Anyone ever saw a price quote for M1C/M1D turbo pumps or cares to make an educated guess?
Saw an interesting interview with Andrew Nelson from XcorThe guys claims rocket turbo pumps cost between $500k and $2M. Anyone ever saw a price quote for M1C/M1D turbo pumps or cares to make an educated guess?
The FASTRAC pump, which is physically very similar to SpaceX Merlin pumps, cost about $320K, with a projected learning curve reduction to $196K. I would expect current 1D pumps to cost perhaps $150K fully burdened.
Quote from: krytek on 03/31/2013 04:40 pmSaw an interesting interview with Andrew Nelson from XcorThe guys claims rocket turbo pumps cost between $500k and $2M. Anyone ever saw a price quote for M1C/M1D turbo pumps or cares to make an educated guess?The FASTRAC pump, which is physically very similar to SpaceX Merlin pumps, cost about $320K, with a projected learning curve reduction to $196K. I would expect current 1D pumps to cost perhaps $150K fully burdened.
Quote from: HMXHMX on 03/31/2013 07:28 pmQuote from: krytek on 03/31/2013 04:40 pmSaw an interesting interview with Andrew Nelson from XcorThe guys claims rocket turbo pumps cost between $500k and $2M. Anyone ever saw a price quote for M1C/M1D turbo pumps or cares to make an educated guess?The FASTRAC pump, which is physically very similar to SpaceX Merlin pumps, cost about $320K, with a projected learning curve reduction to $196K. I would expect current 1D pumps to cost perhaps $150K fully burdened.From my understanding I thought that only M1C and earlier pumps were made by Barber-Nichols. Would not this imply a significant price drop considering SpaceX traded into developing the M1D turbo in-house?
Quote from: mlindner on 03/31/2013 09:24 pmQuote from: HMXHMX on 03/31/2013 07:28 pmQuote from: krytek on 03/31/2013 04:40 pmSaw an interesting interview with Andrew Nelson from XcorThe guys claims rocket turbo pumps cost between $500k and $2M. Anyone ever saw a price quote for M1C/M1D turbo pumps or cares to make an educated guess?The FASTRAC pump, which is physically very similar to SpaceX Merlin pumps, cost about $320K, with a projected learning curve reduction to $196K. I would expect current 1D pumps to cost perhaps $150K fully burdened.From my understanding I thought that only M1C and earlier pumps were made by Barber-Nichols. Would not this imply a significant price drop considering SpaceX traded into developing the M1D turbo in-house?I have no insight into SpaceX costs, or how they account for the unit cost of an article. These figures are from the late 1990s, from NASA MSFC. B-N was the vendor at the time. Since SpaceX's production rate will be much, much higher, a lower cost per unit is likely.
are there any special materials used in their construction as in turbine blades? Or are they usually made out of a single material type for the entire turbopump?Basically what I'm trying to get at is what components are the main cost drivers inside a turbopump? What makes it so much more expensive than say a turbopump used in high performance cars?
How reusable was the FASTRAC pump?
Quote from: QuantumG on 03/31/2013 10:52 pmHow reusable was the FASTRAC pump?Highly reusable; the engine had a ablative liner to be replaced between flights on the X-34 demonstrator.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_X-34
The turbopump had no ablative material inside.The turbopump was deemed highly reusable hardware.By the way, far heavier than merlin TP.
Quote from: MP99 on 03/24/2013 07:28 pmClipped from http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/awst/2011/08/08/AW_08_08_2011_p27-354586.xml&headline=SpaceX%20Plans%20To%20Be%20Top%20World%20Rocket%20Maker&channel=defense, Aug 2011:-This URL is broken. Goes to "Page Not Found"
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