antonioe - 19/8/2006 6:54 PMQuote“how much flight rate affects ELV pricing?”As I mentioned in an early posting, I think you could launch 12-18 EELV’s a year for little more than the present 3.5/year. To be conservative, say that launching 12 EELVs/year can easily half the cost per launch (not the total bill!)
“how much flight rate affects ELV pricing?”
Quote“Would we come out ahead if we doubled/tripled the EELV flight rate by moving all Delta II size payloads onto it and ditching Delta II entirely?”Ouch! Argh! “Vade retro, Satana!”… if you do that, you will kill most of NASA science, DoD experiments such as MiTEx, etc. etc. You will cause grave damage to the aerospace community by “condemning” missions to start their life at the EELV size… plus, if magically you could put all 3-4 Delta II missions a year in the same orbit, you would only add ONE EELV flight…, so PLEASE DON’T EVEN SUGGEST IT!!!
“Would we come out ahead if we doubled/tripled the EELV flight rate by moving all Delta II size payloads onto it and ditching Delta II entirely?”
yinzer - 20/8/2006 12:12 AMOuch! Argh! “Vade retro, Satana!”… if you do that, you will kill most of NASA science, DoD experiments such as MiTEx, etc. etc. You will cause grave damage to the aerospace community by “condemning” missions to start their life at the EELV size… plus, if magically you could put all 3-4 Delta II missions a year in the same orbit, you would only add ONE EELV flight…, so PLEASE DON’T EVEN SUGGEST IT!!!
Jim - 21/8/2006 8:03 AMQuoteyinzer - 20/8/2006 12:12 AMOuch! Argh! “Vade retro, Satana!”… if you do that, you will kill most of NASA science, DoD experiments such as MiTEx, etc. etc. You will cause grave damage to the aerospace community by “condemning” missions to start their life at the EELV size… plus, if magically you could put all 3-4 Delta II missions a year in the same orbit, you would only add ONE EELV flight…, so PLEASE DON’T EVEN SUGGEST IT!!!Sorry... I was unclear. If Delta IIs at their current flight rate now cost about $80-90M a pop, and if adding an Atlas 401 to the manifest in any given year costs $50M... consider an Atlas 401 Economy Special. Remove the nozzle extension from the Centaur, replace the fancy integrally machined payload adapter with one made out of mild steel that weighs 2,000 pounds more and has a Delta II style interface on it, add ballast, whatever you need to do to get the payload down to that of the Delta 7925. Then take your satellite off of the Delta II and put it on top of the Atlas 401-ES. Lockheed charges you $60M, pockets $10, and you come out $20M ahead.This is more or less what Boeing did with the Med-Lite Delta IIs, as near as I can tell - removing 5 solid boosters reduced the cost (to Boeing) by maybe 10% and halved the payload.
vt_hokie - 28/8/2006 2:30 PMThis is not a question so much about the launch vehicle itself, so please forgive me if I'm venturing too far off topic, but I was always curious as to how/why Orbital acquired an L-1011 at a time when most airlines were phasing out the Tristar in favor of newer, more efficient twin engine aircraft. Was it simply a matter of getting a good deal on the airplane, or does the L-1011 offer specific performance characteristics that made it the aircraft of choice?
Hi, guys (and gals, I hope!) I'm back from exotic Honolulu after serving Country and Navy (boy, was that tough...) I'll again try to answer as many q. as I can, just be patient.
braddock - 24/8/2006 8:45 AMAntonio,How did the Pegasus project get started? Sitting in a diner, sketching on napkins?
vt_hokie - 28/8/2006 1:30 PMThis is not a question so much about the launch vehicle itself, so please forgive me if I'm venturing too far off topic, but I was always curious as to how/why Orbital acquired an L-1011 at a time when most airlines were phasing out the Tristar in favor of newer, more efficient twin engine aircraft. Was it simply a matter of getting a good deal on the airplane, or does the L-1011 offer specific performance characteristics that made it the aircraft of choice?
Jim - 28/8/2006 1:42 PMGot it cheap