Vulcan SMART Reuse

[Surfdaddy]

I think if it weren't for this issue, ULA might have tried to develop a reusable version of Vulcan.

Not true, the vehicle architecture is wrong for reuse.

Vulcan is based on EELVs, whose mantra was minimize the number of engines and use existing efficient upperstage engines.   This mean one engine per stage and with large booster stages because of the low thrust upperstages.

So if I read between the lines, the conclusion is that SpaceX F9 has lapped Vulcan, as Vulcan is designed with an older paradigm and the best they can hope for is a pod of engines being recovered. That's a lot better than fully expendable, but not up to even F9 capabilities which are becoming ever more mature, and we're totally ignoring what happens if Starship ends up successful and more mature in say 3-5 years.

Edit: additional clarity.

[edzieba]

And so, what is preventing one from buying properly sized engines instead of making them?

Availability. None available on the market of the right size at the time Vulcan was designed, or even partially developed (as AR-1 and BE-4 were). Given how long BE-4 has taken, it is near guaranteed that a clean-sheet engine design would mean Vulcan would be even further from flight than it is now, and with a higher up-front cost (paying to develop an engine just for you rather than sharing development of someone else's engine). That would apply regardless of whether ULA outsourced engine development or created a brand new internal department. And unlike at SpaceX - where the CEO, CTO, and owner all share the same skull and hold the pursestrings directly - Tory Bruno does not have the budgetary discretion to make radical and costly mid-production design changes ('scrap all Carbon Fibre tooling and test articles, exit our contract with a CF supplier, switch to a new material, and manufacture at a different site') so unable to switch architecture once a moderate-thrust methalox engine became available on the market (not that one has).

[meekGee]

I think one of ULA's biggest barriers to reuse is that they do not develop their own engines in house.

Wrong

. Developing your engines is difficult, but to make vertical landing to work you need properly sized engines.

And so, what is preventing one from buying properly sized engines instead of making them?

The super thick barrier of communications across corporate fences.

There's no way you can get the responsiveness of in-house development when you have to go through 5 programs managers and 4 corporate procurement officers, not to mention the legal department which needs to decide whether what you want is a "change in scope".

The proof is in the pudding.

SpaceX clearly relied on co-development of an in-house engine to achieve everything they did with F9.
ULA clearly got burned because the vendor was iffy.

"Parents" doesn't apply. The company IS its board of directors.  They represent ownership and control.  There's no such thing as "The company wants to, but the board won't allow it".  They are one and the same.

The CEO works with the board. If he finds their decision making unacceptable, he can leave, just like any other employee.

Plus, had Lockheed and Boeing kept their respective launch operations, would they have been building engines now?  In fact the formation of a joint venture reduces competitive risk, and so in theory makes it EASIER to undertake something like engine development.  Still they didn't. 

I think if it weren't for this issue, ULA might have tried to develop a reusable version of Vulcan.

Not true, the vehicle architecture is wrong for reuse.

Vulcan is based on EELVs, whose mantra was minimize the number of engines and use existing efficient upperstage engines.   This mean one engine per stage and with large booster stages because of the low thrust upperstages.

Vulcan architecture was conceived by ULA in response to F9 (and the engine ban).
They could have done anything, but they were, to be frank, too chicken.
They made an Atlas 6 instead.

Part of the reason they were chicken with the rocket was that they didn't have the oomph to develop and engine.  Had they had that flexibility, they could have tried something more radical with the rocket, but they considered themselves lucky to have even found an engine - there was no way they were going to make the investment and take the risk of making one.

Fast forward to today, and they're seriously fielding an EELV in the age of Starship, and relying on "anything but SpaceX" as their market appeal.  We'll see how well that goes.

[DanClemmensen]

And so, what is preventing one from buying properly sized engines instead of making them?

Availability. None available on the market of the right size at the time Vulcan was designed, or even partially developed (as AR-1 and BE-4 were). Given how long BE-4 has taken, it is near guaranteed that a clean-sheet engine design would mean Vulcan would be even further from flight than it is now, and with a higher up-front cost (paying to develop an engine just for you rather than sharing development of someone else's engine). That would apply regardless of whether ULA outsourced engine development or created a brand new internal department. And unlike at SpaceX - where the CEO, CTO, and owner all share the same skull and hold the pursestrings directly - Tory Bruno does not have the budgetary discretion to make radical and costly mid-production design changes ('scrap all Carbon Fibre tooling and test articles, exit our contract with a CF supplier, switch to a new material, and manufacture at a different site') so unable to switch architecture once a moderate-thrust methalox engine became available on the market (not that one has).

