short tons?

Metric tons. Metric is standard in the aerospace sector even in the US.

[78stonewobble]

Look on the SpaceX website. They already have a few Falcon Heavy missions on the launch manifest (besides the demo flight). They are less frequent than that F9, but that make sense.

3 launches planned as far as I can see. 1 demo launch and 2 satellites, which could presumably have been launched on existing rockets.

Not really seeing the need and not really seeing how mass production economy can come in, other than needing 81 engines (produced or refurbished).

[AngelLestat]

Ok, so, Space is building a launch facility in Texas. I understand Florida is too far for an F9 booster to land there, but would it be practical for the center core of an F9H to land at the Cape? It would save a lot of flyback.

The center core does not go back, decouple from the second stage before this one reach orbit, and then burn in prograde to complete the turn to go back from orbit.

The second stage push the payload to low orbit.. In case of GTO, the center core completes the orbit and then you have the full second stage to reach GTO and go back.

Delusional fanboy detected.

You're talking with some actual engineers in this thread.

Maybe you should get yourself some real world knowledge, instead of presenting the "it works in Kerbal Space Program" argument?

Yeah, I one of them.. And you should go back to school because you dont know to read.

Commercial imaging got their cost reduction-they got it by shrinking their sats to the point that they became negligible in launch statistics. Science missions are constrained by national budgets and tend to have very high relative spacecraft and operational costs; what else do you think there's going to be?

I give you many examples that you complete negate, sorry, I can not help you anymore.

It will reach the day where you would see it with your own eyes.

3 launches planned as far as I can see. 1 demo launch and 2 satellites, which could presumably have been launched on existing rockets.

Not really seeing the need and not really seeing how mass production economy can come in, other than needing 81 engines (produced or refurbished).

Is the first year from a launch vehicle who never was tested. What you expected?

[78stonewobble]

Is the first year from a launch vehicle who never was tested. What you expected?

Not guaranteed to launch this year as far as I can see.

I expect to see a market for 50 tonne payloads, to merit a 50 tonne payload rocket.

...

I am hoping that spacex becomes a successfull company and hope they successfully develop whatever they want to, but I think it would be naive to believe them able to revolutionize access to space.

For that to happen, a government or governments would have to genuinely pledge themselves to regular scheduled launches of a yearly massive payload amount for the forseeable future, meaning decades.

So companies can build a rocket building infrastructure the size of ie. the worlds ship, car or aircraft manufacturing capacity.

Then and after that... companies can expand into space themselves.

Edited January 29, 2015 by 78stonewobble

[shynung]

Angel, we've discussed this before.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84583-Space-economies-and-economics

Replace Skylon with FH Reusable. Even the '90% cost reduction' is mentioned here again.

[Rakaydos]

The center core does not go back, decouple from the second stage before this one reach orbit, and then burn in prograde to complete the turn to go back from orbit.

That doesnt work. Or rather, if it did work, it would have been more efficent to simple move more fuel from the second stage tank to the core first stage and keep them docked until the first stage is in orbit. At which point the second stage is only useful for GTO and GSO payloads.

Unless you've got some stage-burnout numbers that suggest otherwise, I find it far more likely that the core does a boostback to land on a barge, is refueled, and ICBMs it's way back to the launch site.

[FishInferno]

Would the fact that the core stage would be flat topped make a large negative impact on the flight from the barge to land?

[Kryten]

I give you many examples that you complete negate, sorry, I can not help you anymore.

It will reach the day where you would see it with your own eyes.

Do you have absolutely no self awareness? Read what you've written; are you supposed to be describing a businessman, or a ****ing messiah? I'm sorry, I'm not going to waste any of my time with somebody who's so steeped in newspace fanboy BS that they're convinced Elon Musk is God's secondborn son.

[StrandedonEarth]

Would the fact that the core stage would be flat topped make a large negative impact on the flight from the barge to land?

Well, they could slap a nosecone on it while refueling. Just make sure Jeb doesn't stow away inside it.

[AngelLestat]

Not guaranteed to launch this year as far as I can see.

I expect to see a market for 50 tonne payloads, to merit a 50 tonne payload rocket.

Why you said so? I know they always late in their dates, but from the 3 launch expected to zero.. seems very unlikely.

I am hoping that spacex becomes a successfull company and hope they successfully develop whatever they want to, but I think it would be naive to believe them able to revolutionize access to space.

Well, I am one of those naive then. I understand what are they doing, I understand why others fail.. So I maintain my position.

I had similar discussions with graphene back then in 2007, now many of the apps and uses which I commented that will rise first, some already are in sale, others are almost ready to come out.

I said that venus had a lot benefics for a manned mission and as permanent outpost, 1 year back: nasa concept mission video.

I said that the prototype of aeroscraft had a lot of sense as comercial airship transport, 1 year back: they had 20 in production many times bigger than the prototype.

I was almost alone in all those discussions too. So I will take my chances.

Angel, we've discussed this before.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84583-Space-economies-and-economics

Replace Skylon with FH Reusable. Even the '90% cost reduction' is mentioned here again.

