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SpaceX Eyes 19 Launches In 2017 (arstechnica.com)
SpaceX has managed to launch fifteen rockets this year as a result of its more efficient production flow over last year, a maturing Falcon 9 rocket, and an experienced workforce. On Monday, the company will go for its 16th launch of the year, doubling its previous record. It plans to launch its 19th rocket before year's end. Ars Technica reports: This year has seen a number of firsts for the company -- first reflight of a Falcon 9 booster, first reuse of a Dragon cargo spacecraft, first national security payload, and a remarkable dozen landings. But probably the biggest achievement has been finally delivering on the promise of a high flight rate. For years, competitors in the global launch industry have noted, with skepticism, that SpaceX has been unable to achieve higher flight rates and fly out its lengthy manifest. Those concerns appeared to have some merit, especially after SpaceX endured difficult financial years in 2015 and 2016, when the company lost two Falcon 9 rockets (one during launch and the other during a ground test) along with a payload. However, competitors worried, if SpaceX did ever figure things out, the company could become a "steamroller" with its lower cost flight opportunities.
On Monday, weather permitting, SpaceX will attempt to launch the Koreasat 5A communications satellite for a South Korean company. The launch window for the Kennedy Space Center-based liftoff opens at 3:34pm ET. After this, it's likely that SpaceX will launch two or three (possibly more) missions in 2017, bringing the company's tally for the year to 19 missions. (That would be one shy of the company's total for 2014, 2015, and 2016 combined).
On Monday, weather permitting, SpaceX will attempt to launch the Koreasat 5A communications satellite for a South Korean company. The launch window for the Kennedy Space Center-based liftoff opens at 3:34pm ET. After this, it's likely that SpaceX will launch two or three (possibly more) missions in 2017, bringing the company's tally for the year to 19 missions. (That would be one shy of the company's total for 2014, 2015, and 2016 combined).
Meanwhile the french people of Arianespace, from their tower of smugness, must finally start to sweat a little, and maybe, maybe....begin to consider their superiority complex. Problem is, in France, they all come from the same school ("Ecole polytechniquqe, sometimes "centrale"), and are so sure of their genius, that they repeatedly run into the ground all the french industries: automotive (Peugeot), nuclear (Areva), petroleum services (Technip), electric appliances (Schneider) , banking, entertainment, electricity (EDF), trains and power generation (Alstom)..I must forget some....and now space! Yay :(
What would it take to get 30 launches, i.e. Space XXX? Short term space tourism for the 1%, who have the money to join the "100-mille-high-club".
...Eat your heart out!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If you're one of the other launch providers, I can only imagine what this must look like.
For years, these companies laughed off SpaceX as some billionaires hobby. I suspect the laughing has officially stopped and lengthy meeting have begun.
These other companies in a response to SpaceX have promised reuseable rockets to bring their costs down, but at this point they're dreams on a whiteboard.
I see a number of problems any competitor is going to have.
1. In many cases their production line is optimized to prevent funding losses from their governmental sponsors, not to create lots of rockets.
2. Their cost/revenue structures are bloated.
2. Once SpaceX sets this pace for launch cadence it's going to be very hard for competitors to keep up. Especially when SpaceX is going to have a literal fleet of used boosters at their disposal. I can only imagine some satellite provider going into talks starting with "If you can't launch 10 a year, then we're walking... oh and we also want them super cheap as well..."
This race to the bottom is going to be very detrimental to other launch providers who'll have to try to cut corners to save costs and speed up production.
I expect to see SpaceX's competitors have more failures.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
IIRC SpaceX is in fact planning 30 launches next year. I can't find a clear citation at the moment, but I think Gwynne Shotwell said as much in a recent speech somewhere.
And among those 30-odd missions there will be some significant milestones: 1. First Falcon Heavy flight; 2. First Dragon-2 flight; 3. First crewed flight; and (possibly) a tourist fly-by around the moon. They will probably also refly some "flight-proven" boosters for the third or fourth time next year, as well as demonstrating fast turnaround (say, within 48hrs) of a reflown booster.
