Author Topic: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect  (Read 84119 times)

Offline bombay

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #20 on: 11/03/2006 02:29 am »
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Jim - 2/11/2006  8:44 PM

Who is going to paid for the increased number on heavy and 5m Medium + flights  if Atlas V goes away
I don't understand what you're asking.  Are you implying that if Atlas V goes away enough Delta IV heavies and 5m + vehicles can't be built to support the manifest?  The gov't will pay for what they need.  The initial intent was to build and launch a ton of these things, not 3 or 4 per year.  Delta alone would have no problem doing this.

Offline bombay

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #21 on: 11/03/2006 03:08 am »
The U.S. taxpayers, who might be happy to have a chance to pay less over the life of the program by downselecting to one EELV, since they are the ones who are already paying gobs extra to keep both EELVs running.

The taxpayers, to a certain degree, are off the hook for a billion dollars if Delta IV is chosen. Lets not forget that ULA was formed in large part to save taxpayers $100-150million/year - not charge them $billion more.

The Cold War ended 17 years ago now. It's already consigned to the older-history sections of my kids history books, since the U.S. has fought something like four wars since then.

Lets hold off putting Russia in the same boat with our European allies, Japan, and Canada. Putin is stepping down in 2008 and there's no saying what the new leader might have in store. Some wack-job like the Iranian President could be waiting in the wings. The Russians have a long way to go before they can be fully trusted and relied upon.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #22 on: 11/03/2006 05:24 am »

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Jim - 2/11/2006 6:34 AM

Have to keep both.
Delta IV has the heavy and Atlas V doesn't
There are 5 Atlas V variants that have more performance than a Delta IV M+ (5,4) and less than a Delta IV Heavy. Any mission in this range would be forced to a heavy
Atlas V has other positive characteristics that can't be discussed here

 

Was not the original EELV spec without all the solid configurations?  I recall seeing the MLV-A and HLV variants only.  It seems that the USAF was prepared to deal with this gap in the initial spec.


Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #23 on: 11/03/2006 11:53 am »
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Dexter - 3/11/2006  1:07 AM

Quote
Jim - 2/11/2006 6:34 AM

Have to keep both.
Delta IV has the heavy and Atlas V doesn't
There are 5 Atlas V variants that have more performance than a Delta IV M+ (5,4) and less than a Delta IV Heavy. Any mission in this range would be forced to a heavy
Atlas V has other positive characteristics that can't be discussed here

Was not the original EELV spec without all the solid configurations?  I recall seeing the MLV-A and HLV variants only.  It seems that the USAF was prepared to deal with this gap in the initial spec.


Maybe the USAF but not the NRO.  Both user's spacecraft have grown.

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #24 on: 11/03/2006 11:55 am »
Quote
bombay - 2/11/2006  10:12 PM

Quote
Jim - 2/11/2006  8:44 PM

Who is going to paid for the increased number on heavy and 5m Medium + flights  if Atlas V goes away
I don't understand what you're asking.  Are you implying that if Atlas V goes away enough Delta IV heavies and 5m + vehicles can't be built to support the manifest?  The gov't will pay for what they need.  The initial intent was to build and launch a ton of these things, not 3 or 4 per year.  Delta alone would have no problem doing this.

If Atlas V goes away, more expensive versions of Delta IV (heavy and 5m Medium +) would be needed to replace them

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #25 on: 11/03/2006 11:59 am »
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edkyle99 - 2/11/2006  9:57 PM

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Jim - 2/11/2006  4:31 PM

An EELV Medium would be cheaper than a Delta III, that's why there isn't any of those marketed.

Delta II program is not going to last much longer either after the USAF turns the pads over to NASA.

Since the EELV costs skyrocketed, I don't know what to believe about comparisons like Delta III versus Delta IV Medium, but I do agree that on paper Delta III is a more complicated and heavier machine and so I would expect it to cost more, all other things being equal.

But I do think that a very good case can be made to keep Delta II alive for the forseeable future.  It is the last U.S. launcher in the 2-6 tonne to LEO (1-2 tonne to GTO) class.  Though it is not as cheap as it once was, it does cost less than the EELVs - and a few tens of millions can matter in a science mission budget.  It is probably the world's most reliable launch vehicle.  There is no question that it is the most reliable proven U.S. launcher.   NASA has missions for it through 2011, as I understand it.  

