Author Topic: Antares General Discussion Thread  (Read 362720 times)

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #780 on: 06/15/2018 01:42 am »
I think your idea of value is different than most. A >50% additional margin per reuse seems worth the effort.
Worth the effort for Falcon 9, yes apparently, but since Antares is a smaller rocket not competing across the entire Falcon 9 payload range, it seems to me that there should be a window within the lighter payload range where it could or should compete.  It would have to be able to compete with that partly-used Falcon 9 to do so.  To me, it is a waste of a perfectly good rocket that could be better used for heavier things when a Falcon 9 launches  a 350 kg TESS or a 470 kg Formosat or a 2 tonne Paz, etc..

 - Ed Kyle 
« Last Edit: 06/15/2018 01:44 am by edkyle99 »

Offline LouScheffer

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #781 on: 06/15/2018 02:25 am »
  That leaves the upper stage or stages, which should cost less than the Falcon 9 or Atlas 5 upper stages (which are also expended). 

It's not obvious the upper stage will be cheaper than Falcon 9 upper stage.  Castor 120 engines (from which Castor 30 is derived) cost $8.75 million each in 2006.   The Castor 30 is smaller, but the cost will not drop proportionally.   The Merlin is thought to cost only about $1M, though the tanks need to be added.  They both need avionics and thrust vectoring.

It should be cheaper than the Atlas upper stage, though.  The RL-10 is fairly expensive by itself.

Offline brickmack

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #782 on: 06/15/2018 03:54 am »
As of 2011,  Taurus II Standard (Antares 120) was 75-80 million. Taurus IIE (Antares 130) was 85-90 million. Taurus IIH (Antares 132) was 90-95 million. I think we can safely assume the price will have gone up significantly since they're no longer getting NK-33s very cheaply. The price difference between those configurations would imply Star 48BV is ~5 million, and Castor 30XL (being almost twice the mass of Castor 30B, so probably about twice the price difference) is ~20 million. Plus ~14% on all those numbers for inflation, plus whatever the cost increase from RD-181 is

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #783 on: 06/15/2018 01:34 pm »
As of 2011,  Taurus II Standard (Antares 120) was 75-80 million. Taurus IIE (Antares 130) was 85-90 million. Taurus IIH (Antares 132) was 90-95 million. I think we can safely assume the price will have gone up significantly since they're no longer getting NK-33s very cheaply. The price difference between those configurations would imply Star 48BV is ~5 million, and Castor 30XL (being almost twice the mass of Castor 30B, so probably about twice the price difference) is ~20 million. Plus ~14% on all those numbers for inflation, plus whatever the cost increase from RD-181 is
One thing that changed since 2011 was that Orbital merged with ATK, which likely provided lower cost access to the solid motors.  Another change, obviously was that Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 (re-configured NK33) was dropped in favor of direct-buy Energomash RD-181.  The final change is Northrop Grumman buying the program, a giant company that can price things differently for its own reasons.  If it wants to compete, it will have to price things differently.  If a Vulcan will be $99 million and an Ariane 62 $92 million, there is no way that a less capable Antares can be $90 or $80 or even $70 million.

 - Ed Kyle 
« Last Edit: 06/15/2018 01:48 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline hopalong

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #784 on: 06/15/2018 02:38 pm »
As of 2011,  Taurus II Standard (Antares 120) was 75-80 million. Taurus IIE (Antares 130) was 85-90 million. Taurus IIH (Antares 132) was 90-95 million. I think we can safely assume the price will have gone up significantly since they're no longer getting NK-33s very cheaply. The price difference between those configurations would imply Star 48BV is ~5 million, and Castor 30XL (being almost twice the mass of Castor 30B, so probably about twice the price difference) is ~20 million. Plus ~14% on all those numbers for inflation, plus whatever the cost increase from RD-181 is
One thing that changed since 2011 was that Orbital merged with ATK, which likely provided lower cost access to the solid motors.  Another change, obviously was that Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ26 (re-configured NK33) was dropped in favor of direct-buy Energomash RD-181.  The final change is Northrop Grumman buying the program, a giant company that can price things differently for its own reasons.  If it wants to compete, it will have to price things differently.  If a Vulcan will be $99 million and an Ariane 62 $92 million, there is no way that a less capable Antares can be $90 or $80 or even $70 million.

