Competitiveness of Vulcan vs F9 / FH / SS / NG etc

[DanClemmensen]

Vulcan outperforms all versions of Falcon 9 Recoverable and Falcon Heavy Recoverable*.  The Falcons can only bust Vulcan's chops by expending stages, which deflates the reuse argument.
...

Performance is one dimension. How about cost? Maybe "deflates reuse argument", but does not obviate it. Given lack of competition, don't think anyone really knows what Falcons floor price is. So what if Vulcan can do it for $$ and Falcon can do it for $? Vulcan loses. If, for the majority of Falcon's market (don't forget Starlink and Transporter), reusable is cheaper, Vulcan loses. Loses, as in terms of market, which is what is going to define the difference between success and failure (or second-third place); not simply performance.

That's the elephant in the corner of the room.  How low could SpaceX go?  The EV car manufacturers are now learning that Tesla can lower its prices and blow up their product plans. Tesla lured them into thinking they could compete at a certain price level and then lowered the boom. Can SpaceX do that? I think they can for Falcon 9 and wait for SS if it's twice as expensive as Musk says; it still changes everything.

Use the Tesla analogy with caution. Commentators like to attribute Tesla pricing to cutthroat competitive maneuvers, but it's better explained by supply and demand. They don't have inventory. Instead they have back orders. They set the price to maintain their backorder lead time as they ramp up production. Given their preposterous gross margins, they can continue to lower the price for quite a while. This is the effect of high-volume, highly efficient manufacturing, and that is the analogy that ULA and other SpaceX competitors need to worry about. SpaceX will build and launch about 90 F9 US this year.

[Coastal Ron]

Are there any mission profiles that Vulcan is better for than Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy? 

Vulcan outperforms all versions of Falcon 9 Recoverable and Falcon Heavy Recoverable*.  The Falcons can only bust Vulcan's chops by expending stages, which deflates the reuse argument.

There is no "reuse argument". Reuse is how costs are lowered.

Remember that SpaceX customers don't decide whether any parts of their launch vehicle is recovered, that is up to SpaceX. SpaceX quotes their customers a price based on PERFORMANCE, not reusability. So customers pick the combination of price and performance that they want.

ULA quotes their launches the same way (i.e. the performance the customer needs), though they don't need to take into account recovery, since all of their launch vehicles are fully expendable.

[deadman1204]

When comparing vulcan with falcon 9, I feel we miss out on some information.
Yes, falcon 9 price is lower, and we all look at mass to leo. Which is great and all, but for alot of military launches, there are criteria that we know much less about.

How accurate is a falcon 9 2nd stage vs a centaur? Does a centaur give a smoother ride? Does it have a higher accuracy for injecting something into the desired orbit and speed? When you want to save fuel on your satellite, that extra 3% accuracy on orbital injection can matter.

I've read very little about falcon 9 second stage, does it really compare to a centaur?

[Coastal Ron]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

[mandrewa]

When comparing vulcan with falcon 9, I feel we miss out on some information.
Yes, falcon 9 price is lower, and we all look at mass to leo. Which is great and all, but for alot of military launches, there are criteria that we know much less about.

How accurate is a falcon 9 2nd stage vs a centaur? Does a centaur give a smoother ride? Does it have a higher accuracy for injecting something into the desired orbit and speed? When you want to save fuel on your satellite, that extra 3% accuracy on orbital injection can matter.

I've read very little about falcon 9 second stage, does it really compare to a centaur?

I suspect that what the military cares more about, beyond the ability to put a certain mass in a certain orbit, is the reliability of the rocket.

If that's the case, then the Falcon Heavy and the Falcon 9 start off with a huge advantage.  (But then of course this also depends on how the military measures reliability.  I'm assuming it's some function of actual launches.)

[meekGee]

Are there any mission profiles that Vulcan is better for than Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy? 

Vulcan outperforms all versions of Falcon 9 Recoverable and Falcon Heavy Recoverable*.  The Falcons can only bust Vulcan's chops by expending stages, which deflates the reuse argument.

