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Intelsat Signs Launch Contract With SpaceX
New submitter jamstar7 writes "Following the success of the Falcon9/Dragon resupply test to the ISS comes the following announcement: 'Intelsat, the world's leading provider of satellite services, and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the world's fastest growing space launch company, announced the first commercial contract for the Falcon Heavy rocket. "SpaceX is very proud to have the confidence of Intelsat, a leader in the satellite communication services industry," said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer. "The Falcon Heavy has more than twice the power of the next largest rocket in the world. With this new vehicle, SpaceX launch systems now cover the entire spectrum of the launch needs for commercial, civil and national security customers."' As of yet, the Falcon Heavy hasn't flown, but all the parts have been tested. Essentially an upgunned Falcon 9 with additional boosters, the Heavy has lift capability second only to the Saturn 5. On top of the four Falcon Heavy launches planned for the U.S. Air Force this year, the Intelsat contract represents the true dawn of the commercial space age."
I am quite happy with the commercialization of space flight. I've always thought that the national space agencies were on the wrong path for decades. They always seem to aim for increased security and safety. I think spaceflight has gone over the top: the costs of increased safety are just not worth it. Commercial enterprises are excellent at making a proper risk assessment: certain risks are simply acceptable. This attitude is likely to reduce costs, which is what we need.
Obviously, NASA or ESA can still ask SpaceX to launch a couple of thousand tons of material into orbit, to assemble a Mars rocket and lander in orbit. :-)
When launching from Earth becomes easy, the next step can be considered.
The statement "The Falcon Heavy has more than twice the power of the next largest rocket in the world" is true but somewhat misleading. Both the USA and Russia have had rockets in the past with more than twice the power that the "Falcon Heavy" will.
Also, since this is in development, maybe the comparison should include other systems in development. Russia has a rocket with similar capabilities as the Falcon Heavy scheduled for launch at the same time, and China has a system under development" which has a lower low-earth orbit capability but similar lifting capability to geostationary orbit that is scheduled to launch a year later.
Launching a two stage rocket to orbit is not exciting. Being able to build a tin can with a propulsion module is not exciting. I congratulate SpaceX for having done it, but it's not a major step forward in space technology.
It's pretty damn exciting if you are the company doing it. Just because most people take these things for granted doesn't mean we should dismiss the level of SpaceX's accomplishment. Hell, launching a new car company is pretty drab to most, but it is still a technological feat and is beyond the ability of most people who have ever lived (or ever will).
I think the chinese one will be completed once the others have been completed and they have had time to "Evulate" their designs lol
Unpublished Launches?
In my day those were called secret launches. They all turned out to be weather satellites so none of us were worried.
Don't be surprised if some of the 'tests' actually launch something for the military. It's not like they have to be worried that someone is going to see what they're doing up there.
It's part of his job title, I think a public statement about what Musk thinks is important. And the "Chief" label indicates that it's probably mostly a management position.
But I never understood the emphasis on credentials. Having a particular degree doesn't make you a good rocket builder. Launching rockets that work is a much more credible indicator of your capabilities. Musk and his amazing team have achieved that bit.
"not a major step forward in space technology"
This is both true, and completely false.
It's of course true, because little about SpaceX's designs are explicitly 'high tech'. ...
They do not use metallic thermal protection, linear aerospikes, conformal tanks,
However - it's false because it assumes those things are useful at a given stage in technology.
As an example, trying to bring in turbocharged engines into mass production at Ford in 1910 would have been a great leap forward in terms of technology - but likely an utter failure due to cost and lack of reliability.
Things that are not exciting in terms of technology can if well-implemented enormously boost whole areas of the economy.
The interstate network was an example of this, as was the invention of containerised transport.
The use of cross-feed is new.
No launcher yet has used this concept of feeding from the edge boosters to the middle, so the middle boosters tanks remain full until the outside ones seperate.
This has significant advantages over having either the middle stage light on the pad, and deplete its fuel, or light in mid-air once seperation is over - losing the thrust and increasing gravity losses.
It also has significant (in principle) cost and compatibility advantages.
If you can use most of the same parts for a Falcon 9, or a falcon heavy launch that both reduces your production cost, lowers inventory, and allows you perhaps to much more easily develop global reusability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grasshopper_(rocket)#Grasshopper is the prototype vehicle for stage 1 of falcon 9 (and if falcon heavy stages are identical...) which will if successful allow the first stage(s) to be recovered and reflown.
Again - this isn't technically interesting.
There are no new technologies in this.
But to use the old quote 'Quantity has a quality all of its own.'.
This might sound strange, but guys like Intelsat avoid building satellites that can only be launched by one kind of rocket if in any way possible. Most geostationary satellites today cluster around 6 tons. This is the limit for the Russian Proton rocket (launched from Baikonur), the Ukranian/Russian/American SeaLaunch (using a Zenit rocket) and was the limit of the Ariane5 GS (which has been upgraded to the Ariane 5 ECA with about 10t. But ESA has a hard time finding customers for passenger satellites in the 2-3t range to make launches worthwhile.)
