Rather than discuss how rockets were priced in the past, perhaps more relevant to Vulcan is how they will be priced when Vulcan is introduced. Here would be my guess:Stock commercial launch (LEO or GTO) = $50M. Everyone will be able to do this, so the most competitive market. Customers are also flexible here, helping their negotiating power.
Government launch (LEO, GPS, comsat-like military satellites) = $100M. There are extra costs for dealing with the government. and not as much competition (SpaceX and ULA for sure, maybe Orbital and/or BO?). Use the recent GPS contract as a guess. You could imagine this is low (SpaceX is underbidding) or high (SpaceX can lower the price with re-use).
High-end government launch = $250M. Custom fairing, vertical integration, extra security, more mission assurance, etc. Guessing here that the government will be willing to pay more per launch here, instead of payments for capability. Their goal would be to get at least two bidders here, to help both reliability (in case of stand-down for one) and eventually help lower costs.
ELC may be the make or break funding.Currently, doesn't ELC sum to around $80-100M per launch?Does it go away completely, or remain as a subsidy for launch capability?Is the $99M basic Vulcan figure all inclusive?
Still, can ULA be the type of profitable company it's corporate parents want by only focusing on the high-end of the market? Tory Bruno has said they need commercial launches in order to be successful, so they have to figure out how to lower that initial base price down far enough to attract commercial customers.Can they? And if so, how?
Costal Ron.Did Tory say $99m or <$100m. There is a difference.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 04/02/2017 10:13 pmStill, can ULA be the type of profitable company it's corporate parents want by only focusing on the high-end of the market? Tory Bruno has said they need commercial launches in order to be successful, so they have to figure out how to lower that initial base price down far enough to attract commercial customers.Can they? And if so, how?SMART re-use is designed to address that, together with rocketbuilder.
Vulcan is the best direction for ULA as it can do. It uses all the fundable strengths, skills and capabilities to support its customer base as they have required. And it can be operated such that those customer expectations can be maintained over concurrent product lines, which is no mean feat.
Having a business plan that relies on the competition failing is never a good sign.
Quote from: Dante80 on 04/03/2017 12:16 amQuote from: Coastal Ron on 04/02/2017 10:13 pmStill, can ULA be the type of profitable company it's corporate parents want by only focusing on the high-end of the market? Tory Bruno has said they need commercial launches in order to be successful, so they have to figure out how to lower that initial base price down far enough to attract commercial customers.Can they? And if so, how?SMART re-use is designed to address that, together with rocketbuilder.SMART is more of an untested technique than what either SpaceX or Blue Origin are already doing, and it addresses far less of the total cost of a rocket. So I don't know how that would allow them to meet, or even beat, the prices of reusable rocket companies.As to RocketBuilder, I put in a configuration for LEO with a 5m short fairing, and this is how they priced it:Unmatched Reliability = $12MSchedule Certainty = $23MOrbit Optimization = $30MCost after added value = $55MTotal = $120MFor Vulcan, when it eventually becomes operational, they won't be able to justify $12M for "unmatched reliability" because it will obviously be a new transportation system that will need years to prove it's reliability. And it's a distinct possibility at that point that Falcon 9 will be able to claim the mantel of "unmatched reliability" (or someone else), so justifying a surcharge of $12M will be difficult.For "schedule certainty", that is obviously playing off the recent events that have hobbled SpaceX, but so far that has not caused a flood of customers to leave SpaceX, so that apparently is not a deciding factor as of today. Plus, and this is probably the more important point, with reusable systems and fast turnaround, schedule certainty is more likely to happen. And with Vulcan being new they can't really make that claim either, since they won't have enough history to back up such a claim - especially if they are charging $23M for it.I'm not a rocket scientist, so I don't know how valid a claim the "orbit optimization" charge is, but since fuel is such a small part of the cost of a rocket I'd have to think that this won't be a competitive difference when Vulcan becomes operational. It would be worth $30M to their competitors to solve this, so that's a lot of incentive.And Rocketbuilder does not lower the cost of using a Vulcan, it only explains it in a public forum. But customers today would get a much more detailed breakout of their costs (and ULA's justifications for them) than what Rocketbuilder can provide, so I think this is more of a marketing gimmick than something of value.A reusable Falcon 9 is going to be in the range of $50M or less, so how will a $99M Vulcan compete?This is why I don't see a profitable path forward for ULA unless they build a fully reusable 1st stage...
