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How is Proton only ~$100 million?
by
quanthasaquality
on 17 Feb, 2014 13:15
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I wonder how the Proton rocket is able to only cost a little over $100 million.
It has a takeoff weight of ~700 tons, 11 staged combustion, hypergolic engines, 3 stages, and it puts ~20 tons into LEO.
The Ariane 5 costs about twice as much, has a takeoff weight of ~750 tons, it uses 2 big solid rocket motors, and 2 single engine, gas generator hydrogen stages.
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#1
by
M129K
on 17 Feb, 2014 13:54
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It's built using Russian labor. That's what makes it so cheap.
A couple of years ago, it was only $50 million, I believe, yet it's about $110 million now. But as Russia's economy keeps growing, so do the wages, and Proton has become much more expensive accordingly, and it's not unlikely that this will continue for the coming years.
The same thing is happening to Soyuz. They're not cost effective designs, they just have cheap labor on their side, and India and China have the same advantage.
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#2
by
Jim
on 17 Feb, 2014 13:54
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I wonder how the Proton rocket is able to only cost a little over $100 million.
It has a takeoff weight of ~700 tons, 11 staged combustion, hypergolic engines, 3 stages, and it puts ~20 tons into LEO.
The Ariane 5 costs about twice as much, has a takeoff weight of ~750 tons, it uses 2 big solid rocket motors, and 2 single engine, gas generator hydrogen stages.
Russian wages are lower and they use army conscripts at the launch site.
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#3
by
anik
on 17 Feb, 2014 14:18
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they use army conscripts at the launch site
Do not repeat this again and again. Baikonur is controlled by Roskosmos. Roskosmos does not use army conscripts.
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#4
by
owais.usmani
on 17 Feb, 2014 14:30
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The Ariane 5 costs about twice as much, has a takeoff weight of ~750 tons, it uses 2 big solid rocket motors, and 2 single engine, gas generator hydrogen stages.
Ariane 5 also spanks the Proton with its 10+ tons to GTO capability, its like almost two Protons lifting off.
BTW it would be interesting to see how much the Angara 5 with similar capability of Proton would cost.
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#5
by
Jim
on 17 Feb, 2014 14:44
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they use army conscripts at the launch site
Do not repeat this again and again. Baikonur is controlled by Roskosmos. Roskosmos does not use army conscripts.
Understand
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#6
by
M129K
on 17 Feb, 2014 15:04
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Ariane 5 also spanks the Proton with its 10+ tons to GTO capability, its like almost two Protons lifting off.
Mostly due to the inclination. Proton launched from Kourou would likely have a payload in the 8 to 10 ton range as well.
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#7
by
edkyle99
on 17 Feb, 2014 16:26
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In addition to the labor cost, I see two contributing factors to Proton's competitiveness.
First, it has been flying since 1965, so the bulk of its development costs were paid long ago. That development included the creation of a big industrial base near Moscow for engines and rocket assembly, the transportation infrastructure to move the rockets to Baikonur, and the big launch complexes and launch support sites at Baikonur itself.
Second, Proton at this point in history sits right in the middle of the GTO "sweet spot". It can lift 6+ tonnes to GTO, which has become a default standard for big comsats. That makes it busy, which makes it cost less on a per-flight basis. (It's no coincidence that Europe is designing Ariane 6 to lift 6.5 tonne single payloads to GTO.)
Last year Proton flew 10 times and hardly missed a beat even after that spectacular failure. It has averaged more than 10 flights a year during the past six years, has flown 394 times in all, etc. For a rocket that's Saturn IB/Delta 4 Heavy/Ariane 5 class (all rockets that have flown far less), that's impressive.
Although a four stage rocket with 12 primary engines (including Briz M) would seem less efficient than a 2.5 stage rocket with four primary motors or engines, Proton actually only uses three basic main engine types. Its four second stage and single third stage engine are substantially similar.
Shutting down Proton to replace it with Angara seems likely, to me, to be risky, difficult, and unlikely to maintain the current price level. But I suppose it has to happen sometime.
- Ed Kyle
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#8
by
asmi
on 18 Feb, 2014 13:27
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First, it has been flying since 1965, so the bulk of its development costs were paid long ago. That development included the creation of a big industrial base near Moscow for engines and rocket assembly, the transportation infrastructure to move the rockets to Baikonur, and the big launch complexes and launch support sites at Baikonur itself.
Although this is largely true, Proton-M undergoes continuous improvements so R&D still goes on.
