Orion Costs

[DaveH62]

If Orion is returning from deep space, besides the Moon, what happens to the habitation module that would be needed for a Mars or even asteroid mission? Is that disposable too? Seems like some braking is needed or your costs go much higher.

If you dispose of the habitation module each time then its cost is part of the total mission cost, but that doesn't make it part of Orion costs!

Unless ... what if that hab module were another Orion? Then it would have plenty of aerobraking capability to allow capture into the Earth-Moon system for potential reuse. And the commonality between the two Orions would lower overall program costs. As a bonus, if the prime Orion suffered a major failure the hab Orion might provide the crew with a contingency reentry vehicle!

So 2-6 months no room as big as any module on ISS. Sleep in your seat. Can they ever stand up straight? No bathing and about 2-4bn, assuming each Orion is 750mn-1bn and the SLS launch. That excludes mission planning or Orion or SLS dev. And you can't land on anything, except an asteroid, cause you don't have a reusable rocket (required for planetary landing and return).
I keep hoping to understand what can be done with this architecture. No hab module for long term living. No option for low gravity. Can't land on anything bigger than a boulder-not even Phobos, which could make a mars trip worthwhile.
People can complain about lack of a mission, but there is little that can be done with the components planned so far and based on costs and calendars, nothing in queue for 20 + years.
Please correct me, but I am not understanding.

[sdsds]

No mobile phone coverage; no cable tv; no pizza delivery. Life during the return leg of a mission beyond the Moon is going to suck!

Seriously though, none of us are much thrilled with the short term prospects, but can you explain the alternatives you would prefer? More funding? That would be great! Somehow doing more with this same amount of funding? That would be great too. But ... just exactly how could either of those be accomplished? Are you suggesting Orion and its cost (and funding) structure are part of the problem? Supporters see Orion's ability to get funded as part of a solution....

[kkattula]

...
I keep hoping to understand what can be done with this architecture. No hab module for long term living. No option for low gravity. Can't land on anything bigger than a boulder-not even Phobos, which could make a mars trip worthwhile.

For landing purposes, Phobos is just a medium sized asteroid. Escape velocity of only 11.3 m/s (40 kph). I think an Orion with minimal mods could handle that!

People can complain about lack of a mission, but there is little that can be done with the components planned so far and based on costs and calendars, nothing in queue for 20 + years.
Please correct me, but I am not understanding.

Look as the L2 Gateway proposal.  It re-purposes spare ISS and other components with little development needed.

All it needs for interplanetary missions is more propulsion and an extra module for more supplies.

The lander is the missing component for planetary surface missions, and there's a fair bit of preliminary R & D being done on that and other surface systems, if not an active development program.

[93143]

about 2-4bn, assuming each Orion is 750mn-1bn and the SLS launch.

Sloppy math.  An extra Orion is only about $150M, as far as I can tell.  And the other numbers depend strongly on flight rate because they're mostly fixed costs.

Not a fan of the tandem-Orion idea myself...

People can complain about lack of a mission, but there is little that can be done with the components planned so far and based on costs and calendars, nothing in queue for 20 + years.
Please correct me, but I am not understanding.

Politics.  Why do you think Shannon's architecture study has yet to see the light of day?

On the other hand, there are problems with queueing stuff more than about one political cycle ahead.  We don't have the budget to develop everything all at once, and if we start something high-profile under one president, it had better be well along by the time the next president shows up or it will be cancelled, absent really solid political support.

There are, however, unmanned lunar landers under low-level development, and at least one (Morpheus) is fairly large and internal to NASA, and is reportedly being used to train new engineers.

[DaveH62]

HEFT priced Orion at $840M per unit. See page 69 (it is called the CTV-Ascent/Entry). So the price of $1B that Scotty mentioned above doesn't seem unrealistic especially if it doesn't launch very often.

