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SpaceX Wins $130 Million Air Force Launch Contract, Marking a First For Falcon Heavy (geekwire.com)
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $130 million firm-fixed-price contract to SpaceX for the launch of its classified AFSPC-52 satellite on a Falcon Heavy rocket. From a report: It's the first national security contract won for SpaceX's heavy-lift rocket, which had its first test flight in February. AFSPC-52 is tue to lift off in 2020 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch will support the Air Force Space Command's "mission of delivering resilient and affordable space capabilities to our nation while maintaining assured access to space," Lt. Gen. John Thompson, Air Force program executive officer for space and commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said today in a news release. In an emailed statement, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said her company was "honored by the Air Force's selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively awarded AFSPC-52 mission."
"Air Force"? Don't you mean...Space Force?
Probably not by the end of the year.
Everyone is mocking it, but this has been coming for a long time. Space is already a separate command in the Air Force, formed about 15ish years ago, more-or-less, to consolidate space acquistion (Los Angeles, mostly) and operations (Colordao, mostly). It's a logical development, they really are separate disciplines.
I see it along the lines of the relationship the Marine Corps has with the Navy. There is certainly some levels of overlap between the two that keeping them closely related is a good thing, but not TOO closely related.
You better be nice or he won't let you come to Mars with us.
But 110010001000 just told us (literally) yesterday that "Musk is a flim flam artist"! How dare you question him! /s
Note to haters: hate someone based on fact or opinion but never hate someone based on your own delusions.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Note that $130M is only enough to pay for one Falcon Heavy launch with the additional government book-keeping. Commercial satellite vendors pay less, because they don't require as much compliance and paperwork.
So, it's really nice that Falcon Heavy got a government contract. However, SpaceX is not even close to recovering the cost of the engineering it put into it, and the first test launch. And they may never recover it before this business shifts to their new rocket, fondly called "BFR".
Bruce Perens.
I'd rather bet on Elon than someone so full of bits.
Bruce Perens.
Are they going to let SpaceX make the payload adapter this time? The Northrop Grumman one on Zuma resulted in mission failure.
Bruce Perens.
SpaceX is going to take us to the Holy Land: Mars.
Compared to say ULA, who were charging around 3 TIMES this for equivalent cargos?
Gee, no bias there 110010001000..
I think you will find the word is 'saving' rather than 'using' in this context.
SpaceX is good for commercial launches where they are willling to accept a little higher risk to launch off the shelf commercial satellites. For things relating to national security, and one off NASA stuff thats been underway for a decade like James Webb, can they be so confident that it will be as reliable as the ULA stuff. The idea of something like James Webb being lost is pretty scary after its taken so long. SpaceX not being there yet as far as having the same record as ULA, doesnt mean its a bad platform for lower risk launches.
I still use Paypal. Never had a problem. The 130 Million is cab fare to space for the government's satellite. What's unfair about charging for the ride? ULA would have charged a lot more.
Bruce Perens.
ULA STILL charges a lot more. Even with these atlas at 177M, that does not include their yearly ~1B subsidy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No TGV accidents?
I will take hyperloop over TGV or any twin rail system.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Note also that an Atlas at $177M can lift 4,750â"8,900 kg (10,470â"19,620 lb) to GTO, while a Falcon Heavy at $130M can lift 26,700 kg (58,900 lb) to GTO.
Bruce Perens.
Gosh, I hate Slashdot's handling of Unicode. An Atlas at $177M can lift 4,750-8,900 kg (10,470-19,620 lb) to GTO, while a Falcon Heavy at $130M can lift 26,700 kg (58,900 lb) to GTO.
Bruce Perens.
Well, not THIS payload obviously, the FH doesn't use these (or any other Russian) engines.
I like their implementation. Makes it easy to identify Apple users.
No Apple was used. Web browser cut and paste only. Web browsers use Unicode.
Bruce Perens.
