... So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches. ...
But as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches.
Quote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmBut as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches.Atlas V is $180m at best.
Quote from: gospacex on 05/08/2017 12:04 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmBut as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches.Atlas V is $180m at best.So you are saying that ULA is lying when listing the Atlas V base price at $109m?https://www.rocketbuilder.com/
Quote from: RedLineTrain on 05/07/2017 10:18 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmSo far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches. According to Shotwell, they are selling 7+ tons to subsync GTO on the Falcon 9.http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities Shows 5.5mT to GTO for $62m. I'm sure they will sell higher but I doubt they will sell at that price and I would be interested in finding out what that price is. [EDIT. I note from Shotwell interviews their near term goal is a 2 week launch cadence ]
Quote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmSo far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches. According to Shotwell, they are selling 7+ tons to subsync GTO on the Falcon 9.
So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches.
But as a customer I find myself saying "so what?"
Maxim Zayakov, chief executive of BulgariaSat, said the use of a reused first stage lowers the launch price and “makes it possible for smaller countries and companies to launch their own satellites.” [...]The satellite is a major undertaking for BulgariaSat, which has been working on the project for nearly 12 years. “Elon Musk and his SpaceX team have convinced me that people like them bring us closer to a new quality of life through providing access to cutting-edge technology,” Zayakov said in a statement. “This is a chance for Bulgaria to join the efforts to develop these new aspects of [the] space industry.”
Quote from: Ictogan on 05/08/2017 01:12 pmQuote from: gospacex on 05/08/2017 12:04 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmBut as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches.Atlas V is $180m at best.So you are saying that ULA is lying when listing the Atlas V base price at $109m?https://www.rocketbuilder.com/I was not aware ULA started to publicly announce their prices. This is progress.I would like to compare prices mentioned on website to the actual prices paid. US Govt missions tend to cost more (because more oversight and more paperwork), so lets look at commercial and foreign launches.Anyone knows how much was paid for EchoStar 19 launch? For WorldView-4? WorldView-3? MEXSAT-2?(This list of 4 non-US-govt launches goes back to 2013).I see only one "sort-of" non-govt launch on the manifest, Solar Orbiter aka "SolO" (it's an ESA mission). How much will it cost for ESA?
So WRT to the thread title reusability will probably increase SX profits by lowering their costs.Reusability should improve reliability as SX now know how close to their designed operating limits various components have been. If they deliver full reusability including the US then they will be in a position to save a lot of money.But as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches. My main interest is in lowering the mission price to the end user both on a $/lb and an overall mission price basis (Pegasus is cheaper than an F9 flight, but it's also less than 1/20 the payload). This does not sound like it's going to move the market forward very much. The market is what it is because of the price of launch for the size of payload. If that does not change radically there is absolutely no reason why any new customers will enter the market who wouldn't have done so anyway.
Apparently NASA is providing that launch to ESA, so it might still have the usual government prices:"The launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida will be aboard a NASA-provided launch vehicle."- http://sci.esa.int/solar-orbiter/55772-solar-orbiter-launch-moved-to-2018/NASA lists the cost to them for that launch as $172.7m:https://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/march/nasa-awards-launch-services-contract-for-solar-orbiter-mission/However this was 3 years back and ULA is known to have dropped their prices in the recent years. Their website shows a price of $136-138m(depending on fairing length) for an Atlas V 411 launch with all the services except for marketing, so given that it's still at least sort of a government launch and the prices may have dropped since then, the prices on their website sound reasonable.
IOW, we don't know any Atlas V launch which was less than $172m for the customer.So, I was wrong, Atlas V is not $180m, it's $170m.
Orbital Chief Executive David W. Thompson declined to detail the reductions the company was able to secure for the launch but said ULA’s announced effort to bring Atlas 5 prices down from $150 million to something closer to $100 million was confirmed with the new contract.Centennial, Colorado-based ULA is “serious about getting Atlas down to [those] levels. … We certainly saw some of that” in booking the March 2016 flight, Thompson said in a conference call with investors.