 - Ed Kyle

Basically, the elephant in the pricing room is the F9. Unless the Antares can come in at the sub $60M band, they will have a rough time completing with the F9, especially if old Musky follows through with his comments about dropping the base price of a F9 5.5 Tonne GTO mission to in the order of $50M.
« Last Edit: 06/15/2018 02:39 pm by hopalong »

Offline ZachF

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #785 on: 06/15/2018 04:47 pm »
The +/-$24 million for the engines is probably not that far off the cost of an entire F9 lower stage. The lower stage is probably ~$40 million for the Antares and ~$30m for the F9 if I had to guess.
Falcon 9 first stage almost certainly costs more then $24 million.  If it only cost that much, SpaceX wouldn't bother trying to recover the stage!  Musk has said that the first stage accounts for 60-75% of the total Falcon 9 cost (varying amounts depending on when he was asked).  Gwynn Shotwell also once said that it cost less than half the cost of a new first stage to refurbish and refly a stage.  That is the number that Northrop Grumman needs to target.   

 - Ed Kyle

Elon Musk has said that a payload fairing costs ~$5 million dollars.

He also said recently that the PLF is ~10% of the cost, the second stage ~20%, the lower stage ~60%, and other at ~10%.

Doing the math from those two numbers puts the lower stage at +/-$30 million.
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Offline ZachF

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #786 on: 06/15/2018 04:50 pm »

The avionics probably aren't smaller,or cheaper than F9 since AIUI they don't use off-the-shelf hardware. Nor the booster airframe, as it's purchased rather than built. Nor the engines - ULA pays ~24 million dollars for a single RD-180, and I doubt a pair of RD-181's is much if any, cheaper.

I could easily see RD-181 being cheaper for NG than RD-180 is for ULA. Aside from being a different and less complex engine NG also isn't a captive customer. They can always move on to another engine, another launcher, or exit the launch business altogether. ULA doesn't(didn't) really have that option with Atlas V. For national security it was the only game in town so any price could be asked.

It's like Soyuz. We've seen what a privately purchased Soyuz seat costs, and what a NASA purchased Soyuz seat costs. A private customer can always walk away, NASA is captive.

So it comes down to business. If Energomash wants to sell engines, they can't price themselves out of the market. Even Antares isn't a free lunch, NG has already shown they'll switch launchers on CRS.
RD-180 sales have to go through a middle man which takes a cut of each engine purchase on top of the base price. That middle man is United Technology Corporation's Joint Venture RD Amross, LLC formed between subsidiary Pratt & Whitney and JSC NPO Energomash (fka NPO Energomash). Due to various reasons UTC's 50% share was not transferred to Aerojet General upon Rocketdyne's spinoff from PW and its merger with AG to become Aerojet Rocketdyne.


RD-181 is directly purchased from JSC NPO Energomash at export price.

ULA also purchases much higher numbers of RD-180s (6-9 launches a years worth) than OATK purchases RD-181s (1-2 launches per year), and there are usually discounts for higher volume.
« Last Edit: 06/15/2018 04:54 pm by ZachF »
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Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #787 on: 06/16/2018 12:44 pm »
As of 2011,  Taurus II Standard (Antares 120) was 75-80 million. Taurus IIE (Antares 130) was 85-90 million. Taurus IIH (Antares 132) was 90-95 million. I think we can safely assume the price will have gone up significantly since they're no longer getting NK-33s very cheaply.
Antares was also being amortized in CRS1, so the initial development should be paid off, except the modifications for RD-181. So that cost should now be eliminated (which might account for a fair chunk of the CRS-2 price decrease).


And Northrop can't exit the launch business and leave NASA hanging on CRS. Not if they want to keep building multiple billion dollar satellites for NASA.
Sure they can exit the launch business, they've already used another launcher for CRS. There's no reason they couldn't do it again.
« Last Edit: 06/16/2018 12:49 pm by rayleighscatter »

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #788 on: 07/10/2018 05:22 pm »
Cross post with news that Antares now has to look for a domestic engine or cease flights after it runs out of RD-181's:

BUMP For RD-181:
Per likely strong lobbying efforts via Aerojet Rocketdyne and others Congress adds RD-181 in latest version of Russian engine ban: http://spacenews.com/energomash-raises-alarm-over-u-s-ban-on-russian-rocket-engines/

Offline gongora

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #789 on: 07/10/2018 05:47 pm »
Cross post with news that Antares now has to look for a domestic engine or cease flights after it runs out of RD-181's:

BUMP For RD-181:
Per likely strong lobbying efforts via Aerojet Rocketdyne and others Congress adds RD-181 in latest version of Russian engine ban: http://spacenews.com/energomash-raises-alarm-over-u-s-ban-on-russian-rocket-engines/

The engine ban is for NSS flights.

