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#60
by
kevin-rf
on 29 May, 2013 16:03
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no need to manufacture more RL-10's at a lower cost when you have a stock of them for the Delta IV.
Plus One on that, since they are talking about converting part of the RL-10 Delta IV stock to work on Centaur. The current price problem is not due to the inventory of RL-10's.
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#61
by
deltaV
on 29 May, 2013 18:02
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"Generous" is putting it mildly 
. What do you think an RL-10 costs? And where did you come up with that number? Please don't reference another thread in this forum. Any time I've seen an RL-10 cost get thrown around it's one poster quoting another and adding 25%, with no true reference.
Here's an L2 link on RL-10 costs by someone who has probably been involved with buying them:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31801.msg1046520#msg1046520 .
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#62
by
edkyle99
on 29 May, 2013 19:05
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Here's another option to mull over. Rather than develop a complete standard launch vehicle family to cover a broad range of payload masses and orbits, how about only developing a common upper stage?
I'm thinking of Agena as my thought bubble prototype here. Agena was the best upper stage the U.S. ever flew. It was launched by Thor, by Atlas, and by Titan. Thought was even given to adapting it for Saturn I and for Shuttle. It was used for LEO spysat missions, as a docking target for Gemini, as a booster for missions to Venus, Mars, and the Moon, and as a GTO insertion stage. It was both upper stage and spacecraft bus for some missions. It stayed active in orbit for weeks, months even, at a time. It was the cheapest upper stage the U.S. flew because it was mass produced to fly multiple missions on different rockets. More Agenas flew than any other U.S. upper stage - a record it still retains.
Could a modern Agena cover the current mission ranges, if it were launched by a range of different rockets? It doesn't have to be a hypergolic, or even a liquid, stage. It doesn't have to be boosted by any particular rocket, or any particular propellant combination. It just needs to be standardized to minimize costs - because upper stages are where a lot of the costs reside. Perhaps theoretical Modern Agena could be GSE, with the launch part contracted out to the lowest bidder.
- Ed Kyle
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#63
by
kevin-rf
on 29 May, 2013 19:13
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Centaur comes to mind.
Are you sure Agena was cheap, I thought I saw somewhere that Agena was actually a bit on the expensive side.
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#64
by
edkyle99
on 29 May, 2013 19:16
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Centaur comes to mind.
Are you sure Agena was cheap, I thought I saw somewhere that Agena was actually a bit on the expensive side.
I'll have to re-find my reference, but I saw an accounting that showed it to be cheapest on a per-unit basis during the mid 1960s. That was, of course, due to its mass production. They launched 41 Agenas in 1967, for example. During the busiest years it only cost something like $650,000 to assemble an Agena stage, but the cost to test and support the thing all the way through launch, etc., doubled that plus change. But keep in mind that Agena was not just an upper stage - it was also a spacecraft bus. Two for one!
- Ed Kyle
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#65
by
Prober
on 29 May, 2013 19:23
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Centaur comes to mind.
Are you sure Agena was cheap, I thought I saw somewhere that Agena was actually a bit on the expensive side.
I'll have to re-find my reference, but I saw an accounting that showed it to be cheapest on a per-unit basis during the mid 1960s. That was, of course, due to its mass production. They launched 41 Agenas in 1967, for example.
- Ed Kyle
Ed I think that Orbital launch made some impression on your thinking atm.
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#66
by
Jim
on 29 May, 2013 19:54
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Here's another option to mull over. Rather than develop a complete standard launch vehicle family to cover a broad range of payload masses and orbits, how about only developing a common upper stage?
I'm thinking of Agena as my thought bubble prototype here. Agena was the best upper stage the U.S. ever flew. It was launched by Thor, by Atlas, and by Titan. Thought was even given to adapting it for Shuttle. It was used for LEO spysat missions, as a docking target for Gemini, as a booster for missions to Venus, Mars, and the Moon, and as a GTO insertion stage. It was both upper stage and spacecraft bus for some missions. It stayed active in orbit for weeks, months even, at a time. It was the cheapest upper stage the U.S. flew because it was mass produced to fly multiple missions on different rockets. More Agenas flew than any other U.S. upper stage - a record it still retains.
Agena only flew as a dedicated upperstage less than 70 times. The remaining times, it was spacecraft bus which provided the last velocity increment into orbit (not unlike current commercial comsats).
Even though Agena was produced as a "standardized" vehicle, it never flew that way. It was turned over to the Air Force via DD250, who then turned it back over to Lockheed as GFE, who then modified it for the specific mission. The additional costs for the mods were in the spacecraft project costs, and often 'hidden" due to classification. These mods were often intensive. An applicable analogy would be the ABL. It used a stock 747-400F which was greatly modified.
The bulk of the Agenas were for 3 programs, Corona, Gambit-1 & 3 for 237 launches.
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#67
by
Jim
on 29 May, 2013 20:19
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Could a modern Agena cover the current mission ranges, if it were launched by a range of different rockets? It doesn't have to be a hypergolic, or even a liquid, stage. It doesn't have to be boosted by any particular rocket, or any particular propellant combination. It just needs to be standardized to minimize costs - because upper stages are where a lot of the costs reside. Perhaps theoretical Modern Agena could be GSE, with the launch part contracted out to the lowest bidder.
That would only work with the gov't operating the launch sites and providing the launch vehicles.
Launch pads are vehicle specific and upperstage plays into that.
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#68
by
jongoff
on 29 May, 2013 21:12
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End of 2004, beginning of 2005. IIRC. Too little profit margin in competitive rockets compared to its other lines of business.
I also heard that LM originally didn't even want to bid EELV in the first place (due to worries about losing their shirt), but they were threatened by DoD with losing some of their juicier jet fighter contracts if they didn't bid.
