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Intelsat Signs Launch Contract With SpaceX

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-a-few-more-decades-now dept.

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."

18 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Good by captainpanic · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Good by rufty_tufty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Putting on my strategic management hat I was a little worried when I first heard this news. I should explain:
      In most engineering you have a core group of engineers. Put too many on one project and progress gets slower not faster. Likewise there are only so many good engineers around, adding poor engineers to a group slows the group down disproportionally.
      So the way to be successful is often to have the smallest team you can get away with working on one goal. Even having auxiliary teams that take the technology you develop and apply it to new applications slows the core team down because they need to provide support to the auxiliary teams. No amount of money or clever management or good people can really change this.
      So I was really worried about this particular step of the commercialisation of space because if they get distracted into competing with the entrenched players then they could lose the goal of getting cheap manned presence in space. If they are busy servicing commercial customers will this take their eye off the goal of manned space flight and orbital facilities?
      But then I guess that this commercial offering will keep them honest, accountable and above all visible to their costs so that others have to keep up. That and developing heavy lift is part of the end goal.
      That said I'm a little concerned that on Earth heavy lift is a relatively small part of the transport market. There are very few trucks on the road that carry more than 40 Ton, so why do we need so much spacecraft development focussed on >40Ton.
      I guess the answer to this is that most of the stuff on earth that is >40 Ton of the road is construction equipment and we certaily need a lot fo that in space...

      --
      "The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
    2. Re:Good by khallow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      So I was really worried about this particular step of the commercialisation of space because if they get distracted into competing with the entrenched players then they could lose the goal of getting cheap manned presence in space. If they are busy servicing commercial customers will this take their eye off the goal of manned space flight and orbital facilities?

      That's not their goal. So you don't have worry about them losing it. And we should be expecting more from these "entrenched players". Some competition will help there. Finally, servicing commercial customers sounds to me a more worthy goal and not at all one incompatible with the others. After all, humans and habitats are payloads that a commercial customer might want launched.

      There are very few trucks on the road that carry more than 40 Ton, so why do we need so much spacecraft development focussed on >40Ton.

      OTOH, there are very few trains or cargo ships that don't carry at least hundreds of tons of payload. And supertankers can go to hundreds of thousands of tons of payload.

    3. Re:Good by slippyblade · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you play it lose with their lives you're not going to have many 'volunteers', and the time between missions will always be increasing

      I'd have to go out on a limb here and say... no. Even if their was a 25% failure rate (which is obscene and not within the realm of feasibility) I guarantee that you'd have volunteers lined up to man the missions. Would they be as "highly qualified" as a NASA astronaut or Russian cosmonaut? No. But do they really need to be? The commercialization of space will do the same thing that it has done to every other sector and lower the skill requirements to accomplish tasks. Hell - if things go right they'll be lining colonists up at the gate in the next few decades - and I'll be in line even if I only had a 75% chance of surviving.

    4. Re:Good by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From what I've heard, there's no trade off between reliability and cost. The cheaper vehicles will probably be the more reliable ones as well, due to learning effects from increased launch frequency.

      What I think was going on with NASA was overengineering parts for a ride with over a 1% loss rate. One can spend a lot of money making a nearly perfect part or process more nearly perfect. But if the overall system is unreliable and remains unchanged despite the improvement, then that expenditure is effectively wasted.

    5. Re:Good by EdgePenguin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Commercial enterprises are excellent at making a proper risk assessment" - like assessing the risk of a loan or mortgage defaulting, for example?

      SpaceX is doing well, but lets please drop this ideological bullshit about markets being some magic diving mechanism. They aren't - they are a clumsy metaphor for the random noise generated by transactions. Not magic.

    6. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Random noise? That's the sound of the "Great River" of the Continuum. Your lobes are probably too underdeveloped to hear it.

    7. Re:Good by El+Torico · · Score: 3, Informative

      Isn't that the best kind of maniac? Seriously, it takes someone of Herculean audacity to break into an entrenched market. SpaceX doesn't have hundreds of retired, formerly high-ranking military officers and former civilian employees of NASA to provide contacts, business intelligence, and influence. They may have lobbyists and "influence" over politicians, but definitely not to the same degree as the names you mentioned.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
  2. more than twice the power of next largest rocket by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:This is the exciting bit. by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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).

  4. Re:more than twice the power of next largest rocke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think the chinese one will be completed once the others have been completed and they have had time to "Evulate" their designs lol

  5. Re:The Steve Jobs of rocketry? by khallow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:This is the exciting bit. by queazocotal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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.'.

  7. Now a lot depends on ESA by tp1024 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Now a lot depends on ESA by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, just to point out, the delta IV-H already takes 13 tonnes to GEO. As such, FH, along with DIV-H, will likely double the size of sats to 10-12 T.
      And Astrium is working on the 5ME,Though, SLOWLY is the word. I did notice that earlier this year, the ESA coughed up another 100M euros for it. However, Astrium/ESA suffers the same issues as old space: lots of money to accomplish anything. IOW, 100M Eu is more of a study than actual work being done.

      Regardless, I think that the new norm will become 10-12T for sats. And with FH charging about 1/3 of Delta and 1/2 of China, Russia or ESA, I suspect that the prime launch system will become FH.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  8. Put it in perspective. by trout007 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  9. Slashdot, get a SpaceX icon by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    so you don't have to use the NASA icon for every SpaceX story.... of which there's gonna be many in the future

  10. Re:Why does this story have the NASA logo by Teancum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?