Author Topic: ULA Vulcan Launch Vehicle - Business Case/Competition/Alternatives Discussion  (Read 336252 times)

Offline Exastro

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Orbital made so many strategic mistakes during the COTS/CRS program with Antares and Cygnus that my faith in the people in charge is highly limited. Just look where SpaceX is today with F9/Dragon and compare it to Antares/Cygnus.
Dragon is up to 12 missions not including a failure, Cygnus has flown seven, not including the failure.  I was impressed when Orbital ATK quickly adapted to the Antares failure by moving Cygnus to Atlas 5 for three launches, gaining payload in the bargain.  Cygnus has been carrying more payload mass than Dragon.  The Antares engine change to RD-181 after the failure - during the Ukrainian situation no less - was also pretty impressive.  If Orbital made a mistake, it was in trusting the reliability of NK-33/AJ-26, but that is only obvious after the fact.

I think tobi453's broader point is this: While Orbital used their COTS contract to fund Antares/Cygnus which (so far at least) does nothing except COTS, SpaceX parlayed theirs into a general-purpose medium-class, mostly-reusable launch system that served as the basis for their successful Commercial Crew bid and is on its way to dominating the whole commercial launch market.

Offline jongoff

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No, sorry for not being clearer...

There was a USAF/DoD study which essentially argued that fly-back was better than boost-back, and which appeared to represent the conventional wisdom at that time. (Circia 2005-2010?  I am sure there is a link to in one of my old posts, but cannot find it.)

That's the exact opposite of my recollection. The USAF study from the mid 2000s (from Barry Hellman IIRC) was showing that boostback actually made a lot of sense. I'm pretty sure I reviewed it on Selenian Boondocks under my Orbital Access Methodologies thread.

http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/06/orbital-access-methodologies-part-v-boostback-tsto/

One of the links is broken, but the takeway from the link that is still working is that Boostback looked very promising.

~Jon

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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IIRC, the issue revolved around costing models as a justification. A rival has already dis-proven a costing model rather significantly since.

Online butters

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ULA doesn't have enough rope to develop anything better than Vulcan, and Boeing and Lockheed lost their enthusiasm for the launch industry years ago. It stands to question whether Vulcan would have gotten the green light if not for the RD-180 situation.

IF they were to pursue a path toward RLV, would they have any better options than emulating New Glenn? Their engine options are basically: Blue Origin, too expensive (AJR), or way too slow (begin in-house engine development). Can ULA come up with a more effective way to use BO's engines than BO can?

It's hard to imagine what ULA will be launching in 2025-2030, with New Glenn and BFR likely well-established in service. Vulcan at least presents a credible way to win some government contracts in the 2020-2025 timeframe. Are the development costs too high to justify a 5-year product lifecycle? Maybe. Will the comparison between NG/BFR and Vulcan be even more embarrassing for ULA than F9 vs. Atlas V? Probably. But I'm not going to blame a proud company for wanting to delay its probable death. Who knows, maybe there's still a chance that SpaceX or Blue will fail...

Online meekGee

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Launcher
You believe Wikipedia?  That article is riddled with errors.

It might be, but at least it's not regurgitating the company line about being a "completely new launch system by Northrop Grumman".  To go with an all-solid first stage in view of the current state of the art is just bonkers.  I understand why ATK is in it, but why would any observer be - that's beyond me.

Nevermind NGL though.

Back to Vulcan.  I am sure it will be an improvement over Atlas V. I mean it's an E3LV at this point.  But it does not feature even partial reuse. It doesn't even have a solid timeline for that.

Meanwhile the industry is moving to a completely new generation of launch systems, with the BFR project leapfrogging into a bonefide fully reusable spaceship.

