Author Topic: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)  (Read 842894 times)

Offline Chris Bergin

Thread 5 for general discussion on SpaceX and their vehicles.

Previous threads (now over a million views for the general thread, 8.5 milllion views for the SpaceX threads alone):

Thread 1:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=19228.0

Thread 2:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=22769.0

Thread 3:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=24179.0

Thread 4:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25597.0

SpaceX news articles on this site:
Old: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21862.0 (links)

Then recent news articles, not linked above, as we moved to a tag group system:
All recent: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/spacex/

L2 SpaceX (actually very meaty now, mainly NASA side, nothing Prop or naughty):
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=tags&tags=SpaceX


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« Last Edit: 02/11/2012 03:56 am by Carl G »
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Offline Paul Howard

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #1 on: 02/10/2012 04:50 am »
Great thread opener!!! ;D

So, do we think SpaceX will slip their schedules if the budget reduces commercial crew, or will they try and use it to their advantage and aim to beat the other providers to "capture the flag" on the ISS?

Offline tigerade

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #2 on: 02/10/2012 05:19 am »
Here's my thought for the night:

I wonder how many completed first and second stages that SpaceX has?  Do they have sufficent room for them in the Hawthorne facility?

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #3 on: 02/10/2012 09:22 am »
Here's my thought for the night:

I wonder how many completed first and second stages that SpaceX has?  Do they have sufficent room for them in the Hawthorne facility?

I don't get the impression that they stockpile them at all.  I'd be surprised if there was more than the LVs for CRS-1 and CRS-2 either complete or in final assembly right now.
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Offline tigerade

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #4 on: 02/10/2012 09:55 am »
Here's my thought for the night:

I wonder how many completed first and second stages that SpaceX has?  Do they have sufficent room for them in the Hawthorne facility?

I don't get the impression that they stockpile them at all.  I'd be surprised if there was more than the LVs for CRS-1 and CRS-2 either complete or in final assembly right now.

I imagine that becoming a problem when they have 12 flights a year.  (Assuming they are ever capable of that).

Offline Seer

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #5 on: 02/10/2012 12:23 pm »
I wonder how much FH has slipped to the right? I'd say that FH should be their priority for new development. Not crewed Dragon, Stratolaunch, f9r, or merlin 2.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #6 on: 02/10/2012 12:24 pm »
Here's my thought for the night:

I wonder how many completed first and second stages that SpaceX has?  Do they have sufficent room for them in the Hawthorne facility?

Are you implying the Hawthorne maybe looking like Pane Field with all the 787's (Eeer. Dragon's, Falcon's, and Merlin's) covering every square inch of parking space?
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Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #7 on: 02/10/2012 01:18 pm »
I wonder how much FH has slipped to the right? I'd say that FH should be their priority for new development.

Why?

Offline Lurker Steve

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #8 on: 02/10/2012 02:02 pm »
I wonder how much FH has slipped to the right? I'd say that FH should be their priority for new development. Not crewed Dragon, Stratolaunch, f9r, or merlin 2.

They can assign resources to Stratolaunch, since that is funded by Paul Allen.

They also have milestones they need to meet in order to get paid for the Commerical Crew effort.

F9R, Merlin 2, and FH are just distractions. They would like to offer FH, in an attempt to grab some DOD business that can't launch on the F9, but the FH needs to fly multiple times on non-DOD missions before they can even be considered. What commerical customers need an FH ? None.

Offline kevin-rf

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #9 on: 02/10/2012 02:11 pm »
What commerical customers need an FH ? None.

Missions that are to large for the Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is not the largest GEO launcher on the market by a long shot.
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Offline ringshot

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #10 on: 02/10/2012 02:14 pm »
I know Bigelow has signed up with them... do they have anything on the books that would warrant a FH?

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Offline ChefPat

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #11 on: 02/10/2012 02:52 pm »
I know Bigelow has signed up with them... do they have anything on the books that would warrant a FH?

G'Day...Ron

Bigelow's spot on the SpaceX Manifest is a placeholder only.
Bigelow won't put a module in orbit until Commercial Crew is available.
An FH could put a BA-330 into LEO with a substantial amount of the material to outfit it.
Playing Politics with Commercial Crew is Un-American!!!

Offline baldusi

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #12 on: 02/10/2012 03:02 pm »
What commerical customers need an FH ? None.
Actually, the Payload of a F9 to GTO from CC (with a 1500m/s of delta-v deficit), is 3.5tonnes with the Delta-v kit (never demonstrated), or 2.9tonnes without it. To put in perspective, a Soyuz ST-B+Fregat from Kourou can put some 3.2tonnes , or an ST-A 2.8tonnes.
There are commercial sats upto 8tonnes. And there's a sweet spot of 3.8tonnes. The Ariane 5 from Kourou can do 10.5tonnes in dual manifest. And the Proton can put 6.3tonnes, and now can dual manifest, too. The FH had a stated 19.5tonnes to a 1800m/s deficit orbit, which might well translate to from 15tonnes to 12 tonnes equivalent to Ariane 5 (1500m/s deficit).
So SpaceX really needs that extra capacity. I think they can get a nice chunk of the commercial market, but only the day they have dual sat adapter for the FH. Meanwhile, it might compete in the big sats category (6 to 8 tonnes), but then it's not really that price competitive. 120M is what Arianespace charges for such a launch, or there about. And the Proton I think is even cheaper (albeit, only to 6.3tonnes).
So if they can show at least the Proton reliability, and dual manifest, then the FH might have quite a few commercial payloads. As is, they need track record.

