There is a typo in the first chart (table 4). It is $2684 per kg, not $2864 per kg for the Falcon 9. According to @LouScheffer.Quote from: LouSchefferIt's even better than it looks - there's a typo in the table. The SpaceX entry should be 2684 $/kg, not 2864.This is immediately clear when you ask how Proton can be comparable. They payload is 23,000 vs 22,800, or about 1% more. But the cost is more than 1% higher. So at least one of the numbers must be wrong, and it's SpaceX.http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42617.msg1714471#msg1714471
It's even better than it looks - there's a typo in the table. The SpaceX entry should be 2684 $/kg, not 2864.This is immediately clear when you ask how Proton can be comparable. They payload is 23,000 vs 22,800, or about 1% more. But the cost is more than 1% higher. So at least one of the numbers must be wrong, and it's SpaceX.
Quote from: Zed_Noir on 11/13/2017 09:35 pmThere is a typo in the first chart (table 4). It is $2684 per kg, not $2864 per kg for the Falcon 9. According to @LouScheffer.Quote from: LouSchefferIt's even better than it looks - there's a typo in the table. The SpaceX entry should be 2684 $/kg, not 2864.This is immediately clear when you ask how Proton can be comparable. They payload is 23,000 vs 22,800, or about 1% more. But the cost is more than 1% higher. So at least one of the numbers must be wrong, and it's SpaceX.http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42617.msg1714471#msg1714471Before I change, who is LouScheffer? And why does he think so?
No need for reputation here. The table itself has all the data. The cost is 61.2 million. The payload is 22,800 kg. That gives a cost of $2684/kg. But the cost per kg entry, on the same line, says $2864. Seems pretty clear this is just a typo, since your calculator can show you that $2684 is the correct value.
There's a US government report online from last summer that has two charts with prices for commercially available rockets. The first chart is on page 22, the second chart is on page 30.http://www.gao.gov/assets/690/686613.pdf
The actual physical pages are 27 and 35 respectively. It's quite a range of $/Kg of mass, with over a decade in range.
Better than nothing
Just a question: why is price per kg the most quoted criteria regarding prices of launch?When contracting a launch, you don't say "we only take up 50% of your mass capabilities, we will only pay 50% of the launch". You pay for a launch, unless you do some ride share mission. Launches have fixed costs, and potentially NRE costs for different payload interface structures (if multiple payloads were on flight)Also generally payloads do not get up to the 80% to 100% capacity range of the launch vehicles; you would actually be paying a much higher $/kg on those missions. edit: I feel like it's akin to buying a sedan vs an SUV/Minivan. The SUV/Minivan may cost $38k vas $26k of a sedan, but the SUV holds 7 people. You are saying "I'm paying $5.4k per person with a SUV vs $6.5k for a sedan" even though you only carry 4 people.
I think this NASA presentation contains a lot of relevant info for this topic:https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170009968.pdf
Just a question: why is price per kg the most quoted criteria regarding prices of launch?
Quote from: Davidthefat on 12/15/2017 07:11 pmJust a question: why is price per kg the most quoted criteria regarding prices of launch?It's a fair question and the answer is it does give a single metric across the whole range of LV's. But you're right, you don't buy lift by the lb or Kg, you buy by the launch. The other issue is a small LV simply can't carry the load, in the same way a car can't tow a 40ft container. If you want that you need an 18 wheeler. A more subtle point is those prices only apply to full loads. Musk has talked of sub 1000$/lb for FH launches provided there are more than 4 a year and they are fully loaded IE to 50+tonnes, suggesting multiple ride shares will be needed if people actually want to get that low a price per Kg to orbit.
Dear Guardian700, is it possible to make the boxes wider? It is somehow laborious to read sometimes. Good work, btw.
Quote from: Kosmos2001 on 01/17/2018 08:34 amDear Guardian700, is it possible to make the boxes wider? It is somehow laborious to read sometimes. Good work, btw. Many thanks. The width is only 900 px max. There is no place to expand, unfortunately ...
Agreed with Kosmos2001. Also, why the limit?