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#1140
by
Jim
on 28 Sep, 2007 12:16
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I wasn't referring to the org but the individual spacecraft projects
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#1141
by
Antares
on 28 Sep, 2007 16:26
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Dexter - 27/9/2007 9:36 PM
What about the stockpiling of RD-180s?...It was mentioned here that ULA has about 20 engines and also mentioned here that they are $10-15 million dollars per. Now that's a cash outlay!
Invalid comparison. How many RS-68s are waiting to fly in MS, AL or FL right now? And there are more RL10s than either one of those.
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#1142
by
Antares
on 28 Sep, 2007 16:28
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Nick L. - 27/9/2007 10:04 PM
mike robel - 27/9/2007 9:09 PM
There is 1 Delta IV first stage on display at the CCAS USAF Space Museum.
I wondered what they were going to do with that CBC. I'd seen it in photos and on Google Earth just sitting outside the HIF. That's the one they used for the initial testing of the pad equipment (FPE, launch table, MLP and other stuff), right?
It was also used in stage testing at Stennis.
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#1143
by
edkyle99
on 28 Sep, 2007 18:58
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Jim - 27/9/2007 2:13 PM
kevin-rf - 27/9/2007 2:38 PM
How much Delta III hardware is still sitting in a warehouse somewhere...
Few upperstages (maybe just one) were put on display. There weren't that many in production
Most of the first stage hardware is being used for D-II heavies.
Just a few 4 meter tanks are hangin around.
I was surprised to read something related to this in ULA's recent "RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR INFORMATION FOR COMMERCIAL SPACE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES". It said that "an additional six Delta II Heavies are also available..."
Does that mean that Boeing bought enough GEM-46 SRMs for about one dozen Delta 3 launch vehicles? (There were three Delta 3 flights and there have been four Delta 2 Heavy launches to date, one of which may have been included in the "additional six" mentioned above.) Or does it mean that Boeing procured some for Delta III, and then bought more for Delta 2 Heavy?
I presume that Delta 2 Heavy first stages have different SRM mounting points than standard Delta 2 first stages. Some of this "Heavy" tank hardware may have been handed down from the Delta 3 program, but I doubt it would have been a full dozen.
- Ed Kyle
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#1144
by
kevin-rf
on 28 Sep, 2007 20:38
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Something in the back of my head is saying at the time Boeing was shaking out the Delta III they where building 12 flight sets, so that would make sense. That was a reason for my coment a few pages back of how many Delta III's are still sitting in a warehouse. Jim indicated they used many of the parts for Delta II heavy (RS-27, GEM's, Computers ?) and Delta IV (RL-10 I presume).
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#1145
by
quark
on 29 Sep, 2007 04:07
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Antares - 28/9/2007 10:26 AM
Dexter - 27/9/2007 9:36 PM
What about the stockpiling of RD-180s?...It was mentioned here that ULA has about 20 engines and also mentioned here that they are $10-15 million dollars per. Now that's a cash outlay!
Invalid comparison. How many RS-68s are waiting to fly in MS, AL or FL right now? And there are more RL10s than either one of those.
The large inventory of RD-180 engines is in direct response to the US space transportation policy that seeks to insulate national security concerns from possible disruptions in supply. It's one part of the insurance policy. The other part is the establishment of the "capability to co-produce", a program that has been ongoing for many years. This approach has been bought off by the DOD at the highest levels. The ultimate safety net is the DIV.
In the meantime, the US enjoys the benefit of the world's best rocket engine, while Russia enjoys the steady stream of cash and the maintanence of a highly skilled workforce. 16 successful flights and counting. It's a huge win-win for both countries.
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#1146
by
bombay
on 29 Sep, 2007 17:17
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quark - 28/9/2007 11:07 PM
Antares - 28/9/2007 10:26 AM
Dexter - 27/9/2007 9:36 PM
What about the stockpiling of RD-180s?...It was mentioned here that ULA has about 20 engines and also mentioned here that they are $10-15 million dollars per. Now that's a cash outlay!
Invalid comparison. How many RS-68s are waiting to fly in MS, AL or FL right now? And there are more RL10s than either one of those.