What does that have to do with SpaceX and the Falcon Heavy? Well, ESA is about to decide whether to develop a new smaller rocket - the Ariane 6 ( capable of lifting 3-8t to GTO) - or improve the Ariane 5 to the point that it can deliver about 12t to GTO. (With the idea of launching two of the popular 6t satellites at a time, which would instandly make the rocket much more economical)
In the latter case, SpaceX will have a much easier time to find heavy satellites for its rocket. Having a competitor is actually important in this business. You don't commit on the order of a billion dollars in building a satellite, just to find out that your only way to launch it is no longer available or recently had an accident (e.g. SeaLaunch or failures of the maiden flights of Ariane 5 GS and Ariane 5 ECA that also failed) and you have to wait several years to get another launch opportunity.
If ESA goes for the Ariane 6, SpaceX will most likely have to resort to launching several satellites at a time and compete with all the other guys that are also capable of launching "smaller" satellites. Which is bad for SpaceX and the industry in general. At the same time, ESA will find out that the old Ariane 5 will suddenly be in much larger demand for 8-10t satellites (as will be Falcon Heavy).
Lets hope they are reasonable ... or somebody comes up with something roughly similar to the Falcon Heavy.
The means that SpaceX will use to lower their price is to have enough launches that their fixed overhead becomes a minor issue. Right now, launches have a high fixed costs due to too few launches. SpaceX's plan is that FH launches once every 2 months and that F9 launches monthly or even twice a month. That allows them to drop not just the launch pad, but also their launch crew (who are typically on a salary, not hourly), as well as manufacturing costs.
To take this a step further, SpaceX intends to have 8 launches next year, and 12-14 in 2014. That allows them to have their QA under control as well. With this high of a rate, SpaceX will likely not need a back-up for the FH WRT launching sats. OTOH, if we are to go to the moon, we really need two or more systems of similar sizes. Or simply constrain the loads to the smaller of the LVs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The death rate of climbing Mt Everest is 1.3%. And that is just climbing a mountain. How much cooler is going into space? 10X?
Now at this point in my life where my family is depending on me 1.3% is too high. But when kids are older and I can be more selfish 5% doesn't sound that bad. Like everything else it's a personal decision.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_death_rate_on_mt._Everest
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
SpaceX has loads of NASA people and technology, and couldn't exist except as a NASA contractor backed by NASA.
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They were. And it appears that SpaceX has a large number of launches. Many more than what they claim, and a great deal more than what the critics claim. 4 FH launches for spaceX is going to be pretty exciting.
I have to wonder, if USAF will now back SpaceX building FXX?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
25k and 40k kg to LEO are a bit far short of the 53k kg of Falcon 9 heavy. Also I hope they get a bunch of launch contracts for Falcon 9 so they can fund the $1B they need for Merlin 2, it will be the first engine to produce more thrust than the F1 from the Saturn 5.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Am I mistaken or will the Falcon Heavy have 27(!) engines going at liftoff? (3 x the nine engines of a Falcon 9).
I guess they really have the control systems for such a large number of engines licked (in a previous thread I noted that back in the 60s the Russian Moon super-rocket N-1 had 30 engines. It failed, repeatedly.)
So are large numbers of small rockets preferable, efficiency wise, to a few large ones (think the five F-1s of the Saturn V first stage). Or they cheaper in aggregate? Or are they more reliable? (less superhigh pressures in the turbines, I dunno). Or if they fail is there the simple fact of more redundancy (I read that if any one of the Falcon 9s engines conked out it could still make it to orbit. Except right at lift off).
Or did Space-X just not have the funds to develop a really big engine (In which case couldn't they have licensed the design for the F-1 or J-1 from NASA?). Not knocking them, it's still an INCREDIBLE achievement, just wondering.
To quote an Airforce General: "A new plane doesn't make possible a new engine, a new engine makes possible a new plane.". So it's great to see an (obviously) flight worthy new rocket engine!
so you don't have to use the NASA icon for every SpaceX story.... of which there's gonna be many in the future
Space-X has a new engine in the design phase that will have 1.7 millon lbs of thrust. The Merlin-2 engine will be more powerfull than the Saturn-V's F1 engine was. The Falcon-X heavy will use 3 of these engines per core, or 1.5 times the lift of the Saturn-V. The Falcon-XX heavy would use 6 of these engines per core, for a total of 18 engines. It would have over THREE times the lift of the Saturn-V rocket! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_%28rocket_family%29#Merlin_2_and_super-heavy_lift_concepts
SpaceX has loads of NASA people and technology, and couldn't exist except as a NASA contractor backed by NASA.
SpaceX has a great many former NASA employees and has studied some of the data that NASA contractors have produced at taxpayer expense (which data is available to anybody who wants it, including China, Russia, India, and anybody else in the world). I suppose you could argue that SpaceX is using Velcro, Tang, and Space Pens.... please don't get me started on "NASA technology" as I can go off on what kind of joke that really is.
It should also be noted that the Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule that SpaceX has developed was started independently without a government contract and SpaceX is not dependent upon government funds to get either of those products produced by SpaceX completed. That NASA was handing out money under various programs and SpaceX decided to bring a bucket to catch that money only shows SpaceX has some people who are intelligent and perhaps are a bunch of money grubbers. They may even take that as a compliment, and is a good thing if you want to remain a for-profit company.
SpaceX can survive without NASA, but could NASA survive without SpaceX?
Mentioned in the blurb:
One should note that you could put up 10 Falcon Heavy launches for less than the cost of 1 Saturn 5 in 2012 dollars, roughly calculated to be on the order of $ 1.17 billion per launch of a Saturn 5. That's a couple hundred million under what NASA is paying for 12 Falcon 9 launches.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.