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 04/02/2017 11:06 pmCostal Ron.Did Tory say $99m or <$100m. There is a difference.What Wikipedia references is:United Launch Alliance to lay off up to 875 by end of 2017: CEO | ReutersRelevant 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."Our prices are coming down every day," Bruno said. "We now talk about a $99 million launch service."
Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 04/03/2017 02:11 amVulcan is the best direction for ULA as it can do. It uses all the fundable strengths, skills and capabilities to support its customer base as they have required. And it can be operated such that those customer expectations can be maintained over concurrent product lines, which is no mean feat.ULA today can afford to just focus on their primary customer, since it provides the vast majority of their profit.But Tory Bruno has stated that they will need commercial customers for Vulcan, and unfortunately the needs of the commercial marketplace in the 2020's will be different than what the government marketplace is today for them.So how do they satisfy two different customer marketplaces with one product/service?
Let's assume SpaceX does not lower the price...it is already one of the lowest price leaders but keeps it at $62m. Vulcan is competitive in the govt contracts -- SpaceX just bid $90+m. On the commercial side -unless customers are paying $90 million for a fully expendable f9 why would I go to ULA? Don't forget ULA will also be competing with BO.
Tough to find the correct place to put this, but it does relate to cost-cutting for the RL-10 that could see it being used on ACES. AJR tests full scale 3D printed thrust chamber:http://spaceref.biz/company/aerojet-rocketdyne-tests-full-scale-rl10-3-d-prine-copper-thrust-chamber-assembly.html
Quote from: jongoff on 04/02/2017 04:57 amQuote from: spacenut on 04/01/2017 02:52 pmSeems like they would need a minimum of 5 engines on the core to use the middle engine for throttling down to land a booster. 5 engines is close to New Glenn. Otherwise, they could use the old RS-27 or H-1 engine from Saturn I and Delta II on a larger core like SpaceX. They are going to eventually have to get away from the Russian engines. Newer engines being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin are metholox engines at around 500,000 lbs + thrust. I don't know if they have even started on the AR-1, and it is also a 500k thrust engine.They can also go with smaller landing engines. Ursa Major and Masten are both working on LOX/Methane engines in the 25klbf class (staged combustion for Ursa and expander cycle for Masten). There's nothing that says you have to use all the same engine size, especially if there are other customers for that engine size to keep the production rates up.~JonHow much thrust would Vulcan need for landing burn ie how many 25k engines would be needed. Deorbit burn could be done by BE4s.
Quote from: spacenut on 04/01/2017 02:52 pmSeems like they would need a minimum of 5 engines on the core to use the middle engine for throttling down to land a booster. 5 engines is close to New Glenn. Otherwise, they could use the old RS-27 or H-1 engine from Saturn I and Delta II on a larger core like SpaceX. They are going to eventually have to get away from the Russian engines. Newer engines being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin are metholox engines at around 500,000 lbs + thrust. I don't know if they have even started on the AR-1, and it is also a 500k thrust engine.They can also go with smaller landing engines. Ursa Major and Masten are both working on LOX/Methane engines in the 25klbf class (staged combustion for Ursa and expander cycle for Masten). There's nothing that says you have to use all the same engine size, especially if there are other customers for that engine size to keep the production rates up.~Jon
Seems like they would need a minimum of 5 engines on the core to use the middle engine for throttling down to land a booster. 5 engines is close to New Glenn. Otherwise, they could use the old RS-27 or H-1 engine from Saturn I and Delta II on a larger core like SpaceX. They are going to eventually have to get away from the Russian engines. Newer engines being developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin are metholox engines at around 500,000 lbs + thrust. I don't know if they have even started on the AR-1, and it is also a 500k thrust engine.