~Jon
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#69
by
Targeteer
on 29 May, 2013 22:32
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Not to enter the discussion late, but here is the actual quote referenced in the Reuters story that started the thread. I do not see it referenced/quoted anywhere above and thought it should be added. Intriguing that the words "cost saving methodologies" and "enforcing better cost management" are used...
The document is entitled "SELECTED ACQUISITION REPORT (SAR) SUMMARY TABLES As of December 31, 2012"
Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) – Program costs increased $35,717.0 million (+102.1%) from $34,968.1 million to $70,685.1 million, due primarily to a quantity increase of 60 launch services from 91 to 151 launch services (+$16,040.5 million) resulting from an extension of
the launch manifest from FY 2018 to FY 2028 and the program life extension from FY 2020 to FY 2030 that was directed in Space Command’s Strategic Master Plan (+$20,987.5 million). These increases incorporate cost saving methodologies implemented in the revised contracting strategy, to include incentivizing the contractor, enabling the government to implement cost cutting initiatives during technical evaluations and contract negotiations, improving insight into the contractors’ costs, and enforcing better cost management. These increases were partially offset by cost savings realized in the FY 2014 President’s Budget Future Years Defense Program due to a revised acquisition strategy and other initiatives (-$1,671.6 million).
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#70
by
joek
on 30 May, 2013 03:27
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The document is entitled "SELECTED ACQUISITION REPORT (SAR) SUMMARY TABLES As of December 31, 2012"
Thanks, yes; source document is
here (23-May-2013). Unfortunately only the summary appears to be available, not the individual SAR.
Also related (albeit a bit dated) is
EELV Program Assessment, March 2010 which is (or was) a part of an effort to:
...identify and assess alternatives for reducing US Government launch costs, including options for down-selecting to a single EELV family and leveraging commercial and foreign launch capabilities.
Unfortunately much is redacted. Interesting there is a "Consolidate to Delta Only Line" (slide 30), but apparently nothing suggesting consolidation to Atlas only. (Other points indicate NRO needs Delta and Atlas alone wouldn't suffice, but evidence is thin and hard to tell based on the information available in that presentation.)
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#71
by
LouScheffer
on 30 May, 2013 11:02
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It is not "whining" for a taxpayer to wonder why he has to pay twice as much as needed, or why the cost itself has doubled, and doubled again.
- Ed Kyle
In round numbers, each household contributes about 10^-8 of the federal budget. This means each time one of these rockets launches, it's about $5 out of pocket. It's frustrating because it used to cost $1 for exactly the same rocket, for everything else high tech the costs go down, and because it's not at all clear what you are getting for your money - they were just as reliable when they were $1.
In your personal life, you would never by a new car for $100,000 if your previous car, same model and features, cost you $20,000. Unless, of course, there was only one car dealer in the whole country....
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#72
by
Antares
on 30 May, 2013 16:39
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It's not that there's one car dealer. It's that there used to be 2 end customers for the folks building what's under the hood, and the tires, and the batteries, and the airbags... Now there's only one. Too few customers is a greater problem than too few manufacturers.
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#73
by
muomega0
on 30 May, 2013 17:49
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It's not that there's one car dealer. It's that there used to be 2 end customers for the folks building what's under the hood, and the tires, and the batteries, and the airbags... Now there's only one. Too few customers is a greater problem than too few manufacturers.
This report shows doubling of that GAO estimate to $70B, or +$51B FY2013-2028.
Ed's estimate of $468.2 million per is right (I get $463.6 assuming 110 launches).
Does anyone want to venture an estimate if another 60 launches were procured by the government during the same time frame, so a total of 170 launches, and hence provide more customers? Is the "commercial" rate available, the rate to non-government customers?
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#74
by
zotiraki
on 23 Jul, 2013 09:30
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I've been struggling with unit cost for Atlas V and Delta IV. I came up with the attached calculation based on contract announcements over the past few years. Basically, I inflated the contract dollars to CY 13 dollars, then took a guess at average unit cost of Atlas V and Delta IV until I minimized the difference between actual contract cost (inflated) and contract cost based on my unit cost guess.
My guess is that launch services are not included in this. If they are, then unit cost goes down by about $20M (my estimate of launch services cost). So basically I think I have the raw cost to the government of production of these launch vehicles.
Would appreciate any feedback you may have on this. Also how do we reconcile the $450M per launch cost mentioned earlier?
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#75
by
fatjohn1408
on 23 Jul, 2013 11:57
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I've been struggling with unit cost for Atlas V and Delta IV. I came up with the attached calculation based on contract announcements over the past few years. Basically, I inflated the contract dollars to CY 13 dollars, then took a guess at average unit cost of Atlas V and Delta IV until I minimized the difference between actual contract cost (inflated) and contract cost based on my unit cost guess.
My guess is that launch services are not included in this. If they are, then unit cost goes down by about $20M (my estimate of launch services cost). So basically I think I have the raw cost to the government of production of these launch vehicles.
Would appreciate any feedback you may have on this. Also how do we reconcile the $450M per launch cost mentioned earlier?
In a not so scientific fashion i've found that 122 and 203 gives a smaller average error of about 11.1 percent per contract.
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#76
by
zotiraki
on 23 Jul, 2013 12:59
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Thanks! Still pondering the disparity between these estimates and the SAR Summary Table. Even if launch services and launch pad maintenance/improvement/etc were included in the SAR estimate, the difference just seems too high.
. What do you think an RL-10 costs? And where did you come up with that number? Please don't reference another thread in this forum. Any time I've seen an RL-10 cost get thrown around it's one poster quoting another and adding 25%, with no true reference. 