This is from this thread. It doesnt sound like anyone really knows. Perhaps marginal costs will be much lower, but if it only launches on SLS or even DH4 there isn't free cash flow to fund in a zero growth NASA budget, which is likely for the next decade+.
Great if the cost comes in at 10-15% of estimates. If anyone has some solid info on prices to NASA it would help to have informed insider data.
As to "can we do more with less and queue more up in a shorter time frame? There are other threads with that seem to imply more for less is extremely plausible.
Re Phobos landing, that would be awesome. Return samples, set up higher speed communication relays maybe coordinated delivery of a rover controlled by from Phobos. Still need a hab module and maybe one that could land on Phobos with your capsule and a return booster.

[Lars_J]

Seriously though, none of us are much thrilled with the short term prospects, but can you explain the alternatives you would prefer? More funding? That would be great! Somehow doing more with this same amount of funding? That would be great too. But ... just exactly how could either of those be accomplished? Are you suggesting Orion and its cost (and funding) structure are part of the problem? Supporters see Orion's ability to get funded as part of a solution....

I can only speak for myself - but the NASA funding level does not have to change. The funds just have to be spent better. Orion is certainly part of the problem (not worth its near $20 billion development cost) although it will at least provide BEO capability. Keep Orion, but slim its budget. But the big source of funding that should be reallocated is *SLS*. Cancel SLS, give those contractors involved new contracts for in-space hardware like habitats and landers. Use existing or near future launch vehicles (Atlas V phase II/III or FH) instead to launch missions.

[93143]

HEFT priced Orion at $840M per unit. See page 69 (it is called the CTV-Ascent/Entry). So the price of $1B that Scotty mentioned above doesn't seem unrealistic especially if it doesn't launch very often.

I don't know if you noticed, but that was at one launch every three years.

I think there were costs not included in that (the more recent ESD Integration budget scenarios document had MPCV at more than $900M per year after the development bump, with one launch per year, although their numbers look like inflation was added), but I am almost totally certain that it wasn't the incremental unit cost.

Do you understand the distinction between fixed cost and incremental costs?

If you're already paying to have Orion capability (several hundred million even with no production), two spacecraft in a certain time frame is not going to cost $840M more than one spacecraft in the same time frame.  It's going to cost something like $150M more.

...

@Lars_J:  You do realize that basically all of Orion's budget and schedule problems as of two years ago were due to Ares I?  And that the remaining development budget is so high because they're slowing down development to fit in a flat budget and not outpace SLS?  Orion isn't part of the problem, but it's definitely close enough to the problem to get hurt...

Also, if I'm not mistaken $20B is a little high...

[yg1968]

HEFT priced Orion at $840M per unit. See page 69 (it is called the CTV-Ascent/Entry). So the price of $1B that Scotty mentioned above doesn't seem unrealistic especially if it doesn't launch very often.

I think there were costs not included in that (the more recent ESD Integration budget scenarios document had MPCV at more than $900M per year after the development bump, with one launch per year, although their numbers look like inflation was added), but I am almost totally certain that it wasn't the incremental unit cost.

Here is the link to the August 2011 ESD integration budget:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=38348

[yg1968]

Does that $1B price also include the SM?

As I understand it, most of it is fixed costs, just maintaining the capability to build and fly Orions from year to year.  The actual hardware is not that expensive - maybe $150M for the whole thing - so if the flight rate went up, the cost per unit would come down rapidly.

That cost almost certainly includes the SM, though the SM is less complicated than the CM and should therefore be less expensive.

Perhaps but according to Scotty's post, it seems that the contract says $1B per unit. To the extent that SLS only flies every other year, this change in contract may actually have been a "good deal" for NASA.  Although LM would probably be free to increase the price for future flights if not enough Orions are purchased by NASA. 

[DaveH62]

Does that $1B price also include the SM?

As I understand it, most of it is fixed costs, just maintaining the capability to build and fly Orions from year to year.  The actual hardware is not that expensive - maybe $150M for the whole thing - so if the flight rate went up, the cost per unit would come down rapidly.

That cost almost certainly includes the SM, though the SM is less complicated than the CM and should therefore be less expensive.

Perhaps but according to Scotty's post, it seems that the contract says $1B per unit. To the extent that SLS only flies every other year, this change in contract may actually have been a "good deal" for NASA.  Although LM would probabaly be free to increase the price for future flights if not enough Orions are purchased by NASA. 

