SpaceX F9 : SES-10 with reuse of CRS-8 Booster SN/1021 : 2017-03-30 : DISCUSSION

[cscott]

Don't see why SX would have to give large discounts. If they can (re)launch reliably and they are still the cheapest gig in town and they have spare capacity  then they are in a great position. 

They need to offer large discounts to drive up demand.  Without demand, they don't fly often enough and fixed costs start catching up with them.

[rockets4life97]

Don't see why SX would have to give large discounts. If they can (re)launch reliably and they are still the cheapest gig in town and they have spare capacity  then they are in a great position. 

They need to offer large discounts to drive up demand.  Without demand, they don't fly often enough and fixed costs start catching up with them.

I'd disagree. It looks like CommX will provide enough demand even without an increase in the rest of the market. I still think that demand will come, but I don't expect the cost to lower dramatically in the near term (next 5-7 years).

[Jarnis]

Logically cost can't go down substantially until SpaceX ends up waiting for more customers to sign up (As opposed to right now customers waiting for years for their launch slot...)

[Lars-J]

Some notes I took from the presser.

Fairings cost $6M each.

$1B development spent on reuse. Three quarters of the cost to reduce by an order of a magnitude. Thus for $62M expendable, that gives (0.25 + 0.75*0.1)*62 = $20.15M reusable cost.

So about 25 launches to recover the $1B development costs then based on that calculation. Presuming you can keep charging $62m per launch. Which might be difficult, if customers are insisting on reuse discounts.

Development cost is likely already retired (or near retired) from corporate reinvestment of all revenue streams.
Bulk of future savings will also be reinvested.

Exactly. That $1 billion is is not something that have to pay off now - no, much or all of that is already paid for as SpaceX has continued to invest earnings into this development.

[jpo234]

Some notes I took from the presser.

Fairings cost $6M each.

$1B development spent on reuse. Three quarters of the cost to reduce by an order of a magnitude. Thus for $62M expendable, that gives (0.25 + 0.75*0.1)*62 = $20.15M reusable cost.

So about 25 launches to recover the $1B development costs then based on that calculation. Presuming you can keep charging $62m per launch. Which might be difficult, if customers are insisting on reuse discounts.

Development cost is likely already retired (or near retired) from corporate reinvestment of all revenue streams.
Bulk of future savings will also be reinvested.

Exactly. That $1 billion is is not something that have to pay off now - no, much or all of that is already paid for as SpaceX has continued to invest earnings into this development.

But a billion would be handy to build ITS. Why leave money on the table?

[abaddon]

But a billion would be handy to build ITS. Why leave money on the table?

In fact, Elon specifically said that there is a billion dollars of investment to recoup.  I agree with Lars that it isn't "required" to pay off loans/debts, but it is clear SpaceX intends to make that money back and reinvest it.

But it is also clear SpaceX wants to lower the cost of space access.  This seems like a reasonable middle ground of making some money back before dropping price.

[meekGee]

Irene Klotz: Do you have other costumers that weren't as brave as SES that are now signed up?  What is life-limiting factor?

Musk: NASA has been supportive.  Commercial, SES has been most supportive.  Next thing is how to achieve rapid reuse without major hardware changeouts.  Aspirations of zero hardware changes and 24hrs reflight.

And how many pages of useless argument whether the goal is "24 hours reflight" or "24 hours done with refurb"?

People assuming that you can't refly in 24 hours because other processes today take too long - a classic "it can't be done since it isn't currently done".

I guess if the stage can be ready to go in 24 hours, other processes will have to catch up so they DON'T remain the bottleneck.

And even if they don't reach the "aspiration" and it becomes 48 hours or even 72 - still enables 1 flight per day with a set of three boosters.

What a fantastic day. And lets hope the next goal of 24h turnaround will not take 15 years. The scepticism of 24h relaunch comes from the fact that its outside SpaceXs sphere of influence. For their satellite constellation, I can believe its possible because they supply the rocket as well as the payload. So there they have control over the entire process and it might be possible for them to pull it off. Would be a big accomplishment if they do!

With an external customer, the process to allow for a 24h turnaround must also apply to the customer. And this is less obvious to accept.

Exactly.

Nobody will launch regular comsats every 24 hours.

The payload has to be "repeatable" - either a series of identical satellites, or fuel tankers  or "just people" in reusable vehicles.

But the whole point of change is that the environment changes too.

LEO comsats were a bust 20 years ago, but will be yuge this time around, because of smartphones and self driving cars.

Smartphones were a bust for many years until the internet made them happen.

Etc.

[CW]

SpaceX needs each and every cent earned for rapid development of the ITS, the main mission goal for SpaceX's existence. Achieving general affordable access to orbit and space is a neat side effect. Also, gaining the monopoly in an area by sheer innovation is the ideal scenario. SpaceX managed to do it. Now they can rake in the big dough for a couple of years. There will be competitors; being a copycat is easy. SpaceX is showing everybody how to do this, and if other service providers don't want to bite the dust, they have to adapt as fast as possible. Imagine the need for fresh underpants in other space companies if SpaceX gets maintenance time of a flight proven booster down to 24h, as proposed. Brown pants tsunami incoming..

[VIY]

I look forward to the day when they launch a used booster and I'm not holding my breath all the way to MECO.

I always hold my breath until the second stage lights up. Doesn't matter if it is a new or re-used flight. I'm always expecting something to go wrong. Space is hard.

That's speaks a lot. You are now much more confident of the second stage! In fact, the statistics shows that I stage never let them down, so far. Only one partial failure with an engine out, but was able to recover admirably and the main mission was a success. It appears that I stage is the most robust part of F9. All other failures were second-stage related. The second stage is much more refined and has less tolerance, and it burns 3-4 times longer.

