SpaceX Falcon Heavy : PPE/HALO : LC-39A : 2027

[baldusi]

SpaceX could still launch from pad 40.

What? 40 doesn’t have capability for Falcon Heavy at all, let alone a VIF. That’s a lot of infrastructure to build if they went that way. They would possibly also have to increase the GSE capacity for a Heavy mission.

I believe he was just saying that they could still launch their normal payloads on SLC 40 while 39A was busy with integration.

They are currently fully using both pads. As amazing as it is, that means that 2 months on pad for one mission prevents 3 to 5 other missions.
I'm also wondering: wasn't the DoD mission that paid for the Vertical Integration Tower launching from Vandenberg? They might have had to charge the VI tower to this mission.

[yg1968]

SpaceX could still launch from pad 40.

What? 40 doesn’t have capability for Falcon Heavy at all, let alone a VIF. That’s a lot of infrastructure to build if they went that way. They would possibly also have to increase the GSE capacity for a Heavy mission.

I believe he was just saying that they could still launch their normal payloads on SLC 40 while 39A was busy with integration.

Yes that is what I meant. It was a reply to the prior post.

[ncb1397]

SpaceX could still launch from pad 40.

What? 40 doesn’t have capability for Falcon Heavy at all, let alone a VIF. That’s a lot of infrastructure to build if they went that way. They would possibly also have to increase the GSE capacity for a Heavy mission.

I believe he was just saying that they could still launch their normal payloads on SLC 40 while 39A was busy with integration.

They are currently fully using both pads. As amazing as it is, that means that 2 months on pad for one mission prevents 3 to 5 other missions.
I'm also wondering: wasn't the DoD mission that paid for the Vertical Integration Tower launching from Vandenberg? They might have had to charge the VI tower to this mission.

They launched 11 times from LC-39A last year. 2 months of a pad tie up would maybe displace 2 other flights.

[Lars-J]

It wouldn't surprise me if any flight using the extended fairing also will be required to use vertical integration.

The existing fairing is already heavy compared to other fairings (this was before reuse), and part of the reason for that extra weight appears to be to support horizontal integration loads.

The extended fairing is probably designed for vertical integration. But that is my speculation only.

[Athelstane]

Welp.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/963076231921938432

They didn't get USAF to pay for new Extended fairing and Vertical Integration Tower?
That's a big chunk of change.

It was later revealed that a lot of that first NSSL launch cost will include work on the mobile tower and extended fairing. The Air Force/Space Force seems to be paying for it at least in part.

I shudder to think what this would have cost on a Delta IV Heavy. Better part of a billion dollars.

[yg1968]

As indicated on pages 11 and 12 of the IG Report, Maxar had received a contract of $375M for the PPE (which later increased to $454M) that originally included transportation on a SpaceX rocket (this portion of the contract has now been removed; see page 34 of the IG Report). Prior to yesterday, transportation for HALO had not yet been contracted with any launch services provider.

Because the February 2020 requirement change to co-manifest PPE and HALO was NASA’s decision, 10 months into the contract, Maxar was forced to terminate its subcontract with SpaceX for PPE launch services, even though Maxar had already paid SpaceX approximately $27.5 million. Because a portion of this amount was for a milestone NASA paid Maxar for, and Maxar planned to also use the rocket for non-NASA purposes, NASA and Maxar will need to determine what this cancellation will actually cost the government. Ultimately, potential savings from reducing two rocket launches to one will be measured against this cost, along with the cost of the Gateway elements and launch vehicle modifications needed to meet the co-manifested requirements. In addition, since the procurement for the co-manifested rocket will be made using NASA’s Launch Services Program, it is possible that the Agency could award the contract to the same company that Maxar was going to use and in effect pay twice for the same service (partial payment on the scrubbed PPE launch plus full payment on the co-manifested launch).

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-004.pdf

Now that we know the price for the co-manifested FH, it seems that NASA's decision to co-manifest the PPE and HALO was mostly done in order to reduce risks (as Loverro had indicated in early 2020), not to reduce costs. In any event, I believe that it makes sense to co-manifest the PPE and HALO on the basis of risks alone.

[steveleach]

They launched 11 times from LC-39A last year. 2 months of a pad tie up would maybe displace 2 other flights.

