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

[DanClemmensen]

ULA got 6 launches in 2020, 5 in 2021, 8 in 2022, and only 3 so far in 2023.

Where is this 10-20 launches per year? ULA’s next launch vehicle will be competing with *inhales* Falcon, Starship, New Glenn, Neutron, Terran-R, Antares-300, and Firefly MLV. All of those are much more reusable than Vulcan will be, and all are US. Currently ULA is just competing with Falcon in the US and losing pretty hard (Kuiper excluded). With 5-6 more reusable competing launchers?? I just don’t see how you get to 10-20 launches per year without a special case like Kuiper.

There are too many upcoming launch vehicles in that range. Some of these companies will die. ULA might be one of them.

Oh, and I didn’t even mention the medium/heavy lift vehicle ABL is developing (because I think it’s expendable) or Stoke, who could be eating up megaconstellation payloads in spite being smaller (3-5tonnes), plus ability to reach higher energy via refueling.

And that’s forgetting the foreign competition.

Those are demand-side concerns. I also have a supply-side concern: Realistically, how fast can Vulcan ramp up to 20/yr or even 10/yr? The most recent example we have for an LV in this class is F9, which took about four years after its first launch to achieve its tenth launch. All other LVs took longer. F9 did not have a 10-launch year until its seventh year. Even if we discard the first F9 launch in 2010, it did not achieve a 10-launch year until its fifth year.

How will ULA achieve a faster ramp than this? Maybe ULA will will execute better than SpaceX due to some commonality of operations that carry over from Atlas V?

Fortunately for ULA, there is no particular reason to believe the other new launchers will do any better (Starship, New Glenn, Neutron, Terran-R, Antares-300, and Firefly MLV), although we can all hope that Vulcan or someone else does. If nobody does, we are looking at 2028 for the first year a new LV does 10 launches/yr.

Meanwhile F9 is supposed to do 144 launches in 2024, and presumably this pace will not drop until Starship achieves a 10/yr pace or better. More likely F9 will grow at (your guess here) for those five years.

[RedLineTrain]

There are too many upcoming launch vehicles in that range. Some of these companies will die. ULA might be one of them.

All of these non-SpaceX rockets are banking on Kuiper, but I think there's a good chance that Amazon pulls the plug on it.  As the deployment of Kuiper continues to be delayed, Kuiper is increasingly on the backfoot.

If the constellation deployment goes ahead. Project Kuiper could still have insufficient launch capacity available with the non-SpaceX launchers to meet the regulatory deadline. In which case Project Kuiper will have to get additional launch capacity. The problem for ULA is that they can not ramp up launch cadence to meet the demand for launch capacity, IMO.

As discussed elsewhere, the regulatory deadline is not meaningful.  Kuiper should wish to introduce service as soon as possible, regardless the regulatory deadline and regardless that they have to go hat in hand to Hawthorne.  Ironically, it might be in ULA's interest that Falcon 9 fill the breach.

Of course, that Kuiper is hitting regulatory deadlines is an indication that Kuiper's introduction is not going well.

[edzieba]

Those are demand-side concerns. I also have a supply-side concern: Realistically, how fast can Vulcan ramp up to 20/yr or even 10/yr? The most recent example we have for an LV in this class is F9, which took about four years after its first launch to achieve its tenth launch. All other LVs took longer. F9 did not have a 10-launch year until its seventh year. Even if we discard the first F9 launch in 2010, it did not achieve a 10-launch year until its fifth year.

How will ULA achieve a faster ramp than this? Maybe ULA will will execute better than SpaceX due to some commonality of operations that carry over from Atlas V?

ULA have the advantage of already having a rocket factory sized for building cores at the rate demanded of non-reusable launchers in the first megacontsellation boom in the '90s. Decatur is not a small facility (see attached).
Hiring staff to build up production capacity would be the main concern, but the boom (and busts) in launch companies mean there is a larger pool of trained and experienced staff available to hire than there has been for several decades.

[DanClemmensen]

Those are demand-side concerns. I also have a supply-side concern: Realistically, how fast can Vulcan ramp up to 20/yr or even 10/yr? The most recent example we have for an LV in this class is F9, which took about four years after its first launch to achieve its tenth launch. All other LVs took longer. F9 did not have a 10-launch year until its seventh year. Even if we discard the first F9 launch in 2010, it did not achieve a 10-launch year until its fifth year.

How will ULA achieve a faster ramp than this? Maybe ULA will will execute better than SpaceX due to some commonality of operations that carry over from Atlas V?

