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The Military Chooses Which Rockets It Wants Built For the Next Decade (arstechnica.com)
The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded funds to three rocket companies to help them complete development of their boosters. The three winners include:
United Launch Services: $967,000,000 for the development of the Vulcan Centaur launch system.
Northrop Grumman: $791,601,015 for development of the Omega launch system
Blue Origin: $500,000,000 for the development of the New Glenn launch system
The obvious company missing from the list is SpaceX, which did not win an award. Aerojet Rocketdyne also failed to win an award since it "does not appear to have a customer for its AR1 rocket engine, which the military initially supported," Ars Technica reports. From the report: These are hugely consequential awards for the rocket companies. Essentially the U.S. Air Force, which launches more complex, heavy payloads than any other entity in the world, believes these boosters will have a significant role to play in those missions during the next decade. And when the military has confidence in your vehicle, commercial satellite contracts are more likely to follow as well. After speaking with a couple of aerospace sources, Ars has a few theories as to why SpaceX didn't win an award: For one, SpaceX has already built and flown a rocket that can reach all of the Air Force's reference orbits -- the Falcon Heavy. Moreover, the Falcon Heavy is already certified for the Air Force and has won contracts. Air Force officials may also feel that, through NASA contracts for commercial cargo and crew, the government already facilitated development of the Falcon Heavy -- which uses three Falcon 9 rocket cores. It also depends upon what SpaceX bid for. The government would have been more inclined to fund development of an advanced upper stage for the Falcon Heavy or vertical integration facilities. But it seems like the military would not have been as interested in the Big Falcon Rocket, which is more booster than it deems necessary at this time. So if SpaceX bid the BFR, that is one possible explanation for no award.
United Launch Services: $967,000,000 for the development of the Vulcan Centaur launch system.
Northrop Grumman: $791,601,015 for development of the Omega launch system
Blue Origin: $500,000,000 for the development of the New Glenn launch system
The obvious company missing from the list is SpaceX, which did not win an award. Aerojet Rocketdyne also failed to win an award since it "does not appear to have a customer for its AR1 rocket engine, which the military initially supported," Ars Technica reports. From the report: These are hugely consequential awards for the rocket companies. Essentially the U.S. Air Force, which launches more complex, heavy payloads than any other entity in the world, believes these boosters will have a significant role to play in those missions during the next decade. And when the military has confidence in your vehicle, commercial satellite contracts are more likely to follow as well. After speaking with a couple of aerospace sources, Ars has a few theories as to why SpaceX didn't win an award: For one, SpaceX has already built and flown a rocket that can reach all of the Air Force's reference orbits -- the Falcon Heavy. Moreover, the Falcon Heavy is already certified for the Air Force and has won contracts. Air Force officials may also feel that, through NASA contracts for commercial cargo and crew, the government already facilitated development of the Falcon Heavy -- which uses three Falcon 9 rocket cores. It also depends upon what SpaceX bid for. The government would have been more inclined to fund development of an advanced upper stage for the Falcon Heavy or vertical integration facilities. But it seems like the military would not have been as interested in the Big Falcon Rocket, which is more booster than it deems necessary at this time. So if SpaceX bid the BFR, that is one possible explanation for no award.
Use of force is abhorrent. I hope the pentagon chooses missiles for peace. It gives me a stomach ache
Look at that free economy! SO FREE.
Um stupid.. military makes single use things that go boom. Tesla is like a reusable fork or a sustainable farm meal.. they want plastic and unsustainable
It's expected to cost a couple $billion more to finish developing the BFR, although once it's done it's also expected to be cheaper to launch than a Falcon Heavy. It being more powerful seems like a poor excuse when it's also cheaper.
The BE-4 engine is planned to power both the New Glenn and Vulcan rockets, maybe they figure 2 new rockets is better than 1 new rocket?
Omega uses an upper stage made by Rocketdyne so they're indirectly getting funded. It also uses boosters based on Shuttle tech which our govt. loves to push for pork-barrel reasons. They haven't even started development so it's probably going to be finished last, aka cancelled, especially since the SLS makes it redundant.
Anyways, Vulcan, New Glenn, SLS, and BFR should all be ready around the same time, so the 2020/2021 timeframe should be exciting for rocketry (assuming no delays, ha!).
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Either the ULA is really lucky or they lobbied to ensure specific requirements that SpaceX FH and BFR weren't certified for yet. What this does is give the ULA time to catchup to or copy SpaceX and hope they can somehow compete on price. A decade may seem like a long time but for rocketry it's really not. It's unlikely the ULA will survive once this contract ends without making radical changes and heavy investments. Both are unlikely because the ULA is an agreement between two megalithic defense contractors who are very much in it for the money.