It'll be a lot of fun to watch all that happening.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Yes, the Indians launching 104 satellites for 15 million are totally crapping their pants...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSLV-C37
These other companies in a response to SpaceX have promised reuseable rockets to bring their costs down, but at this point they're dreams on a whiteboard.
The exception to this is Blue Origin, which have launched rockets to space, landed them, and reused them. They actually achieved a successful landing before SpaceX did. They're still behind SpaceX overall - they've launched to *space*, but not to *orbit* - but they're solid competition.
Almost. Arianespace had publicly said that they "don't believe" in reusable rockets. Their "point" was that "you can't keep a factory running while only manufacturing one or two vehicles per year" (this is what the SLS is attempting to, by the way). Granted, now you see videos like this one. It seems a lot like "too little, too late" kind of stuff, though.
Ezekiel 23:20
The number of micro-satellites you can cram in is irrelevant, you could launch a thousand such mini-satellites on a Falcon 9. Literally -- the payload mass of that flight was 3,038 lb and Falcon 9 lifts 30,000+ lbs to LEO. The ISRO is not competitive with SpaceX on cost.
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So far I only see Blue Origin as demostrating their system. When they actually put a satellite into orbit, then it'll be more interesting.
Also, they've got a single boutique craft. They don't have a factory cranking them out.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Until Blue Origin has a working orbital rocket, they're not competition at all. Suborbital and orbital are not remotely comparable, which is why Blue Origin is building a completely different rocket which is many times larger and all they've got is a vague hope to have it ready by 2020.
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Point taken.
My take on the Indian launch system is this.
1. It's a 4 stage rocket utilizing toxic hard to handle propellants. Everytime you add a stage, it introduces complexity and places where things can go wrong.
2. How fast can they manufacture these things? What happens when SpaceX decides to simply junk launch well worn F9's for 5M so they can write them off the books?
With that all said, buck shot firing a 100+ 3kg satellites into space is cool.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
These other companies in a response to SpaceX have promised reuseable rockets to bring their costs down, but at this point they're dreams on a whiteboard.
I think they're a little more worried about the near future than the present though. SpaceX has relaunched 3 of their 18 landed boosters, so like 1.16 missions/booster so far. The non-production costs are the same, the second stage costs are the same, none of the boosters have flown more than twice so 50% of the production cost + reduced payload capacity + landing/refurb costs means it's probably not a huge win yet. The most scary thing for them would be the most boring things for us, SpaceX launching the same booster a 3rd and 4th time and pushing the reuse factor up, up and away. Their worst nightmare is a booster flying >10 times like an airplane instead of a rocket.
What we want to see is the Falcon Heavy, BFR, Dragon 2, manned missions etc. but they're more like capabilities we don't have today. Even the SLS program is so full of pork it's unlikely it'll be shut down just because Musk can launch a FH - hopefully, it's been less than a year away since 2012 - but undercutting the competition on cost will be very noticeable. Then again Musk seems to want to put a lot of money into R&D, so how much prices will drop just because SpaceX's costs drop... we'll see.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Which segues perfectly into Musk's plans to start building his super heavy BFR system. The factories will also have to keep churning out Falcon second stages.
The BFR, if it works, will be an absolute game changer. Rapid launch cadence and cheaper to orbit per kilo than a space elevator.
I suspect pants are not even crapped to a sufficient capacity yet.
Roscosmos recently announced they're going to design a simpler to manufacture, expendable Soyuz 5 rocket that would match SpaceX's current launch prices, in 5 years.
Ariane is going to bring the Ariane 6 to market in 2-3 years without consideration to reusability, and if I remember correctly, their CEO said it would take on the order of 10 years to develop anything reusable.
ULA haven't even selected an engine for their next rocket yet, and any reusability considerations are an afterthought years down the line from when the rocket actually flies.