So 1bn is a "not less then" cost? With that we get no deep space hab module or booster system, so really still have no architecture to go beyond lunar orbit, or a very near earth asteroid? With a zero based budget and no new free cash flow until the Webb Telescope is complete, no funding to fill in the architecture for a mission based architecture until at least 2017? Though I do understand many of the architecture gaps are in high level review stages.
Is there a thread addressing architecture gaps for a deep space mission based on SLS/Orion plans? I did see someone reference moving the ISS to L2, but I thought that concept had been thoroughly debunked in many prior threads.

[93143]

Scotty's post says "for the first batch".  That probably assumes a flight rate similar to that planned, which isn't very high.

It doesn't invalidate my point.  NASA isn't particularly hands-off with Orion and they weren't born yesterday; if LM tried to gouge them on this spacecraft they'd know about it.  Besides, government contracts usually specify a maximum allowed profit margin, and it isn't generally very high.

[yg1968]

Scotty's post says "for the first batch".  That probably assumes a flight rate similar to that planned, which isn't very high.

It doesn't invalidate my point.  NASA isn't particularly hands-off with Orion and they weren't born yesterday; if LM tried to gouge them on this spacecraft they'd know about it.  Besides, government contracts usually specify a maximum allowed profit margin, and it isn't generally very high.

I wasn't trying to invalidate your point. I suppose that the first batch possibly means the first three Orion flights (2014, 2017 and 2021).

[93143]

So 1bn is a "not less then" cost? With that we get no deep space hab module or booster system, so really still have no architecture to go beyond lunar orbit, or a very near earth asteroid? With a zero based budget and no new free cash flow until the Webb Telescope is complete, no funding to fill in the architecture for a mission based architecture until at least 2017? Though I do understand many of the architecture gaps are in high level review stages.
Is there a thread addressing architecture gaps for a deep space mission based on SLS/Orion plans? I did see someone reference moving the ISS to L2, but I thought that concept had been thoroughly debunked in many prior threads.

I'm starting to get annoyed.  Countering the Orion=$1B meme is like trying to stop a train...  That number is only for the first batch, it's not known yet (hearsay), and in principle depends strongly on flight rate, which is currently "planned" to be way lower than it should be.

Also, I suspect that a lot of the several hundred million per year in fixed cost is probably NASA-side costs.  LM wouldn't be charging that.  I don't see that ~$1B per unit at a flight rate of one every three years is necessarily a discount.

In the context of the dual-Orion mission, if you're talking about replacing a DSH with another Orion, NASA should know what they're doing far enough in advance that the additional Orion only costs them about $150M over and above what they're already paying, and then they save the cost of the DSH.  Talking about 'billions' in this context is grossly misleading.

...

It's not the ISS that's being moved; it's ISS technology that's being used in both the L2 gateway station and the deep space habitat module.  Neither of which is on the official path right now, but that's not the fault of SLS.

The SEV, on the other hand, is being worked; it's envisioned for use as an asteroid exploration vehicle, a pressurized planetary rover, maybe even a planetary lander crew cabin.

And NASA is working on multiple small unmanned landers, as is private industry.  When the call comes to build a manned planetary lander - and if SLS/Orion can manage to not get cancelled, the call will come - it will not be a question of 'who can build this?', but rather 'who should build this?'...

[DaveH62]

Thanks. If the 150mn holds for additional Orion's after the first three you'd have an affordable tool for BEO.
Very much looking forward to other components to an exploration system.

[Lars_J]

In the context of the dual-Orion mission, if you're talking about replacing a DSH with another Orion, NASA should know what they're doing far enough in advance that the additional Orion only costs them about $150M over and above what they're already paying, and then they save the cost of the DSH.  Talking about 'billions' in this context is grossly misleading.

It is also a gross case of wishful thinking if you think that NASA can just order another Orion as a DSH for an actual cost of $150m. $1b per spacecraft may be on the high side, but I think it is safe to say that it is going to be closer to $1b than $150m for additional Orions.