Quote from: woods170 on 02/17/2018 09:01 amCorrect. With this latest development AR-1 is basically out of the engine competition for Vulcan. BE-4 is therefore the only remaining option and thus automatically becomes the highest risk, long lead item to Vulcan.BE-4 always was the long pole... thus the discussion on Twitter last week about 2023 as first year Vulcan carries NSS payloads in on industry observer's estimation. Only thing that would be later, more expensive, and with a dimmer future is waiting for AR-1. Seems that AJR has passed on the crown of industry leader.
Correct. With this latest development AR-1 is basically out of the engine competition for Vulcan. BE-4 is therefore the only remaining option and thus automatically becomes the highest risk, long lead item to Vulcan.
Unlikely.The only thing ULA wins by making the decision official is a lot of scrutiny and political problems.With this weeks news I think that there are two likely triggers left: ARJD officially folds AR-1, or BE-4 completes the test stand program. (The one decided upon at the beginning of the cooperation.)The moment ULA selects BE-4 politicians will demand answers. Highly distracting and expensive too. Why preempt that step if the unfavored option seems to be falling apart without outside influence?
Quote from: joek on 02/16/2018 10:22 pmDo you really think they are in a position to compete with Blue or SpaceX? Aerojet Rocketdyne is earning hundreds of millions (profits) each year and has a roughly $4.5 billion backlog. Blue likely hasn't earned a dime to date. Whether SpaceX has recorded any real profits so far is doubtful, given the billions they've had to spend developing rockets, landing technology, etc., and paying those 6,000 workers. If these companies want to lose money or barely break even launching stuff into space, Aerojet Rocketdyne would probably be happy to let them, because it means more satellite thruster sales.Meanwhile, AJRD has RS-25 and RL-10 and maybe new AJ-10 for Orion, along with a lot of other little thruster things most of us don't know about, and missile motors, and fewer workers.
Do you really think they are in a position to compete with Blue or SpaceX?
Quote from: Rocket Jesus on 02/14/2018 04:14 pmWith all due respect since i love reading your insight on NSF, I'd say that's very relevant for this topic. If ULA downselects to an engine or uses tech which they don't have IP rights, they're in some deep dung. AR would 100% sue a company using its IP to launch a rocket. Given Bezos track record on the patent (specifically concerning rocket landings on barges), I wouldn't put it past BLUE to do the same if it fit their interests.IP rights are crucial for ULA here and in the future.ULA has never had IP rights. ULA buys the hardware from the supplier, who retains the IP. The issue was ULA has "little engine development expertise". ULA has people that have supported engine development in the past, even though they don't do it themselves. Also, as a smart buyer, ULA has engine experts.
With all due respect since i love reading your insight on NSF, I'd say that's very relevant for this topic. If ULA downselects to an engine or uses tech which they don't have IP rights, they're in some deep dung. AR would 100% sue a company using its IP to launch a rocket. Given Bezos track record on the patent (specifically concerning rocket landings on barges), I wouldn't put it past BLUE to do the same if it fit their interests.IP rights are crucial for ULA here and in the future.
Quote from: edkyle99 on 02/16/2018 08:50 pmQuote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 02/16/2018 08:27 pmAnd AJR can't afford to finish AR-1, so "buy my mostly dead, over extended company", no matter what govt lobbyist/contracts can do.Thriving, actually. I would so love to compare AJRD's financials with those of Blue Origin. - Ed KyleYou didn't include the huge debt and worthless equity.
Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 02/16/2018 08:27 pmAnd AJR can't afford to finish AR-1, so "buy my mostly dead, over extended company", no matter what govt lobbyist/contracts can do.Thriving, actually. I would so love to compare AJRD's financials with those of Blue Origin. - Ed Kyle
And AJR can't afford to finish AR-1, so "buy my mostly dead, over extended company", no matter what govt lobbyist/contracts can do.
As a former retired Aerojet employee, I am aware of their product mix and assets. The demise of AR-1 will not mean the end of the company because large liquid engines do not provide as much revenue and profit as the strategic and tactical rocket motors do.
The Aerojet Holding company OWNs more that 10000 acers near Sacramento.
This land was needed for test cells but because of encouragement is rapidly being deactivated. The encouragement only makes the property more valuable and is currently being developed into a planned city. The property is equity that can be converted into a huge amount of revenue. BTW relocating test facilities to other Aerojet facilities around the country is in process.
