Total Members Voted: 320
Voting closed: 01/19/2017 06:46 pm
Core production looks to be the bottleneck for the scarcity of launches in July. We know the first Block IVs should be rolling off the line, so this could be part of the reason for the gap in cores rolling off the production line. If more customers are willing to take re-used boosters (e.g. SES-14 and SES-16), that should allow SpaceX to continue to increase their launch rate by shifting the bottleneck to pad availability.
Quote from: rockets4life97 on 06/27/2017 11:00 pmCore production looks to be the bottleneck for the scarcity of launches in July. We know the first Block IVs should be rolling off the line, so this could be part of the reason for the gap in cores rolling off the production line. If more customers are willing to take re-used boosters (e.g. SES-14 and SES-16), that should allow SpaceX to continue to increase their launch rate by shifting the bottleneck to pad availability.Seem to remember Shotwell saying more than once that core production rampped up to 20/year. If so, given the already happened reflight of cores with more reflights currently planned for this year, there should already be a surplus of new cores at this year's halfway point. Perhaps refurb efforts have been at the manpower expense of building new cores at the factory potential rate? I'm confused.
Perhaps Gwynne's 20 a year doesn't assume the "model changeover gap" for going to block 5, and the actual number is lower this year.
Quote from: Lar on 06/29/2017 03:58 pmPerhaps Gwynne's 20 a year doesn't assume the "model changeover gap" for going to block 5, and the actual number is lower this year.If I remember correctly Gwynne Shotwell mentioned that they have gotten much better at handling the switchover and won't suffer production breaks as they did before.
A 9 day interval between launches means that theoretically SpaceX could launch from LC39A 36 times in one year.
10 launches in 6 months on Falcon 9. Can't remember the last time a launch provider accomplished a similar feat.
Quote from: rockets4life97 on 07/06/2017 12:21 am10 launches in 6 months on Falcon 9. Can't remember the last time a launch provider accomplished a similar feat.Soyuz launched 10 times in 5 months just last year.
Is it all the same team?