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Blah blah blah blah blah...perfectly average, actually. 5.66% of failures worldwide in the last six years.

Really? :-p

Launch Vehicle by Success Rate :
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...

"re-use without refurbishment" another direct E. Musk quote.

Spacex current launch rate (6 per year) and cadence and published launch costs and satellite weights for commercial space companies are just a google search away. Try this excellent site: http://www.spacelaunchreport.c... for starters

The Merline engines, surely the most expensive components in the launcher, can be re-used up to 40 times. Or so claims SpaceX.

What isn't known is how well the rest of the launcher will hold up. Structural integrity, metallurgy, there are likely a few pitfalls.

The re-use may take other forms in practice. Let's say they can use the engines in 30 launches but the launcher body and other subsystems make it practical to launch the rocket body 5 times.

So you'd have sets of Merlin engines (in groups of nine) that are first-gen (0 flights, suitable for human cargo), second-gen (1-5 flights), third-gen (6-10), etc.

And the bodies of the Falcon rockets might be similarly aged.

SpaceX was producing 5 Merlin engines every 2 weeks earlier this year. That is enough for a dozen Falcon-9's per year. They have plans to ramp up to almost 400 engines, enough for 40 new rockets, per year. It has been their business plan all along.

Musk is trying to build the Model T of space. He's building up a production facility to match the demand. Not the biggest or the fanciest launcher but something that drastically reduces the cost of going to space with payloads with the intent of capturing 60%-70% of launches around the world. This is how commercialization of space will have to happen unless we are willing to pay ridiculously high launch costs forever.

You have to admire his vision. He's not just a rich dude with even richer (Google) backers. He is a man with a Vision, who wants to do Big Things.

Actually, I do know these things, but didn't bother to include all the sources, given it being Christmas and all. Since you are so insistent about it though...

Points 1 & 3 are taken from direct quotes by Elon Musk
Point 2 is taken from the design of the Falcon 9, available at spacex or nearby wikipedia.
"re-use without refurbishment" another direct E. Musk quote.

Spacex current launch rate (6 per year) and cadence and published launch costs and satellite weights for commercial space companies are just a google search away. Try this excellent site: http://www.spacelaunchreport.c... for starters

A very informative and useful place to find much of this information and discussion by knowledgeable space experts and enthusiasts is at: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...

The rest is just simple math.

To sum up, I do have details, I'm not guessing, and I note where I make assumptions. Find fault with my assumptions if you like, but please explain why those assumptions are flawed with specifics, not generalities.

Says the Anonymous coward...

This is the 2012 report, and a summary of success rates. You'll find the first American rocket as #7...
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...

In 2013 the Atlas moved up to #4, Still after the Russian and EU.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...

Says the Anonymous coward...

This is the 2012 report, and a summary of success rates. You'll find the first American rocket as #7...
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...

In 2013 the Atlas moved up to #4, Still after the Russian and EU.
http://www.spacelaunchreport.c...

What is the cost per kilogram delivered into LEO? The Falcon 9 can deliver 13 metric tons to LEO for $54 million, or $4 million per metric ton. That PSLV rocket that you are quoting only puts 3 metric tons to LEO for the $17 million, or about $5 million (plus change) per metric ton. The $54 million is the quote on the SpaceX Falcon 9 web page if you want the source.

That link is about the still non-existent Falcon 9 v1.1, that's why I'm very dubious: it's just trash talking, smoke and mirrors. They said the Falcon 1 would have been the first reusable and cheap launch system, it wasn't; then it was the time of Falcon 5, it was never built; then NASA came to the rescue and fully funded Falcon 9, neither this time it was reusable, however they say Falcon 9 v1.1 will be: I'll believe it when I see it.

Just to point out, according to the original sheets the planned launch cost for Falcon 9 was $35-55 m for 8.5-9 t (2007), in 2010 it was already $50-56 m, now it's "under $60 million".

So being generous, i.e. SpaceX 2010 prices vs. PSLV 2012 prices:
Falcon 9 v1.0 | 8.5t-9.0t | $56 million | 6.22-7 million $/t
PSLV | 3.25 t | $17 million | 5.23 million $/t
Russian and Ukrainian launches are still cheaper. I don't know about Chinese launches, but I'd bet their cheaper as well...

...The means the odds of 0 or 1 engine failing (a successful launch) is 97.6% and the odds of more than one failing is 2.4% assuming the currently observed rate is representative of the actual rate. 2.4% would be an excellent failure rate for any rocket launch system. In fact, no one has achieved a failure rate that low....

There are vehicles that have matched or beaten this rate. The Delta 2 (retired) achieved 149 out of 151 (99%). The currently active Soyuz-U has achieved a failure rate indistinguishable from this (741 successes out of 761, 97.4%). There are other vehicles that claim 100%, but have launched too few to be able to claim this rate. One factor to consider is that launch systems often mature and have a long series on unbroken successes after having some failures early on: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2012.html

I took this years ago at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville AL.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimhill/4412421201/

Wide shot: http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/s5msc1.jpg

From what I've read, Russia's high-technology infrastructure is held together with band-aids® and chewing gum. They should concentrate upon repairing their space exploration foundation, then make the attempts to explore Mars.

Russian launch vehicles remain among the most reliable in use. It's not so much that the Russian space program infrastructure is held together with band-aids and chewing gum. It's that the U.S. space program is incredibly overdesigned with $billions spent on extra redundancy and safety to try to eek out another 0.001% increase in success rate. In some cases the overdesign probably hinders success more than helps, as you've added a lot more things which can go wrong.

From a strictly economic standpoint, the Russian program is much more cost-effective. Rather than optimizing success rate like the U.S. does, they try to optimize successes per dollar. You accept a few percent higher launch failure rate, in exchange for many tens of percent lower costs. As long as the value of the payloads lost in the extra failures does not exceed the cost savings you're making from the launches, you come out ahead. It's just that this particular failure happened with a high-publicity payload.

No, comparing the total number of rockets a nation has launched to the number of failures is an overly simplistic way of looking at things. There are many different space launch systems and experimental projects represented in such a figure. When you're talking about reliability, you want to look at the current state of the art, not some older system which is no longer used. And you can't just average all the launches together, because the individual launch systems have nothing to do with each other.

Here is a better look at the reliability picture. You can see the top three are Delta 2, Soyuz U, and STS, all with between 97 to 98 percent.

First, it would appear that you need to re-write wiki as well as .edu and a number of gov documents to go along with what you are saying concerning the design.
First, it says that Spiro Agnew was the person chairing the group that recommended to keep us in LEO. Then it claims that Nixon was the person who chose to keep us in LEO. Last time, I checked, Agnew was VP for Nixon.
In addition, it says that the initial design was radically different, but the costs were going to be too high. It appears that the ONLY real design idea previous to Nixon was to have something about the size of a DC-3 (which is what the shuttle is).


As to the saturn V, the second run of the Saturn V was stopped in 1968 (pre-nixon). However, it was Nixon's budget submissions that followed that choked NASA of even using the final saturns for what they were intended: to launch multiple space labs. In addition, it was Nixon's lack of budget the prevented the Shuttle from arriving on time, which then led to the destruction of skylab.

Nixon bears a great deal of responsibility for the downfall of NASA.

Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66

Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66

Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66

Looking at the numbers, I don't see the total number of launches decreasing.

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2009.html
78

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2008.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2007.html
68

http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2006.html
66