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #790 on: 07/11/2018 12:13 am »
Article also wrongly states NG gets the engines from RD Amross, they purchase straight from Energomash.

Offline meekGee

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #791 on: 09/11/2018 02:12 am »
I think your idea of value is different than most. A >50% additional margin per reuse seems worth the effort.
Worth the effort for Falcon 9, yes apparently, but since Antares is a smaller rocket not competing across the entire Falcon 9 payload range, it seems to me that there should be a window within the lighter payload range where it could or should compete.  It would have to be able to compete with that partly-used Falcon 9 to do so.  To me, it is a waste of a perfectly good rocket that could be better used for heavier things when a Falcon 9 launches  a 350 kg TESS or a 470 kg Formosat or a 2 tonne Paz, etc..

 - Ed Kyle
When launching a small payload, Antares would have to compete with the cost of an F9 upper stage plus refurbishment costs of a first stage.

It doesn't matter that the same F9 could have launched a larger payload, since it's still there to do so.


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Offline Lars-J

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #792 on: 10/19/2018 08:59 pm »
Has Antares been stealth cancelled? Did NASA Wallops basically announce what we all suspect will happen, when they had a ground breaking ceremony for the Rocketlab pad - right next to the Antares pad?

See article and video: https://www.wmdt.com/2018/10/wallops-flight-facility-becomes-first-us-launch-site-for-rocket-lab/  (In he video note that they are right at the Antares pad when Beck is interviewed)
« Last Edit: 10/19/2018 09:01 pm by Lars-J »

Offline gongora

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #793 on: 10/19/2018 09:03 pm »
Has Antares been stealth cancelled? Did NASA Wallops basically announce what we all suspect will happen, when they had a ground breaking ceremony for the Rocketlab pad - right next to the Antares pad?

See article and video: https://www.wmdt.com/2018/10/wallops-flight-facility-becomes-first-us-launch-site-for-rocket-lab/  (In he video note that they are right at the Antares pad when Beck is interviewed)

Antares flies 2-3 times a year.  That Rocket Lab pad will be seldom used.  What's the problem?

Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #794 on: 06/04/2019 11:09 pm »
As some of you may have noticed from the thread I recently created, I've been thinking about Antares recently, and speculating on what it's future is.

I love Antares, but the reality is that it's an outdated launch vehicle that is only still viable because it was successfully designed to survive on an absolutely tiny launch cadence, and because NASA likes having a backup. Honestly, a stretched Cygnus on an Atlas V or OmegA would've been a more impressive bid for CRS2, and it's not like they'd be losing out on income from Antares, since CRS IS Antares' income. Yet even with their own EELV come along, NGIS intends to keep flying Antares. Why?

One reason could be political/PR fear; shutting down Antares facilities at Wallops would kill a lot of jobs. I'm going to propose something else though.

In Antares, Orbital Sciences managed to, with minimal investment on their end, wind up with the capability to launch a large, orbital, liquid LV. That is a very impressive capability that very few other companies can claim to have, and it shouldn't be discarded lightly.

Once they merged with ATK, building a large solid LV to compete in the next EELV contract made sense, especially since it makes them lunar capable. But OmegA will not be viable for very long. The doors to the commercial launch market have been thrown wide open by smallsat companies. If SpaceX can go from Falcon 1 to where it is now in 10 years, whose to say any smallsat company isn't a future competitor? That's a lot of potential competition. And speaking of SpaceX, they're already putting tremendous pressure on the launch market using reusability. OmegA's days are numbered, even now.

NGIS surely know that, and are probably already thinking about what will come after OmegA. Whatever it is, it will probably have to be at least partially reusable, and that means it can't be based on solids. If only they had the infrastructure to launch a large liquid LV. Wait...

So yeah, I think Antares is being kept around as a way of keeping the seat/pad warm for NGIS's next LV. The LV that will have to remain viable out into the 2030s or even 2040s. Despite how long I took to lay it out, "Solid LVs will not be viable in the 2030s" is not a difficult prediction to make, and certainly helps to explain NGIS maintaining the one non-solid LV they have. Thoughts?
Wait, ∆V? This site will accept the ∆ symbol? How many times have I written out the word "delta" for no reason?

Offline jstrotha0975

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #795 on: 06/04/2019 11:36 pm »
I don't think it would take much to improve the Antares with a stretched first stage and new engines, maybe a pair of Merlins. Maybe a 5m cryogenic upper stage too. Wouldn't be able to lift as much as other company's rockets, but would hopefully be a cheaper, less capable alternative.
« Last Edit: 06/04/2019 11:47 pm by jstrotha0975 »

Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #796 on: 06/05/2019 12:18 am »
I don't think it would take much to improve the Antares with a stretched first stage and new engines, maybe a pair of Merlins. Maybe a 5m cryogenic upper stage too. Wouldn't be able to lift as much as other company's rockets, but would hopefully be a cheaper, less capable alternative.

