Who will compete with SpaceX? The last two and next two years.

[envy887]

 100% engine flight success rate

that is wrong

Jim's right on this one. Failure of an engine on CRS-1.

That was a M1C, which wasn't close to 200 klbf class (more like 85-110k) and was a quite different engine.

M1D is 100% on 300+ flights

Suggest that the inconsistent subjective context here opens up ambiguity that some attempt to drive a truck through.

Yes M1D is 100% AFAIK. But "Merlin" ... isn't. And yeah its kinda silly.

After a while its a "two bit" behavior. And the constant Musk version of the Simpson's "Malibu Stacy has a new hat" does get on the nerves, like jeesh it's a rocket of course and why should it matter for just about any little thing.

Things that matter though climb above this.

There was no ambiguity in the original context, which Jim snipped because he only wanted to respond to the one point he thought he could claim was wrong.

What matters is that SpaceX has proven that they can make incredibly capable but low cost space hardware in house. Expecting them to do so with commsats is not unrealistic. OneWeb is expected to get the constellation for $3.9M per sat delivered, while doing neither manufacturing nor launch in house.

[meekGee]

The topic of this thread is "who will compete with SpaceX".

One thing for sure - the list will not include those that don't think SpaceX can do what it says.

[Space Ghost 1962]

What matters is that SpaceX has proven that they can make incredibly capable but low cost space hardware in house. Expecting them to do so with commsats is not unrealistic.

It is unrealistic.  There is a difference between low cost and 2 million per spacecraft

envy887 has a point. You did/do snip to create ambiguity. Why bother to do so?

After a while there is a "sameness" to the narrow refutations. As if they also are intentionally ambiguous, simply to seed doubt without context.

The spacecraft referred to here is Dragon (current in house). It supports the claim compared to rivals.

It appears SX has acquired talent that already does low cost comsats. Quite reasonable to see the claim supports same.

How does this add to the discussion? How does your vast experience "inform" on the topic?

It helps to have a little more.

Otherwise it's like tail end charlie dragging the door from closing here.

[ZachF]

What matters is that SpaceX has proven that they can make incredibly capable but low cost space hardware in house. Expecting them to do so with commsats is not unrealistic.

It is unrealistic.  There is a difference between low cost and 2 million per spacecraft

Ten years ago if you told people that SpaceX would be able to make a restartable, re-usable kerolox engine with a >99.8% reliability rate, a TWR of over 200, and have it cost ~$1 million a piece, people would ask what your are smoking.

There's an awful lot of horizontal bloat and very little economies of scale in satellite construction, just like rockets. SpaceX has proven time and time again to have the ability to dramatically reduce costs compared to today's ossified, sclerotic organizations.

We're also talking about a 600kg LEO sat, not a 6000kg GSO bird.

[AncientU]

What matters is that SpaceX has proven that they can make incredibly capable but low cost space hardware in house. Expecting them to do so with commsats is not unrealistic.

It is unrealistic.  There is a difference between low cost and 2 million per spacecraft

Ten years ago if you told people that SpaceX would be able to make a restartable, re-usable kerolox engine with a >99.8% reliability rate, a TWR of over 200, and have it cost ~$1 million a piece, people would ask what your are smoking.

There's an awful lot of horizontal bloat and very little economies of scale in satellite construction, just like rockets. SpaceX has proven time and time again to have the ability to dramatically reduce costs compared to today's ossified, sclerotic organizations.

We're also talking about a 600kg LEO sat, not a 6000kg GSO bird.

We are actually talking about Thousands of 400-600kg sats manufactured with modern automated fabrication/assembly systems instead of one-offs at 6,000kg put together by hand as done since the dawn of the space age.

[Robotbeat]

Also, almost certainly NOT using RAD-hard electronics but rad resistant and redundant electronics. Should reduce the intrinsic unit cost a lot.

They're also only supposed to last 4, maybe up to 7 years.

If you're making thousands of them, you probably will be able to beat the $5m apiece price that Iridium satellites were in the 1990s.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Also, almost certainly NOT using RAD-hard electronics but rad resistant and redundant electronics. Should reduce the intrinsic unit cost a lot.

They're also only supposed to last 4, maybe up to 7 years.

If you're making thousands of them, you probably will be able to beat the $5m apiece price that Iridium satellites were in the 1990s.

