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ULA Concedes GPS Launch Competition To SpaceX (spacenews.com)
schwit1 writes: ULA has decided against bidding on a military GPS launch contract, leaving the field clear for SpaceX. "ULA, which for the past decade has launched nearly every U.S. national security satellite, said Nov. 16 it did not submit a bid to launch a GPS 3 satellite for the Air Force in 2018 in part because it does not expect to have an Atlas 5 rocket available for the mission. ULA has been pushing for relief from legislation Congress passed roughly a year ago requiring the Air Force to phase out its use of the Russian-made RD-180 engine that powers ULA's workhorse Atlas 5 rocket."
This decision might be a lobbying effort by ULA to force Congress to give them additional waivers on using the Atlas 5 engine. Or they could be realizing they wouldn't be able to match SpaceX's price, and decided it was pointless wasting time and money putting together a bid. Either way, the decision suggests ULA is definitely challenged in its competition with SpaceX, and until it gets a new, lower cost rocket that is not dependent on Russian engines, its ability to compete in the launch market will be seriously hampered.
This decision might be a lobbying effort by ULA to force Congress to give them additional waivers on using the Atlas 5 engine. Or they could be realizing they wouldn't be able to match SpaceX's price, and decided it was pointless wasting time and money putting together a bid. Either way, the decision suggests ULA is definitely challenged in its competition with SpaceX, and until it gets a new, lower cost rocket that is not dependent on Russian engines, its ability to compete in the launch market will be seriously hampered.
ULA also has the Delta 4 rocket which uses U.S. designed / made rocket engines. Previously they were letting the 3 core Delta 4 handle the big launches and the single core Atlas 5 handle the smaller launches, but there is no reason they couldn't have bid with a single core Delta 4 if they wanted. Something smells politically fishy with this.
Japan has started launching QZSS satellites that improve GPS accuracy to centimetre level, the first one being Michibiki. They have demonstrated navigation systems that can tell what lane you are driving in and when you are drifting out of it, or keep a snow plough on track at the side of a road with extreme precision.
I wish some of the competing GNSS would support that kind of accuracy. There are lots of interesting applications.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
...so I don't really understand this.
No, wait, I do.
This is ULA saying, essentially, "You give us the Russian-sourced RD-180s because they're cheaper and less of a hassle for us, or we're taking our ball and going home."
http://aviationweek.com/awin/u...
The Atlas, you know, THE Atlas, the rocket that carries the name of the rocket that got the first US satellites into orbit and that got the first US astronaut into orbit, that very rocket that bears a rather ... let's say symbolic name, that damn rocket is in its current iteration powered by RUSSIAN engines?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Please don't tell me that's true for the ICBMs too. Depending on the international diplomatic situation it MIGHT get a wee bit tricky to get spare parts should the US actually feel the urge to use them...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Interesting that,especially when you realise it was SpaceX's lobbying that got the existing ban enforced in the first place.
This is what happens when you let bean-counters, politicians and lobbyists decide your space policy.
enjoy.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Notice how Malay plane shot down by them is still in the news after all this time but their plane blown out of the sky is long out of the news. Dog karma.
The Russians were ahead right until the Gemini program - Ed White's spacewalk may have been second, but it was almost twice as long, and due to far better pressure suits and maneuvering equipment, he was able to actually do something besides float there. Also, he didn't have to depressurize his suit just to get back through the hatch like Leonev did because his suit didn't balloon on him in the vacuum of space.
After that moment, NASA pulled ahead in rendezvous, docking, and of course actually sending people to the moon, landing on it, bringing them back, etc.
Russia's boosters have always been first rate, and that's what gave them the early lead. NASA recognized that if they got into a lifting capacity contest, they were going to lose for another decade. Kennedy moved the goalposts with a public declaration to land on the moon, and made other technologies more important.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Said the man attached to the front of kock bros pants.
Yeah, that's the same SpaceX that lobbied congress to have their complete lack of airworthiness documentation waived. Sure, they have "documentation" but it was bullshtted up in 2 weeks after the design had been tested, instead of being part of the design process, doesn't match what's in production, is incomplete, inconsistent, routinely wrong, and doesn't support the safety case required for space launch. Their rocket is only certified because congress mandated that we certify it, regardless of any engineering data or (generally) the lack thereof. It's no different than getting a shady low-bid plumber who then slips the code inspector a Benjamin.
What gave the Russians an early lead was a willingness to use modified ICBMs as boosters.
In the very earliest days of NASA, since NASA was a civilian agency, NASA had a policy of using "civilian" rockets. Which meant that they had to develop their rockets from scratch rather than using modified ICBMs.
And then Russia put Sputnik up. And Gagarin. And NASA found itself forced to use ICBMs to play catchup. Which they did, as you noted.
But the problem was never the superiority of Russian rockets, but the self-imposed blinders NASA operated under....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"In the very earliest days of NASA, since NASA was a civilian agency, NASA had a policy of using "civilian" rockets. Which meant that they had to develop their rockets from scratch rather than using modified ICBMs."
What the heck are you talking about.
The first satellite booster was the Juno-1/Jupiter-C which was based on the Redstone SRBM.
The Thor which evolved into the Delta was an IRBM.
The Atlas used for Score and any number of launches including the Mercury orbital flights was the USs first ICBMs
The Titan II was used for Gemini and evolved into the Titan III, Titan IV, and so on was an ICBM!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The above is very much true. We certainly did use military tech to put us into space, modified tech, but military tech regardless. Also, the Russians were ahead because they're Russia. Their early cosmonauts didn't even pilot the craft IIRC. They really didn't mind losing a few people, it's was the USSR. Also, we often seem inclined to underrate Russian tech - it works. Their aeronautics have been first rate for a long time - look at the MiG or the Su. It may seem low tech, it's not - it's phenomenal tech for the price.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I have done work under FAA for Boeing, worked on MGS for NASA, and DOD contracts. If paperwork did not match up for any of them, then the work would not have been accepted. To claim that any of these organizations accepted BS work is just that; total BS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Lower prices for a better product, and the freedom of other competitors to enter the market at any time with something better - which keeps existing market leaders nimble or gives them a kick in the head.
Too bad we had so many years without competition in which ULA could get fat and lazy.
Also too bad we have had no free market competition in healthcare in the US since the 1940s when employers started attaching health insurance onto employment packages to circumvent FDR's wage and price controls; a market distortion made far worse when LBJ promised discounted health coverage to seniors (medicare) without enough government funding to cover it, which lead to an entire industry-wide distortion of massive cost-shifting, which was further manipulated by limits on cross-state-line health insurance policy sales (driven by all the corruption in state capitols where politicians put very high value on their regulatory powers and the campaign contributions they can get by using those powers).
As a general rule, the free market is always better for the consumer than a monopoly or partial monopoly. I brought up heath care because people who do not know the history of it often cite the pre-ACA healthcare situation (which was very much NOT a free market) as evidence that massive market manipulations via regulation is superior to a free market.
NASA pulled ahead of the russians in the 1960s because, while the russians pursued a lot of political "stunt" missions (first space walk, first woman in space, etc.), NASA methodically developed better spacecraft and techniques for a manned mission to the moon.
in the 1970s and '80s the situation was reversed. NASA dropped the development of improved spacecraft (blame it on congress or nixon or whoever) while the soviets plodded away at making bigger and better space stations and made steady incremental developments to the soyuz system.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.