Antares would need 4 Merlin 1Ds to have thrust equivalent to Antares 100, and 5 for Antares 200. And that's all irrelevant anyway because the entire Antares business case revolves around being a redundant provider for CRS, which they can't be if they share equipment with SpaceX.

After the RDs and the Merlins, the next biggest existing kerolox engine they might have access to is Firefly Space's Reaver-1. It would only take 18-21 Reaver engines to power and Antares first stage (which, to be fair, would look pretty sick).

The real issue with trying to improve Antares with a new engine is that the engine doesn't exist. With kerolox first stages, the RD-181/RD180 is as good as you're gonna get right now. The American engine market has moved on from kerolox to methalox.

So you either need to switch fuels, or develop a new engine. Both are expensive, and essentially mean building a new rocket.

« Last Edit: 06/05/2019 12:27 am by JEF_300 »
Wait, ∆V? This site will accept the ∆ symbol? How many times have I written out the word "delta" for no reason?

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #797 on: 06/05/2019 04:00 am »
I love Antares, but the reality is that it's an outdated launch vehicle that is only still viable because it was successfully designed to survive on an absolutely tiny launch cadence, and because NASA likes having a backup.
"Outdated"?  Antares is still brand new!  It is powered by a pair of one of the world's most advanced, most efficient, and most recently-developed hydrocarbon rocket engines.  It's second stage ranks among the most advanced solid motors.  Like RD-181, Castor 30XL was recently developed.  The Antares 230 type is only in its third year of service, still ramping up in capability.  Its last payload weighed 7.3 tonnes and more capability growth is coming - not bad for a launch vehicle that weighs about half as much as a Falcon 9. 

Surviving on a low launch rate is a good thing given the ups and downs of this business. 

 - Ed Kyle

Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #798 on: 06/05/2019 08:03 am »
I love Antares, but the reality is that it's an outdated launch vehicle that is only still viable because it was successfully designed to survive on an absolutely tiny launch cadence, and because NASA likes having a backup.
"Outdated"?  Antares is still brand new!  It is powered by a pair of one of the world's most advanced, most efficient, and most recently-developed hydrocarbon rocket engines.  It's second stage ranks among the most advanced solid motors.  Like RD-181, Castor 30XL was recently developed.  The Antares 230 type is only in its third year of service, still ramping up in capability.  Its last payload weighed 7.3 tonnes and more capability growth is coming - not bad for a launch vehicle that weighs about half as much as a Falcon 9. 

Antares uses a recently developed kerolox engine that every other US launch provider will have fled like the plague within the next 2 years. It's second stage may be THE most advanced solid motor in the world, but it's still a solid motor in a world where those are fast becoming obsolete. It's capabilities relative to other launchers are irrelevant, because they all beat it on price by such are margin as to be exclusionary.

Quote
Surviving on a low launch rate is a good thing given the ups and downs of this business.
That's true, but Antares isn't using that capability to survive one of the many downs in business, but to survive. Period. And maintaining a low performing project IS bad for business.

The problem with Antares is not just the price, although that's one of the biggest. A more expensive rocket can survive or even thrive if it has more value elsewhere. The issue is that there is no reason at all to use Antares over another LV.

Honestly, there's barely a reason to use Antares for Cygnus; Atlas V could launch a larger Cygnus with more cargo, and has a much better reliability record. And not switching LV for Cygnus will only become more difficult to justify as time goes on, with rockets like Vulcan cutting ULA's launch costs and OmegA giving NGIS an internal EELV.

Perhaps outdated was a poor choice of words, but Antares, which I'll reiterate that I really do love, is not a viable rocket for commercial or public missions at this time, and is difficult to justify for internal missions. And I think it can and should be replaced with something viable; a Taurus III if you will. Though probably not until after OmegA starts flying.
« Last Edit: 06/05/2019 08:11 am by JEF_300 »
Wait, ∆V? This site will accept the ∆ symbol? How many times have I written out the word "delta" for no reason?

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Antares General Discussion Thread
« Reply #799 on: 06/05/2019 11:20 am »
If you wany to improve Antares give it hydolox US (40t) which NGIS are building for Omega and few Gem63 SRBs. Would turn it into another Atlas with maybe better performance, as Centuar is to small for Atlas.


 

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