Iridium Next build rate = 5 per month.
One Web build rate goal = 38 per month (improvement of 7X over IN)
SpaceX build rate rate goal = 200 per month (Improvement of 5X over OW [35X over IN])

[calapine]

 100% engine flight success rate

that is wrong

Not wrong for Merlin 1D, the only engine made entirely in house.

To pile on here, the failure on the 1C engine was due to a manufacturing flaw introduced by a process that doesn't exist on the 1D.  There have been no 1D failures in flight to date.

I never heard about that... What kind of flaw are we talking about here?

[woods170]

What matters is that SpaceX has proven that they can make incredibly capable but low cost space hardware in house. Expecting them to do so with commsats is not unrealistic.

It is unrealistic.  There is a difference between low cost and 2 million per spacecraft

2 Million for Dragon? Man, that's a steal compared to what of would have cost had NASA gone the traditionel way.

[AncientU]

Also, almost certainly NOT using RAD-hard electronics but rad resistant and redundant electronics. Should reduce the intrinsic unit cost a lot.

They're also only supposed to last 4, maybe up to 7 years.

If you're making thousands of them, you probably will be able to beat the $5m apiece price that Iridium satellites were in the 1990s.

Iridium Next build rate = 5 per month.
One Web build rate goal = 38 per month (improvement of 7X over IN)
SpaceX build rate rate goal = 200 per month (Improvement of 5X over OW [35X over IN])

Is there a reference for the 200/month rate?  Calculated about one per hour based on 2000 per year, 12,000 sat constellation with 6 year mean lifetime, but haven't seen something on that order in print.

At this rate, the unit cost should be well below $2M and the launch costs about half of the total constellation 'hardware' costs assuming the internal costs per launch for SpaceX are of order $20M once Block 5 hits its stride.  Being a competitor against this price structure will be difficult at best...

But SpaceX still has to tackle the technology challenges of such a high density/volume network.  Software price tag may approach hardware/launch.  Definitely will push state of the art, and need to keep evolving as technology advances.

[Robotbeat]

I bet Falcon won't be used for launching the constellation by the time they're doing the full 12,000 satellite version. I expect launch costs to be an even smaller proportion of costs.

[wannamoonbase]

I bet Falcon won't be used for launching the constellation by the time they're doing the full 12,000 satellite version. I expect launch costs to be an even smaller proportion of costs.

Perhaps, unless the Block 5 is as reuseable as hoped.  They'd be launching at an amazing rate.  Just building second stages would be a constraint, unless they are also reuseable. 

A 2 stage SFR may take 4-5 years to put on a launch pad once engineers are freed up from F9/FH Block 5 work.  A reuse-able rocket larger than a Saturn V is going to be a massive undertaking.

However, if they get it right they will be at least a decade ahead of anyone else, and no one will be able to compete with them on a $ per kilogram launch cost.

[Robotbeat]

Of course, their goal for SFR/ITS is more like 2 years. They won't even be finished with the first big wave of 4000 satellites by then, and 12000 could take much longer than 4-5 years from now. So I stand by my statement.

12,000 satellites won't be deployed on Falcon.

Attached their proposed schedule from IAC 2016.

[philw1776]

Color me skeptical on the ITS posted schedule which is less than 1 year old.  FH development is not yet done and resources not yet re-assigned.  That won't fully happen until after a flight or so when final flight originated design tweaks get phased in. Crew Dragon engineering efforts will likely continue moving rightward all through 2018 into 2019.  Structural development for ITS had a setback with the premature failure, so it seems, of the 12m composite tank.  Raptor development my be the item most on schedule.  Unknown.

Recent outreach to the US government for milestone funding indicates that, as expected, R&D funding for ITS is a big yet unresolved issue.

Bottom line: best evidence indicates that SpaceX does not have the requisite well resourced engineering R&D team assigned to ITS nor will they be available real soon now.

[guckyfan]

Bottom line: best evidence indicates that SpaceX does not have the requisite well resourced engineering R&D team assigned to ITS nor will they be available real soon now.

The development teams are not the obstacle. As long as they are able to keep paying their staff and maintaining Hawthorne and McGregor they have all the development capacity they need. As soon as they complete their Falcon development which will be by the end of this year.

Building a large pad and a large factory for ITS are more difficult to finance.

[Robotbeat]

SpaceX is supposed to announce a more "economic" path to ITS. Some changes will likely be necessary to achieve the schedule they proposed.

[deruch]

In thinking more about this question, I'm going to propose a highly speculative, and very unlikely, answer in the opposite direction.  More as a counter-point than as actual prediction. 

