The total cost value for the MAVEN launch service is approximately $187 million. This estimated cost includes the task ordered launch service for the Atlas plus additional services under other contracts for payload processing; launch vehicle integration; mission unique launch site ground support; and tracking, data and telemetry services.
Avionics can't be that big of a fraction,
Without an impetus to streamline labor, management, manufacturing, and integration - virtually every company will mismanage costs since there's no penalty for doing so. It's more human nature than "oh! they should have subcontracted that component manufacturer instead."
3 fuel types? If someone was designing a rocket on paper from scratch, I tend to think they wouldn't design each stage with a different propellant. Those sort of decisions add up over the whole project and lead to ballooning costs. This is largely due to the making decision based on political will, rather than engineering savvy. If you want congressional support for some big DoD project, they serve up subprojects as political sweeteners for congressional support in different states.
It's not one simple reason, but a general culture that doesn't value streamlined and efficient engineering as much as garnering political capital.
Some people are going to flip out at me for the real politik, but who can deny that's how it works? They're still good engineers, just not as good as they could be when they take orders from politicians.
The three different engines comes from optimizing for performance not cost. Solids are really great for the initial push off the pad. RP-1 is great for lower atmosphere and LH2 is great for upper and space.
That may be true, but wouldn't it sometimes better to sacrifice some of the performance for cheaper and simpler manufacturing and integration? Who cares if you've got the most powerful and high performance engines/rocket in the world if no one can afford it.
| Line Item | Delta IV | Atlas V |
| yearly first stage contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly first stage engine contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly second stage contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly second stage engine contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly strap on booster contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly payload fairings contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly avionics contract/maintaining production line | $?M | $?M |
| yearly west coast pad upkeep | $?M | $?M |
| yearly east coast pad upkeep | $?M | $?M |
| yearly infrastructure contract | $?M | $?M |
| etc. | $?M | $?M |
One of the issues with the production of anything is the number of people required to make the widget - that being said, how;
many people are required to keep the Atlas V system in production?
Are the same people used to keep the Delta V going? and
Does the Atlas V cost have to include the costs for the Delta IV?
The three different engines comes from optimizing for performance not cost. Solids are really great for the initial push off the pad. RP-1 is great for lower atmosphere and LH2 is great for upper and space.
Does anyone in Congress, DoD, USAF, NRO, etc. have a breakdown of price for each of those line items?
Line Item Delta IV Atlas V yearly first stage contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly first stage engine contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly second stage contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly second stage engine contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly strap on booster contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly payload fairings contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly avionics contract/maintaining production line $?M $?M yearly west coast pad upkeep $?M $?M yearly east coast pad upkeep $?M $?M yearly infrastructure contract $?M $?M etc. $?M $?M
Then you can say that the price of maintaining the infrastructure buys you one complete Delta IV and one complete Atlas V core (first and second stages and fairing) per year, which they would have to build in order to not forget how and demonstrate that they indeed did not forget how. Actually launching this "free" core costs extra. Building more than one per year costs extra.
And then the price of a launch should only include the things it actually uses just for that launch. Needs a core because it's not the first one in a year? Extra. Needs the fancier upper stage? Extra. Needs strap on boosters? Extra. Needs integration with new payload type? Extra. Needs payload processing? Extra. Special trajectory/handling/secrecy/tracking? Extra.
So the price of a launch is separate from the yearly "maintaining the infrastructure" price, and the infrastructure upkeep is per type of rocket.
Even if each line item is cost-plus, at least the buyer knows what they're paying for.
Without an impetus to streamline labor, management, manufacturing, and integration - virtually every company will mismanage costs since there's no penalty for doing so. It's more human nature than "oh! they should have subcontracted that component manufacturer instead."
3 fuel types? If someone was designing a rocket on paper from scratch, I tend to think they wouldn't design each stage with a different propellant. Those sort of decisions add up over the whole project and lead to ballooning costs. This is largely due to the making decision based on political will, rather than engineering savvy. If you want congressional support for some big DoD project, they serve up subprojects as political sweeteners for congressional support in different states.
It's not one simple reason, but a general culture that doesn't value streamlined and efficient engineering as much as garnering political capital.
Some people are going to flip out at me for the real politik, but who can deny that's how it works? They're still good engineers, just not as good as they could be when they take orders from politicians.
The three different engines comes from optimizing for performance not cost. Solids are really great for the initial push off the pad. RP-1 is great for lower atmosphere and LH2 is great for upper and space.
