This is the part of aerospace that I really don't understand. Why couldn't Orbital itself produce a simple power unit for Mid Deck Lockers? Are they too busy? Can Andrews really sell a power unit to Orbital more cheaply than Orbital's cost?
Quote from: Danderman on 05/13/2011 06:31 pmThis is the part of aerospace that I really don't understand. Why couldn't Orbital itself produce a simple power unit for Mid Deck Lockers? Are they too busy? Can Andrews really sell a power unit to Orbital more cheaply than Orbital's cost?Where do you work, Danderman?Where I work, we basically buy everything from other vendors and integrate it together into a working product. We don't actually forge any steel or even do any machining. But this is pretty common! We are a small company, and there's NO WAY we could afford to keep up a machine shop just to produce enough parts to put in our products (and the parts we use are used for many other products that we don't sell).Horizontal integration is a GOOD THING for a healthy industry. That SpaceX is forced to be vertically integrated for their launch vehicles (and Orbital is forced to use a lot of foreign components for its launch vehicles) is evidence that the domestic launch vehicle industry isn't exactly healthy (though that's not necessarily anyone's fault in particular). But other than eye-tar, the US satellite industry is much better and is somewhat competitive in the world market.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/13/2011 06:41 pmQuote from: Danderman on 05/13/2011 06:31 pmThis is the part of aerospace that I really don't understand. Why couldn't Orbital itself produce a simple power unit for Mid Deck Lockers? Are they too busy? Can Andrews really sell a power unit to Orbital more cheaply than Orbital's cost?Where do you work, Danderman?Where I work, we basically buy everything from other vendors and integrate it together into a working product. We don't actually forge any steel or even do any machining. But this is pretty common! We are a small company, and there's NO WAY we could afford to keep up a machine shop just to produce enough parts to put in our products (and the parts we use are used for many other products that we don't sell).Horizontal integration is a GOOD THING for a healthy industry. That SpaceX is forced to be vertically integrated for their launch vehicles (and Orbital is forced to use a lot of foreign components for its launch vehicles) is evidence that the domestic launch vehicle industry isn't exactly healthy (though that's not necessarily anyone's fault in particular). But other than eye-tar, the US satellite industry is much better and is somewhat competitive in the world market.You would think that a sub-system worthy of a press release is probably a large enough system that Orbital would make it inside the company. I wouldn't expect Orbital to make its own machine tools or screws or metals, but I would expect Orbital to produce such subsystems.
Personally, I prefer a bunch of small and medium-sized aerospace businesses like Andrews Space and XCor (etc)
Orbital is doing this... they are operating the launch vehicle though many parts are built or designed by others.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/13/2011 07:31 pm Orbital is doing this... they are operating the launch vehicle though many parts are built or designed by others.No this is nothing new, this is SOP for spacecraft and launch vehicles and is the same thing as Boeing does for airliners. It is System design and integration.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/13/2011 07:31 pmPersonally, I prefer a bunch of small and medium-sized aerospace businesses like Andrews Space and XCor (etc) they won't have the resources to do anymore than bit roles
1. Important roles, not bit roles. In a healthy industry, there's a large spread of companies.2. I agree that a launch vehicle designer/integrator generally needs to have about a thousand employees. But an operator doesn't necessarily need that many.
...2. There won't be operators until there are RLV's. Operations of ELV's require to much work of the designer.
Quote from: Jim on 05/13/2011 07:53 pmQuote from: Robotbeat on 05/13/2011 07:31 pm Orbital is doing this... they are operating the launch vehicle though many parts are built or designed by others.No this is nothing new, this is SOP for spacecraft and launch vehicles and is the same thing as Boeing does for airliners. It is System design and integration.Agreed that it's nothing new and that it's the same for airliners, but for launch vehicles, generally the same company who designs and integrates the launch vehicle also operates it. It makes a lot of sense for expendable launch vehicles, but eventually with RLVs it will change to be more like the airliner model, where the aircraft designer and integrator is different from the operator.
Any chance we will see an ISS bound launch from the boston area
or would a road trip be in order?
2. There won't be operators until there are RLV's. Operations of ELV's require to much work of the designer.
As to "why can't Orbital build a simple power supply", let me tell you this: the space business has a lot of ups and downs: one month you have six spacecraft in the assembly floor, two months later only two. The same goes for space-qualified (even more for HUMAN-SPACEFLIGHT-qualified) avionics. You try to balance your load by carefully interleaving in-house build and vended units. You want to be able to build space-qualified boxes in house, but you ALSO want to have a reliable source of qualified, financially stable partners and suppliers. If we can't offer more orders to Andrews, it is our hope that others will buy their fine products, so they can even out THEIR load without Orbital help.