If Delta IV went away, the payload gap would be between the 6/2 tonnish to LEO/GTO Delta 7925H and the 12/4 tonnish LEO/GTO Atlas V 401.  That's a big gap, and a gap that offers an opportunity to build and launch missions for a lot less money than on the bigger EELVs.  Someone - NASA probably but maybe others in out of the way Pentagon offices too, will be interested in that range along with the current Delta II range.  These someones will inevitably, I believe, need/want to fund Medium launchers in this class.  At first, they will only have Delta II to consider, but there will surely be other options in the future.  Falcon 5/9 would fill the gap, for example, if SpaceX ever gets them to fly.

 - Ed Kyle

There isn't a good case. The science community still wants the Delta II but at 2001 price.   NASA soon will have to pickup all the infrastructure costs associated with the Delta II.  Add those costs with the costs of restarting the subcontractor product line  into the price of a Delta II and you have an EELV.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #26 on: 11/03/2006 02:27 pm »
But Delta II is built in Decatur and will be part of ULA.  

"ULA will save money by reducing infrastructure costs."

Or is this another example of eliminating internal competition like Atlas III.

We want assured access but we continue to eliminate existing capability in favor of the Air Force's new toys.

This is inane!!

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #27 on: 11/03/2006 03:42 pm »
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Dexter - 3/11/2006  10:10 AM

But Delta II is built in Decatur and will be part of ULA.  

"ULA will save money by reducing infrastructure costs."

Or is this another example of eliminating internal competition like Atlas III.

We want assured access but we continue to eliminate existing capability in favor of the Air Force's new toys.

This is inane!!

Get off it!!!  It is not the same thing.

Delta II is not part of ULA.  Delta II not funded like EELV.   Delta II is a different and separate contract and it is not a launch service.  The USAF owns all the infrastructure at the Cape and funds Boeing and other contractors to maintain and operate the facilities.  The USAF buys and owns each Delta II vehicle and then pays Boeing to launch it (the way it was done in the past).  NASA and the few commercial customers were able get price breaks for their launch services because they only paid the additional costs.  Once the current buy of Delta II's for GPS have flown, the USAF will turn over the pads and such to NASA and NASA will have to fund them.  NASA will pass off this cost to any users of the Delta II.

As for the start up costs of the subcontractors, that is the normal course of doing business.  

This is all driven by the users of the Delta II and not the Boeing company.  It alway was the plan for EELV to replace Delta II for GPS

Offline bombay

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #28 on: 11/03/2006 04:06 pm »
Quote
Jim - 3/11/2006  6:38 AM

Quote
bombay - 2/11/2006  10:12 PM

Quote
Jim - 2/11/2006  8:44 PM

Who is going to paid for the increased number on heavy and 5m Medium + flights  if Atlas V goes away
I don't understand what you're asking.  Are you implying that if Atlas V goes away enough Delta IV heavies and 5m + vehicles can't be built to support the manifest?  The gov't will pay for what they need.  The initial intent was to build and launch a ton of these things, not 3 or 4 per year.  Delta alone would have no problem doing this.

If Atlas V goes away, more expensive versions of Delta IV (heavy and 5m Medium +) would be needed to replace them
And as usual we have come full circle.  The choice being a more expensive Delta IV for certain missions (not all) that uses the RS-68 (U.S. built) or a cheaper Atlas V for certain missions (not all) that uses the RD-180 (Russian built).  
I don't think the U.S. gov't would be foolish enough to roll the dice on this one.

The clear and only choice is the Delta IV.

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #29 on: 11/03/2006 04:13 pm »
Trump card

NRO likes Atlas.  Anyone else's opinions don't matter.  End of discussion

Offline bombay

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #30 on: 11/03/2006 04:18 pm »
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Jim - 3/11/2006  10:56 AM

Trump card

NRO likes Atlas.  Anyone elses opinions don't matter
Change NRO with Jim and maybe people will believe you.

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #31 on: 11/03/2006 04:23 pm »
Do you have proof that  I am wrong?  What have your NRO contacts told you?