Poutine-hacked? Are you saying that Canadians hacked the election to ensure a Trump victory?
Anyone who automatically equates "government contract" with "evil" is obviously an idiot, so why would you care what they think?
Meanwhile, in the real world, Tesla sells four times more Model 3s in the US each month than the highest selling non-Telsla BEV. But don't worry your head about that. :)
SpaceX has been, and continues to, save US taxpayers massive amounts of money versus a formerly literal monopoly, ULA.
Hyperloop is a curious "scam" in that they released Hyperloop Alpha for free and did not attempt to pursue it, let alone raise money off of it. It's part of the long term plans of Boring Company, but low on their priority list.
Boring Company has no public funding, and has not sought public funding.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
If it is a really heavy payload it will be on either a Falcon Heavy or a Delta IV Heavy rocket, the #1 and #2 operational launch vehicles in the world measured by payload mass to orbit. Both made in USA, neither with Russian engines.
Yet the US is really still accepting batches of RD-180 and RD-181 rocket engines for the U.S. Air Force...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Was just reading this article earlier today, and it seems to make a lot of sense. We need to A) come up with a plan to protect our satellite infrastructure and B) have MORE cooperation between the various branches of the military (and NOT another branch that will inevitably have different motivators than just supporting the others), so the Space Force is not the answer, but we need to do something.
Tesla is building EVs for the 0.01% while other manufacturers are actually building affordable EVs today.
Musk's stated goal when creating Tesla was to accelerate the auto industry's switch to electric (since autos are our biggest polluter), and that seems to be what has happened. Before Tesla, none of the auto makers were really serious about EVs and were happy with the status-quo.
Before Tesla, none of the auto makers were really serious about EVs and were happy with the status-quo.
Musk knows how to sell his companies like "disrupting" and himself as a "visionary" very well. That's why he is rich, basically.
But reality is way far from what you have been told to think about Musk and Tesla. Reality is that almost every single car manufacturer had full electric prototypes since more than 15 years when Tesla was presented to the public. Not to mention those manufacturers that have invested billions during decades in REAL Research & Development in finding alternative power sources like for example BMW with the fuel cell and hydrogen-based technologies fully developed in-house or even Ford, to mention another manufacturer from the United States if you prefer.
Years before Tesla was an idea, there were already small networks of hydrogen fuel stations in some places in Europe and in United States. Problem was that those initiatives had to be really privately funded, instead of having a whole USA Government backing them up with subsidies and swarms of hungry investors wanting to throw their money in them. Also, society, environment and geopolitics changed a lot in the last ~10 years, urging Western civilization to immediately find alternatives to oil based fuels that were not so urgent in the 90's or even the early '00s, so quick and cheap solutions like "let's put a battery in a car" are appreciated as they can boost the transition from oil fuels, but initially the ideas were radically different than that.
Honestly, Tesla is great, Musk is a great businessman and is great to have more competence in automotive sector, specially if such competence is new and presents a "new" way of doing things. But all that doesn't made those assertions like "before Tesla/Musk everyone else was doing nothing" less false and less ridiculous.
Plagiarist! ;-)
Years before Tesla was an idea, there were already small networks of hydrogen fuel stations in some places in Europe and in United States.
And they still are...small, that is. Mostly because hydrogen is either an either failed or at least very premature technological bet from the investors. Picking the right stuff to do is very important.
Ezekiel 23:20
ULA STILL charges a lot more. Even with these atlas at 177M, that does not include their yearly ~1B subsidy.
The subsidy is more like a retainer which pays for maintaining capabilities which would otherwise be discarded and unavailable. The alternative would be to pay even more to reconstitute capabilities as required which is unlikely to even be possible in the timeframe required.
Ever notice how there are a lot of industrial capabilities which the United States now lacks? Some of them have national security implications but only the sexy ones like launch capability are addressed.
Or Congress could be using the above as an excuse for rent seeking but how do you tell?