Second, Proton at this point in history sits right in the middle of the GTO "sweet spot". It can lift 6+ tonnes to GTO, which has become a default standard for big comsats. That makes it busy, which makes it cost less on a per-flight basis. (It's no coincidence that Europe is designing Ariane 6 to lift 6.5 tonne single payloads to GTO.)
I think you got cause and effect wrong way around. Big comsats weigh 6-6.5 tonnes exactly because that's how much Proton can lift. In comsat market LV capabilities drive sat parameters and requirements, not the other way around.
Last year Proton flew 10 times and hardly missed a beat even after that spectacular failure. It has averaged more than 10 flights a year during the past six years, has flown 394 times in all, etc. For a rocket that's Saturn IB/Delta 4 Heavy/Ariane 5 class (all rockets that have flown far less), that's impressive.
It's a self-sustained system now jump-started in 90s by low prices and Russian MoD orders - it is cheaper because it flies often, and it flies often because it's cheaper. And it has a side effect of attaining better reliability - all it's failures during last 20 years or so have been caused by human errors during assembly/prelaunch processing, and are not indicative of design issues.
Although a four stage rocket with 12 primary engines (including Briz M) would seem less efficient than a 2.5 stage rocket with four primary motors or engines, Proton actually only uses three basic main engine types. Its four second stage and single third stage engine are substantially similar.
For staging - Tsyolkovskiy equation suggests otherwise - the more stages you have - the better (up to a certain limit mostly related to weight of separation hardware and reliability of whole system). And all engines in first 3 stages are essentially scaled versions of each other (all are staged combustion engines), while Briz-M engine came from different programme - S5.98M engine is part of S5.9X family which contain OMS engines used by Soyuz/Progress, DOS main engines. Engines from that family are used for orbital maneuvers on just about every Soviet/Russian spacecraft.
Shutting down Proton to replace it with Angara seems likely, to me, to be risky, difficult, and unlikely to maintain the current price level. But I suppose it has to happen sometime.
Right now it's hard to speculate, but there is a chance that Angara-5 market would be jump-started the same way it did for Proton - selling cheap flights in the beginning to attain safety record (and to work out any issues that might come up), and braking even with MoD missions and possibly some subsidies from the government.
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#9
by
quanthasaquality
on 27 Feb, 2014 18:02
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Although a four stage rocket with 12 primary engines (including Briz M) would seem less efficient than a 2.5 stage rocket with four primary motors or engines, Proton actually only uses three basic main engine types. Its four second stage and single third stage engine are substantially similar.
Before the Falcon 9 was upgraded from ~10.5 tons to ~13 tons to LEO, Proton was close to being the CHEAPEST kg to LEO rocket of ALL rockets in the world. 6 staged combustion hypergolic engines on the first stage does not seem the low cost route. Only 2 different engines on the first 3 stages makes the low cost more believable. Zenit seems more like a low cost Soviet rocket.
In addition to the labor cost, I see two contributing factors to Proton's competitiveness.
Wow, Russia's GDP per capita was in the low single digit thousands USD back in 2000. I normally think in terms of PPP, so I remembered it being in the high single digit thousands USD. If the rocket is being purchased in USD, I guess PPP doesn't matter.
Last year Proton flew 10 times and hardly missed a beat even after that spectacular failure. It has averaged more than 10 flights a year during the past six years, has flown 394 times in all, etc. For a rocket that's Saturn IB/Delta 4 Heavy/Ariane 5 class (all rockets that have flown far less), that's impressive.
Ariane 5 flies ~5 times a year. That's not too bad...
First, it has been flying since 1965, so the bulk of its development costs were paid long ago. That development included the creation of a big industrial base near Moscow for engines and rocket assembly, the transportation infrastructure to move the rockets to Baikonur, and the big launch complexes and launch support sites at Baikonur itself.
Don't the EU and USA eat the cost of development, and infrastructure, for commercial customers? The Ariane 5 has been flying for over 12 years now.
It's built using Russian labor. That's what makes it so cheap.
A couple of years ago, it was only $50 million, I believe, yet it's about $110 million now. But as Russia's economy keeps growing, so do the wages, and Proton has become much more expensive accordingly, and it's not unlikely that this will continue for the coming years.
The same thing is happening to Soyuz. They're not cost effective designs, they just have cheap labor on their side, and India and China have the same advantage.
I guess wages in the low single digit thousands USD seems to be the best answer. Sort of like Nazi slave labor for low V-2 costs. That doesn't help much in the USA. Maybe we can try using prison labor to build Atlas 5s?