* Falcon Heavy has only flown once when all three cores landed, though one was lost at sea.  It carried a 6.47 tonne payload to GTO.  Vulcan 522 can lift 7.4 tonnes supposedly, Vulcan 562 13.3 tonnes, etc..

 - Ed Kyle

You're comparing paper specs with a specific load that was carried.  That's just plain misleading.

Also, by all means, if reusable can't cut it, compare expendable to expendable, why not?

[meekGee]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

[Coastal Ron]

I suspect that what the military cares more about, beyond the ability to put a certain mass in a certain orbit, is the reliability of the rocket.

If that's the case, then the Falcon Heavy and the Falcon 9 start off with a huge advantage.  (But then of course this also depends on how the military measures reliability.  I'm assuming it's some function of actual launches.)

The USAF has stated publicly that they are willing to accept less than 100% reliability if it means that their overall costs will go down.

[DanClemmensen]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Yep. Sunk costs are sunk. To continue launching, SpaceX must charge enough to cover marginal costs plus fixed operational costs. Development and factory capital costs do need to be covered, but not necessarily by Starship launches. The equivalent is also true for Vulcan, and unless you are an accountant I doubt you have a good feel for Vulcan's development and capital costs.

[meekGee]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Yep. Sunk costs are sunk. To continue launching, SpaceX must charge enough to cover marginal costs plus fixed operational costs. Development and factory capital costs do need to be covered, but not necessarily by Starship launches. The equivalent is also true for Vulcan, and unless you are an accountant I doubt you have a good feel for Vulcan's development and capital costs.

Not only sunk, they're investments.  ROI is through valuation of the company.
If this things works only remotely as planned they'll beat any other rocket by a mile, cost wise, *per launch*.

[Lee Jay]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?  That's without taking into account the cost of money.  Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

[LouScheffer]

Are there any mission profiles that Vulcan is better for than Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy? 

Vulcan outperforms all versions of Falcon 9 Recoverable and Falcon Heavy Recoverable*.  The Falcons can only bust Vulcan's chops by expending stages, which deflates the reuse argument.

* Falcon Heavy has only flown once when all three cores landed, though one was lost at sea.  It carried a 6.47 tonne payload to GTO.  Vulcan 522 can lift 7.4 tonnes supposedly, Vulcan 562 13.3 tonnes, etc..

This is backwards.  According the NASA launch performance calculator, FH fully recovered exceeds Vulcan 552 (2 sides) for C3 up to 25, where VH2 pulls slightly ahead.  Note that for the Arabsat-6 mentioned above, FH fully recovered did not just put it into GTO, but a very supersynchronous GTO with significant inclination reduction.  Vulcan 552 could not have done this, according to the NASA Launch performance calculator. Likewise, FH is rated at 8t to GTO, Vulcan 552 is 7.4t.

To show this, here is a very busy plot superimposing the various capabilities as plotted in the NASA Launch Performance Estimator.  It includes all versions of Falcon and Vulcan that the web site supports.   In addition I have added 3 estimated dashed lines for Falcon versions that are not on the NASA site, but can potentially be used.  These include Falcon expended (has been used), FH with RTLS sides and expended core (has been used), and FH with ASDS sides and expended core (not used yet). 

According to the NASA calculator, there is one case where Vulcan beats all Falcon varieties.  If you want to put a light spacecraft to a very high energy escape orbit without using a kick stage, then Vulcan is tops.   It can put 770 kg to a C3 of 100, where even FH fully expended can only put 15 kg less.   Such a launch profile has never been used - missions that need extreme performance almost always include a kick stage.  In this case the FH fully expended can throw more mass.

[Coastal Ron]

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

Oh we can be sure that SpaceX will be recouping their investment into Starship, it is just the math you use assumes they have to recoup all of it in a short period of time. That certainly is not what other companies do.

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?

Probably something in the middle.

That's without taking into account the cost of money.

And it ignored the additional valuation of the company BECAUSE Starship will be operational. There is more than one way to recoup an investment... 

Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

It is the customers of Starship that will eventually determine what the value of Starship is, regardless of what SpaceX wants it to be. Elon Musk has his ideas, but he is assuming significantly increased demand for cargo and people going to space. I think we all hope that will be true, but with the increase in valuation for SpaceX, they will not go out of business if they guessed wrong.

[meekGee]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?  That's without taking into account the cost of money.  Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

Because what matters is what the company charges.

Investments don't have to be recouped from operating revenue, only loans do.

SS will be cheaper and there's no need for thousands of flights.  It'll take 1-2 years to finish development but that's it.

[TrevorMonty]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?  That's without taking into account the cost of money.  Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

Because what matters is what the company charges.

Investments don't have to be recouped from operating revenue, only loans do.

SS will be cheaper and there's no need for thousands of flights.  It'll take 1-2 years to finish development but that's it.

SpaceX has taken $Bs from external investors for SS development, they want a return on their money.

[SoftwareDude]

Vulcan outperforms all versions of Falcon 9 Recoverable and Falcon Heavy Recoverable*.  The Falcons can only bust Vulcan's chops by expending stages, which deflates the reuse argument.
...

Performance is one dimension. How about cost? Maybe "deflates reuse argument", but does not obviate it. Given lack of competition, don't think anyone really knows what Falcons floor price is. So what if Vulcan can do it for $$ and Falcon can do it for $? Vulcan loses. If, for the majority of Falcon's market (don't forget Starlink and Transporter), reusable is cheaper, Vulcan loses. Loses, as in terms of market, which is what is going to define the difference between success and failure (or second-third place); not simply performance.

That's the elephant in the corner of the room.  How low could SpaceX go?  The EV car manufacturers are now learning that Tesla can lower its prices and blow up their product plans. Tesla lured them into thinking they could compete at a certain price level and then lowered the boom. Can SpaceX do that? I think they can for Falcon 9 and wait for SS if it's twice as expensive as Musk says; it still changes everything.

Use the Tesla analogy with caution. Commentators like to attribute Tesla pricing to cutthroat competitive maneuvers, but it's better explained by supply and demand. They don't have inventory. Instead they have back orders. They set the price to maintain their backorder lead time as they ramp up production. Given their preposterous gross margins, they can continue to lower the price for quite a while. This is the effect of high-volume, highly efficient manufacturing, and that is the analogy that ULA and other SpaceX competitors need to worry about. SpaceX will build and launch about 90 F9 US this year.

True, but my understanding is that it was a surprise and a real downer for the competition's investors.

[meekGee]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?  That's without taking into account the cost of money.  Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

Because what matters is what the company charges.

Investments don't have to be recouped from operating revenue, only loans do.

SS will be cheaper and there's no need for thousands of flights.  It'll take 1-2 years to finish development but that's it.

SpaceX has taken $Bs from external investors for SS development, they want a return on their money.

ROI on investment is usually in valuation.

When you invest you get shares.
SpaceX's value has been increasing.
I'm pretty sure the investors are happy and I don't even know that there was any profit sharing done to date...

In the long run, SS will launch SL2.0 which is a cash cow, and underpins the increased valuation.

In the longer run I think there's trust (by investors) that other income sources will open up, such as p2p - but again the ROI doesn't come from that.

[DanClemmensen]

As for cost, in 2-3 years, absolutely SS will be cheaper per launch, size and all.

For that to happen, it will have to launch a few thousand times in the next 2-3 years or you'll have to do some creative accounting.  Possibly both.

Not sure where you picked the "few thousand times" figure from, because it sounds hyperbolic. 

Assuming SpaceX perfects full reusability of the Starship, then the biggest challenge ULA will have is keeping the market from starting to move towards using Starship for future needs. That will take longer than 2-3 years, but it won't require SpaceX to fly Starship a thousand times.

It is for this reason that I keep asking the question of whether ULA's Vulcan will be the last fully expendable large rocket to become operational...

He's amortizing all development cost of everything, as if it were a loan, and comparing it to Vulcan's price.