The ULA is dead and life support will be removed in 10 years.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The problem with Mars is there is nothing for us to go to war over on it. Until that problem is solved, Musk is going to have a hard time convincing taxpayers to part with their money for his hippy peace love space mission.
It doesn't even need to be something logical. If the crypto bubble was still in play, he could have launched a USB drive full of bitcoin there, and we would have had BFR by Christmas.
Study the history of the term "hashich" and you will understand that militaries are not necessarily against drugs.
Buncha damn zoomies wearing bus driver outfits.
Biggest damn military problem they have to solve is trying to fit the runways on an Air Force base around the damn golf courses.
I presume this is so they are not putting all their eggs into one basket, especially as Musk is (dare I say it) a high risk investment. The original plan was in any event to have at least two competing launch systems.
I am surprised that none of the above seeks to advance booster technology significantly, such as (for example) trying to get a viable booster powered by an aerospike engine.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Man, just now I realised. That BFR is a homage to the BFG in Doom. BFR in reality means Big F*cking Rocket.
I'm ashamed to have took so long to get it.
Study the history of the term "hashich" and you will understand that militaries are not necessarily against drugs.
Or benzedrine. Armies love benzedrine.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
No career military type is going to risk their future on an unstable madman.
Yet they currently have one as their commander in chief so there is some irony for you...
Seriously though, I doubt Elon Musk's (rather mild) eccentricities had much of anything to do with these contracts. The military already does lots of work with SpaceX. I suspect they are probably trying to ensure there is some competition in the market and SpaceX seems to not need a whole lot of help at this point. I would imagine the Air Force would rather not be limited to a single vendor because SpaceX drove the others out of business.
I presume this is so they are not putting all their eggs into one basket, especially as Musk is (dare I say it) a high risk investment.
The eggs in one basket thing I agree but I think you are hugely overstating the risk Musk as an individual brings to the table. Yeah he isn't the usual mold of CEO (not a bad thing IMO) and he obviously has an appetite for risk greater than most but it's kind of hard to argue that SpaceX isn't a very well run company. The military already does quite a lot of work with SpaceX which is prima facie evidence they aren't bothered much if at all by Musk.
I am surprised that none of the above seeks to advance booster technology significantly, such as (for example) trying to get a viable booster powered by an aerospike engine.
Why should that be surprising? Such advancements are (generally) hugely expensive and that isn't what the military is trying to accomplish here. While the military isn't the most price sensitive customer out there (obviously) they do have budgets and price still does matter plus as you rightly point out they don't want to just have a single supplier of boosters for a variety of fairly self evident reasons. I'm sure the military is investing in advanced propulsion systems somewhere - just not here.
In related news, today's launch of a Soyuz didn't go very well, causing the American and Russian bound for the ISS to make an emergency landing (abort, presumably).
Soyuz launches to the ISS are grounded until they figure out what the problem was. The Dragon 2 capsule can't get ready soon enough, it seems.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Musk as smart enough to hire very capable people for Space X. Contrary to the Elon folklore among his fans, he did not design the rockets and he is not as hands on in the management of Space X as he is for Tesla.
He had an idea for a private space flight company, hired great people and said, "Make it so." and became the rain maker for the business: he gets the business and his people do the rest. Gwynne Shotwell has more to do with Space X' success than Musk does. Just guess who is the Ari Force's go to person for Space X? Hint: It's not Elon.
All of these companies are old school contractors who have handfuls of ex military generals working for them. I'd be surprised if space x had one. Those generals help write - er I meant "influence" - the RFPs to steer biz to their company.
Bids like this are as much about who you know as your offering. I'd be surprised if SpaceX doesn't protest the award.
SpaceX is completely infiltrated with Chinese. China is about to test their clone of the Falcon 9. Why hand more tech to China?
"This award is part of a portfolio of three agreements that leverage commercial launch solutions in order to have at least two domestic, commercial launch service providers that meet National Security Space requirements, including the launch of the heaviest and most complex payloads."
https://dod.defense.gov/News/C...
All of these companies are old school contractors who have handfuls of ex military generals working for them.
Blue Origin is not even remotely an "old school contractor".
America-hating shills sure do love the war on drugs.