SpaceX won't be competing with anyone because SpaceX will no longer offer commercial launch services.  Though I'll add the exception that they'll still provide occasional launches for NASA and NSS payloads (so, things like CRS, CC, GPS, etc).  This eventuality depends on 3 points:

1.  SpaceX fields their full LEO internet constellation and at least some of their VLEO one. 

2. That revenue from that business is massive. 

3. SpaceX is unable to increase their launch rate above ~70 launches/year either due to internal or external constraints or some combination.

If points 1 & 2 occur then there is a good chance that #3 isn't even that important.  SpaceX could essentially just become the launch operations department of a communications/internet company. 

[philw1776]

Bottom line: best evidence indicates that SpaceX does not have the requisite well resourced engineering R&D team assigned to ITS nor will they be available real soon now.

The development teams are not the obstacle. As long as they are able to keep paying their staff and maintaining Hawthorne and McGregor they have all the development capacity they need. As soon as they complete their Falcon development which will be by the end of this year.

Building a large pad and a large factory for ITS are more difficult to finance.

Most of those Hawthorn & McGregor engineers are not new product development engineers.  They're production and test. Some evidence of lack of a serious R&D staff assigned to ITS can be gleaned from the incomplete state of the 2 year delayed ITS plan finally revealed last September and the real soon now delayed announcement of an ITS update, likely a serious revision of the incomplete (q.v. development cost, launch site aspects, etc.) insufficiently vetted September 2016 plan.  It is not news as Elon has said that re-assigning the development team to ITS awaits the completion of the items I cited.

I have always contended that available R&D cash is THE largest obstacle to ITS success and certainly to schedule.

[guckyfan]

Most of those Hawthorn & McGregor engineers are not new product development engineers.  They're production and test. Some evidence of lack of a serious R&D staff assigned to ITS can be gleaned from the incomplete state of the 2 year delayed ITS plan finally revealed last September and the real soon now delayed announcement of an ITS update, likely a serious revision of the incomplete (q.v. development cost, launch site aspects, etc.) insufficiently vetted September 2016 plan.  It is not news as Elon has said that re-assigning the development team to ITS awaits the completion of the items I cited.

I have always contended that available R&D cash is THE largest obstacle to ITS success and certainly to schedule.

I am somewhat baffled by your line of argument. It has been said before that right now only a tiny group is assigned to ITS development. There is however a very capable team for development of Falcon and Merlin that will soon complete their present task. They will then take on ITS. This has been clearly stated by Elon Musk and Gwynne Shotwell, and others. So how do you get to the conclusion there will not be a capable engineering team for ITS development?

We know that there even now is a team on development of Raptor. There has been ongoing development since 2014 at least, resulting in a fully functional, though subscale engine on the teststand that has successfully gone through a long series of tests.

[AncientU]

Bottom line: best evidence indicates that SpaceX does not have the requisite well resourced engineering R&D team assigned to ITS nor will they be available real soon now.

The development teams are not the obstacle. As long as they are able to keep paying their staff and maintaining Hawthorne and McGregor they have all the development capacity they need. As soon as they complete their Falcon development which will be by the end of this year.

Building a large pad and a large factory for ITS are more difficult to finance.

Most of those Hawthorn & McGregor engineers are not new product development engineers.  They're production and test. Some evidence of lack of a serious R&D staff assigned to ITS can be gleaned from the incomplete state of the 2 year delayed ITS plan finally revealed last September and the real soon now delayed announcement of an ITS update, likely a serious revision of the incomplete (q.v. development cost, launch site aspects, etc.) insufficiently vetted September 2016 plan.  It is not news as Elon has said that re-assigning the development team to ITS awaits the completion of the items I cited.

I have always contended that available R&D cash is THE largest obstacle to ITS success and certainly to schedule.

Though it probably is true that R&D cash is one limiting factor, look at the progress to date.  Raptor is a third larger than two other engines being developed in parallel by two other companies that have a fraction of the development activities ongoing compared to SpaceX.  Raptor is the most sophisticated of the three engines, too.  Today, a fully operational Raptor is on the stand and testing is moving quickly. Where do the competitors' engines stand?

A sub-scale ITS will be developed on a timeline comparable to that of the vehicles for which these other new engines are destined -- Vulcan and New Glenn -- yet be at a scale that dwarf both.  In fact, it may be operational before the Block 1B of SLS which is primitive technology-wise, had a huge head start, and has Billions of R&D monies.