And then complains about creative accounting.

Not doing that is creative accounting, unless the development costs of a product are zero.

ULA has to include them in their pricing, so why shouldn't everyone else?

So, what do we think, 5-10 billion dollars so far?  So, 50-100 million per launch for the first 100 launches or so?  5-10 million per launch for the first thousand launches?  That's without taking into account the cost of money.  Plus the cost of the launch campaign.  SS is 10 times the mass of Falcon 9.  It's not going to be cheaper, even if the upper stage is reusable, eventually.  It will be cheaper per kg (if it works, obviously).

Because what matters is what the company charges.

Investments don't have to be recouped from operating revenue, only loans do.

SS will be cheaper and there's no need for thousands of flights.  It'll take 1-2 years to finish development but that's it.

SpaceX has taken $Bs from external investors for SS development, they want a return on their money.

The investors in ULA are Boeing and LockMart. They want their money and they are using traditional accounting to evaluate the value of ULA.

By contrast, the investors in SpaceX are investing in the dream. They believe that SpaceX' value is mostly in the IP and the corporate vision. This is very common for high tech. It helps to reassure the other investors that the principal investor is the world's richest man and is also the corporate visionary. (If you want to want to be cynical, you can think that some of the investors believe it's actually a shared fantasy and they intend to get out before reality intrudes.) If the shared fantasy lasts long enough, it becomes reality. In the case of SpaceX this may happen because of Starlink revenue.

From a customer's perspective the only thing that matters is the price they pay to get a payload launched.  SpaceX only needs to cover their marginal cost as long as the investors believe in the dream.

[edkyle99]

...  According the NASA launch performance calculator, FH fully recovered exceeds Vulcan 552 (2 sides) for C3 up to 25, where VH2 pulls slightly ahead. 

What really matters, I suppose, are the NSSL mission category requirements, which the two companies have competed against one another for already.  Of the nine or so categories, which only go up to direct GEO insertions, I figure Falcon 9/Heavy can handle about four or five in recoverable mode.  The rest require expendable flights.  That's a higher rate of throwing away stages than is typical for Falcon 9/Heavy.  Vulcan can be dialed up or down via. SRM additions to meet all categories. 

ULA has slimmed down to compete with SpaceX, cutting its launch stable and ground infrastructure by nearly one-third.  I am still convinced that SpaceX's cost advantages were mostly provided by the company's vertical integration and by the great design of Merlin and Falcon, but while ULA was slimming down to compete, SpaceX was bloating up by pouring many billions into its  giant dream rocket.

 - Ed Kyle 

[DanClemmensen]

...  According the NASA launch performance calculator, FH fully recovered exceeds Vulcan 552 (2 sides) for C3 up to 25, where VH2 pulls slightly ahead. 

What really matters, I suppose, are the NSSL mission category requirements, which the two companies have competed against one another for already.  Of the nine or so categories, which only go up to direct GEO insertions, I figure Falcon 9/Heavy can handle about four or five in recoverable mode.  The rest require expendable flights.  That's a higher rate of throwing away stages than is typical for Falcon 9/Heavy.  Vulcan can be dialed up or down via. SRM additions to meet all categories. 

ULA has slimmed down to compete with SpaceX, cutting its launch stable and ground infrastructure by nearly one-third.  I am still convinced that SpaceX's cost advantages were mostly provided by the company's vertical integration and by the great design of Merlin and Falcon, but while ULA was slimming down to compete, SpaceX was bloating up by pouring many billions into its  giant dream rocket.

 - Ed Kyle

ULA is fielding their new 2023 dream rocket to compete against SpaceX' 2010 dream rocket. You know, the one based on the crazy idea of a reusable booster.  But they will now need to compete against SpaceX's 2023 dream rocket. Vulcan may or may not work. It probably will and I hope is does. Starship may or may not work. IMO Vulcan will become fully operational before Starship does, but not by more than two years at the most. SpaceX will be able to depend on their F9/FH revenues to cover the gap.