Sure. So do I. But what we think does not yet constitute proof of the existence of said market. :-)~Jon
Quote from: jongoff on 11/25/2013 09:33 pmSure. So do I. But what we think does not yet constitute proof of the existence of said market. :-)~JonTrue, but I think it is a strong indicator.
Having said that, I don't think anybody would deny that there would likely be a market if somebody hits a price point about 1/10th the going market rate for launch, with a capability for re-use, rapid turnaround, and all the other bells and whistles.
In fact, as far as I can tell, the first stage of Falcon 9R will meet all the requirements of the XS-1 RFP, if it works as SpaceX plans for it to work.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 12/02/2013 02:36 amIn fact, as far as I can tell, the first stage of Falcon 9R will meet all the requirements of the XS-1 RFP, if it works as SpaceX plans for it to work.Yes, but the more interesting part is that it might spawn a genuine competitor to F9R. And that's the best thing that could happen.
So F9-R vs. XS-1 will be the ultimate vertical vs. horizontal landing showdown for reusable first stages. XS-1 will have a considerably smaller payload than F9-R. The question is how well the competing landing methods perform given their different thrust classes.
You'd probably still have a small but steady market at 80% of the overall launch costs by eating Pegasus's lunch.
I think that here the actual difference is a market appreciation. DARPA assumes that a cheap launcher needs cheap payloads. Thus, the smaller the payload and the launch ticket (total amount of dollars) is what will allow for the demand to be there.SpaceX and Bigelow, on the contrary, seems to think that humans are the cheapest payload there is. Of course SpaceX is betting on slashing a 30% of the launch cost to keep a good fraction of current market (plus some small increase). While DARPA want orders of magnitude more launches and thus need orders of magnitude more payloads.Just look at current market. At the current 50kSD/U to 100kUSD/U they are launching cubesats in the 10s. At 10k, they would probably launch in the 100s.
You've got to think about how much would a 100kg satellite cost (doubt it less than 10M).
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 12/02/2013 02:36 amIn fact, as far as I can tell, the first stage of Falcon 9R will meet all the requirements of the XS-1 RFP, if it works as SpaceX plans for it to work.If you read back over the thread, this has come up before. Falcon 9R does not meet the cost per launch criteria, nor would it I believe even if it were being reused, based on the statements Musk/Shotwell have made about the relative costs of the stages and how much they plan to save.
You would have to assume reuse beyond what the 9R design has available right now.
I think Musk has talked about launching every day, but that clearly is not going to happen before the DARPA program is history, and it probably won't be a Falcon 9R launching when it does.
I think, from what Jon has said, DARPA is actually looking for a hypersonic testbed launcher out of this, which means Mach 10 in the atmosphere (on a non-orbital flight, that is, this is a separate requirement). That would require a fair amount of software development for a radically different trajectory and throttling scheme, and perhaps some structural strengthening.
Quote from: a_langwich on 12/02/2013 03:40 pmI think, from what Jon has said, DARPA is actually looking for a hypersonic testbed launcher out of this, which means Mach 10 in the atmosphere (on a non-orbital flight, that is, this is a separate requirement). That would require a fair amount of software development for a radically different trajectory and throttling scheme, and perhaps some structural strengthening.They were actually pretty clear that they were fine with a hypersonics testbed launcher that deployed a separate hypersonics test free-flyer. That would enable you with boostback/retrobraking to keep the in-atmosphere max velocity of the XS-1 stage well below Mach 10.~Jon
Could you elaborate on the flight profile you have in mind? Are you saying the first stage lofts vertically, out of the atmosphere, like an existing launch, all the way to Mach 10, and then the hypersonic testbed deploys and points down back into the atmosphere? If they were testing a hypersonic airbreather--is there any other reason for a hypersonic testbed?--they would have to wait and measure atmospheric density (or altitude?) to determine when there was enough atmosphere again to try lighting the engine?
For a profile like that, seems like a Minuteman/Peacekeeper/Trident body could do the job. I guess too expensive?
Quote from: a_langwich on 12/02/2013 03:40 pmQuote from: ChrisWilson68 on 12/02/2013 02:36 amIn fact, as far as I can tell, the first stage of Falcon 9R will meet all the requirements of the XS-1 RFP, if it works as SpaceX plans for it to work.If you read back over the thread, this has come up before. Falcon 9R does not meet the cost per launch criteria, nor would it I believe even if it were being reused, based on the statements Musk/Shotwell have made about the relative costs of the stages and how much they plan to save.I didn't say F9R. I said the F9R first stage. All the statements from Musk/Shotwell about costs have been with first stage re-use but the current F9 upper stage.There's no reason to believe that the first stage won't meet the cost requirements of this RFP.
Blue Origin reached a key milestone in the development of the liquid-fueled BE-3 engine successfully demonstrating deep throttle, full power, long-duration and reliable restart all in a single-test sequence...The test demonstrated a full mission duty cycle, mimicking flight of the New Shepard vehicle by thrusting at 110,000 pounds in a 145-second boost phase, shutting down for approximately four and a half minutes to simulate coast through apogee, then restarting and throttling down to 25,000 pounds thrust to simulate controlled vertical landing. To date, the BE-3 has demonstrated more than 160 starts and 9,100 seconds of operation at Blue Origin's test facility near Van Horn, Texas...... the BE-3 features a "tap-off" design, in which the main chamber combustion gases are used to power the engine's turbopumps. Tap-off is particularly well-suited to human spaceflight because of its single combustion chamber and graceful shutdown mode...... Rob Meyerson, president and program manager of Blue Origin. "Given its high-performance, low cost, and reusability the BE-3 is well suited for boost, upper-stage and in-space applications on both government and commercial launch systems [emphasis added]."
Test work building up to the full-cycle BE-3 test in November was conducted over nine months and included 160 starts and 9,100 sec. of engine operation. “That equates to a test every two days and sometimes was actually three or four tests per day [emphasis added],” Meyerson says.