Quote from: john smith 19 on 05/07/2017 10:13 pmSo WRT to the thread title reusability will probably increase SX profits by lowering their costs.Reusability should improve reliability as SX now know how close to their designed operating limits various components have been. If they deliver full reusability including the US then they will be in a position to save a lot of money.But as a customer I find myself saying "so what?" So far I'd be booking on an LV with a 93% success rate that's has 33 launch attempts and 2 explosions. I also know that if my comm sat goes above about 5.6 tonnes I won't get the sticker price of $62m but more like the regular Ariane price of $100m with a 100% success rate over the last 70+ launches or an Atlas V if I have to use a US launcher with a 100% success rate over 50+ launches. My main interest is in lowering the mission price to the end user both on a $/lb and an overall mission price basis (Pegasus is cheaper than an F9 flight, but it's also less than 1/20 the payload). This does not sound like it's going to move the market forward very much. The market is what it is because of the price of launch for the size of payload. If that does not change radically there is absolutely no reason why any new customers will enter the market who wouldn't have done so anyway. I doubt a F9 expendable launch is $100M. Back when SpaceX was pricing full-capability launches, they were about 16% more than an 80% capability launch, which puts an expendable mission at about $72M. And soon, you might be able to buy an expendable mission on a used booster for a discount. If the discount is 10% for reuse then up to 8.3 tonnes to GTO-1800 could be as low as $65M (FH RTLS could also be similar).And the sticker price of $62.2M is ONLY for missions that require a new booster, but are under 5.5 tonnes to GTO-1800. If you can live with a used booster you can get the same service for at least 10% less than $62.2M, which is $56M or about half the cost of an Ariane launch.Most commercial customers don't assume a lot of risk for launch failures. The payload and its first year revenue are typically insured, so as long as insurance is comparable then schedule reliability is the biggest factor. With reuse and more pads this could quickly become a factor strongly in SpaceX's favor, especially since they don't have to line up two payloads for a launch like Ariane.
Quote from: envy887 on 05/08/2017 02:27 pmI doubt a F9 expendable launch is $100M. Back when SpaceX was pricing full-capability launches, they were about 16% more than an 80% capability launch, which puts an expendable mission at about $72M. And soon, you might be able to buy an expendable mission on a used booster for a discount. If the discount is 10% for reuse then up to 8.3 tonnes to GTO-1800 could be as low as $65M (FH RTLS could also be similar).And the sticker price of $62.2M is ONLY for missions that require a new booster, but are under 5.5 tonnes to GTO-1800. If you can live with a used booster you can get the same service for at least 10% less than $62.2M, which is $56M or about half the cost of an Ariane launch.Most commercial customers don't assume a lot of risk for launch failures. The payload and its first year revenue are typically insured, so as long as insurance is comparable then schedule reliability is the biggest factor. With reuse and more pads this could quickly become a factor strongly in SpaceX's favor, especially since they don't have to line up two payloads for a launch like Ariane.NASA pays more for a Commercial Cargo launch from SpaceX than your quoted figures. Original contract was about $133M per launch; most recent contract is about the same by some estimates.
I doubt a F9 expendable launch is $100M. Back when SpaceX was pricing full-capability launches, they were about 16% more than an 80% capability launch, which puts an expendable mission at about $72M. And soon, you might be able to buy an expendable mission on a used booster for a discount. If the discount is 10% for reuse then up to 8.3 tonnes to GTO-1800 could be as low as $65M (FH RTLS could also be similar).And the sticker price of $62.2M is ONLY for missions that require a new booster, but are under 5.5 tonnes to GTO-1800. If you can live with a used booster you can get the same service for at least 10% less than $62.2M, which is $56M or about half the cost of an Ariane launch.Most commercial customers don't assume a lot of risk for launch failures. The payload and its first year revenue are typically insured, so as long as insurance is comparable then schedule reliability is the biggest factor. With reuse and more pads this could quickly become a factor strongly in SpaceX's favor, especially since they don't have to line up two payloads for a launch like Ariane.
These movements are a nice windfall for customers, both public sector and private, but something of a cost challenge for launch providers. If movement to take advantage of these discounts gains momentum, we'll see tightening bottom lines for launch vendors due to deep price cuts and lost launch opportunities and the continued retirement of launch vehicles with incredibly long strings of successful launches. Delta IV-M is first, Ariane 5 or Delta Heavy will follow... other established launchers such as Proton and Atlas V will be discarded or 'evolved'. The entire composition of the launch world could be rearranged over the next decade, despite the howls of protest* from those rooted in the status quo.* Past, present, and future. Guaranteed.
An actual customer recently said:QuoteMaxim Zayakov, chief executive of BulgariaSat, said the use of a reused first stage lowers the launch price and “makes it possible for smaller countries and companies to launch their own satellites.” [...]The satellite is a major undertaking for BulgariaSat, which has been working on the project for nearly 12 years. “Elon Musk and his SpaceX team have convinced me that people like them bring us closer to a new quality of life through providing access to cutting-edge technology,” Zayakov said in a statement. “This is a chance for Bulgaria to join the efforts to develop these new aspects of [the] space industry.”Link: http://spacenews.com/bulgarian-satellite-to-launch-on-reused-falcon-9-in-june
But SpaceX needs an explosion in launch volume to truly justify eventually reducing launch contracts by over 60 or 70% (perhaps even more). Its not enough to save a bundle on boosters and upper stages being reused. 6000 employees (and rising) require a lot of revenue just to make payroll and other bills.