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#620
by
WHAP
on 19 Nov, 2014 22:03
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Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
Check out the prices of the RL-10 & RS-68 and compare.
Where are those prices listed?
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#621
by
Kabloona
on 19 Nov, 2014 22:18
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Still the political winds blowing in this article.
The price of the RD-180 is reasonable, even with the games.
Seems like the Pentagon auditors do not agree with you. And that holds considerable more weight than your opinion.
Better reread the article 
2011 is what they are talking about; had the info at hand in 2007-08 been addressed, this deal would have been altered. Everyone signed off on the deal, and its unfortunate that someone started second guessing "policy".
Yes, the audit was in 2011 for the previous contract, but the new contract apparently has the same price per engine, so where are the "savings" that ULA promised after the audit? Maybe AMROSS has reduced their inflated overhead rate or made some other concessions, but if they did, it's not mentioned in the article.
In June, Energomash and Amross finished up a new agreement to supply RD-180 engines to the Air Force program.ULA is paying $23.4 million per engine – the same price originally called for in the prior contract that caused all the wrangling.
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#622
by
Proponent
on 25 Nov, 2014 09:18
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That piece says RD AMROSS is a five person company.
Wow.
Cheers, Martin
This is actually a typical practice in Russia.
When you hear "Putin's cronies stole billions from Russian budget", this doesn't mean they drove away with several truckloads of bills from the Treasury.
It means that, for example, Gazprom buys drilling and pumping equipment through several layers of such empty intermediaries owned by "Putin's cronies". The resulting price is not 15% higher as in AMROSS case - in Russia, it can easily become 3-5 times higher.
Regardless of whether RD AMROSS is doing anything iffy, why should it have a lot of employees? Probably just about all it does is contract out for services to NPO Energomash and sell a few RD-180s per year from a single supplier to a single customer. There are zillions of limited-purpose companies that have fewer employees. For example, it's routine in the world of structured finance (and if you have a credit card or a mortgage, it's quite possible that your repayments actually go to one of these companies, albeit via a larger company).
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#623
by
Borklund
on 25 Nov, 2014 13:35
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It's not about how many employees RD AMROSS should have, it's about why it is necessary in the first place. You said it yourself; probably just about all it does is contract out for services to NPO Energomash and sell a few RD-180s per year from a single supplier to a single customer. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that NPO Energomash could do the same job with a few employees of its own, without incurring the US tax payer a cost markup of 15%.
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#624
by
Remes
on 25 Nov, 2014 16:02
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This is actually a typical practice in Russia.
When you hear "Putin's cronies stole billions from Russian budget", this doesn't mean they drove away with several truckloads of bills from the Treasury.
It means that, for example, Gazprom buys drilling and pumping equipment through several layers of such empty intermediaries owned by "Putin's cronies". The resulting price is not 15% higher as in AMROSS case - in Russia, it can easily become 3-5 times higher.
This is actually a typical practice in
Russia everywhere.
According to the EELV Should Cost Review, ULA charges up to an 18
percent profit on top of engine prices and to act as a broker for the
program office on commodities like propellants bought from other
government agencies, like NASA and the Defense Logistics Agency—
costs the program could avoid if it were to coordinate purchases directly
from other agencies. The review also recommends that the EELV
program office develop stronger relationships with other Air Force launch
operations organizations so it can buy launch and range support directly
from them and avoid the pass-through fees associated with buying
through ULA.
GAO-11-641
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11641.pdfDocument page 21 (in pdf reader shown as page 24).
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#625
by
Prober
on 25 Nov, 2014 16:19
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This is actually a typical practice in Russia.
When you hear "Putin's cronies stole billions from Russian budget", this doesn't mean they drove away with several truckloads of bills from the Treasury.
It means that, for example, Gazprom buys drilling and pumping equipment through several layers of such empty intermediaries owned by "Putin's cronies". The resulting price is not 15% higher as in AMROSS case - in Russia, it can easily become 3-5 times higher.
This is actually a typical practice in Russia everywhere.
no, not everywhere (too broad a claim). SpaceX for example is a new company and has fresh agreement with parts suppliers.
We also need to watch Orbital to see if they get into this mess. They should know better, we will just watch and see.
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#626
by
baldusi
on 25 Nov, 2014 16:20
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Well, that would sort of defeat the concept of procuring a service, and would look a lot more like managing your own LV. The very concept of going into bidding processes that face ULA against SpaceX, is exactly going in the opposite direction. Let's ULA worry if they are putting too much margin on their launches. But you need two actual competitors for that.
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#627
by
kevin-rf
on 25 Nov, 2014 19:38
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This is actually a typical practice in Russia everywhere.
no, not everywhere (too broad a claim).
Actually, I work in the biotech instrumentation sector and it is not unusual to see such bundling with US government labs.
The lab has contracts with a company that is in charge of procuring and setting up instrumentation. They don't make anything, they just act as middle men. We can not sell directly to the lab, but these third parties (there self censured) can buy from us, then sell it to the lab. Of course they always want to be treated like an OEM and get OEM pricing from us then tun around and sell it to the lab at full price. I won't say how that goes over, but lets just say it is usually our sales people who do the demo for the PI, convince the PI to submit an order to purchasing, then purchasing subs it to these bundlers after our staff did all the work.
The reason the labs do this is to minimize the number of vendors that purchasing has to deal with. They feel they get a benefit, and they are the ones with the money. So when in Rome...
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#628
by
kevin-rf
on 02 Dec, 2014 22:45
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#629
by
kevin-rf
on 02 Dec, 2014 22:51
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#630
by
TrevorMonty
on 03 Dec, 2014 03:10
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This doesn't' give ULA much leeway for bringing NLV into operation. They planned to fly it in 2019 but still operate Altas in parallel for a little while. If there is a major launch failure of NLV ( not unexpected in first few flights) it would be ground for months.