Yeah I remember, but as you can see nothing change.

Ahh yes.. one thing change.. the ESA study about the economic feasibility of skylon was finish and confirm previous estimations, the feasibility study about the sabre engine was finish, they approve the funds and they started with the developments. Now we just need to way for the feasibility study of skylon.

But I wonder.. how a group with economic professionals conclude after several months of study, that skylon would had a lot of sense when nibb31 and you was trying to convince me from the otherwise?

The same for all the people working in spacex, why they think (including their investors "nasa") that it has economic sense?

That doesnt work. Or rather, if it did work, it would have been more efficent to simple move more fuel from the second stage tank to the core first stage and keep them docked until the first stage is in orbit. At which point the second stage is only useful for GTO and GSO payloads.

Unless you've got some stage-burnout numbers that suggest otherwise, I find it far more likely that the core does a boostback to land on a barge, is refueled, and ICBMs it's way back to the launch site.

No, because the second stage engine has more ISP for Vaccum. Also you need to keep that modularity (only 2 parts that work for any rocket, falcon9 or falcon heavy LO and GTO)

But I have my doubts if the center core stage can be recover in cases of +35Tons of payload at LEO. For GTO payloads has more sense.

Do you have absolutely no self awareness? Read what you've written; are you supposed to be describing a businessman, or a ****ing messiah? I'm sorry, I'm not going to waste any of my time with somebody who's so steeped in newspace fanboy BS that they're convinced Elon Musk is God's secondborn son.

I can read the answers that you give me in this post:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/108756-SpaceX-Falcon-Heavy?p=1700298&viewfull=1#post1700298

Until that point the discussion was productive. But if you start to negate everything making excuses as "Because that's the vast majority of the market, current and projected, and always has been." then what is the point?

You are saying that can not be a new market because today projections using today launch cost does not predict any new market..

They can estimate some tends in the general launch cost drop, but they can not predict or estimate what would happen if spacex achieve full reusable program.

So all your estimations comes from the box.

[Aanker]

It's so boring to read pessimist replies and predictions when the world is already full of self-perpetuating doom and gloom. Either propose good alternatives or move out of the way for entrepeneurs and inventors who are interested in attempting new things.

So, SpaceX might fail. Whoop dee fricken do. Let's give it a shot and not try to kill it in its infancy by smearing it with limitations.

I have a feeling the predicted launch costs or payloads are not entirely realistic. But I'd be damned if I dismissed the idea of more accessible and cheaper space travel because of that 'feeling' alone. That's about as much a fairytale argument as claiming it's doable within a week's cutting and pasting in kindergarten.

[shynung]

Yeah I remember, but as you can see nothing change.

Ahh yes.. one thing change.. the ESA study about the economic feasibility of skylon was finish and confirm previous estimations, the feasibility study about the sabre engine was finish, they approve the funds and they started with the developments. Now we just need to way for the feasibility study of skylon.

But I wonder.. how a group with economic professionals conclude after several months of study, that skylon would had a lot of sense when nibb31 and you was trying to convince me from the otherwise?

The same for all the people working in spacex, why they think (including their investors "nasa") that it has economic sense?

Note: 'economic professionals'. They're generally not good engineers. If people like Nibb (or pretty much any realistic engineers) were in their team, they'll either scrap the idea outright (and come up with a new one), or make more modest estimations.

SpaceX, in this case, started out modest. They learn to build small rockets first (Falcon 1), make a VTVL rocket-like vehicle to learn how to land them safely (Grasshopper), then they build larger rockets (Falcon 9), along with a capsule to go on top (Dragon). Right now they are applying their lessons from Grasshopper to learn how to land Falcon 9s safely. After that's done, then they'll reach other milestones that they plan (Falcon Heavy, Mars Colonial Transporter, Dragon V2). That's why NASA trusts them; they are able to, and have proven their capabilities enough for NASA to inject them some funds.

Skylon, though? It's almost an all-or-nothing affair. Either the final product will work or it won't. Their technology requirements are quite tall (the precooler system alone gave them a lot of trouble already), and their cost estimations have no real grounding. They don't even build small-scale versions of the thing, let alone actually flying it. Almost all of the dev funds go to the engine, which while quite logical given that the fancy motor is the lifeline of the craft, almost everything else is relatively undeveloped.

SpaceX builds its might by making small steps. Skylon tries to make giant leaps all at once. Which of the two do you think is more likely to succeed?

[Frozen_Heart]

Not guaranteed to launch this year as far as I can see.

I expect to see a market for 50 tonne payloads, to merit a 50 tonne payload rocket.

For the nth time this thread the Falcon Heavy is not going to be a 50 ton rocket.

With reusability working it will be a <25 ton rocket which will make its payload much more similar to conventional rockets.

Yes at some point there may be a 50 ton payload that requires it to go expendable but that will take 10 years to develop. The market won't appear overnight just because the rocket is there.

Likewise having a 50 ton expendable payload rating is not a reason the rocket will fail as so many seem to think.