Under this partnership, Orbital ATK will initially provide multiple Pegasus XL air-launch vehicles for use with the Stratolaunch aircraft to provide customers with unparalleled flexibility to launch small satellites weighing up to 1,000 pounds into low Earth orbit.
Quote from: Sam Ho on 10/06/2016 02:22 pmUnder this partnership, Orbital ATK will initially provide multiple Pegasus XL air-launch vehicles for use with the Stratolaunch aircraft to provide customers with unparalleled flexibility to launch small satellites weighing up to 1,000 pounds into low Earth orbit. I suppose the key word there is "initially", since Stratolaunch is massively oversized for Pegasus.Orbital's first try for a custom-design rocket for Stratolaunch was abandoned. I wonder what has changed?" - Ed Kyle
Orbital ATK and Stratolaunch Systems Partner to Offer Competitive Space Launch Opportunities
I thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...
Quote from: ZachS09 on 10/07/2016 01:55 amI thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...Exactly. This gives Pegasus (which is Orbital/ATK's most reliable rocket) another lease on life but still allows OrbitalATK to get rid of the overhead associated with keeping Stargazer flightworthy.
It makes no sense to me, but then again, the whole Stratolaunch plan has never made any sense to me.
Quote from: sdsds on 10/06/2016 06:51 pmIt must have something to do with the mysterious customer looking for the capability to rapidly replace or augment its on-orbit assets. That customer doesn't have degraded assets today, mind you. But if they put out an emergency call they don't want to wait 153 days (DMSP, 3 February 1988) to launch the replacement. So they're willing to pay now out of their black (or at least dark) budget for development of capabilities....Occam's razor suggests that there is no such mystery customer. Somebody simply wanted to have the biggest plane ever, and launch rockets from it, so they built the plane. Now they don't even have a launch vehicle at all, so they are grasping for straws ... anything can that be air launched, no matter how small.
It must have something to do with the mysterious customer looking for the capability to rapidly replace or augment its on-orbit assets. That customer doesn't have degraded assets today, mind you. But if they put out an emergency call they don't want to wait 153 days (DMSP, 3 February 1988) to launch the replacement. So they're willing to pay now out of their black (or at least dark) budget for development of capabilities....
Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 01:59 amQuote from: ZachS09 on 10/07/2016 01:55 amI thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...Exactly. This gives Pegasus (which is Orbital/ATK's most reliable rocket) another lease on life but still allows OrbitalATK to get rid of the overhead associated with keeping Stargazer flightworthy.For Stratolaunch though, who is going to buy all these Pegasus launches? Pegasus isn't exactly competitive now. If there were demand for lots of Pegasus flights, OrbATK would already be selling them, and would presumably be making enough to replace Stargazer if required.It makes no sense to me, but then again, the whole Stratolaunch plan has never made any sense to me.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 01:59 amQuote from: ZachS09 on 10/07/2016 01:55 amI thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...Exactly. This gives Pegasus (which is Orbital/ATK's most reliable rocket) another lease on life but still allows OrbitalATK to get rid of the overhead associated with keeping Stargazer flightworthy.The Stargazer might be expensive to maintain, but is it really more expensive to maintain than a much larger, one-of-a-kind aircraft? I doubt it.I think Vulcan must be eating some of the maintenance cost of the plane to make it attractive enough for OATK to use it.
Quote from: hop on 10/07/2016 06:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 01:59 amQuote from: ZachS09 on 10/07/2016 01:55 amI thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...Exactly. This gives Pegasus (which is Orbital/ATK's most reliable rocket) another lease on life but still allows OrbitalATK to get rid of the overhead associated with keeping Stargazer flightworthy.For Stratolaunch though, who is going to buy all these Pegasus launches? Pegasus isn't exactly competitive now. If there were demand for lots of Pegasus flights, OrbATK would already be selling them, and would presumably be making enough to replace Stargazer if required.It makes no sense to me, but then again, the whole Stratolaunch plan has never made any sense to me.I don't know about the whole Stratolaunch plan (I can think of a niche or two), but pairing it with 3 (three) Pegasus LVs simply makes no sense. ....
Quote from: hop on 10/07/2016 06:00 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 10/07/2016 01:59 amQuote from: ZachS09 on 10/07/2016 01:55 amI thought Pegasus was to be retired after the ICON mission in 2017...Exactly. This gives Pegasus (which is Orbital/ATK's most reliable rocket) another lease on life but still allows OrbitalATK to get rid of the overhead associated with keeping Stargazer flightworthy.For Stratolaunch though, who is going to buy all these Pegasus launches? Pegasus isn't exactly competitive now. If there were demand for lots of Pegasus flights, OrbATK would already be selling them, and would presumably be making enough to replace Stargazer if required.It makes no sense to me, but then again, the whole Stratolaunch plan has never made any sense to me.I don't know about the whole Stratolaunch plan (I can think of a niche or two), but pairing it with 3 (three) Pegasus LVs simply makes no sense. Pegasus is one of the most expensive launchers in history as far as small payloads are concerned ($50M+ or $150,000+ per kg to LEO/SSO), and is mainly used to launch small government payloads like the SMEX sats. I struggle to find a niche where this would be able to sell a commercial launch of one Pegasus XL, let alone three at the same time/mission. There must be a plan for another LV design here...and maybe both sides are more cautious this time before announcing (after what we have seen happening last time).
The main reason Pegasus is so expensive is it flies once every year or three. So each flight has to pay for a big amount of overhead. A lot of that overhead is the aging aircraft, so taking that load off should allow Pegasus to be more competitive (for as long as Vulcan is willing to help with maintenance).
Which may lead it to launching more, and thus allowing the price to further drop.
Can you quantify that "A lot"? Are we talking a few hundred thousand, or millions? Something under $1M/year would not seem terribly significant in the overall competitiveness of Pegasus. Say keeping Stargazer in a hanger costs $1M/year,