AvWeek reporting 9(!) new SpaceX contracts, 2-3 Heavies

[sdsds]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

[docmordrid]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

It does look good on paper, until you look at Zenit 3SL's failure rate: 36 launches, 3 full fails and one partial fail, resulting in a shortened satellite lifetime. Then there is the added overhead and logistics.

[Jarnis]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

These things do bad things to your sales prospects;



Low price goes only so far once you dunk a few expensive satellites on launch failures.

[meekGee]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

It does look good on paper, until you look at Zenit 3SL's failure rate: 36 launches, 3 full fails and one partial fail, resulting in a shortened satellite lifetime. Then there is the added overhead and logistics.

Just to keep perspective - SpaceX's sample size is still too small to determine their failure rate...  Though it does look good, especially as thing stabilize.

[ThereIWas3]

I don't think 'reusability' by itself will ever be a 'market pressure'.  It can reduce cost, which is a market pressure, and it may speed up delivery of service (do not have to wait for a vehicle to be manufactured for your mission, as we have some out back), which is a market pressure.

[a_langwich]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

It does look good on paper, until you look at Zenit 3SL's failure rate: 36 launches, 3 full fails and one partial fail, resulting in a shortened satellite lifetime. Then there is the added overhead and logistics.

Just to keep perspective - SpaceX's sample size is still too small to determine their failure rate...  Though it does look good, especially as thing stabilize.

I agree, in the longer view.  But, to put perspective on your perspective  ,  I think the market here discounts the longer view in the same way it does for stock price. 

Proton has a great long-term success/failure rate, but two recent failures are very troubling.  Fregat has a great record, but a recent failure and denial of responsibility and inability to even figure out there was a failure for a while, and the market will be spooked for a short while.  [The second failure, that of failing to look like you know what you are doing and are competently doing it, likely scares the market much more than the first.  Same for the Proton.]  Sea Launch has had three failures, and then compounded on that there's the question whether it is fully supported by the Russian company selling it (weren't they talking about ditching the US starting location?  moving to Russia?  haven't Russian officials in the parent company been punished for the investments they've made in Sea Launch?), and whether the Russians and Ukrainians are working well together and fully committed to helping each other succeed.

SpaceX, on that same short term timeline, has succeeded.  And they are still flippin cheap.  Cheap enough to make you take a crazy chance, and it's not a crazy chance anymore.

Proton and Soyuz/Fregat will come back, and I'm sure the market will forget their failures, just like it forgot Apple's dreadful 1990s failures, and like the lenders forget Donald Trump's bankruptcies.  SpaceX will fail, too, eventually, and have to come back from it.

I _hope_ Zenit and the Ukrainian space industry emerge from all this turmoil intact, both for the Ukrainian people and for the global space industry.  Doesn't look good for Sea Launch, though, right now.

[baldusi]

Zenit has an awful 86% success rate. Proton has consistently been doing a 91%. Apparently the threshold for this market is at least 90% reliability to play. But Proton is also heavily scheduled for Russian payloads (both military and civil, but government owned anyways).
The interesting part is that F9 is on a different category than either Zenit and Proton (GTO wise).
So, it might just happen, that while Ariane had to offer serious discounts on the light satellites, they can hike the price for the primaries. Those 6 tonne birds are really expensive and thus the Ariane 5 track record is almost a necessity. Only the existence of Falcon Heavy and Atlas V puts an upper bound.

[Kabloona]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

It does look good on paper, until you look at Zenit 3SL's failure rate: 36 launches, 3 full fails and one partial fail, resulting in a shortened satellite lifetime. Then there is the added overhead and logistics.

Just to keep perspective - SpaceX's sample size is still too small to determine their failure rate...  Though it does look good, especially as thing stabilize.

But not too small to make F9 look pretty darn good. 100% successful >primary< payload delivery on the first twelve launches is impressive given that you would expect the highest failure rate early in the life cycle with teething problems. Neither Pegasus nor Taurus achieved that record, and they were less complex designs. No wonder customers are lining up.