I would benefit personally if down select was to Delta

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #32 on: 11/03/2006 06:16 pm »
Quote
Jim - 3/11/2006  6:42 AM

Quote
edkyle99 - 2/11/2006  9:57 PM

But I do think that a very good case can be made to keep Delta II alive for the forseeable future.  It is the last U.S. launcher in the 2-6 tonne to LEO (1-2 tonne to GTO) class.  Though it is not as cheap as it once was, it does cost less than the EELVs - and a few tens of millions can matter in a science mission budget.  It is probably the world's most reliable launch vehicle.  There is no question that it is the most reliable proven U.S. launcher.   NASA has missions for it through 2011, as I understand it.  

If Delta IV went away, the payload gap would be between the 6/2 tonnish to LEO/GTO Delta 7925H and the 12/4 tonnish LEO/GTO Atlas V 401.  That's a big gap, and a gap that offers an opportunity to build and launch missions for a lot less money than on the bigger EELVs.  Someone - NASA probably but maybe others in out of the way Pentagon offices too, will be interested in that range along with the current Delta II range.  These someones will inevitably, I believe, need/want to fund Medium launchers in this class.  At first, they will only have Delta II to consider, but there will surely be other options in the future.  Falcon 5/9 would fill the gap, for example, if SpaceX ever gets them to fly.

 - Ed Kyle

There isn't a good case. The science community still wants the Delta II but at 2001 price.   NASA soon will have to pickup all the infrastructure costs associated with the Delta II.  Add those costs with the costs of restarting the subcontractor product line  into the price of a Delta II and you have an EELV.

I refuse to believe that a Delta 7320, which weighs 152 tonnes at liftoff and uses LOX/RP and a pressure-fed storable propellant upper stage engine, would cost the same as a 256 tonne all-cryo Delta IV-M to build and launch if the payloads were properly assigned to the launchers according to mass.  I also refuse to believe that "Slick Six" costs the same to maintain and operate as the much smaller, simplier SLC-2W Delta II pad, etc..  And yet tomorrow the Air Force will launch a DMSP satellite on a Delta IV-M, a satellite that could most-likely have been orbited by a 7320, wasting 5+ tonnes of payload capacity in the process.  

 - Ed Kyle

Offline Jim

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #33 on: 11/03/2006 06:29 pm »
Things like this happen.   It happened on Titan-IV.
Use of the Titan-IV, Titan-II, Atlas-II, Atlas-II and Delta II were all discontinued by the DOD in favor of the EELV program.  How would you propose the transitioning of the payloads from legacy systems to EELV.  There has to be a line drawn some where.   Also if payloads were to continue to use legacy systems, that would drive up the costs of the EELV program more.  

The DSP on the next D-IV heavy is only using half the capability to GSO.

The USAF doesn't own SLC-2.  

Little known fact.   All Delta II's are shipped to CCAFS for DMCO and HPTF testing before being sent out to VAFB.

Offline bombay

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #34 on: 11/03/2006 08:36 pm »
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Jim - 3/11/2006  11:06 AM

Do you have proof that  I am wrong?  What have your NRO contacts told you?

I would benefit personally if down select was to Delta
So the NRO is now invalidating the concern about the preservation of national security by wanting Atlas over Delta regardless of the circumstances.  So much for the reasoning behind the formation of ULA, that is, to preserve nat'l security.

Perhaps you should speak with some of your fellow Lockheed executives who have made known that the RD-180 engine would be the likely reason behind the gov't choosing Delta over Atlas in a downselect.

And how would you benefit, by being unfrozen and gaining a position with the F-35?  

 

Offline yinzer

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #35 on: 11/03/2006 09:43 pm »
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edkyle99 - 3/11/2006  10:59 AM
I refuse to believe that a Delta 7320, which weighs 152 tonnes at liftoff and uses LOX/RP and a pressure-fed storable propellant upper stage engine, would cost the same as a 256 tonne all-cryo Delta IV-M to build and launch if the payloads were properly assigned to the launchers according to mass.  I also refuse to believe that "Slick Six" costs the same to maintain and operate as the much smaller, simplier SLC-2W Delta II pad, etc..  And yet tomorrow the Air Force will launch a DMSP satellite on a Delta IV-M, a satellite that could most-likely have been orbited by a 7320, wasting 5+ tonnes of payload capacity in the process.