Government constraints are often the reason for limited success, even if government funding may also be a catalyst to success. Look at how the Air Force constraints on the Shuttle limited it's potential.. And the Russian government's demanding of their own space shuttle curtailed the development of a truly more useful and affordable space launch system.
The mere act of allowing commercial space launch in the United States is what brought about a flurry of new space launch systems at dramatically reduced cost. The safety of these systems is likely to follow, in time.. as it did for aircraft.
However--the success of the BFR and the BFS depends heavily on focused engineering goals. So long as they have sufficient funding, I am glad they dodged this bullet of additional design constraints. Work seems to be progressing quickly. The primary risks seem to be loss of investor confidence but investors are well aware that they need to be tolerant of a number of failures before success arrives.
A good deal more profit awaits once the BFS is proven for deep space missions. Imagine chartering a flight to mine or capture just one asteroid rich in platinum... or even just a full load of water ice for sale to other space ventures?
There is a pyramid of subcontractors that are also feed the prime contractors. No one wants SAE/US-CU based products. Lastly, we cannot have an entire country illiterate to measuring.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
wait, no. Nobody ever asks this
Because only somebody bought and paid for would vote for open ended cost plus contracts for the development of products that don't exist over something you can already buy today for a fixed price.
http://estesrockets.com/ They make rockets and engines too!
As far as eccentric rich people go, Musk is relatively tame. Howard Hughs was far more eccentric, and he nabbed a handful of military contracts back in his day.
Really tragic that Musk's erratic behavior is costing SpaceX. I don't personally have an issue with him smoking a number on Rogan or getting high and tweeting dumb shit to impress his girlfriend but he's too smart a guy not to have known that there'd be significant backlash from his actions.
Do you have any valid numbers or references to back up your claims? Does SpaceX actually have a documented worse safety record than other rocket companies? Can you substantiate that? And what are you talking about regarding a spaceworthiness rating for Tesla? What does that even mean? What does Tesla have to do with this?
What do you mean about your familiarity with SpaceX engineering methods? Are you a current employee or contractor? Former employee or contractor? Someone who has worked alongside SpaceX on some sort of project? A supplier maybe? Or have you read stuff in blogs?
This has happened before. The USAF is bound by government purchasing requirements to provide a set of requirements, and only consider bids which meet those requirements. A bidder who exceeds those requirements does not get "extra credit" for being better. So in all likelihood Falcon Heavy was actually penalized for being bigger than "necessary".
That's what happened with the USAF bid for a tanker to replace the ancient KC-135 (based on the Boeing 707). Boeing and Airbus submitted bids, and Airbus initially won. Boeing cried foul, pointing out that the statement announcing the winner specifically mentioned the Airbus plane exceeding the capacity and range requirements the USAF originally laid out. That if the contract was going to be awarded based on exceeding the requirements, they would've offered a tanker based on their newer 777 rather than older 767. The GAO reviewed the entire thing, and decided that Boeing was right - government contracts are required by law to be awarded based on meeting the original requested specifications, not on exceeding them. If the USAF wanted a plane with better capacity and range than they originally specified, they should've specified that higher capacity and range as a requirement to begin with. The GAO told the USAF to redo the entire bid, and Boeing ended up winning the re-bid (Airbus declined to bid again).
Too Much Rocket means a fifty-tonne-to-LEO capability when the DoD's payloads top out at 24 tonnes, a fuelled-up spy NRO satellite basically.
So launch two at once. For a price that's probably cheaper than ULA will do one.
Or only use half the capacity, so you're only paying for half the fuel. Also, I would hazard to guess, for less than what ULA charges for a full-fuel launch on their rockets.
And motrin.
Is this a good place to whine about how many subsidies SpaceX gets?
This was NOT a contract to decide which rockets the USAF will use in the 2020s.
This was a contract the USAF issues to spur innovation. We do not know if SpaceX bid on it, or if they offered something the USAF did not want/need/value as much as the stuff the winners offered. The USAF will certainly launch stuff on Falcons in the coming years, Elon Musk is just not getting a cut of this particular award to do R&D. Perhaps if Musk had offered to develop a HydroLox upper stage for Falcons (a Falcon-associated Centaur equivalent) it might have gotten some USAF love. Look at the winners: they are each getting some cash to develop something new that the USAF would like to have available as an option in the future. Musk might have offered BFR+BFS but that monster is so big that the USAF probably does not currently have a use for it without planners there making a paradigm shift.
That seems rather a lot of money for Blue Origin, considering their slow progress and lack of orbital capability. I wish them well but their comparatively low ambition levels seems like a problem to me.