They could replace BE-4 with Raptor 2, but Raptor 2 is so inexpensive that SMART would not make economic sense. Quicker and cheaper than adding yet another engine to implement SMART.  Also the minor little problem that the embarrassment would have consequences. Vulcan is currently sharing BE-4 with New Glenn, so what's the problem with sharing Raptor 2 with Starship instead? (ducks for cover and runs away...    )

[Jim]

They could replace BE-4 with Raptor 2, but Raptor 2 is so inexpensive

How do you know that?

[Jim]

]Availability. None available on the market of the right size at the time Vulcan was designed, or even partially developed (as AR-1 and BE-4 were).

No, not true.  A clean sheet would have been done in the same time frame, just like the RS-68.

[DanClemmensen]

They could replace BE-4 with Raptor 2, but Raptor 2 is so inexpensive

How do you know that?

I do not "know" it, since I have not attempted to purchase one. I do recall that Elon has claimed that the aspirational unit cost is $250,000 per engine. He also alleged that the current unit cost is below $2 M and dropping.  For all I know, SpaceX might choose to charge a lot more than that, or refuse to sell, or Elon's numbers could be wildly incorrect.

[TrevorMonty]

I think if it weren't for this issue, ULA might have tried to develop a reusable version of Vulcan.

Not true, the vehicle architecture is wrong for reuse.

Vulcan is based on EELVs, whose mantra was minimize the number of engines and use existing efficient upperstage engines.   This mean one engine per stage and with large booster stages because of the low thrust upperstages.

So if I read between the lines, the conclusion is that SpaceX F9 has lapped Vulcan, as Vulcan is designed with an older paradigm and the best they can hope for is a pod of engines being recovered. That's a lot better than fully expendable, but not up to even F9 capabilities which are becoming ever more mature, and we're totally ignoring what happens if Starship ends up successful and more mature in say 3-5 years.

Edit: additional clarity.

Vulcan was design to service EELV range of missions with single LV plus additional SRBs. With SMART it can recover booster engines on most if not every mission. F9 in expendable mode can't even service all EELVs range of missions, hence need to develop FH with its additional launch infrastructure. Given FH low flightrate, SpaceX may never recover its development costs. Most likely treated as loss leader by the accounting department, with F9 carrying it.

So far ULA design choices have paid off given how many Vulcans are presold, far more than F9.

[rubicondsrv]

He also alleged that the current unit cost is below $2 M and dropping.  For all I know, SpaceX might choose to charge a lot more than that, or refuse to sell, or Elon's numbers could be wildly incorrect.

that is marginal cost most likely.  no vendor is likely to sell something near marginal cost except in a very completive commoditized market.

I also dont see what raptor has to do with vulcan.

[Coastal Ron]

Vulcan was design to service EELV range of missions with single LV plus additional SRBs.

And every SRB is expendable, so let's factor that into the Vulcan reuse equation.

With SMART it can recover booster engines on most if not every mission.

Since SMART has never been demonstrated, either as a full-sized experiment or operationally, let's not yet declare success. Remember how many flights of the Falcon 9 it took to perfect 1st stage recovery? Can Vulcan last that long to iterate SMART while competing in an increasingly competitive launch market?

F9 in expendable mode can't even service all EELVs range of missions, hence need to develop FH with its additional launch infrastructure. Given FH low flightrate, SpaceX may never recover its development costs. Most likely treated as loss leader by the accounting department, with F9 carrying it.

In a world where SpaceX never intended to develop Starship, I think we would have seen SpaceX move far more aggressively to go after every payload that ULA services today.

But the reality is that once SpaceX started focusing on Starship, it made no sense to pursue additional specialized payloads for Falcon Heavy, so sure, its development may never be recuperated, but in a sense it has always been the backup for Starship.

So far ULA design choices have paid off given how many Vulcans are presold, far more than F9.

I think you meant "FH", not "F9"... 

As for launch backlog, ULA has a built in market for U.S. Government payloads, and due to the success of SpaceX with Falcon 9/H ULA is in line to get launches from non-USG customers who want to "spread the wealth" of launch business to keep some form of competition alive. I don't fully count those as votes for Vulcan per se, just that ULA gets the business because they have some acceptable launcher that does the same as Falcon 9/H.