I presume they'd happily hold off on Starlink launches for this. Assuming they are still launching Starlink on F9 three years from now, which is far from a given.

[Herb Schaltegger]

SpaceX could still launch from pad 40.

What? 40 doesn’t have capability for Falcon Heavy at all, let alone a VIF. That’s a lot of infrastructure to build if they went that way. They would possibly also have to increase the GSE capacity for a Heavy mission.

I believe he was just saying that they could still launch their normal payloads on SLC 40 while 39A was busy with integration.

Ah, I skimmed the earlier post (which was not quoted) so missed the context for yg1968's comment. I get it now.

[Norm38]

It wouldn't surprise me if any flight using the extended fairing also will be required to use vertical integration.

The existing fairing is already heavy compared to other fairings (this was before reuse), and part of the reason for that extra weight appears to be to support horizontal integration loads.

The extended fairing is probably designed for vertical integration. But that is my speculation only.

Does that mean the extended fairing might not weigh that much extra?  Trade the weight for horizontal support for extra length?  They could also dump all the recovery hardware as it may not be cost effective to try and recover the few extended fairings.  (And extended fairing customers may not want to deal with it)

[Lars-J]

It wouldn't surprise me if any flight using the extended fairing also will be required to use vertical integration.

The existing fairing is already heavy compared to other fairings (this was before reuse), and part of the reason for that extra weight appears to be to support horizontal integration loads.

The extended fairing is probably designed for vertical integration. But that is my speculation only.

Does that mean the extended fairing might not weigh that much extra?  Trade the weight for horizontal support for extra length?  They could also dump all the recovery hardware as it may not be cost effective to try and recover the few extended fairings.  (And extended fairing customers may not want to deal with it)

It's all speculation. And given how rarely this long fairing will fly (Some DoD missions and this NASA payload), it seems unlikely that they would invest in adding reuse, but I've been wrong before.

[baldusi]

Or, they could take a page from the Russian’s book and make a rig to support the fairing while horizontal. It might require the tower just to retire the rig and allow for normal horizontal processing of the encapsulated fairing.

[Brovane]

If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.

It's still unclear how much more the extended Fairing weighs, plus any extra aero drag.
Also what are the G limits for the combined stack?
What is the total impact on performance?


Using Base FH TLI numbers seems like it's going to be overly optimistic.

Also, Maxar estimated 2.5 x PPE xenon use and 2 x duration for Electric Orbit Raising (EOR) due to the doubled mass of the combined vehicles, and a sub-GTO instead of super-synch GTO insertion. So it seems likely NASA would want the maximum available performance from FH, to minimize the Xe use and EOR duration.  Probably cheaper to pay for an expendable FH, than to pay for and manage an early/extra Logistics flight to top up PPE's Xe tanks.

If this is a full expendable FH flight, why couldn't the FH payload send this payload to TLI?  Is there a reason they would want a sub-GTO insertion instead? 

[Herb Schaltegger]

Or, they could take a page from the Russian’s book and make a rig to support the fairing while horizontal. It might require the tower just to retire the rig and allow for normal horizontal processing of the encapsulated fairing.

It's also possible that the payload itself requires vertical integration for its own reasons, regardless of the how the fairing is supported. That's a very long and pretty darn heavy mass to cantilever off the PAF, and it's two nominally-separate masses joined at roughly the center as-is. It's a much easier load case for payload design if you can eliminate the 1-g negative Z loads during integration as well as any bending loads imparted during launch vehicle erection.

[TrueBlueWitt]

If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.

It's still unclear how much more the extended Fairing weighs, plus any extra aero drag.
Also what are the G limits for the combined stack?
What is the total impact on performance?


Using Base FH TLI numbers seems like it's going to be overly optimistic.

Also, Maxar estimated 2.5 x PPE xenon use and 2 x duration for Electric Orbit Raising (EOR) due to the doubled mass of the combined vehicles, and a sub-GTO instead of super-synch GTO insertion. So it seems likely NASA would want the maximum available performance from FH, to minimize the Xe use and EOR duration.  Probably cheaper to pay for an expendable FH, than to pay for and manage an early/extra Logistics flight to top up PPE's Xe tanks.

If this is a full expendable FH flight, why couldn't the FH payload send this payload to TLI?  Is there a reason they would want a sub-GTO insertion instead? 

