-
EELV Subsidies
by
CitabriaFlyer
on 18 Nov, 2010 01:07
-
What are specific actions or subsidies could the US government take to effect the following:
1) Make EELVs the most economically attractive launch vehicle for commercial payloads and foreign governments
2) Increase production to the capacity of the current factory hopefully with the benefit of increasing the number of manufacturing and launch processing jobs
3) Lower mission costs for NASA exploration missions (manned or unmanned) and DoD missions
-
#1
by
Jim
on 18 Nov, 2010 02:05
-
What are specific actions or subsidies could the US government take to effect the following:
1) Make EELVs the most economically attractive launch vehicle for commercial payloads and foreign governments
2) Increase production to the capacity of the current factory hopefully with the benefit of increasing the number of manufacturing and launch processing jobs
3) Lower mission costs for NASA exploration missions (manned or unmanned) and DoD missions
How does a gov't subsidy reduce the cost of a gov't launch? The true cost to the gov't is the sum of both costs.
-
#2
by
edkyle99
on 18 Nov, 2010 02:39
-
What are specific actions or subsidies could the US government take to effect the following:
1) Make EELVs the most economically attractive launch vehicle for commercial payloads and foreign governments
2) Increase production to the capacity of the current factory hopefully with the benefit of increasing the number of manufacturing and launch processing jobs
3) Lower mission costs for NASA exploration missions (manned or unmanned) and DoD missions
How does a gov't subsidy reduce the cost of a gov't launch? The true cost to the gov't is the sum of both costs.
Right. As I understand it, the current thinking is that costs could be reduced by having the government
stop "subsidizing" launch service providers. It is an interesting idea on paper, but I'm not sure how it could be done for everything given the history of U.S. government launch, with its above top secret requirements for some missions, etc. Perhaps those "high maintenance" missions could be separated from the more "average" launches (comsats, GPS, and the like), with the latter more competitively contracted out.
- Ed Kyle
-
#3
by
HIPAR
on 18 Nov, 2010 02:39
-
I think you would need to engage in some creative accounting to make a case that handing taxpayer money over to EELV providers to pay for foreign/commercial operations will somehow be recouped through lower launch costs to the US Government.
There's no guarantee the customer's will come because the aggregate launch capacity of other providers swamps any efforts to compete. The EELV providers would need to offer something extra.
What increase in the workforce of a highly automated rocket factory would result from making thirty rockets/year as opposed to making twenty/year?
--- CHAS
-
#4
by
MP99
on 18 Nov, 2010 10:30
-
I believe that any commercial launches undertaken by ULA involve an element of paying back the government, which pays various fixed costs each year.
If the government waived this, would prices come down sufficiently to make ULA attractive over foreign launchers? Might this get the flight rate up sufficiently that the government subsidy could eventually be reduced?
Even if the govt didn't make any savings over their existing arrangement, would this improve the robustness of ULA, making for a worthwhile intangible benefit?
cheers, Martin
Edit: sorry HIPAR, I need to read all the way down the thread before I try to make a duplicate point!
-
#5
by
mmeijeri
on 18 Nov, 2010 10:37
-
What are specific actions or subsidies could the US government take to effect the following:
1) Make EELVs the most economically attractive launch vehicle for commercial payloads and foreign governments
Why would you want to do this? Why choose EELVs specifically and why subsidise commercial and foreign government payloads?
2) Increase production to the capacity of the current factory hopefully with the benefit of increasing the number of manufacturing and launch processing jobs
Why would you want more jobs rather than more efficiency?
3) Lower mission costs for NASA exploration missions (manned or unmanned) and DoD missions
Now that's a goal I can get behind. NASA can do this by doing exploration with propellant transfer and by launching the propellant competitively. Over time this could reduce costs dramatically, and could lead to the first two of your points as a side effect. But it could also make Falcon 9 the launch vehicle of choice, or some as yet unknown future launcher.