So you can keep talking about which bids Vulcan is designed to respond to. It does not matter. The requirements are tailored to piston prop-planes, and this other company is developing jets. How long do you think the requirements are going to stay?  It'll be a pretty lame excuse in a few years to say "we didn't see it coming".
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Offline john smith 19

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NGL uses solid motor first and second stages, augmented as needed by solid boosters.  These are "state of the art" solids, with better mass fractions and specific impulse numbers than earlier motors.
Can they hit 300secs at Sea level? I rather doubt it.
Quote from: edkyle99
  They offer more thrust per dollar and higher reliability than equivalent liquid boosters.
What liquid boosters? AFAIK the only ones in current use are the Russian hypergol ones on Russian LV's
Quote from: edkyle99
Castor 600 produces almost as much thrust as a Falcon 9 v1.2 first stage, but with far fewer moving parts.  The reliability appeals to me.  So do the simplier launch countdowns. 
They'd better be reliable, given they can't be shut down once they start. The teeth rattling vibration spectrum is rather less appealing, and what they'd do to humans they'll do to hard mounted payloads on top as well.
Quote from: edkyle99
Composite solid propellant motors are actually more "state of the art" than kerosene/LOX liquid rockets, in terms of the sequence of developments.  Redstone, Atlas, Titan 1, Thor, and Jupiter predated Pershing, Minuteman and Polaris.
IOW they make great weapon systems.  No one doubts that. Liquid fueled ICBM's are only for wannabe world powers etc.

However how does this relate to ULA, which is the subject of this thread? Arianespace may have abandoned their "mostly solid" A6 concept and stayed liquid for the cores but I don't see ULA switching horses.

Bruno is not going to wake up tomorrow and say "This Methane Lox thing is just too big a PITA. We're going to scrap it and go with a huge solid for the booster"
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Online LouScheffer

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People here tend to dis SMART, but at a basic level it's no different than SpaceX's fairing recovery.  What seems more damning to me is that ULA itself is not taking it seriously.   If they were out there blowing test boosters apart to see if they could get clean separation with acceptable shock levels, trying out aerodynamic decelerators, and testing big parachutes and recovery helicoptors/boats, then I'd feel they could still be in the mix in the 2020s.   But if they wait and add it on later, it will be a few years later yet due to the later start, plus extra engineering to add recovery in, and the inevitable necessary changes could compromise certification.   

3 years to a competitive system would be OK.  6 years, as I'd guess if they retrofit SMART later, seems like too much.

Online meekGee

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People here tend to dis SMART, but at a basic level it's no different than SpaceX's fairing recovery.  What seems more damning to me is that ULA itself is not taking it seriously.   If they were out there blowing test boosters apart to see if they could get clean separation with acceptable shock levels, trying out aerodynamic decelerators, and testing big parachutes and recovery helicoptors/boats, then I'd feel they could still be in the mix in the 2020s.   But if they wait and add it on later, it will be a few years later yet due to the later start, plus extra engineering to add recovery in, and the inevitable necessary changes could compromise certification.   

3 years to a competitive system would be OK.  6 years, as I'd guess if they retrofit SMART later, seems like too much.

The reason for "dissing" SMART (for first stages) is not because it's impossible - it's (exactly as you say) very similar to fairing recovery, whether by helicopter or by boat.

The "dissing" comes from the fact that all you get back are engines. They may be the most expensive part of the stack, but building new tanks, and then re-assembling the first stage - this pales in comparison to "land, refuel, re-fly".

SMART, as applied to a second stage, and assuming second stage recovery is too expensive, can make sense - but that's true irrespective of what is done with the first stage.
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Online TrevorMonty

Getting payloads to LEO on RLVs is only half picture, to really open up space especially BLEO. Reusable OTVs are needed along with fuel depots, ideally supplied from ISRU. ULA are addressing the OTV with ACES.

ULA future may be as pure space transport company, leaving others to handle earth-LEO leg.

Offline envy887

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The implications are less than clear to me.  Falcon Heavy, if successfully developed, gives up an awful lot to recover its boosters.  That big rocket can only boost 8 tonnes to GTO in that mode.  Vulcan can do that with basically one-third as much rocket.

~1/3 by mass, but ~2x by cost. Which is more relevant here?