Good questions.. I found this

Further, because it will take approximately 10 months for
the co-manifested PPE and HALO to reach Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit for the Gateway to support a lunar
landing in 2024, the latest possible launch would need to be February 2024. The gap between the “need
by” launch date of February 2024 and current estimated launch date of May 2024 represents a negative
schedule margin of 3 months (see Figure 6)

In here on page 17
https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-004.pdf



It would appear they believe they every ounce of performance from FH they could get to not have even more issue with Schedule Margins.  Although it's not clear what assumption they're making here wrt Launch vehicle. 

[Robotbeat]

As indicated on pages 11 and 12 of the IG Report, Maxar had received a contract of $375M for the PPE (which later increased to $454M) that originally included transportation on a SpaceX rocket (this portion of the contract has now been removed; see page 34 of the IG Report). Prior to yesterday, transportation for HALO had not yet been contracted with any launch services provider.

Because the February 2020 requirement change to co-manifest PPE and HALO was NASA’s decision, 10 months into the contract, Maxar was forced to terminate its subcontract with SpaceX for PPE launch services, even though Maxar had already paid SpaceX approximately $27.5 million. Because a portion of this amount was for a milestone NASA paid Maxar for, and Maxar planned to also use the rocket for non-NASA purposes, NASA and Maxar will need to determine what this cancellation will actually cost the government. Ultimately, potential savings from reducing two rocket launches to one will be measured against this cost, along with the cost of the Gateway elements and launch vehicle modifications needed to meet the co-manifested requirements. In addition, since the procurement for the co-manifested rocket will be made using NASA’s Launch Services Program, it is possible that the Agency could award the contract to the same company that Maxar was going to use and in effect pay twice for the same service (partial payment on the scrubbed PPE launch plus full payment on the co-manifested launch).

https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-004.pdf

Now that we know the price for the co-manifested FH, it seems that NASA's decision to co-manifest the PPE and HALO was mostly done in order to reduce risks (as Loverro had indicated in early 2020), not to reduce costs. In any event, I believe that it makes sense to co-manifest the PPE and HALO on the basis of risks alone.

I think both risks AND cost are reduced.

Because it costs a LOT of money to reduce risk. Doubtless the contractors will claim the co-manifest is the reason for them being slow or overcost or whatever, but it makes the whole project easier. No in-orbit docking (remember how big of a deal it was when Dragon Crew achieved that? The first time the US had demonstrated automated docking in a large vehicle, not counting demos by DARPA/USAF with smaller vehicles), no service section on HALO, etc, etc. It's a big improvement.

I suspect part of the >$300 million will be increased mission assurance, though. The entire Gateway is now being launched, and it HAS to work.



(...or it fails and they just have to go straight to a Moon base, which wouldn't be the worst thing to be honest...)

[Robotbeat]

If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.

It's still unclear how much more the extended Fairing weighs, plus any extra aero drag.
Also what are the G limits for the combined stack?
What is the total impact on performance?


Using Base FH TLI numbers seems like it's going to be overly optimistic.

Also, Maxar estimated 2.5 x PPE xenon use and 2 x duration for Electric Orbit Raising (EOR) due to the doubled mass of the combined vehicles, and a sub-GTO instead of super-synch GTO insertion. So it seems likely NASA would want the maximum available performance from FH, to minimize the Xe use and EOR duration.  Probably cheaper to pay for an expendable FH, than to pay for and manage an early/extra Logistics flight to top up PPE's Xe tanks.

If this is a full expendable FH flight, why couldn't the FH payload send this payload to TLI?  Is there a reason they would want a sub-GTO insertion instead?

and

If the stack is only 15t, and FH can do ~20+t to TLI - I'm not sure that this needs to be a fully expendable launch. The center core, yes, but the boosters could perhaps be recovered down-range.

It's still unclear how much more the extended Fairing weighs, plus any extra aero drag.
Also what are the G limits for the combined stack?
What is the total impact on performance?


Using Base FH TLI numbers seems like it's going to be overly optimistic.

