Some captures from the presentation.NASA. We don't think we could have lost another one. We have contingency supplies. For CRS-2 its about the same. A little more oversight for reliability and launching on time. A lot of complaints of the delays which is a big cost expense for the payloads. Station was prepared. Commercial payloads hurt more. Redundancy in CRS2. We did not overbuy. Capability to add missions if we need to. Launch on need capability. Bring up another vehicle quickly. Right now go with the missions we have if everything went according to plan. Have an ability to surge.
AW&ST article says NASA will spend up to $14B for 18 CRS2 flights over nine years. That works out to $778M per mission or $1.56B a year! That's not much of a saving compared to the Space Shuttle, with much less capability."NASA says it will spend up to $14 billion between 2016 and 2024 for a total of 18 CRS-2 missions split between SpaceX, Orbital ATK and newcomer Sierra Nevada Corp., which expects to debut its Dream Chaser spaceplane in late 2020."http://aviationweek.com/space-symposium/spacex-dragon-cargo-ship-en-route-space-station
The question is, how much does NASA save flying minimum cost missions? I think its a pretty good bet that NASA will make the maximum use of each mission, flying the most amount of cargo up and down, external and internal. So those 18 missions will be flying at maximum average cost. So the variation comes in those two extra missions. If we assume an optimistic $200M for those cheaper missions (probably from SpaceX) that gives a total cost of 18*700+2*200 = $13B. It still looks like each mission is going to be very expensive, at an average cost of $650M to $700M each!
Yes, its not exactly clear what the cost will be when all we know is the minimum number of missions and the maximum cost! From this paragraph, the total cost seems to depend on which mission types are ordered."While the maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion from 2016 through 2024, NASA will order missions, as needed, and the total prices paid under the contract will depend on which mission types are ordered."Page 9 in the link below shows four CRS2 missions per fiscal year, from FY2020 (which begins in October 2019, as indicated by the press release which says CRS 2 missions will start in late 2019). As the $14B is to 2024 (FY2024 ends in September 2024), that gives a period of five years, or a total of 4x5 = 20 missions (two more than the minimum of 18). As that is the number of missions that is expected to be flown, and assuming the most expensive option is chosen for each mission, that gives a maximum average cost per flight of $700M per mission.https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa_fy_2019_budget_overview.pdfThe question is, how much does NASA save flying minimum cost missions? I think its a pretty good bet that NASA will make the maximum use of each mission, flying the most amount of cargo up and down, external and internal. So those 18 missions will be flying at maximum average cost. So the variation comes in those two extra missions. If we assume an optimistic $200M for those cheaper missions (probably from SpaceX) that gives a total cost of 18*700+2*200 = $13B. It still looks like each mission is going to be very expensive, at an average cost of $650M to $700M each!
Page 9 in the link below shows four CRS2 missions per fiscal year, from FY2020 (which begins in October 2019, as indicated by the press release which says CRS 2 missions will start in late 2019).
As the $14B is to 2024 (FY2024 ends in September 2024), that gives a period of five years
Yes, its not exactly clear what the cost will be when all we know is the minimum number of missions and the maximum cost!
From this paragraph, the total cost seems to depend on which mission types are ordered."While the maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion from 2016 through 2024, NASA will order missions, as needed, and the total prices paid under the contract will depend on which mission types are ordered."
The question is, how much does NASA save flying minimum cost missions?
The bottom line is really what would happen if SpaceX was not available to fly CRS missions? What would NASA do?Which at this point would pretty much shut down all physical science output from the ISS, since Dragon is the only vehicle that can return significant cargo to Earth. They could buy extra Soyuz to use as cargo vehicles, so maybe that is one point of comparison, but otherwise the value of the ISS would be greatly diminished.