Offline Patchouli

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Getting payloads to LEO on RLVs is only half picture, to really open up space especially BLEO. Reusable OTVs are needed along with fuel depots, ideally supplied from ISRU. ULA are addressing the OTV with ACES.

ULA future may be as pure space transport company, leaving others to handle earth-LEO leg.

An OTV would simplify the mission requires of a launch vehicle considerably.



~1/3 by mass, but ~2x by cost. Which is more relevant here?

The actual operating cost of the two vehicles remains to be seen though Falcon heavy should definitely be the cheaper of the two.
But Centaur and ACES esp with IVF are capable of more restarts and longer autonomous operation time than the F9 upper stage so Vulcan would be better at multiple payloads that need to be in slightly different orbits.
This should make it easier to get enough payloads to allow launching a Vulcan with a full payload then it would be for Falcon Heavy so ULA may have a solid business case with it.
« Last Edit: 01/02/2018 02:06 am by Patchouli »

Offline Coastal Ron

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The implications are less than clear to me.  Falcon Heavy, if successfully developed, gives up an awful lot to recover its boosters.  That big rocket can only boost 8 tonnes to GTO in that mode.  Vulcan can do that with basically one-third as much rocket.

~1/3 by mass, but ~2x by cost. Which is more relevant here?
Cost and reliability and performance.

Reliability, as far as SpaceX is concerned, is a given. The market has already determined that SpaceX having accidents is not a reason to cancel existing launch contracts, or avoid new ones, and an accident-free 2017 was confirmation of their confidence.

Quote
Cost is determined in large part by reliability.

Cost is determined by the approach used to satisfy a customer demand. Reliability is a factor, but so is overall price to the customer.

Plus, a service provider can spend too much on "reliability". And for the commercial launch industry, 100% reliability is not assumed.

Quote
Falcon Heavy intends to compete by flying a much larger rocket that requires low cost recovery and reuse of the first stages to make it pay, sacrificing much potential performance in the trade.

You keep looking at the Falcon Heavy from a non-customer standpoint, whereas potential customers are looking at the SpaceX pricing page that says Falcon Heavy can move "up to 8.0mt to GTO" for $90M.

Quote
It is a more complex machine than Vulcan.

You're telling me that the Vulcan SMART system will be less complex than what SpaceX does?  :o

Quote
Vulcan sacrifices no performance, is single core even for Heavy missions, offers vertical integration, etc.

A. If Falcon Heavy can do the job, then it doesn't matter what extra performance Vulcan has.
B. The customer does not care how many "cores" there are, especially since you could count SRM's as "cores".
C. Vertical integration is a useless metric for commercial customers, and that is what ULA needs more of.

Quote
In all likelihood, both will win missions, find niches, etc., but it isn't clear to me which will cost less in the end.

As of today what we know is that if a customer needs to move a 8.0mT or less payload to GTO, that Falcon Heavy will cost less for just the launcher. And from what we've heard about insurance rates, SpaceX merits normal rates.

Compare that to the $99M that Vulcan will cost in it's basic configuration and Falcon Heavy has the customer price advantage.

I have no doubt that ULA can build a safe, reliable launcher, and Vulcan will have advantages for USAF payloads due to ULA's experience and capabilities. But ULA will have to compete with more than Falcon Heavy to win commercial customers. They will also be competing against Falcon 9, Ariane 5/6, Proton and others. ULA needs to find their competitive differentiator that will allow them to hold onto and grow their marketshare - and so far it's not clear what that will be.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline john smith 19

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When I say "liquid booster" I'm using the original, early Space-Age description of a boost stage, which can be a first stage.  The Falcon 9 first stage is a "booster" by this definition. 
By that definition I'd guess that would make the Indian GSLV or the ESA Vega the most advanced ELVs on the planet, give it's GSLV's "booster" stage and the strap ons are are all solid, while both Vega's standard 3 stages are all solid.

https://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega_(rocket)