The large inventory of RD-180 engines is in direct response to the US space transportation policy that seeks to insulate national security concerns from possible disruptions in supply. It's one part of the insurance policy. The other part is the establishment of the "capability to co-produce", a program that has been ongoing for many years. This approach has been bought off by the DOD at the highest levels. The ultimate safety net is the DIV.
In the meantime, the US enjoys the benefit of the world's best rocket engine, while Russia enjoys the steady stream of cash and the maintanence of a highly skilled workforce. 16 successful flights and counting. It's a huge win-win for both countries.
The "capability to co-produce" was never meant to be a perpetual study with no end in sight. Co-production was to kick in the 2005 time frame, which was about 10yrs after the introduction of the EELV concept.
Let's face it, with the formation of ULA and the real threat of a downselect gone, there's no incentive to co-produce RD-180's when they can be purchased for pennies on the dollar from Russia compared to what P&W would charge. This is all about money - not national security, NSTP requirements, or any other thought of reason that would suggest co-production is vital.
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#1147
by
WHAP
on 29 Sep, 2007 20:36
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bombay - 29/9/2007 11:17 AM
This is all about money - not national security, NSTP requirements, or any other thought of reason that would suggest co-production is vital.
Absolutely correct. Not LM, ULA, or the government really wants to spend what it would take to get full co-production going.
By the way, I can see national security as vital, but I'm not sure I would use that term for NSTP.
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#1148
by
bombay
on 07 Oct, 2007 20:15
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Denver production operations (Atlas booster) is slated to move to Decatur, and as rumor has it, San Diego production (Centaur) is back on the move list as well despite "risk" being an integral reason for not moving it initially.
The perception is that Atlas is becoming the LV of choice for ULA (Delta II replacement) and prospective customers (COTS and other things). Current launch manifest through 2009 and recent news regarding the use of Atlas would support this claim.
With Atlas becoming more and more in demand, so it seems, at what point does ULA pull the plug on moving these facilities being that the window of opportunity to execute a move appears non-existant being that what's launched in 2009 is being built today and so on.
Are those involved in pushing a move actually working for personal gain (i.e. bonus, position, recognition) rather than what's best for ultimate success? Are important variables (risk, people retention, disruption of production, etc.) being conveniently ignored to sell a move at any cost for the purpose of personal gain? Is the AF and NASA at all concerned about this?
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#1149
by
meiza
on 07 Oct, 2007 21:12
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And if the Atlas facilities didn't move, at Decatur they would just build a few Delta IV:s a year for DoD (NASA uses Atlas and the commercial stuff fell through)... Pretty empty shiny new halls, a shame. At least P&W Rocketdyne can sell RS-68A engines for Ares V.
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#1150
by
tnphysics
on 08 Oct, 2007 01:04
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And Delta IV.
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#1151
by
MKremer
on 08 Oct, 2007 01:54
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tnphysics - 7/10/2007 8:04 PM
And Delta IV.
I think P&W/RD/Boeing were originally projecting moving 10-15 engines a year, at least, to justify the new engine development and costs. That would make everyone happy cost-wise and profit-wise. As it stands now, averaging only 3-4 engines a year they're losing money unless they jack the engine prices way, way up.
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#1152
by
Dexter
on 17 Oct, 2007 02:34
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Jim - 28/9/2007 6:21 AM
Dexter - 28/9/2007 12:59 AM
Does the Atlas V get downselected from the 4 to 2 competition of EELV if Lockheed does not state that the first American RD-180 will be ready in June 1998?
.... quoting something from 1997 is not applicable today.
I think this to be especially pertinent. Using WHAP's expression that Lockheed was able to "hoodwink" the government with the RD-180, why should anyone believe that ULA will deliver on the promised savings of $150M per year. They have already qualified that the savings will be delayed. and thus, the dance begins.
WHAP established that it is the same management team in place that made the RD-180 stockpiling decisions after promising American RD-180s. I don't think they are done "hoodwinking".