That may be true, but wouldn't it sometimes be better to sacrifice some of the performance for cheaper and simpler manufacturing and integration? Who cares if you've got the most powerful and high performance engines/rocket in the world if no one can afford it.
Does anyone in Congress, DoD, USAF, NRO, etc. have a breakdown of price for each of those line items?
...
1. Those numbers are proprietary
2. DOD doesn't buy rockets, it buys fix price launch services. So the DOD does not deal with component costs.
1. It's ok that I don't get these numbers, as long as the buyer has them. But the only way to know why the price is high is to find out the real component costs.
2. ULA mentioned the government not having insight into SpaceX costs. That meant to me that the government does have insight into ULA's costs. What's the difference between the insight the government has into ULA vs. SpaceX?
3. For a sole-source contract for a service critical national security that costs billions, the government should demand total transparency. You can use the free market to control efficiency if you have a market, which implies multiple providers not colluding. When only a single entity is capable of building such rockets (before SpaceX is certified), the only way to control efficiency is to have total transparency. Does buying navy ships work the same way? Navy knows the total price, not the component cost? If so, that's nuts.
Liquid Hydrogen.
Centaur does.Liquid Hydrogen.
Atlas V uses RP-1, not LH2
Yes, but in pretty much the right spot to provide the most performance for the dollar spent. An RP/LOX "Centaur" would boost less than half as much to GTO on an Atlas V.Centaur does.Liquid Hydrogen.
Atlas V uses RP-1, not LH2
The original question was on the use of multiple propellents, and arachnitect stated that Atlas V used RP-1, hence my answer.Yes, but in pretty much the right spot to provide the most performance for the dollar spent. An RP/LOX "Centaur" would boost less than half as much to GTO on an Atlas V.Centaur does.Liquid Hydrogen.
Atlas V uses RP-1, not LH2
- Ed Kyle
Regarding the economic optimality, that's a more difficult question. Is Atlas V cheaper than an USA made Zenit? I don't really know.I guess the answer might be addressed hypothetically by asking another question. Would it cost more to double the number of RD-180s and to have an extra RP upper stage or two, or to maintain the existing RL10 setup?
F9 v1.1 does 3650kg to 1,500m/s GTO, 401 does 3,460kg. But a Zenit would have a single RD-171M always. No solids, because the core already has a T/W of 2 (core alone). And a high T/W SC RP-1/LOX second stage is used for LEO and smal GTO, you can add a third stage for higher performance GTO or a heavy.Regarding the economic optimality, that's a more difficult question. Is Atlas V cheaper than an USA made Zenit? I don't really know.I guess the answer might be addressed hypothetically by asking another question. Would it cost more to double the number of RD-180s and to have an extra RP upper stage or two, or to maintain the existing RL10 setup?
The nearest comparison is Falcon 9, but v1.1 doesn't quite lift as much as even a 401 to GTO, and I doubt that we're seeing the long-term price point for SpaceX launch services.
- Ed Kyle
If the Delta IV were removed, then some of these people can be removed from the system, reducing overhead cost?One of the issues with the production of anything is the number of people required to make the widget - that being said, how;
many people are required to keep the Atlas V system in production?
Are the same people used to keep the Delta V going? and
Does the Atlas V cost have to include the costs for the Delta IV?
The production, engineering and operations teams cross product lines.
F9 v1.1 does 3650kg to 1,500m/s GTO, 401 does 3,460kg.Can you show me where that Falcon 9 number came from? I suspect it is an old number. SpaceX hasn't release details like that about v1.1 to my knowledge.
I took the number from the NLS II site (185km x 35768km x 15deg). But it's also true that after the Thaicom mission SpaceX disclosed that they had reserved 300kg of GTO performance. Thus, to a 1,800m/s GTO, it can actually launch 5,150kg. Which is what SES contracted for, BTW. And this would agree with 3,650kg to a 1,500m/s GTO.F9 v1.1 does 3650kg to 1,500m/s GTO, 401 does 3,460kg.Can you show me where that Falcon 9 number came from? I suspect it is an old number. SpaceX hasn't release details like that about v1.1 to my knowledge.
- Ed Kyle
yes, and that would also include shutting down two launch pads, a HIF, a control center and offices, possibly a ship, etcIn general terms - is this a whole lot of money or trivial?
yes, and that would also include shutting down two launch pads, a HIF, a control center and offices, possibly a ship, etcControl center and offices aren't going to be closed anyways because of Common Avionics?
yes, and that would also include shutting down two launch pads, a HIF, a control center and offices, possibly a ship, etcIn general terms - is this a whole lot of money or trivial?
roughly how many people are employed by ULA?