And yet when NASA was offered the opportunity to support the "Liberty Launcher" they rejected it. The short sighted fools! Then again the company doing the proposing didn't seem to do much with it afterward either.  Not quite so convinced as they seemed perhaps.
Quote from: edkyle99
Shutting down a rocket stage after lift off is a very bad idea, regardless of propellant type. 
Really? I can think of about six Shuttle astronauts who would be alive today if a stage could be shut down and jettisoned when it went bad.  :(
Quote from: edkyle99
Thrust oscillation can be mitigated by design on a newly-designed solid motor launch vehicle, which is NGL.   
Good to know. Hopefully the results of the Ares1-x test will be worth something after all. However unless you have a need to (somehow) support the ICBM motor mfg base the simpler option for customers is to simply not buy launches on solid based LV's.
Quote from: edkyle99
Vulcan uses Castor GEM-63XL solid rocket motors.
As optional components of a launch, not mandatory parts of every vehicle.
« Last Edit: 01/02/2018 07:09 am by john smith 19 »
MCT ITS BFR SS. The worlds first Methane fueled FFSC engined CFRP SS structure A380 sized aerospaceplane tail sitter capable of Earth & Mars atmospheric flight.First flight to Mars by end of 2022 TBC. T&C apply. Trust nothing. Run your own #s "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" R. Simberg."Competitve" means cheaper ¬cheap SCramjet proposed 1956. First +ve thrust 2004. US R&D spend to date > $10Bn. #deployed designs. Zero.

Online TrevorMonty

Where have ULA stated Vulcan price of $99M. Only price I've heard is less than $100M. They are not same thing.


Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Getting payloads to LEO on RLVs is only half picture, to really open up space especially BLEO. Reusable OTVs are needed along with fuel depots, ideally supplied from ISRU. ULA are addressing the OTV with ACES.

ULA future may be as pure space transport company, leaving others to handle earth-LEO leg.

For me this is the key point. I think ULA are well aware that they are potentially too late to the new LV party and understand that the amounts of funding they can realistically access rather limit how far and fast they can go. ACES and what it potentially enables, eg Cislunar 1000 vision, is their innovation bet for the longer-term. My guess is that the minimum reqt for Vulcan, and SMART, is to keep things going long enough to enable a transition to provision of different types of services.

The longer Vulcan flies and is profitable, the better the chances to transition. I think there are scenarios, eg years of Blue Origin delays, where Vulcan could pick up just enough additional launches to make it work. I don't see customers putting all their eggs in the SpaceX basket.

P.S. I'm late to this excellent thread, thanks all for your great - thought provoking - contributions.

Offline woods170

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Can ULA come up with a more effective way to use BO's engines than BO can?
Here is a key question.  Let's think about that.  In order for Vulcan to use BE-4 more efficiently than New Glenn, New Glenn will have to fall short of recovering and re-flying each first stage four times or more, just based on the number of engines needed per flight.  That is a capability that has yet to be demonstrated by anyone.  The necessity of such turn-around numbers is apparent to Blue Origin, of course, because the company is planning on pulling off such achievements.  Plans do not guarantee success.  Approaching eight years into Falcon 9 service, SpaceX has not yet reached that goal.

 - Ed Kyle

Falcon 9 v1.0 was never intended for reuse. SpaceX was only (and unsuccessfully) experimenting with stage recovery, not reuse. You seem to have forgotten that Falcon 9 v1.0 was all about COTS and getting experience in flying a multi-engine booster.
This changed with Falcon v1.1. That one was designed from the start to be successfully recovered and reused.

So really: only 4 years and 3 months (first F9 v1.1 flew September 29, 2013) in service and SpaceX is close to reaching the goal of re-flying a booster more than once.
« Last Edit: 01/02/2018 11:01 am by woods170 »

Offline AncientU

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Where have ULA stated Vulcan price of $99M. Only price I've heard is less than $100M. They are not same thing.

Whatever.  Advertised price for something six or more years into the future is not the same as billed price today either.

The quoted price is for basic Vulcan core plus Centaur III, no solids.  When comparing to FH, need to add six solids and Centaur V... which will basically doubles the price, whether that's 2x $99M or 2x <$100M.