[Robotbeat]

I just don't understand why Sea Launch doesn't seem able to compete on price/value. On paper doesn't a Zenit 3SL powered by an RD-171 and launched from the equator look simply awesome? Isn't it 6 tons to a standard GTO, and capable of near GEO insertion for smaller payloads?

It does look good on paper, until you look at Zenit 3SL's failure rate: 36 launches, 3 full fails and one partial fail, resulting in a shortened satellite lifetime. Then there is the added overhead and logistics.

Just to keep perspective - SpaceX's sample size is still too small to determine their failure rate...  Though it does look good, especially as thing stabilize.

But not too small to make F9 look pretty darn good. 100% successful >primary< payload delivery on the first twelve launches is impressive given that you would expect the highest failure rate early in the life cycle with teething problems. Neither Pegasus nor Taurus achieved that record, and they were less complex designs. No wonder customers are lining up.

Neither did Ariane 5, either! Several early failures.

FWIW, a good way of guesstimating the reliability in the case of no main payload failures (because nothing is 100% reliable) is to assume half a failure... So 12 flights is 12/12.5... About 96% reliability, conservatively speaking. Just a guesstimate, though. Could also take a Bayesian approach which would give much the same answer.

[gregpet]

Possible connection between Elon's stand down order and these 9 contracts being signed?  Maybe there was a lot more riding on the Asiasat 6 launch than we know...In other words, he knew how close they were to signing a bunch of contracts and wanted to be "super" careful....

[Comga]

Please all: Back On Topic. (Which is NOT SeaLaunch, or Arianespace)
Which is up to 17 new contracts
That would be floodgates opening. 
There hasn't been much on my listing past 2016.
The last of these probably won't launch for four to six years, assuming they are built by then.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Peter B. de Selding (@pbdes):

Sky Perfect JSat selects SpaceX to launch JCSat-16 after choosing Arianespace for JCSat-15. Risk management. #WSBW2014

https://twitter.com/pbdes/status/509640670852972544

I assume this is one of the 9?

[mvpel]

That tweet, with SpaceX beating up Ariane and taking her lunch money, certainly puts the last couple of years' worth Ariane vs. Falcon discussion into the proper context. Musk's words from late November 2012:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-20389148

Ariane 5 has no chance. ... I don't say that with a sense of bravado but there's really no way for that vehicle to compete with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. If I were in the position of Ariane, I would really push for an Ariane 6. I think that's the right move.. ... Not only can we sustain the prices, but the next version of Falcon 9 is actually able to go to a lower price. So if Ariane can't compete with the current Falcon 9, it sure as hell can't compete with the next one.

And just under two years later, here's the proof. Well done, SpaceX!

[abaddon]

SFN is reporting that Ariane has six new launch contracts, all in the F9 sweet spot of <3.5 tons to GTO.  So I wouldn't call this SpaceX beating up Ariane just yet.

That said, it's been stated that the new launch contracts were at a sharply discounted rate compared to prior contracts, which is directly attributable to the F9's pricing.  I wonder if we are going to see an increase in the Arianspace subsidy over the next few years?  I remember someone from SpaceX (Gwynne?) responding to Ariane saying they would remain price competitive that they were fine with that idea, as long as it didn't just come from bigger subsidies.

Also, more on topic, other than this tweet we don't have a lot of info, as compared with the Ariane new contracts.  Hopefully we get some more detailed info soon.

[Space Junkie]

Is it known whether SpaceX is still giving early adopter discounts?

I assume the FH customers are getting deals since it hasn't flown yet. They are charging full price for the F9 now though, right?

[king1999]

Is it known whether SpaceX is still giving early adopter discounts?

I assume the FH customers are getting deals since it hasn't flown yet. They are charging full price for the F9 now though, right?

I doubt they would give out any discount now. The FH has already signed up first two or three launches before this.