Also, Maxar estimated 2.5 x PPE xenon use and 2 x duration for Electric Orbit Raising (EOR) due to the doubled mass of the combined vehicles, and a sub-GTO instead of super-synch GTO insertion. So it seems likely NASA would want the maximum available performance from FH, to minimize the Xe use and EOR duration.  Probably cheaper to pay for an expendable FH, than to pay for and manage an early/extra Logistics flight to top up PPE's Xe tanks.

If this is a full expendable FH flight, why couldn't the FH payload send this payload to TLI?  Is there a reason they would want a sub-GTO insertion instead? 

Good questions.. I found this

Further, because it will take approximately 10 months for
the co-manifested PPE and HALO to reach Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit for the Gateway to support a lunar
landing in 2024, the latest possible launch would need to be February 2024. The gap between the “need
by” launch date of February 2024 and current estimated launch date of May 2024 represents a negative
schedule margin of 3 months (see Figure 6)

In here on page 17
https://oig.nasa.gov/docs/IG-21-004.pdf



It would appear they believe they every ounce of performance from FH they could get to not have even more issue with Schedule Margins.  Although it's not clear what assumption they're making here wrt Launch vehicle. 

I think those numbers to sub-GTO were BEFORE this selection announcement, i.e. they picked a lower energy orbit so they could give New Glenn and Vulcan a possibility of bidding. So it is possible FH will go to TLI here.

(This is a nice advantage of SEP, IMHO... it gives you more launch vehicle selection flexibility by trading time and delta-v.)

[Lars-J]

Neither Vulcan nor New Glenn were bid for this mission. And probably could not be until they have enough flights.

So it was either FH, Delta IV-H,... or SLS. And from what some are saying, FH was perhaps the only bidder. Another potential reason for not bidding as low as they perhaps could.

[woods170]

Or, they could take a page from the Russian’s book and make a rig to support the fairing while horizontal. It might require the tower just to retire the rig and allow for normal horizontal processing of the encapsulated fairing.

It's also possible that the payload itself requires vertical integration for its own reasons, regardless of the how the fairing is supported. That's a very long and pretty darn heavy mass to cantilever off the PAF, and it's two nominally-separate masses joined at roughly the center as-is. It's a much easier load case for payload design if you can eliminate the 1-g negative Z loads during integration as well as any bending loads imparted during launch vehicle erection.

I have it from several sources that PPE/HALO indeed requires vertical integration. From the same sources I also heard that only part of the costs for VIF and long fairing were amortized thru NSSL-67. The majority of the rest will be amortized thru the PPE/HALO launch. Particularly VIF and related VI GSE turn out to be expensive due to the DoD/NSS requirements for these structures and systems.

SpaceX has known for at least two years that DoD was not the only customer requriring vertical payload integration for Falcon Heavy. So, the cost for VIF, long fairing and other VI-related GSE (such as a new payload transporter) is split over DoD and other government launches (such as the PPE/HALO launch for NASA).

Although it was mentioned that PPE-to-HALO integration will take place at the launchbase, it does NOT mean that this happens in the VIF. PPE and HALO are integrated into a single payload in a separate SpaceX facility at CCAFS.
The integrated PPE/HALO stack will then be transported to LC-39A in upright (vertical) position. Next, it is hoisted to the top level of the VIF and will then be integrated on top of Falcon Heavy.

[Steven Pietrobon]

I shudder to think what this would have cost on a Delta IV Heavy. Better part of a billion dollars.

Delta IV Heavy is $350M. Ask Tory. Anyway, all its remaining flights are spoken for and ULA is not building any more.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/963109303291854848

[woods170]

I shudder to think what this would have cost on a Delta IV Heavy. Better part of a billion dollars.

Delta IV Heavy is $350M. Ask Tory. Anyway, all its remaining flights are spoken for and ULA is not building any more.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/963109303291854848

Entirely correct.

Now project the cost of that same Delta IV Heavy launch in a situation where ULA did not (yet) have a VIF available and the cost of constructing such a VIF is paid for by the first two Delta IV Heavy customers.
Than you can do a more-or-less apples-to-apples comparison between the cost of launching Europa Clipper on Delta IV Heavy or on Falcon Heavy.

(I purposely left out of this comparison the minor detail that Delta IV Heavy doesn't have the performance to fly Europa Clipper to Jupiter on a MEGA trajectory. Otherwise it would have been an apples-to-oranges comparison again)