This price also assumed ten launches* per year, half of them commercial.


* I seriously doubt that ULA/Boeing/LockMart would stay in the business with 10x $100M (or less) revenue per year.  This is basically what they were getting from ELC -- for launching nothing.  At these discounted prices, their margin will be quite thin, to say the least.
« Last Edit: 01/02/2018 12:12 pm by AncientU »
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Offline woods170

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Where have ULA stated Vulcan price of $99M. Only price I've heard is less than $100M. They are not same thing.

Whatever.  Advertised price for something six or more years into the future is not the same as billed price today either.

The quoted price is for basic Vulcan core plus Centaur III, no solids.  When comparing to FH, need to add six solids and Centaur V... which will basically doubles the price, whether that's 2x $99M or 2x <$100M.

This price also assumed ten launches* per year, half of them commercial.


* I seriously doubt that ULA/Boeing/LockMart would stay in the business with 10x $100M (or less) revenue per year.  This is basically what they were getting from ELC -- for launching nothing.  At these discounted prices, their margin will be quite thin, to say the least.

Quite. And mind you, ELC is going away. The Atlas portion stops in 2019. The Delta IV portion ends a year later, in 2020. From then on ULA will have to make do the same way SpaceX already does: launch price becomes all-inclusive.

Trouble is that ULA cannot spread the burden thru performing commercial launches. Simply because they don't have commercially competitive vehicles. Which brings us back, full circle, to the business case for Vulcan.

Vulcan better become a commercially attractive vehicle or it will become in-competitive for certain types of NSS launches. And that might just be a threat to the very existence of ULA. Which in turn explains why Bruno has put ULA on a severe diet as well as why he is pushing Vulcan for all he's worth.

Offline envy887

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Where have ULA stated Vulcan price of $99M. Only price I've heard is less than $100M. They are not same thing.

He said $99M for Vulcan, about a year and a half ago:

Quote
ULA is working on a next-generation rocket called Vulcan that will be less expensive to manufacture and fly than its current Atlas booster.

Quote from: Tory Bruno
Our prices are coming down every day, we now talk about a $99 million launch service.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-ula-layoffs/united-launch-alliance-to-lay-off-up-to-875-by-end-of-2017-ceo-idUSKCN0XB2HQ

Offline envy887

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Falcon Heavy intends to compete by flying a much larger rocket that requires low cost recovery and reuse of the first stages to make it pay, sacrificing much potential performance in the trade.

Support this opinion.

SpaceX has emphatically stated many times that reuse is not built into their prices, and I have seen no evidence that Falcon Heavy needs reuse to be profitable at $90M, or that 8.0 tonnes is a hard limit due to reuse instead of a number that covers 100% of the commercial market with ample margins.

It is a more complex machine than Vulcan.  Vulcan sacrifices no performance, is single core even for Heavy missions, offers vertical integration, etc.  In all likelihood, both will win missions, find niches, etc., but it isn't clear to me which will cost less in the end. 

 - Ed Kyle

SMART sacrifices some performance. And the base model Vulcan for $99M can only put ~5 tonnes to GTO. Either Centaur 5 and 1 SRB (or 5 SRBs and Centaur 3) are required to 8 tonnes to GTO. This will at least several million to the cost.

SMART saves 90% of the booster propulsion cost according to ULA. The last contract for RD-180 was $24M per engine, so they can save $22M off a base Atlas V a $109M. This is about 20% off, while SMART reduces payload by around half that.

BE-4 is estimated at $16M, so taking the 90%, $99M, and $16M at face value a SMART launch base Vulcan would be $85M for ~4.5 tonnes to GTO. That is competitive with Ariane 5. To compete with Ariane 6 and Proton (6 or 7 t to GTO) it will need either 2 SRBs or Centaur 5, which likely add some cost.

Any way you cut it, Vulcan either gives up a lot of performance to get competitive cost, or adds a lot of expensive parts to get competitive performance.
« Last Edit: 01/02/2018 02:12 pm by envy887 »

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