[DanClemmensen]

He also alleged that the current unit cost is below $2 M and dropping.  For all I know, SpaceX might choose to charge a lot more than that, or refuse to sell, or Elon's numbers could be wildly incorrect.

that is marginal cost most likely.  no vendor is likely to sell something near marginal cost except in a very completive commoditized market.

I also dont see what raptor has to do with vulcan.

Raptor has nothing whatsoever to do with Vulcan. I was responding to the discussion about the availability of engines that ULA might have used for Vulcan.

Raptor 2 is in the same class as the BE-4 (methalox, about 250 tonne thrust) and both are being manufactured by ULA competitors.
From a purely economic standpoint ULA should buy whichever one has a lower price. As of now, I speculate that the unit cost of a Raptor 2 is lower than the unit cost of a BS-4 because the Raptor 2 has a higher production rate and has been optimized for low cost. Raptor production rate was reported to be at 365/yr in February. BE-4 production rate is reported as 30/yr. I do not know how BO and SpaceX would choose to price these engines.

[deadman1204]

Since SMART has never been demonstrated, either as a full-sized experiment or operationally, let's not yet declare success. Remember how many flights of the Falcon 9 it took to perfect 1st stage recovery? Can Vulcan last that long to iterate SMART while competing in an increasingly competitive launch market?

What does this even mean? Vulcan isn't just gonna close up shop. Its certainly not gonna have ANY problem in the next decade since it'll be launching Amazon web sats in bulk. Its also a shoe in to win part of the next NSSL bidding. Assuming Blue even has a functioning rocket, they will still be in a super weak position with almost no operation experience against ULA and SpaceX.

Vulcan isn't going anywhere.

[meekGee]

I think if it weren't for this issue, ULA might have tried to develop a reusable version of Vulcan.

Not true, the vehicle architecture is wrong for reuse.

Vulcan is based on EELVs, whose mantra was minimize the number of engines and use existing efficient upperstage engines.   This mean one engine per stage and with large booster stages because of the low thrust upperstages.

So if I read between the lines, the conclusion is that SpaceX F9 has lapped Vulcan, as Vulcan is designed with an older paradigm and the best they can hope for is a pod of engines being recovered. That's a lot better than fully expendable, but not up to even F9 capabilities which are becoming ever more mature, and we're totally ignoring what happens if Starship ends up successful and more mature in say 3-5 years.

Edit: additional clarity.

Vulcan was design to service EELV range of missions with single LV plus additional SRBs. With SMART it can recover booster engines on most if not every mission. F9 in expendable mode can't even service all EELVs range of missions, hence need to develop FH with its additional launch infrastructure. Given FH low flightrate, SpaceX may never recover its development costs. Most likely treated as loss leader by the accounting department, with F9 carrying it.

So far ULA design choices have paid off given how many Vulcans are presold, far more than F9.

Sent from my SM-T733 using Tapatalk

So let's see...

Vulcan hasn't left the manufacturing floor yet
NG hasn't left the design floor yet
Kuiper is still a twinkle

But already the combination has beaten (past tense!) SpaceX's line up?!

Hmm..  I can remind you that NG used to have a comm-sat manifest too.. (EDIT: oh and so did Virgin...)

So right now, Vulcan has a manifest based on "anything but SpaceX". That is the weakest form of customers.

NG is the obvious candidate to take away the manifest, so basically it's a zero-sum game...  Vulcan + NG combined have that weak manifest.

But that constellation is not magic. Musk, who knows a thing or two about business, figures Starlink 1.x is not a money maker.

Kuiper, without Starship-like capabilities, is stuck in that realm...  And will be second-to-market by many years.  Basically Kuiper 1.0 will go up against Starlink 2.0, and late.

That does not bode well for either provider, no matter how you spin it.

[Coastal Ron]

Since SMART has never been demonstrated, either as a full-sized experiment or operationally, let's not yet declare success. Remember how many flights of the Falcon 9 it took to perfect 1st stage recovery? Can Vulcan last that long to iterate SMART while competing in an increasingly competitive launch market?

What does this even mean? Vulcan isn't just gonna close up shop.

You mean ULA. Vulcan is just a product/service they offer.