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#1153
by
WHAP
on 17 Oct, 2007 17:40
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Dexter - 16/10/2007 8:34 PM
I think this to be especially pertinent. Using WHAP's expression that Lockheed was able to "hoodwink" the government with the RD-180, why should anyone believe that ULA will deliver on the promised savings of $150M per year. They have already qualified that the savings will be delayed. and thus, the dance begins.
WHAP established that it is the same management team in place that made the RD-180 stockpiling decisions after promising American RD-180s. I don't think they are done "hoodwinking".
Please do not imply that I think LM/ULA "hoodwinked" the government. I used that term to describe
your statements, not my opinions.
WHAP - 27/9/2007 11:40 PM
You keep saying (I was going to say implying, but given the number of posts you've made, it's more than an implication) that LM hoodwinked the government into selecting it for EELV because of co-production. ... If the government actually believed that a co-production facility would be up an running within one year (I'm sure they were fully aware of the state of co-production in June 1997), then they deserved to be hoodwinked. But that wasn't the case. As I and others have mentioned before, changes in the co-production goals and schedule have been fully coordinated with the government.
As far as the savings being delayed - where is that documented? I had posted a link to a Denver Post article where the ULA CEO said the savings would start sometime in the 2010/2011 time frame (I don't remember exactly) and that was the first documentation I saw of when the savings would start. I think I had mentioned earlier that anyone who believed ULA would save the government any money in the first few years after formation was fooling themselves. That is not a realistic expectation, and not one that was ever suggested by ULA management. If someone has documentation otherwise, I'd love to see it.
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#1154
by
bombay
on 19 Oct, 2007 16:01
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WHAP - 17/10/2007 12:40 PM
As far as the savings being delayed - where is that documented? I had posted a link to a Denver Post article where the ULA CEO said the savings would start sometime in the 2010/2011 time frame (I don't remember exactly) and that was the first documentation I saw of when the savings would start. I think I had mentioned earlier that anyone who believed ULA would save the government any money in the first few years after formation was fooling themselves. That is not a realistic expectation, and not one that was ever suggested by ULA management. If someone has documentation otherwise, I'd love to see it.
From the RAND report to the DoD (Copywrite 2006):
"After three years, according to the contractors, the gov't will save approximately $100M to $150M per year, or approximately 10-20 percent. The Office of the Sec. of Def. extimates that the savings will be $145M per year ...... etc."
Savings should then kick in at the end 2009 (3 yrs after ULA formation). As I recall, shortly after the ULA annoucement, an executive was quoted as saying that savings wouldn't be realized for 7 yrs. I don't think any rationale thinking person believes that they'll be any savings at all.
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#1155
by
WHAP
on 19 Oct, 2007 18:26
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Expecting savings of $100 mil+ at the end of 2009 is not realistic. The Denver Post article I posted earlier (many pages back) from June of this year quoted the CEO as the savings starting in 2011. That's 1 year different than the Rand report - not worth complaining over, especially since there were still a lot of unknowns before ULA actually formed.
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#1156
by
Mark Max Q
on 20 Nov, 2007 14:19
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How did it work out for everyone in the end? Did people move, are they settled in now? I'm asking after the concerns were raised about this in the earlier pages, about how some people didn't like the idea of relocation (understandable).
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#1157
by
marsavian
on 23 Mar, 2008 03:50
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#1158
by
marsavian
on 12 Sep, 2010 18:00
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http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/09/05/commercial-crew-eelv-and-avoiding-repeating-history/George Sowers, vice president of business development for United Launch Alliance, noted during a panel session at the AIAA Space 2010 conference in Anaheim, California, last Thursday that the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program had a mixed outcome. The program was a technical and programmatic success, he noted, and “an even bigger success” for the US government, in that it invested $1 billion into the program ($500 million each to Boeing and Lockheed Martin), while the two companies put about $4 billion of their own money to develop the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 launch vehicle families. However, it was “a business failure” for the two companies, he said, as they failed to recoup their investment into the vehicles, especially as anticipated commercial launch demand failed to materialize. He noted that at one point in the 1990s Lockheed had a conservative forecast of 19 Atlas 5 launches a year; current launch rates are instead about five a year, virtually all for government customers.