ULA have the advantage of already having a rocket factory sized for building cores at the rate demanded of non-reusable launchers in the first megacontsellation boom in the '90s. Decatur is not a small facility (see attached).
Hiring staff to build up production capacity would be the main concern, but the boom (and busts) in launch companies mean there is a larger pool of trained and experienced staff available to hire than there has been for several decades.

This is valid if production capacity is the primary ramp constraint. Is it? Hawthorne allegedly had a production capacity of 40 F9s per year by 2013, but their first 10-launch year was 2017. I realize my analogy is incredibly simple-minded and using a sample size of one (F9) to predict the Vulcan ramp rate is not very good, but I can't think of any other method to use. Predictions by anyone in the space industry and especially anyone with a pro-Vulcan agenda are clearly worse. I have not seen any prediction in this industry of an outcome more than 3 years in the future that was ever proven accurate. Not just Tory, and not just ULA folks. Elon is notorious ("Elon time") but is somewhat less bad. This is why I included all the new LVs, not just Vulcan, in my gloomy ramp rate prediction.

Look: I really want to be wrong about this, especially for Starship but also for the rest of them. Please give me some hope based on something other than industry predictions. Your ULA factory capacity is a good try, so thanks.

[AmigaClone]

Those are demand-side concerns. I also have a supply-side concern: Realistically, how fast can Vulcan ramp up to 20/yr or even 10/yr? The most recent example we have for an LV in this class is F9, which took about four years after its first launch to achieve its tenth launch. All other LVs took longer. F9 did not have a 10-launch year until its seventh year. Even if we discard the first F9 launch in 2010, it did not achieve a 10-launch year until its fifth year.

How will ULA achieve a faster ramp than this? Maybe ULA will will execute better than SpaceX due to some commonality of operations that carry over from Atlas V?

ULA have the advantage of already having a rocket factory sized for building cores at the rate demanded of non-reusable launchers in the first megacontsellation boom in the '90s. Decatur is not a small facility (see attached).
Hiring staff to build up production capacity would be the main concern, but the boom (and busts) in launch companies mean there is a larger pool of trained and experienced staff available to hire than there has been for several decades.

This is valid if production capacity is the primary ramp constraint. Is it? Hawthorne allegedly had a production capacity of 40 F9s per year by 2013, but their first 10-launch year was 2017. I realize my analogy is incredibly simple-minded and using a sample size of one (F9) to predict the Vulcan ramp rate is not very good, but I can't think of any other method to use. Predictions by anyone in the space industry and especially anyone with a pro-Vulcan agenda are clearly worse. I have not seen any prediction in this industry of an outcome more than 3 years in the future that was ever proven accurate. Not just Tory, and not just ULA folks. Elon is notorious ("Elon time") but is somewhat less bad. This is why I included all the new LVs, not just Vulcan, in my gloomy ramp rate prediction.

Look: I really want to be wrong about this, especially for Starship but also for the rest of them. Please give me some hope based on something other than industry predictions. Your ULA factory capacity is a good try, so thanks.

A secondary concern for me is that ULA is dependent on third parties for at least the main engines of both the Vulcan and Centaur stages. Can those companies realistically support the ramp-up speed envisioned by some both within and outside the industry?

[DanClemmensen]

Those are demand-side concerns. I also have a supply-side concern: Realistically, how fast can Vulcan ramp up to 20/yr or even 10/yr? The most recent example we have for an LV in this class is F9, which took about four years after its first launch to achieve its tenth launch. All other LVs took longer. F9 did not have a 10-launch year until its seventh year. Even if we discard the first F9 launch in 2010, it did not achieve a 10-launch year until its fifth year.

How will ULA achieve a faster ramp than this? Maybe ULA will will execute better than SpaceX due to some commonality of operations that carry over from Atlas V?

ULA have the advantage of already having a rocket factory sized for building cores at the rate demanded of non-reusable launchers in the first megacontsellation boom in the '90s. Decatur is not a small facility (see attached).
Hiring staff to build up production capacity would be the main concern, but the boom (and busts) in launch companies mean there is a larger pool of trained and experienced staff available to hire than there has been for several decades.

This is valid if production capacity is the primary ramp constraint. Is it? Hawthorne allegedly had a production capacity of 40 F9s per year by 2013, but their first 10-launch year was 2017. I realize my analogy is incredibly simple-minded and using a sample size of one (F9) to predict the Vulcan ramp rate is not very good, but I can't think of any other method to use. Predictions by anyone in the space industry and especially anyone with a pro-Vulcan agenda are clearly worse. I have not seen any prediction in this industry of an outcome more than 3 years in the future that was ever proven accurate. Not just Tory, and not just ULA folks. Elon is notorious ("Elon time") but is somewhat less bad. This is why I included all the new LVs, not just Vulcan, in my gloomy ramp rate prediction.