[Coastal Ron]

SFN is reporting that Ariane has six new launch contracts, all in the F9 sweet spot of <3.5 tons to GTO.  So I wouldn't call this SpaceX beating up Ariane just yet.

That said, it's been stated that the new launch contracts were at a sharply discounted rate compared to prior contracts, which is directly attributable to the F9's pricing.

So yes, SpaceX is beating up on ESA - they are forcing them to sell their services at an even greater loss.

I wonder if we are going to see an increase in the Arianspace subsidy over the next few years?

I can't see how they couldn't, since they were already selling their services at a loss, and now it's even bigger.

Also, more on topic, other than this tweet we don't have a lot of info, as compared with the Ariane new contracts.  Hopefully we get some more detailed info soon.

Here is a SpaceNews article that talks about the challenges ESA faces:
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/41821the-world’s-biggest-satellite-fleet-operators-want-europe-to-build-ariane

Key quote:

"In a briefing, de Rosen said Eutelsat had agreed to let Arianespace launch Eutelsat’s 172B satellite — the first all-electric satellite ordered by Eutelsat — even though a SpaceX launch would have been less expensive."

So SpaceX is winning on price.  However no one wants to get locked into a monopoly if they don't have to, so this order was understandable.  But ESA can't sustain that, which is what their customers are telling them.

[Lars_J]

SFN is reporting that Ariane has six new launch contracts, all in the F9 sweet spot of <3.5 tons to GTO.  So I wouldn't call this SpaceX beating up Ariane just yet.

That said, it's been stated that the new launch contracts were at a sharply discounted rate compared to prior contracts, which is directly attributable to the F9's pricing.

So yes, SpaceX is beating up on ESA - they are forcing them to sell their services at an even greater loss.

And these smaller sat launches are the ones they are selling cheaper - the ones that will be mounted under a larger sat. And unless they can sell those larger sat slots, scheduling the launches will be difficult.

[Danderman]

It appears that the launch market is very sensitive to price, assuming a reasonably reliable launch system.

This goes against the collective wisdom of many greybeards who told us that the GEO comsat market was not particularly price sensitive.

On the other hands, the adherents of CATS - the philosophy that the great barrier to space development is price - have argued for years that there needed to be a market based on price and reliability. We seem to be nearing the emergence of that market.

The logical development would be new entrants into the market that are competitive with SpaceX.

BTW, all of this market competition stuff started with the enactment of the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990.

[abaddon]

Also, more on topic, other than this tweet we don't have a lot of info, as compared with the Ariane new contracts.  Hopefully we get some more detailed info soon.

Here is a SpaceNews article that talks about the challenges ESA faces:
http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/41821the-world’s-biggest-satellite-fleet-operators-want-europe-to-build-ariane

Thanks for the link!  Good reading.  I was actually asking/hoping for a more in-depth article on the SpaceX signings, since all we have right now are some tweets with very little info.  So far it doesn't seem like enough information has been released by SpaceX for any embellishment.

Also worth noting from the article you linked:

Given the advent of electric propulsion and the dramatic launch-cost reduction offered by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the operators say, the new Ariane 6 needs to be in service by 2019 or face the risk that Europe’s Arianespace launch consortium will be permanently sidelined.

The letter was signed by six members of the European Satellite Operators Association. Signatories included the chief executives of Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Inmarsat, Hispasat and HellasSat.

Ouch!  Based on another recent article http://www.spacenews.com/article/launch-report/41770esa-ministerial-in-doubt-as-france-germany-remain-far-apart-on-future it seems impossible that any Ariane 6 could be ready by 2019 in the most optimistic of timelines.  And as the article also states, the six commercial satellite titans noted above don't want Ariane 5 ME, which could be developed in that time-frame.

Seems like Ariane is between a rock and a hard place.  And if SpaceX can pull off the Falcon Heavy in the next year or two things are really going to get dicey.