Control center and offices aren't going to be closed anyways because of Common Avionics?
wow - my arm waving here - if ULA made a 25% reduction in force to only fly the Atlas and a average full time equivalent cost $250,000 per year, that's over $230 million - that can be a substantial portion of the expense in the Atlas.yes, and that would also include shutting down two launch pads, a HIF, a control center and offices, possibly a ship, etcIn general terms - is this a whole lot of money or trivial?
roughly how many people are employed by ULA?
3700
wow - my arm waving here - if ULA made a 25% reduction in force to only fly the Atlas and a average full time equivalent cost $250,000 per year, that's over $230 million - that can be a substantial portion of the expense in the Atlas.yes, and that would also include shutting down two launch pads, a HIF, a control center and offices, possibly a ship, etcIn general terms - is this a whole lot of money or trivial?
roughly how many people are employed by ULA?
3700
Where does the expense come from in the Atlas V?
I'll make the argument all launchers have subsidies, it is just ULA's are more visible.
Do SpaceX's prices include the full accounting costs it has taken to develop the Falcon 9? At $50 something million a flight, how long will it take to pay off the development costs?
Ariane had many subsidies in the past allowing lower current costs. Notice without these subsidies SpaceX is giving them a run for the money.
Proton was paid for and written off long before it became available on the commercial market. Does Proton still use conscripts as part of the launch operations?
I think a handful of things keep the perceived costs so high.
1. Fully audit-able cost accounting.
2. A large well paid workforce. Putting all the employees on conscript gruel and wages would not fly.
3. Double checking/documenting everything (That is not free). An alligator waddles into the VIF, someone gets paid to write a report.
4. Being Horizontally integrated adds cost at every step of the process. Instead of paying the overhead of a single company, you are paying the overhead of all the suppliers plus ULA. SpaceX by being vertically integrates avoids having to pay this additional overhead.
We'll have to see about those NLS II numbers. They seem overoptimistic, or simply outdated, to me.I took the number from the NLS II site (185km x 35768km x 15deg). But it's also true that after the Thaicom mission SpaceX disclosed that they had reserved 300kg of GTO performance. Thus, to a 1,800m/s GTO, it can actually launch 5,150kg. Which is what SES contracted for, BTW. And this would agree with 3,650kg to a 1,500m/s GTO.F9 v1.1 does 3650kg to 1,500m/s GTO, 401 does 3,460kg.Can you show me where that Falcon 9 number came from? I suspect it is an old number. SpaceX hasn't release details like that about v1.1 to my knowledge.
- Ed Kyle
I'll make the argument all launchers have subsidies, it is just ULA's are more visible.
Do SpaceX's prices include the full accounting costs it has taken to develop the Falcon 9? At $50 something million a flight, how long will it take to pay off the development costs?
Ariane had many subsidies in the past allowing lower current costs. Notice without these subsidies SpaceX is giving them a run for the money.
Proton was paid for and written off long before it became available on the commercial market. Does Proton still use conscripts as part of the launch operations?
I think a handful of things keep the perceived costs so high.
1. Fully audit-able cost accounting.
2. A large well paid workforce. Putting all the employees on conscript gruel and wages would not fly.
3. Double checking/documenting everything (That is not free). An alligator waddles into the VIF, someone gets paid to write a report.
4. Being Horizontally integrated adds cost at every step of the process. Instead of paying the overhead of a single company, you are paying the overhead of all the suppliers plus ULA. SpaceX by being vertically integrates avoids having to pay this additional overhead.
5. Profits. Having two masters that want profits (documented in the LMT and BA annual report), vs. one who wants none. And horizontal integration also increases cost beyond overhead, as each supplier is going to make money. These aren't profits of 20% at each stage, but they still add up.
5. Profits. Having two masters that want profits (documented in the LMT and BA annual report), vs. one who wants none. And horizontal integration also increases cost beyond overhead, as each supplier is going to make money. These aren't profits of 20% at each stage, but they still add up.
And "horizontal integration" gets a unfair pounding as if it is "bad" in the same way people rail away at certain types of contracts. It depends on the situation and it doesn't always make sense to establish a capability, gain the expertise, etc when a supplier of those products and that expertise is available.
Take Boeing for example. It would be very difficult as a company from a management, cost and competitive viewpoint to have every capability under the Boeing roof to produce everything ever needed for every single type of aircraft (commercial and military), sats of all kinds, spacecraft of all kinds and every other program they are involved in.