Another thing that is striking about SX is their very short time from development to routine operations - few months, rather than years! Examples: now they have routine landings, routine supercooled fuel, and will shortly have routine refligths, too. This makes them very difficult to follow and compete with.

[M.E.T.]

Don't see why SX would have to give large discounts. If they can (re)launch reliably and they are still the cheapest gig in town and they have spare capacity  then they are in a great position. 

They need to offer large discounts to drive up demand.  Without demand, they don't fly often enough and fixed costs start catching up with them.

They have 70+ launches on their manifest. They can't even service their current demand at the moment. I'd say they can retain current price levels through the 70 remaining existing launches. That's 70 x $30m profit per reusable launch = a cool $2Bn profit over the next 2-3 years.

And by the time they have cleared that manifest they will likely have more than 70 new launches on the books, even at, or very close to, current prices.

At that point they can decide to start dropping prices, if it makes sense. But otherwise milk it for as long as they can, would be my advice.

[Basto]

The big problem is, of course, that the Eastern Range is not set up to support launches every 24 hours. So, even if they can get a rocket back to flight readiness in 24 hours, it is a bit of a moot point.

No.  The only way two Falcons can launch on the same day is because there are two pads (39A and 40).  If there weren't, the AFTS becomes a moot point to this.  It's the combination of AFTS AND two pads that make two launches in same day possible for Falcon 9.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42567.0

I believe this thread says otherwise. I think the major hurdle is getting the rocket cleaned, mated to second stage, mated to the TEL, static fired, payload integrated. All within 24 hours.

Musk sets bold goals, not saying 24 hours is impossible. But even if the best they could pull off is 2 weeks it would be quite the accomplishment.

[edkyle99]

This flight made another mark.  At 5,282 kg, SES 10 was the heaviest GTO payload launched to date with a successful first stage recovery.  The previous mark was JCSAT 16 at 4,696 kg.  SpaceX had previously attempted a first stage recovery, but failed, during the SES 9 launch (5,271 kg).

 - Ed Kyle

[CW]

The big problem is, of course, that the Eastern Range is not set up to support launches every 24 hours. So, even if they can get a rocket back to flight readiness in 24 hours, it is a bit of a moot point.

No.  The only way two Falcons can launch on the same day is because there are two pads (39A and 40).  If there weren't, the AFTS becomes a moot point to this.  It's the combination of AFTS AND two pads that make two launches in same day possible for Falcon 9.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42567.0

I believe this thread says otherwise. I think the major hurdle is getting the rocket cleaned, mated to second stage, mated to the TEL, static fired, payload integrated. All within 24 hours.

Musk sets bold goals, not saying 24 hours is impossible. But even if the best they could pull off is 2 weeks it would be quite the accomplishment.

I think the 24h scenario hinges on the amount of auto-diagnostics installed in the booster etc. I imagine it to be best if the rocket can self-diagnose something like, "Geez my back hurts" or "One of my fire-holes feels weird" and so on.

[Comga]

Another thing not mentioned last night but gearing toward reusability at a rapid pace is that Core #1021 from last night only took them four months to refurb and process -- even though it was nearly a year between launches.  That in itself is a good mark to hit on your first try at reuse when you're being super extra inspect-y on the booster to learn about its condition after use.

In the presser Musk referred to the upcoming revision saying "block 5 is more like version 2.5 of Falcon 9".
We have it elsewhere that this rocket was some one-off hybrid version 2.1/2/3, some Block 1 methods used to upgrade a Block 2 subsystem to Block 3.  A "version 2.5" designed for reusability should, we have been told, cut this already impressive time.

People are going on and on about the barriers to Musk's stated goal of 24 hr turn around but the ability to have the first stage ready that fast is a statement about minimization of inspections and refurbishment work and will have the primary impact of reducing their costs. 

[ATPTourFan]

I think they are working towards a Block 5 re-use optimized version that won't require the typical cleaning or static fires between launches.

[garidan]

What about the fin getting really hot ?
It looks to lose pieces ...

[edkyle99]

What about the fin getting really hot ?
It looks to lose pieces ...

It is aluminum coated with ablatives.  Future version will use higher temperature metal.

 - Ed Kyle

[Brovane]

So is there any chance that the type of up front development costs of reusability can be used as major barrier to entry for future competitors, who will see far lower payback prospects given that SpaceX is already in the market and able to offer rock bottom prices? The $30m "fat" that SpaceX can build into each launch price will not be available to any future followers in this industry.

Furthermore, even if newcomers are able to join, it is reasonable to assume that SpaceX's practical experience and data gathered will by then have allowed them to refine the art even further, driving revenues per launch even lower - possibly to the point where the newcomer is not even making a profit on each launch. In that scenario, recouping initial investment costs will never be possible.

I guess my point is, as much as Elon says the goal is to make access to space cheaper in general, it surely helps his cause even more if all the cheap access is provided by SpaceX. Then everyone who wants to get to space is still getting there cheaply, but all that launch volume is coming through SpaceX's revenue stream.

So, can SpaceX develop a bit of a monopoly here, to help fund their Mars dreams?

SpaceX will not have a monopoly as long as Blue Origins is in the Orbital launch Market.  With Bezo's money, Blue Origins could just write off the entire development cost as money well spent. 

[luinil]

Then check what the others have achieved within the last 10 years: Arianespace, Boeing, Lockheed (=ULA), Japan. In total they brought 1 (ONE!) new rocket, the HIIB. All together.

They also made Vega

And the Epsilon

[Kaputnik]

What about the fin getting really hot ?
It looks to lose pieces ...

This was specifically picked up at the presser. In future they will be from forged Ti.