And companies do "close up shop", or get acquired. Not saying anything in particular WILL happen, just that we can't rule out any outcomes yet since Vulcan is not yet operational, and SMART is still just a marketing blurb.

Its certainly not gonna have ANY problem in the next decade since it'll be launching Amazon web sats in bulk.

Hate to break it to you, but plans do change. Amazon just changed CEO's, and the satellite internet marketplace is changing literally every day. I mention the CEO part because now Amazon could look at SpaceX if they need really inexpensive launch to close their business case - which could remove launches from Vulcan.

Its also a shoe in to win part of the next NSSL bidding.

ULA as an organization is what has won their NSSL contracts, since Vulcan isn't even operational. And SpaceX is building up their abilities to launch unique USAF/NRO payloads, which could take launch business away from ULA.

The only way ULA can compete with SpaceX, and in the future New Glenn, is by not making a lot of money on Vulcan launches. That isn't sustainable over the long term, which is why I mentioned above that a change with ULA is not out of the question.

Assuming Blue even has a functioning rocket, they will still be in a super weak position with almost no operation experience against ULA and SpaceX.

If you haven't noticed by now, rocket engines are the hardest part of rockets, so what is pacing New Glenn is also pacing Vulcan. And once BE-4 is operational, then New Glenn can quickly follow. And New Glenn competes against Vulcan in the commercial marketplace initially, and could grab some % of NSSL work in the future.

So sure, New Glenn is not an immediate concern, but it is more like a "death by a thousand cuts" type of situation for Vulcan...

Vulcan isn't going anywhere.

I think you mean "Vulcan hasn't gone anywhere yet." 

[meekGee]

Vulcan isn't going anywhere.

I think you mean "Vulcan hasn't gone anywhere yet." 

I think he unintentionally got it exactly right.

[Surfdaddy]

Since SMART has never been demonstrated, either as a full-sized experiment or operationally, let's not yet declare success. Remember how many flights of the Falcon 9 it took to perfect 1st stage recovery? Can Vulcan last that long to iterate SMART while competing in an increasingly competitive launch market?

What does this even mean? Vulcan isn't just gonna close up shop. Its certainly not gonna have ANY problem in the next decade since it'll be launching Amazon web sats in bulk. Its also a shoe in to win part of the next NSSL bidding. Assuming Blue even has a functioning rocket, they will still be in a super weak position with almost no operation experience against ULA and SpaceX.

Vulcan isn't going anywhere.

It's certainly not going anywhere until the BE4 flight engines actually materialize on the rocket. Everything about how great Vulcan is is just hypothetical at this point.

In the immoral style of Charlie Bolden, "Vulcan is just theoretical - Falcon 9 is real"!

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Ok, this is not a ‘does Vulcan/ULA have a future’ thread. If Vulcan/ULA dies so does SMART. I think that covers the relevant point for this thread.

Let’s get back to SMART reuse please.

[Timber Micka]

Imo SMART will be quietly cancelled (if they haven't already) in the same way that Arianespace cancelled its reusable engine concept for Ariane 6 a few years ago (the Adeline flyback engine section) when they realized that it was not a cost-effective solution.

[DanClemmensen]

The economic case for SMART assumes that the engines are expensive. What is the lowest engine cost for which SMART makes sense? Will the BE-4 always be expensive? If the BE-4 drops below a million dollars, will SMART make sense?

I do not know if BE-4 cost could get that low. We do know that Elon claims that they plan to eventually produce the functionally-equivalent Raptor 2 for $250,000. This might be a fantasy.

[AmigaClone]

The economic case for SMART assumes that the engines are expensive. What is the lowest engine cost for which SMART makes sense? Will the BE-4 always be expensive? If the BE-4 drops below a million dollars, will SMART make sense?

I do not know if BE-4 cost could get that low. We do know that Elon claims that they plan to eventually produce the functionally-equivalent Raptor 2 for $250,000. This might be a fantasy.

I suspect that while BO might get to a point of producing BE-4 engines for a lower cost than what would make SMART reuse economically smart, somehow I don't see them voluntarily selling those engines to ULA for that price.

As for the Elon stating he has a goal of producing functional equivalent of Raptor-2s for $250,000. I agree getting the cost that low might be a fantasy. I can see SpaceX producing those engines for less than any other engine of comparable thrust within the US or Europe present of in the past.