I know Bigelow has signed up with them... do they have anything on the books that would warrant a FH?
In an interview, Mr. Bigelow himself explained that he had given them 25k as retainer for a Falcon 5 flight of the Sundancer. When they swapped to F9, they asked him if they could keep the money and him on manifest, and he could apply that money towards any launcher he wanted. So I wouldn't really count them.
And given the situation Bigelow currently is, I wouldn't count them for anything in the short term (say, five years).

Offline neilh

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #13 on: 02/10/2012 04:34 pm »
What commerical customers need an FH ? None.

Missions that are to large for the Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is not the largest GEO launcher on the market by a long shot.

Also , SpaceX needs FH for any  f9 or EELV-class launches it wants to reuse boosters on.
« Last Edit: 02/10/2012 04:35 pm by neilh »
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Offline beb

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #14 on: 02/10/2012 04:50 pm »
Just my two cents but I think crewed dragon should be next on SpaceX's to-do list after COTS. Currently there is no American crew spacecraft so whoever gets a crewed vessel first is going to have best chance of picking up the bulk of crew launches.

Offline ugordan

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #15 on: 02/10/2012 04:53 pm »
best chance of picking up the bulk of crew launches.

All two of them per year? IMHO, Falcon Heavy offers potentially more return on investment if it enables them to carry heavier comsats than fit on F9.

Offline Lurker Steve

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #16 on: 02/10/2012 07:21 pm »
Out of the global market for GEO Comsats, what percentage are too large for the F9 ??

Would it be easier, and cheaper to add a few strap-on solids for cases where the F9 needed to launch a larger payload, rather than using an extra 2 cores ?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #17 on: 02/10/2012 07:32 pm »
Out of the global market for GEO Comsats, what percentage are too large for the F9 ??

Would it be easier, and cheaper to add a few strap-on solids for cases where the F9 needed to launch a larger payload, rather than using an extra 2 cores ?
Cheaper? Really depends on how you count it. SpaceX is vertically integrated, so mostly they need stuff like aluminum stock, fasteners, etc. And manufacturing equipment they already have plus a lot of man-hours.

SpaceX has no experience working with solids, and they'd have to buy them from ATK or Aerojet. Also, they'd have to re-design Falcon 9 pretty substantially.

More likely to me would be performance improvements and tank stretches. Reportedly, Falcon 9 with Merlin 1D maxed out can do something like 15mT to LEO, 40-50% better than with just Merlin 1C+. They may not be planning on that right now, but it could very well be they'd opt for that sort of upgrade (or a new upper stage engine with improved Isp... staged combustion or a new propellant with higher Isp) instead. Also, GTO performance would be markedly improved with a kick-stage of some sort, which I would imagine might allow fewer changes to Falcon 9 as a whole compared to adding strap-ons.

I doubt they'd go with strap-on solids. I'd bet that they'd find some ways to upgrade Falcon 9, they'd add a kick-stage of some sort (which they suggested in the past could be a solid), or just find a way to make Falcon Heavy cheaper before they try doing strap-ons.
« Last Edit: 02/10/2012 07:36 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline ugordan

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #18 on: 02/10/2012 07:34 pm »
Out of the global market for GEO Comsats, what percentage are too large for the F9 ??

Someone who is a statistician can better help you with that. I think satellites that can be launched by F9 could be classified as mid to lighter weight, although they don't necessarily need to make up a minority of all launches.

Quote
Would it be easier, and cheaper to add a few strap-on solids for cases where the F9 needed to launch a larger payload, rather than using an extra 2 cores ?

Personally, I think it will be a cold day in hell before you see SRBs on a SpaceX booster.

Offline baldusi

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Re: SpaceX: General Falcon and Dragon discussion (Thread 5)
« Reply #19 on: 02/10/2012 07:59 pm »
Out of the global market for GEO Comsats, what percentage are too large for the F9 ??
According to the FAA GSO market study (PDF), for this decade you would expect:
<4,400kg = 36%
4,400kg< and <5,400kg = 30%
> 5,400kg = 34%
With an average amount of satellites of 20 per year. So they would be fighting for some 6 launches per year. And I doubt they could get more than half of those. We are talking about the F9 here. If you add the FH and they can get dual manifested they could tap the whole market. Of course, even if they had half the total market, that would be five FH launches. Of course they also want to tap the DoD market.
Again, if you look at it to reach 20 launches per year, they would need to get something like 50% of DoD+NASA+Commercial. Very difficult indeed. And there's already talks about a comsat glut towards the end of the decade. So by the time they are going to be competitive (in five years), the demand will probably take a dip.

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