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#631
by
kevin-rf
on 03 Dec, 2014 14:47
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It's just a bill, it hasn't passed congress or been signed by the president yet. Though it sounds like the time for amendments is rapidly winding down.
It is worrying that it includes money for a new US built rocket engine to replace the RD-180. Something ULA has indicated they are not interested in. SpaceX already has an engine. Orbital needs a new engine sooner than 2019. Will this be an engine without a rocket? Who is going to use it? Who is getting the money to build it?
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#632
by
ncb1397
on 03 Dec, 2014 15:10
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It is worrying that it includes money for a new US built rocket engine to replace the RD-180. Something ULA has indicated they are not interested in.
I'm thinking that the BE-4 program could bid for the contract/grant to develop the new engine and will likely win the competition which would make the effort cheaper for ULA/Blue.
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#633
by
TrevorMonty
on 03 Dec, 2014 16:36
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It is worrying that it includes money for a new US built rocket engine to replace the RD-180. Something ULA has indicated they are not interested in.
I'm thinking that the BE-4 program could bid for the contract/grant to develop the new engine and will likely win the competition which would make the effort cheaper for ULA/Blue.
If they take the development money the engine will be available to any domestic LV provider. I doubt ULA would want Orbital to have access to it.
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#634
by
edkyle99
on 03 Dec, 2014 16:42
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If they take the development money the engine will be available to any domestic LV provider. I doubt ULA would want Orbital to have access to it.
Why not? More buyers equals higher production. Higher production equals lower unit cost.
- Ed Kyle
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#635
by
Prober
on 03 Dec, 2014 18:23
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Looks like
political winds are calling the show if this article is real.
http://news.yahoo.com/bill-cap-russian-engines-u-satellite-launches-044430535--finance.html"The bill would bar United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp, from using Russian RD-180 engines to send U.S. military and intelligence satellites into space unless they were bought before Moscow's invasion of the Crimean peninsula this year."
"Even if a new entrant is certified, they will only have the technical ability to compete for 60 percent of the missions," she said.
This is no longer about saving launch cost monies, or competition, or even getting the job done. Maybe someone else can address this.
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#636
by
Kabloona
on 03 Dec, 2014 20:34
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Looks like political winds are calling the show if this article is real.
[snip]
This is no longer about saving launch cost monies, or competition, or even getting the job done. Maybe someone else can address this.
Why is this a surprise? Senator McCain and others in Congress have been anti-RD-180 for years. No, it's not about cost or competition. It's about not relying on an unfriendly foreign country for a national security asset.
And if the supply of RD-180s suddenly dried up, ULA would not be getting any "job done," at least not with an Atlas V.
The conference measure also retains the framework of language, inserted into the Senate version of the bill by Sen. John McCain(R-Ariz.), that bars the Pentagon from signing new contracts or renewing existing contracts with launch companies that rely on Russian suppliers.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/42701house-senate-conference-measure-to-end-pentagon-use-of-rd-180
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#637
by
woods170
on 04 Dec, 2014 07:08
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Looks like political winds are calling the show if this article is real.
[snip]
This is no longer about saving launch cost monies, or competition, or even getting the job done. Maybe someone else can address this.
Why is this a surprise? Senator McCain and others in Congress have been anti-RD-180 for years. No, it's not about cost or competition. It's about not relying on an unfriendly foreign country for a national security asset.
And if the supply of RD-180s suddenly dried up, ULA would not be getting any "job done," at least not with an Atlas V.
The conference measure also retains the framework of language, inserted into the Senate version of the bill by Sen. John McCain(R-Ariz.), that bars the Pentagon from signing new contracts or renewing existing contracts with launch companies that rely on Russian suppliers.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/42701house-senate-conference-measure-to-end-pentagon-use-of-rd-180
Get out of jail card:
The compromise legislation does, however, allow for a waiver process for national security missions “if space launch services cannot be obtained at a fair and reasonable price without the use of the Russian RD-180 engines,” the summary said.
So, business as usual. Nothing will really change. Not for years to come, barring Putin staging something really crazy, like an invasion of CONUS.
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#638
by
Prober
on 05 Dec, 2014 01:27
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Looks like political winds are calling the show if this article is real.
[snip]
This is no longer about saving launch cost monies, or competition, or even getting the job done. Maybe someone else can address this.
Why is this a surprise? Senator McCain and others in Congress have been anti-RD-180 for years. No, it's not about cost or competition. It's about not relying on an unfriendly foreign country for a national security asset.
And if the supply of RD-180s suddenly dried up, ULA would not be getting any "job done," at least not with an Atlas V.
The conference measure also retains the framework of language, inserted into the Senate version of the bill by Sen. John McCain(R-Ariz.), that bars the Pentagon from signing new contracts or renewing existing contracts with launch companies that rely on Russian suppliers.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/military-space/42701house-senate-conference-measure-to-end-pentagon-use-of-rd-180
Get out of jail card:
The compromise legislation does, however, allow for a waiver process for national security missions “if space launch services cannot be obtained at a fair and reasonable price without the use of the Russian RD-180 engines,” the summary said.
So, business as usual. Nothing will really change. Not for years to come, barring Putin staging something really crazy, like an invasion of CONUS.
No, messing with the issue will create problems. Remember this is Congress making this call. The US state Dept might wish to go another way. Cash in the end might still be the driver.
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#639
by
ncb1397
on 05 Dec, 2014 01:33
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So, business as usual. Nothing will really change. Not for years to come, barring Putin staging something really crazy, like an invasion of CONUS.
So, he can have Hawaii and Alaska, but we draw a line at CONUS. Like Crimea, Alaska is actually a historical part of Russia.