Quote from: testguy on 02/17/2018 05:24 pmAs a former retired Aerojet employee, I am aware of their product mix and assets. The demise of AR-1 will not mean the end of the company because large liquid engines do not provide as much revenue and profit as the strategic and tactical rocket motors do. Indeed. People see the high profile RL10's (and now the SSME) AR-1 programmes but IRL the bulk of the revenue is the bread-and-butter solids for various weapon systems. So I suspect they could shut down the Liquid Engine business and still keep running. Some people will see a long term future in the running SSME programme for SLS, others won't. That would leave only the RL10 as the long term LRE to support. Quote from: testguyThe Aerojet Holding company OWNs more that 10000 acers near Sacramento. That's a lot of laptops. Quote from: testguyThis land was needed for test cells but because of encouragement is rapidly being deactivated. The encouragement only makes the property more valuable and is currently being developed into a planned city. The property is equity that can be converted into a huge amount of revenue. BTW relocating test facilities to other Aerojet facilities around the country is in process.So that's a nice piece of real estate as an asset, but nothing that advances their cause as liquid rocket engine mfgs.
Acreage comment made me laugh. Thanks.
Only mentioned the land because it is a huge amount of liquidity. Agreed you don’t want to waste that asset in an investment (AR-1) unless you can see a return.
More likely will be Congress finding a different reason to send them more buckets of money. Must keep AJR afloat since they are the sole source for Congress' rocket engines.
Quote from: testguy on 02/17/2018 11:13 pmAcreage comment made me laugh. Thanks.Sorry, it was just too tempting to pass up. Quote from: testguyOnly mentioned the land because it is a huge amount of liquidity. Agreed you don’t want to waste that asset in an investment (AR-1) unless you can see a return.It's one of those things that was bought for business purposes but over time things have changed. IIRC when Rocketdyne bought their test area they had no issues with neighbours, but when it came time to leak test the SSME they used LN2 instead of LH2, as the area was (they felt) too built up to test safely in. This lead to the "Summer of Hydrogen," with repeated stand downs of Shuttle launches as they did not realize where the LH2 was leaking from. While AR-1 is still in the game ULA are in a position to negotiate further changes with Blue, but once AJR drops out then ULA is pretty much joined at the hip with Blue going forward. It's pretty clear that walking away from AR-1 won't kill AJR as a business but it should have Congress asking hard questions of AJR, not ULA. Specifically why it took so much money to achieve what seems to be not very much, given a) It's very long history of engine development. b)Access to RD-180 paperwork and hardware to study.
I wonder if that base cost gets the full Vulcan-Centaur V 504 performance of ~8t to GTO, or if that is only for 4-5 tonnes to GTO like F9R and Ariane lower berth.
Quote from: envy887 on 02/19/2018 02:09 pmI wonder if that base cost gets the full Vulcan-Centaur V 504 performance of ~8t to GTO, or if that is only for 4-5 tonnes to GTO like F9R and Ariane lower berth.The GTO performance of Centaur V is an interesting question. We know one of the key elements that distinguishes Centaur V and ACES is IVF. Previous sources have listed IVF as providing a performance boost to GEO of "greater than 1000 lbs", so the question becomes how much performance does IVF add to GTO?
Quote from: envy887 on 02/19/2018 02:09 pmI wonder if that base cost gets the full Vulcan-Centaur V 504 performance of ~8t to GTO, or if that is only for 4-5 tonnes to GTO like F9R and Ariane lower berth.Tory said Centuar has same energy as ACES so 8t to GTO is not un realistic.When comparing prices to F9 or F9R use $/kg to orbit. If using fixed launch price eg $65m vs $85m then Electron $4.9m beats them both.$10m/1000kg to GTO seems competitive with F9 and F9R.
Quote from: Sknowball on 02/19/2018 04:17 pmThe GTO performance of Centaur V is an interesting question. We know one of the key elements that distinguishes Centaur V and ACES is IVF. Previous sources have listed IVF as providing a performance boost to GEO of "greater than 1000 lbs", so the question becomes how much performance does IVF add to GTO? https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/leag2017/presentations/wednesday/sampson.pdfThe above presentation coupled with Rocket Builder does not answer the question directly, but may allow for some insight. We could use the performance figure of Atlas V 531 to GTO, as listed on Rocket Builder, and subtract "greater than 1000 lbs" to get a rough Vulcan Centaur V performance guesstimate. The key assumption is that Atlas V 531 performance is the most comparable configuration. Atlas V 531 performance to GTO is 8289 kg (based off a very simplistic RocketBuilder.com analysis). In turn, this gives us Vulcan Centaur V performance of less than 7289 kg to GTO (-1800 m/s)
The GTO performance of Centaur V is an interesting question. We know one of the key elements that distinguishes Centaur V and ACES is IVF. Previous sources have listed IVF as providing a performance boost to GEO of "greater than 1000 lbs", so the question becomes how much performance does IVF add to GTO?
Similar configuration is not a terrible approach, but I can't tell if you made two mistakes that cancel each other out or you extrapolated and didn't show your math.