Look: I really want to be wrong about this, especially for Starship but also for the rest of them. Please give me some hope based on something other than industry predictions. Your ULA factory capacity is a good try, so thanks.

A secondary concern for me is that ULA is dependent on third parties for at least the main engines of both the Vulcan and Centaur stages. Can those companies realistically support the ramp-up speed envisioned by some both within and outside the industry?

At least we have a worked example of a company that can learn to build lots of 500,000 lb_f methalox engines quickly, so it's not impossible, and BO has every incentive to succeed in this.

[TheRadicalModerate]

A secondary concern for me is that ULA is dependent on third parties for at least the main engines of both the Vulcan and Centaur stages. Can those companies realistically support the ramp-up speed envisioned by some both within and outside the industry?

Does anybody have any insight into what the BE-4 deal looks like between ULA and Blue?  Does ULA have the right of first refusal to any BE-4 Blue manufacturers, or is there a limit on how many Blue has to provide per some specified time?

I can't imagine that ULA would enter into a deal where they couldn't get the engines they need to launch their manifest reasonably expeditiously.  But that could be a real problem as Blue tries to scale up the New Glenn launch cadence.  Of course, that requires that Blue's cadence be something other than zero...

[JayWee]

This is valid if production capacity is the primary ramp constraint. Is it? Hawthorne allegedly had a production capacity of 40 F9s per year by 2013, but their first 10-launch year was 2017. I realize my analogy is incredibly simple-minded and using a sample size of one (F9) to predict the Vulcan ramp rate is not very good, but I can't think of any other method to use. Predictions by anyone in the space industry and especially anyone with a pro-Vulcan agenda are clearly worse. I have not seen any prediction in this industry of an outcome more than 3 years in the future that was ever proven accurate. Not just Tory, and not just ULA folks. Elon is notorious ("Elon time") but is somewhat less bad. This is why I included all the new LVs, not just Vulcan, in my gloomy ramp rate prediction.

Important distinction: Was the ramp rate a function of slow production or lack of demand?

Both Vulcan and SS go into production with tens (Kuiper)/hundreds(Starlink V3) flights on the book, so it's truly a question of "how fast we can build 'em".  Traditionally, it was more constrained by "how quickly will customers line up as the rocket proves itself".

[DanClemmensen]

This is valid if production capacity is the primary ramp constraint. Is it? Hawthorne allegedly had a production capacity of 40 F9s per year by 2013, but their first 10-launch year was 2017. I realize my analogy is incredibly simple-minded and using a sample size of one (F9) to predict the Vulcan ramp rate is not very good, but I can't think of any other method to use. Predictions by anyone in the space industry and especially anyone with a pro-Vulcan agenda are clearly worse. I have not seen any prediction in this industry of an outcome more than 3 years in the future that was ever proven accurate. Not just Tory, and not just ULA folks. Elon is notorious ("Elon time") but is somewhat less bad. This is why I included all the new LVs, not just Vulcan, in my gloomy ramp rate prediction.

Important distinction: Was the ramp rate a function of slow production or lack of demand?

Both Vulcan and SS go into production with tens (Kuiper)/hundreds(Starlink V3) flights on the book, so it's truly a question of "how fast we can build 'em".  Traditionally, it was more constrained by "how quickly will customers line up as the rocket proves itself".

This is an excellent point. Can any of the old-timers here remember if there was pent-up demand for launches starting in about 2010? If F9 was fully satisfying its demand, things change and there is hope. The whole Starlink captive demand thing did not start until 2019.

[joek]

Important distinction: Was the ramp rate a function of slow production or lack of demand?

Both Vulcan and SS go into production with tens (Kuiper)/hundreds(Starlink V3) flights on the book, so it's truly a question of "how fast we can build 'em".  Traditionally, it was more constrained by "how quickly will customers line up as the rocket proves itself".

This is an excellent point. Can any of the old-timers here remember if there was pent-up demand for launches starting in about 2010? If F9 was fully satisfying its demand, things change and there is hope. The whole Starlink captive demand thing did not start until 2019.

Not really. Snips below are from the FAA launch forecast for 2010 and 2015, which also shows actuals through those years.

[TrevorMonty]

MOST of commercial GSO missions in 2010s were shared between A5 and Proton. F9 picked up most of Proton business especially after run of failures.  ULA rarely sold any commercial GSO missions then.

F9 seem to have had lot of luck with its competitors falling by wayside due to unreliability or retirement and replacement being late.