-
#6
by
CitabriaFlyer
on 18 Nov, 2010 12:21
-
What are specific actions or subsidies could the US government take to effect the following:
1) Make EELVs the most economically attractive launch vehicle for commercial payloads and foreign governments
2) Increase production to the capacity of the current factory hopefully with the benefit of increasing the number of manufacturing and launch processing jobs
3) Lower mission costs for NASA exploration missions (manned or unmanned) and DoD missions
How does a gov't subsidy reduce the cost of a gov't launch? The true cost to the gov't is the sum of both costs.
Here was my thinking behind the question. (I am prepared to admit it may be faulty. I started the thread to educate myself about the realities of the commercial launch industry not to make any specific point.) If subsidies increase the ULA commercial share and if that drives demand up, could there be an econonmy of scale that would result in lower cost per booster. The govt then could perhaps recover some of that double cost through lower booster cost per launch for NASA and DoD. Also, ULA makes a lot more money, Jim gets a massive bonus, ULA and Jim pay more income tax.
My though behind starting the thread is that it is ashame that we (the US) do not dominate the commercial launch industry. I guess a better title would have been "What could the US gov't do to allow US companies to dominate the commercial launch market?"
-
#7
by
HIPAR
on 18 Nov, 2010 16:40
-
When I think about the economy of scale, it's more in terms of production runs for hundreds of thousands of pieces. Then, you need to realize a production yield approaching 100% after final assembly and test. Pressure from competitors also helps lower the unit cost.
An engineer at Grumman showed me around a hangar where the final three F14 airplanes were awaiting delivery to the Navy. He pointed to areas on each airplane that required special attention .. they were not absolutely identical. I'd suppose rockets are also individually 'tweaked' detracting from any cost savings from scale.
High reliability aerospace/military items require paper trails and inspections that track and document overall conformance with specifications. Typically, waivers and deviations are documented in the file folders attached to each item. Quality assurance is a significant cost that isn't easily recouped from scale.
I'm not too sure what where a price break for EELV rockets might occur. I'd be surprised if it could be demonstrated, even at the maximum production capability of the rocket factory.
--- CHAS
-
#8
by
DGH
on 19 Nov, 2010 11:26
-
There is a simpler way to achieve your goals.
NASA could just contract for 6+ Delta IV and 6+ Atlas V a year.
The price curve for the first dozen of each is very steep.
If you get up over a dozen each price per launch would be much cheaper and safety would improve quickly as well.
-
#9
by
Jim
on 19 Nov, 2010 11:46
-
There is a simpler way to achieve your goals.
NASA could just contract for 6+ Delta IV and 6+ Atlas V a year.
The price curve for the first dozen of each is very steep.
If you get up over a dozen each price per launch would be much cheaper and safety would improve quickly as well.
NASA doesn't have the payloads for 12 EELV missions a year. Also, this leaves no room for DOD missions
-
#10
by
mmeijeri
on 19 Nov, 2010 12:39
-
NASA doesn't have the payloads for 12 EELV missions a year.
It would if it had to launch propellant for exploration. Prospects for manned exploration seem to be fading fast unfortunately.
-
#11
by
DGH
on 23 Nov, 2010 10:15
-
There is a simpler way to achieve your goals.
NASA could just contract for 6+ Delta IV and 6+ Atlas V a year.
The price curve for the first dozen of each is very steep.
If you get up over a dozen each price per launch would be much cheaper and safety would improve quickly as well.
NASA doesn't have the payloads for 12 EELV missions a year. Also, this leaves no room for DOD missions
Please recheck your math.
12 base model Atlas V and Delta IV would only equal 2-3 Shuttles and couple of interplanetary probes.
Although I did not say it if they used bigger version I would suggest reducing the total some say 4 Atlas 541 and 4 Delta 5,8.
ULA is supposed to be able to 40 cores a years. My count is NASA and DOD 16 to 24 total, about half what ULA says is the maximum they can do.