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 04/05/2018 07:12 amYes, its not exactly clear what the cost will be when all we know is the minimum number of missions and the maximum cost! From this paragraph, the total cost seems to depend on which mission types are ordered."While the maximum potential value of all contracts is $14 billion from 2016 through 2024, NASA will order missions, as needed, and the total prices paid under the contract will depend on which mission types are ordered."Page 9 in the link below shows four CRS2 missions per fiscal year, from FY2020 (which begins in October 2019, as indicated by the press release which says CRS 2 missions will start in late 2019). As the $14B is to 2024 (FY2024 ends in September 2024), that gives a period of five years, or a total of 4x5 = 20 missions (two more than the minimum of 18). As that is the number of missions that is expected to be flown, and assuming the most expensive option is chosen for each mission, that gives a maximum average cost per flight of $700M per mission.https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nasa_fy_2019_budget_overview.pdfThe question is, how much does NASA save flying minimum cost missions? I think its a pretty good bet that NASA will make the maximum use of each mission, flying the most amount of cargo up and down, external and internal. So those 18 missions will be flying at maximum average cost. So the variation comes in those two extra missions. If we assume an optimistic $200M for those cheaper missions (probably from SpaceX) that gives a total cost of 18*700+2*200 = $13B. It still looks like each mission is going to be very expensive, at an average cost of $650M to $700M each!Your analysis does not support the bolded statement. You are making assumptions that determine a strict upper maximum, which is not even anywhere close to reality. Actually, it is worse than that, because the way you accounted for missions being cheaper doesn't make sense and assumes the answer.Looking historically at CRS missions and the upcoming plan, they have averaged 4-5 per year. Assuming 5 per year, that would be 25 missions, 7 more than the minimum in the contracts. To give themselves maximum flexibility NASA would have given each of the providers all of those extra missions as an option, or 13 per provider, 39 total. This comes to $359M per mission maximum, and that is for the full costs of every add-on option to every mission. The actual cost per mission would probably be at least 10% less than this (probably no single mission would be a maximum cost one anyway, because that would involve different payloads that need every type of special late load, quick return, mission assurance and whatever other options may exist at the same time.)Looking at CRS 1 prices, this $325M per mission is at least starting to sound plausible, but it likely is still an overestimate. There are lots of ways to change the assumptions I used, but at least unlike your methods, I came to something that actually may have some relation to reality. For an example of the sensitivity of my analysis, lets adjust the contract length to 5.5 years, which is probably a better estimate anyway. Rounding up to 28 missions, because you can't be short on supplies, that gives an estimate of about $292M per full cost mission, and $262M actual. The real problem is that we have no clue the maximum mission number in each contract, but it is probably a lot just so they can handle different scenarios.
Quote from: Coastal Ron on 04/05/2018 04:21 pmThe bottom line is really what would happen if SpaceX was not available to fly CRS missions? What would NASA do?Which at this point would pretty much shut down all physical science output from the ISS, since Dragon is the only vehicle that can return significant cargo to Earth. They could buy extra Soyuz to use as cargo vehicles, so maybe that is one point of comparison, but otherwise the value of the ISS would be greatly diminished.Dream Chaser is planned to also fill that role.
This paper estimates a total cost of $405M for SpaceX crewed missions and $654M for Boeing crewed missions (including launch, ground support, and mission support). Not sure how much of that goes directly to the launch provider/vehicle operator.https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008895.pdf
Similarly, in CRS 2 Orbital ATK announced that the additional award was for “six initial cargo missions, valued at about $1.2-$1.5 billion.” The cost per flight here, at $200M-$250M per flight for Cygnus, again compares favorably with the original awards in 2008. The original award to Orbital ATK in 2008 was for $238M a flight, which adjusted for inflation alone would be $284M a flight in 2017. Again, the cost to NASA for acquiring these services for delivering cargo to the ISS has indications of cost growth less than inflation
Quote from: gongora on 04/05/2018 04:26 pmDream Chaser is planned to also fill that role.Yes, and that will be good. But it's not here yet, and the CRS2 contract was negotiated assuming only existing providers were available.
Dream Chaser is planned to also fill that role.
SpaceX & Boeing Crew will have up & down mass which we dont know if that will be apart of CRS2 or Crew contract. Boeing could also provide cargo capsule as well, which could be ISS follow on after ISS is retired.