At this point the best any of the major players are aiming for is to try matching last year's prices 3-4-5 years down the line, as if SpaceX is just going to sit there and wait, and a 10 year development cycle is still a reasonable expectation.
And by then they'll be bringing out a new unproven design, while Flacon 9 will have a history of 100 flights, 900 operational engine fires.
SpaceX will have the economy of scale in pad operations of launching every other week or even more rapidly than that.
SpaceX will have a profit margin to fall back on from their reused rockets that they're currently using to pay off the R&D, to lower prices even futher.
And they'll have rockets sitting there waiting to match a customer with a free launch slot while their competitors will require ordering a new rocket built a year or so in advance.
SpaceX is going to eat up the commercial launch sector, and all these companies are going to get are subsidized scraps from their respective governments, and demand for specialized features like ULA's longer lifespan second stage.
Of course there's still room for Blue Origin to grow into, as well companies that aim to sell cheaper rockets for smaller payloads, and presumably China and India.
You forgot the part where their launcher has a maximum 3800 kg payload capability to LEO where Falcon 9 has over 20000 kg for four times the price, i.e. is about 25-35% cheaper per kg of payload even in expendable mode. You may also have missed the disproportionate pricing of labor - Indian aerospace engineers are like 8x cheaper than US engineers, making SpaceX's vehicle technology appear even more efficient in practice.
Ezekiel 23:20
Since Musk wants to "burn the ships" and destroy the Falcon tooling, I wonder whether they plan to stockpile second stages, too, or whether they will keep the second stage tooling.
Ezekiel 23:20
Not fair to single-out France, which does a LOT of things really well. Been there, it's nice. If you're complaining about smugness, or just plain play-it-safe complacency, there's plenty of that going on, world-wide. It takes weird but charismatic people to break the ice and move the species forward, and they don't come around too often.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
Actually, u think 30 is a minimum number of launches. To do more than 30 though, they need tx to come online by mid year. But their real goal for next year is dragon 2, along with multiple FH.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'll eat my hat if they fly tourists around the moon in 2018.
Technically I'm sure they can do it, but I wouldn't expect to see this for some years.
And they aren't going to have humans on Mars in the 2020s. No way no how.
Competition improves everything. If we could introduce this concept into medicine, we would have eternal life with dentistry we could afford.
Hi, Space Nutter Troll! How’s the weather in San Diego?
I remember reading something below said about AWS. Basically he just kept plugging away at a good idea, and eventually it made money. Thatâ(TM)s probably what hell do with blue origin, and I have little doubt he will be successful
They also complained about the limited number of launches accessible to commercial launchers, and the advantage of SpaceX of having access to many US defence/spy satellites. If every actor weren't also so much dependent on goverment subsidies, infrasrtructure and contracts, it could be described as dumping.
If the worldwide number of satellites that could be launched by non-US launchers is small, making 10-12 Arianes per year is enough, and, with dual payloads, it means at least 20 satellites.
The bet is that, by lowering the price ten fold, there will be far more satellites to launch.
Why would they keep the Falcon 9 in any way once the BFR was up and running? Even if you had to launch a single small satellite into a specialized orbit, with full reusability it likely becomes more expensive to maintain the tooling, facilities, personnel, etc to keep the F9 running than to simply launch that satellite on a BFR. More likely most satellites will be made bigger and more capable to match the increased launch capabilities (many satellites already push the margins of their LVs) and in the cases of smaller satellites they will probably be launched in groups (like the Iridium launches) if push comes to shove they might put them on a "third stage" orbital tug that can move them to their desired orbits.
Well, they have to first arrive at the point where the BFR is up and running. Until then, they need to keep hardware around to fly Falcon missions and earn money. But of course your reasoning is completely correct and many people (including me) were after IAC 2016 why there wasn't a pure cargo version of the spacecraft in the works as well since that was the only thing that made sense.