-
#12
by
Jim
on 23 Nov, 2010 10:48
-
Please recheck your math.
12 base model Atlas V and Delta IV would only equal 2-3 Shuttles and couple of interplanetary probes.
Although I did not say it if they used bigger version I would suggest reducing the total some say 4 Atlas 541 and 4 Delta 5,8.
ULA is supposed to be able to 40 cores a years. My count is NASA and DOD 16 to 24 total, about half what ULA says is the maximum they can do.
I know my math. NASA does not have the money for 12 EELV spacecraft per year. The shuttle is not part of the equation. ISS support is independent of launch vehicle, it is up to the contractor to determine the launch vehicle (see CRS).
The 5,8 does not exist and one can not dictate LV size.
The 40 per year was before Delta II an Atlas moved to Decatur. The launch base can not support that high of launch rate
-
#13
by
Nate_Trost
on 23 Nov, 2010 15:36
-
Once Delta II is completely done, what will the annual capacity be out of Decatur? Or is that proprietary? It doesn't seem like there is demand for more than 5 CBCs and 5 Atlas Vs a year at most.
-
#14
by
alexw
on 23 Nov, 2010 22:50
-
Once Delta II is completely done, what will the annual capacity be out of Decatur? Or is that proprietary? It doesn't seem like there is demand for more than 5 CBCs and 5 Atlas Vs a year at most.
To be fair to the much-maligned Delta, the production facility is ticking over pretty slowly. ULA's 2007 paper on ISS cargo delivery revealed that that the infrastructure is/was presently sized to build 7 boosters and 5 upper stages/yr on a single shift, on two shifts that's 14 and 10, and 20 and 15 with "minimal" additional tooling. That's up to 6 Heavies/yr without major new facilities and without affecting Atlas -- a huge launch capacity.
http://unitedlaunchalliance.com/site/docs/publications/ISSCargoRFIFinal09062007.pdf The paper (pg.14) goes on to say that Delta IV is 50% of Dectur, Atlas V 25%, Delta II 25%, that Atlas & Centaur are sized for 12/year/ea, and that LC-37 and LC-41 can each handle 10-12 launches/yr.
Jim, is there reason to believe that these numbers have changed?
-Alex
-
#15
by
sdsds
on 24 Nov, 2010 00:17
-
Some attempted analysis. Corrections or alternate views appreciated!
USAF put considerable effort (read, money) into assuring that EELV would include a heavy variant that could launch payloads like NROL-32 and the upcoming NROL-49. That requirement trickled down into both the Delta IV and Atlas V launch system architectures; it is why both have three booster heavy variants, and why the boosters are sized as they are.
Since this capability doesn't meet any other military or commercial need, NRO should bear the incremental cost for it unless it can also meet a civilian (NASA) need. Unfortunately for NASA, USAF moved forward with the "wrong" heavy from a human spaceflight perspective.
Separate from the "heavy" requirement, USAF also clearly imposed on both EELV systems the requirement of high reliability. Their investment in this seems to be paying off! It is however still "early days" for these systems. (There have been 14 Delta IV launches and 23 Atlas V launches.) So far neither has suffered a total mission failure. That track record is starting to become enviable. Proton M failed in 2008; it sure looks like Ariane 5 just failed for Eutelsat W3B, though presumably that inquiry is ongoing. Still, EELV systems may never reach the demonstrated reliability required to lower the insurance premiums paid by commercial payloads.
The requirements of NASA science missions also play into EELV reliability, since NASA wants to launch payloads that the public perceive as dangerous, i.e. radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Atlas V reliability helps reassure the public that no one needs to worry about the RTG on MSL!
Finally, EELV reliability touches on the notion of U.S. national prestige, since in some sense these are the nation's "flagship" launchers. The U.S. seems to have developed a complete intolerance for aerospace failures!
These two main requirements (of reliability and providing the heavy configuration) are sufficient in my mind to explain the need for the program subsidy.