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#10
by
john smith 19
on 01 Mar, 2014 17:19
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I guess wages in the low single digit thousands USD seems to be the best answer. Sort of like Nazi slave labor for low V-2 costs. That doesn't help much in the USA. Maybe we can try using prison labor to build Atlas 5s?
The point you missed is that F9 is
also a US made rocket.
While it's claimed Spacex pay below US aerospace labor rates I think they're talking 10-20% below, not 80-90% below US market rate.
BTW one thing I'll note about a US Proton is the propellant bill would be
eyewatering 
. The last time I checked NTO was running about $6/lb and stuff like MMH and UDMH was about $60/lb.
I don't know if they are "grand fathered" in or Russian H&S is somewhat more "relaxed" due to it's military origins but OMS/RCS servicing for the Shuttle (about the biggest system that used these propellants regularly) was a mighty PITA,
US crewed missions haven't flown on such a rocket since the days of Gemini/Titan.
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#11
by
Jim
on 01 Mar, 2014 18:53
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I don't know if they are "grand fathered" in or Russian H&S is somewhat more "relaxed" due to it's military origins but OMS/RCS servicing for the Shuttle (about the biggest system that used these propellants regularly) was a mighty PITA,
Titans used more
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#12
by
john smith 19
on 01 Mar, 2014 21:09
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Titans used more
The last of which was required as being too expensive, with a launch cost hitting close to 1/2 a $Bn in 2005, which I guess made the EELV's look pretty cheap.
I'd suggest part of that was the rise in propellant costs.
Even LH2 is only running somewhere around $5/lb, while both RP1 and LO2 are << $1/lb.
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#13
by
Jim
on 02 Mar, 2014 14:10
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I'd suggest part of that was the rise in propellant costs.
No, it was a kludged vehicle designed for performance and not operations.
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#14
by
Coastal Ron
on 02 Mar, 2014 15:41
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I wonder how the Proton rocket is able to only cost a little over $100 million.
It has a takeoff weight of ~700 tons, 11 staged combustion, hypergolic engines, 3 stages, and it puts ~20 tons into LEO.
The Ariane 5 costs about twice as much, has a takeoff weight of ~750 tons, it uses 2 big solid rocket motors, and 2 single engine, gas generator hydrogen stages.
The various guesses about pricing ignore a big factor - that the Russian space industry is not a purely commercial entity. Not only do they have leftover USSR assets that would affect pricing (i.e. tooling, factories, etc.), but for all we know the Proton is flown for a loss due to political reasons.
And selling for a loss is not unusual in the commercial world either, where things like milk are sometime sold as a loss leader to entice customers to come in to buy more profitable products.
So one possibility is that the Proton is being flown for a loss, but if it is it's not entirely clear why.
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#15
by
simonbp
on 02 Mar, 2014 16:51
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Russia wants Proton available for military launches, and so sells commercial launches basically at-cost in order to keep the flight rate up and lower the costs for military launches. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.
Of course, when those Protons start flying upside down, that business model doesn't work so well.
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#16
by
Danderman
on 02 Mar, 2014 18:28
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My question is why Protons are so expensive.
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#17
by
SpacexULA
on 02 Mar, 2014 22:03
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The various guesses about pricing ignore a big factor - that the Russian space industry is not a purely commercial entity. Not only do they have leftover USSR assets that would affect pricing (i.e. tooling, factories, etc.), but for all we know the Proton is flown for a loss due to political reasons.
And selling for a loss is not unusual in the commercial world either, where things like milk are sometime sold as a loss leader to entice customers to come in to buy more profitable products.
So one possibility is that the Proton is being flown for a loss, but if it is it's not entirely clear why.
Russia, like the US, maintains a GPS system. To maintain/upgrade their GLONASS system they require the Proton Rocket, no nation's defense department wants to launch defense payloads on international rockets if it can be avoided.
Rocket systems work best when their operational tempo is kept high, it would be perfectly reasonable for Russia to sell Proton flights below costs to maintain production/launch capacity.
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#18
by
floss
on 02 Mar, 2014 22:22
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Price of launch is a pretty small part of a satellites cost when you figure all the other factors I wonder how expensive Arianespace really are ?
Proton failures raise the cost of insurance for a start.
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#19
by
owais.usmani
on 03 Mar, 2014 04:31
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My question is why Protons are so expensive.
In your opinion how much should it cost?
. The last time I checked NTO was running about $6/lb and stuff like MMH and UDMH was about $60/lb.