Ezekiel 23:20
The bet is that, by lowering the price ten fold, there will be far more satellites to launch.
But by then, Arianespace won't be complaining about the limited number of launches but rather about the limited prices expected by customers. :)
Ezekiel 23:20
"...were asking after IAC 2016..."
Ezekiel 23:20
Important to note that there is one more huge cost saving and that is being able to increase inventory without building another production line. I think their factory is nearing capacity at this point so reusability means they can continue to expand without having to invest in a lot of capex to build or expand their factory. (Which also frees up space for BFR which drives down future costs.)
Blue Origin is burning a lot of cash right now just to build their manufacturing capabilities.
(Same AC) They are planning a pure cargo version, I haven't watched the entire IAC presentation, so I don't know if it was in there or not, but there are plenty of images/videos depicting a BFR second stage with cargo doors. I would imagine that the cargo version will be what actually is flown at first, they just focused on the Mars/Moon/suborbital transport stuff to get press/interest. In any case once you have a flight proven rocket design with all of the kinks worked out modifying those designs for different versions is the easy part. The only limitation I can see would be that this kind of craft might be a little fickle about weight distribution during Earth reentry as in order to get itself turned around for its terminal approach (I believe) it would need to be a bit backheavy. This should be quite doable by simply having the right amount of fuel on board for a given reentry cargo mass (and a few more anti-sloshing baffles than normal) but might create some rather curious situations, such as having to dump fuel if you only have a few passengers returning to Earth or having to land with a significant amount of fuel still in your tanks (possibly even refuel in orbit) if you're bringing down a heavy satellite in the cargo hold.
http://www.spacex.com/sites/all/themes/spacex2012/images/mars/bfr-payload.jpg
I suspect that if the BFR does get anywhere close to its desired capabilities Arianspace (and others) will pull their heads out of the sand and actually develop a reusable spacecraft (actually fund Skylon?). Sadly this is a pretty common theme in pretty much any industry, everyone thinks that the way things are done now is the way they'll always be done, then someone finds a better way (that is initially laughed at) which begins taking over the industry at which point everyone else tries frantically to catch up (containerization, air travel, automotive mass production, online sales, etc).
You're apparently referring to the (very recent) IAC 2017 presentation, but the (one year older) IAC 2016 presentation didn't seem to mention the cargo option. And since SpaceX is very adventurous in this respect, I wouldn't be surprised if unmanned but "non-cargo" version wasn't the first one to fly, to Mars to boot, not just in their current plans but in reality as well. After all, the "better fail early" still applies at this point of the development cycle, and being able to land on Mars (and to get back) is the ultimate goal, so during an attempt to do that, you reach the intermediate targets such as getting to LEO anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
Skylon does increasingly seem like the bad target to head for, be it for its significant payload limitations, operating costs, airframe design difficulties etc.
Ezekiel 23:20
IIRC SpaceX is in fact planning 30 launches next year. I can't find a clear citation at the moment, but I think Gwynne Shotwell said as much in a recent speech somewhere.
And among those 30-odd missions there will be some significant milestones: 1. First Falcon Heavy flight; 2. First Dragon-2 flight; 3. First crewed flight; and (possibly) a tourist fly-by around the moon. They will probably also refly some "flight-proven" boosters for the third or fourth time next year, as well as demonstrating fast turnaround (say, within 48hrs) of a reflown booster.
It'll be a lot of fun to watch all that happening.
But don't forget...SpaceX is about to go bust. All these launches and hardware and tech and plans are centuries behind schedule and trillions over budget and can't possibly fly because physics. Also Musk will shortly give birth to the devil and take his place in hades where he will continue to manipulate the world via conspiring banks that no one has ever heard of. /sarcasm
I'm sure next year will be quite amazing just as i'm sure there will be more hiccups to go with. End of the day...of the few companies/governments doing similar, no one is doing so with such flair.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Please. Any news?????