That's not the right math to be doing.  SLC-6 probably costs more to operate than SLC-2W, but the question is, if you have the need to put payloads into polar orbit that weigh more than something than a Delta II out of SLC-2W can lift, do you save more by flying a lower-marginal-cost Delta II and assuming the fixed SLC-2W costs, or by flying the higher marginal cost Delta IV whose fixed costs are already sunk.

The Soviets took an approach of flying a small number of rocket designs a large number of times.  This could be for any number of reasons, maybe they had only the vaguest idea of how much things cost, maybe the people who flew rockets were more politically powerful than the people who designed rockets, maybe they didn't have the one-year budget horizon that the US has, or whatever.
California 2008 - taking rights from people and giving rights to chickens.

Offline publiusr

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #36 on: 11/03/2006 09:58 pm »
Also, the Soviets never thought of having 'overpowered' (underoptimized) vehicles as 'wasting' payload capacity. Rather, their excess allowed for plenty of growth, to the point where hydrogen upper stages are only now being considered seriously for R-7, which did just fine without them for half a century.

Better that than underpowered vehicles that are overoptimized.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #37 on: 11/03/2006 10:11 pm »
Quote
yinzer - 3/11/2006  4:26 PM

Quote
edkyle99 - 3/11/2006  10:59 AM
I refuse to believe that a Delta 7320, which weighs 152 tonnes at liftoff and uses LOX/RP and a pressure-fed storable propellant upper stage engine, would cost the same as a 256 tonne all-cryo Delta IV-M to build and launch if the payloads were properly assigned to the launchers according to mass.  I also refuse to believe that "Slick Six" costs the same to maintain and operate as the much smaller, simplier SLC-2W Delta II pad, etc..  And yet tomorrow the Air Force will launch a DMSP satellite on a Delta IV-M, a satellite that could most-likely have been orbited by a 7320, wasting 5+ tonnes of payload capacity in the process.

That's not the right math to be doing.  SLC-6 probably costs more to operate than SLC-2W, but the question is, if you have the need to put payloads into polar orbit that weigh more than something than a Delta II out of SLC-2W can lift, do you save more by flying a lower-marginal-cost Delta II and assuming the fixed SLC-2W costs, or by flying the higher marginal cost Delta IV whose fixed costs are already sunk.

From a taxpayer point of view, the SLC-2W costs are already "sunk".  We are, after all, ultimately the ones paying for all of this - us and the U.S. Treasury bond holders from China and Japan and Europe, etc., that is.  Air Force, NASA, Boeing - it doesn't matter who's budget it falls within, or what the budget-structure is.  It is our money.  We pay in the end, and the current setup means that we are going to pay more - lots more.

We as taxpayers can thus legitimately compare one to the other.  What we see is that the smaller spacecraft like DMSP that flew Titan II or Delta II are now being "supersized" to Big-Gulp, SUV, McMansion-like status into bloated overbudget, overweight, behind schedule alternatives like NPOESS and the like that will fly on the bloated, overbudget, unneccesarily-duplicative EELVs.  Bigger rockets costs more.  Bigger satellites cost more.  Bigger satellites on bigger rockets cost a lot more.  Bigger satellites on bigger rockets being produced on parallel production lines cost so much more that I'm getting a stomach ache thinking about it.  Those who say that bigger is cheaper are, I have to believe, using spooky math.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline Dexter

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #38 on: 11/03/2006 10:38 pm »
It's the same spooky math that leads to "100-150 million in annual savings" that nobody believes.

All the existing infrastructure from all the other legacy systems were sunk costs as well.  

Its all about getting the new toys.

Offline Dexter

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Re: Atlas V vs. Delta IV downselect
« Reply #39 on: 11/03/2006 10:42 pm »
Quote
Jim - 3/11/2006  10:56 AM

Trump card

NRO likes Atlas.  Anyone else's opinions don't matter.  End of discussion

What about the Air Force's opinion???

Don't tell me they are now the same group.  Must be some priviledged information we are not aware of.

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