Quote from: 2552 on 06/04/2014 05:07 amF9/FH prices updated on spacex.com based on 2016 launches.F9: $61.2MFH: $85M for up to 6.4 tons to GTO. Previously listed price for above 6.4 tons to GTO removed.Performance numbers unchanged.Interested in the removal of the >6.4 tons option. Previously it was speculated that the increased price for this option was that it was either down to the difference between reusable and expendable versions or it was down to the additional cost of cross-fed propellant.However, we have since learned that the F9 price is for the expendable version, so I think it likely that the figures given for the FH are also for expendable versions. If so, this implies that the >6.4 tons option was for the cross-fed version.So, does the removal of this option mean that SpaceX have taken the decision to abandon cross-feeding? Not going ahead with it will same time and money in its development; possible enabling the FH itself to come into service faster. Have they decided that the expense is not worth the foreseeable market? There's also been speculation that the single-core BFR may well be cheaper than the FH; if so, the latter has a limited life-span and the return would therefore be less on any equipment such as cross-feeding; is the removal of this option a sign that this speculation is indeed correct?
F9/FH prices updated on spacex.com based on 2016 launches.F9: $61.2MFH: $85M for up to 6.4 tons to GTO. Previously listed price for above 6.4 tons to GTO removed.Performance numbers unchanged.
Quote from: CuddlyRocket on 06/05/2014 10:02 amQuote from: 2552 on 06/04/2014 05:07 amF9/FH prices updated on spacex.com based on 2016 launches.F9: $61.2MFH: $85M for up to 6.4 tons to GTO. Previously listed price for above 6.4 tons to GTO removed.Performance numbers unchanged.Interested in the removal of the >6.4 tons option. Previously it was speculated that the increased price for this option was that it was either down to the difference between reusable and expendable versions or it was down to the additional cost of cross-fed propellant.However, we have since learned that the F9 price is for the expendable version, so I think it likely that the figures given for the FH are also for expendable versions. If so, this implies that the >6.4 tons option was for the cross-fed version.So, does the removal of this option mean that SpaceX have taken the decision to abandon cross-feeding? Not going ahead with it will same time and money in its development; possible enabling the FH itself to come into service faster. Have they decided that the expense is not worth the foreseeable market? There's also been speculation that the single-core BFR may well be cheaper than the FH; if so, the latter has a limited life-span and the return would therefore be less on any equipment such as cross-feeding; is the removal of this option a sign that this speculation is indeed correct?Maybe the removal of the option was because they were tired of people speculating about it. :-)More likely, in my opinion, was that they saw that their opponents consistently used the higher figure while few, if any, of their customers actually needed more than 6.4 tons to GTO. Even if they would still be willing to do a larger satellite to GTO for more money, they don't need it on their web site. By having the website clean, they can remove some of the FUD their opponents use.
WASHINGTON — Advocates of aerospace firms vying to deliver cargo and crew to the International Space Station are concerned that language in a Senate spending bill that a key committee passed Thursday could make it more difficult and expensive to carry out those missions.The provision, sponsored by Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, would require firms in the commercial crew and commercial cargo programs to submit "certified cost and pricing data" similar to what's required in traditional contracts NASA uses for other services.Shelby's proposal is included in a spending bill the Senate Appropriations Committee passed 30-0 Thursday to fund several federal agencies, including NASA, in the 2015 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1."The language would effectively change an efficient and lean commercial program into a traditional government procurement with all of the associated overhead and cost," said Alex Saltman, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation."In addition, if this language were to become law before NASA awards the latest commercial crew contracts, NASA would likely have to restart the procurement with these new rules, pushing back the program up to a year and sending hundreds of millions of more taxpayer dollars to Russia for Soyuz rides," Saltman added. "If the language were to go into effect after the awards, NASA could be tied up in contract renegotiations and challenges for months, if not years."
NASA officials declined to comment, saying they were still reviewing the Senate language. There was no immediate comment from SpaceX. The California firm has a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the space station and is among the competitors for the contract to transport astronauts as well.Another commercial space advocate, the Space Access Society, said Shelby was sponsoring the language merely to protect the "massively wasteful" space launch system. Much of the work to develop SLS is being conducted at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., which Shelby represents.Asked about the criticism of his motives after Thursday's hearing, Shelby said simply: "That's not true. We're looking for transparency."
With NASA under the thumb of the Russian space program, Congress continues to play political games with the space agency.On Thursday the U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the fiscal year 2015 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. This means they agreed upon a spending plan to fund NASA, among other agencies.But buried within the bill could be something of a poison pill for a company like SpaceX. Allow me to explain.The language in question is this:The Committee directs NASA to maintain FAR 15.403-4, related to the certified cost and pricing data for prime contractors, for any contracts entered into support the development of a commercial crew vehicle.Three companies are vying for NASA contracts to build smaller spacecraft to replace the space shuttle and give the United States its own transportation to the International Space Station. In a recent story I went into depth about the plight NASA finds itself in with regard to Russia. Anyway, these companies offer the best chance to fix that problem.If this language is approved by the full Senate, and reconciled with the U.S. House budget bill, it would require the three companies, Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp., to provide detailed cost and financial information about their spacecraft. This represents a wholly new wrinkle in a contracting process NASA originally devised to allow private companies to develop spacecraft much more cheaply than they otherwise could have.I had a chance to speak with four-time astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, who heads up the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, about the effect of this language. He explains:This was introduced by Senator Shelby, and to comply with this you have to have an infrastructure in place in your company to do that, which a company like Boeing certainly has, but SpaceX certainly does not have. More importantly if it became law on Oct. 1, and they hadn’t awarded the commercial crew contract by then, they would probably have to recompete it.
Musk gave some additional details on Dragon V2 at the DC event:http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/first-crewed-dragon-flight-to-orbit-will-carry-nasa-astronauts
... the Dragon V2 will return to land using parachutes and propulsive landing systems. The goal is to land at Cape Canaveral, FL, but Musk said initial landings may be at White Sands, NM until they are certain of the spacecraft's landing precision.
With enough facilities and personnel, they could be processing a few missions at once, each with an assigned vehicle, and if a payload or vehicle has delays, another moves forward to take the launch slot.
Okay here's a different question that was alluded to in Gwynne Shotwell's June 4th talk:How difficult would it be for SpaceX to get to a stage where they have rockets going up on a schedule and all the payload providers are effectively in a queue, such that if any delay is payload associated, SpaceX can just bump them to the next flight and have the next payload in line take the slot? (ie have a backup payload for every flight). I assume the process of programming the Falcon 9v1.1 computers to go to a particular orbit and adding the appropriate amount of fuel is relatively quick process. Obviously payload integration would be an issue, but how long does that take, relative to the 2-3 day delays that seem to have happened a couple of times now for purely payload related reasons? Also, is this more of a launch site issue? and will we see launch rates increase exponentially for each site brought online?
Some fairings and upperstage have unique mods for certain spacecraft. At a minimum, the payload adapter is mission specific.
just a note, launch vehicles always fly with a full load of propellant.
There was a Russian launcher not long ago that ran out of fuel because they miscalculated the fuel load, which implies they weren't fully loading it. And comments that I've seen about fuel depots said that commercial launchers could transport leftover fuel to a depot if they topped off instead of only hauling what they needed.Any place to get more info on this?
No doubt that would have to change, and that would likely take a while to implement industry wide. And the challenge would be that no one will want to do it only for one launch provider. This is not anything against SpaceX per se, but a challenge that any launch provider would have when changing a mature industry.