Quote from: JamesH65 on 07/05/2017 10:28 am...So these circles are assuming that SpaceX will have a failed launch within the next year.For what reasons do they think this? Are they unhappy with SpaceX procedures, with their engineering, with their designs?...Probably none of the above, but just high expected flight rate at current expected reliability. It's simple math. F9 v1.2 has demonstrated 95% expected reliability and a 20/year flight cadence. If they maintain that cadence over the next year without improving reliability, the chance of a failure is 64%.The same analysis on Atlas predicts a >50% probability of failure or partial failure in the next 3.5 years.Now there is a good chance SpaceX will improve reliability, with maturing the F9 design and lessons learned from reuse. But until demonstrated, that doesn't have much impact on this type of assessment.
...So these circles are assuming that SpaceX will have a failed launch within the next year.For what reasons do they think this? Are they unhappy with SpaceX procedures, with their engineering, with their designs?...
Will we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?
...Current *expected* reliability is a function of engineering, design and process. All have changed since the last failure. So simple math isn't good enough because it doesn't take in to account changes to the rocket et al. Reliability is expected to have improved since the last failure, because the cause of that failure has been fixed. So this type of assessment is fundamentally flawed, if you are looking for accurate figures. Which are, in fact fairly difficult to determine! As is often stated, past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes. What hasn't change of course, rocket engineering is hard, and I do expect future LOV's. Just not any accurate figures on the likelihood of it happening within a particular timescale.
...Due to the stochastic/small numbers nature of failures, these numbers are equivalent. Atlas flight rate of less than half of Falcon makes up most of the difference... Atlas has a slashed (and demoralized) workforce and a engine vendor that has exhibited glaring lapses in quality control; SpaceX is still evolving the Falcon design toward Block 5. Are these factors included in your analysis?
Quote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 08:45 amWill we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?5 percent is the overall current failure rate for orbital launch vehicles world-wide, expendable or not. Falcon 9 has an 8 percent failure rate so far if AMOS 6 is included. SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 08:45 amWill we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?5 percent is the overall current failure rate for orbital launch vehicles world-wide, expendable or not. Falcon 9 has an 8 percent failure rate so far if AMOS 6 is included. SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch if it wants to compete with Arianespace and ULA, which have demonstrate 1-3% failure rates. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: DanielW on 07/05/2017 11:32 amFalcon 9 is currently a bit worse than one Loss Of Mission for every twenty flights.They have learned a lot since then. Realistically their risk is much lower. The insurance companies seem to agree. Still 1 fault within the next 50 to 100 launches is a reasonable assumption.At the same time assuming a 0 risk from Ariane or ULA is also not realistic.
Falcon 9 is currently a bit worse than one Loss Of Mission for every twenty flights.
Quote from: JamesH65 on 07/05/2017 12:53 pm...Current *expected* reliability is a function of engineering, design and process. All have changed since the last failure. So simple math isn't good enough because it doesn't take in to account changes to the rocket et al. Reliability is expected to have improved since the last failure, because the cause of that failure has been fixed. So this type of assessment is fundamentally flawed, if you are looking for accurate figures. Which are, in fact fairly difficult to determine! As is often stated, past performance is not an indicator of future outcomes. What hasn't change of course, rocket engineering is hard, and I do expect future LOV's. Just not any accurate figures on the likelihood of it happening within a particular timescale.F9 v1.2 hasn't had a "last" launch failure, so if you're referring to AMOS-6 it's already been discounted. It has 17 launches and 17 successes which with simple Bayesian inference gives a expected reliability of 95%. Of course one can do more in-depth evaluations, and the LSP, customer, and insurance provider most certainly do, but that doesn't make this type of analysis inherently flawed. In fact, given the current insurance rates on F9, they likely come to almost exactly the same conclusions.Quote from: AncientU on 07/05/2017 01:07 pm...Due to the stochastic/small numbers nature of failures, these numbers are equivalent. Atlas flight rate of less than half of Falcon makes up most of the difference... Atlas has a slashed (and demoralized) workforce and a engine vendor that has exhibited glaring lapses in quality control; SpaceX is still evolving the Falcon design toward Block 5. Are these factors included in your analysis?That was my point. If Atlas (at it's current reliability) flew as often as F9, it would likely experience a failure in a year or maybe two years. It remains to be seen if Block 5 will actually improve F9's reliability. It seems rather likely, but hardly proven yet. And considering the nature of launch vehicles in general, the fairly short history of F9, and it's rapidly increasing flight cadence, expecting a failure in the next year is not entirely unreasonable.Quote from: edkyle99 on 07/05/2017 01:27 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 08:45 amWill we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?5 percent is the overall current failure rate for orbital launch vehicles world-wide, expendable or not. Falcon 9 has an 8 percent failure rate so far if AMOS 6 is included. SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch. - Ed Kyle5.5% on the current vehicle, including AMOS-6. Which if consistent through hundreds of launches in a year or two is probably easily insurable, as insurers value a large sample and long term consistency. Proton's main problem is that it flies rarely of late and is getting progressively less reliable.
...SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch if it wants to compete with Arianespace and ULA, which have demonstrate 1-3% failure rates. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: edkyle99 on 07/05/2017 01:27 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 08:45 amWill we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?5 percent is the overall current failure rate for orbital launch vehicles world-wide, expendable or not. Falcon 9 has an 8 percent failure rate so far if AMOS 6 is included. SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch if it wants to compete with Arianespace and ULA, which have demonstrate 1-3% failure rates. - Ed KyleSpaceX is competing with Arianespace and ULA. Ariane 5, Delta IV-M, and Atlas V itself are being retired -- due to that competition -- before another hundred (cumulative) launches, and new economized rockets will be their replacements. Are you assuming each of these vendors is able to create new, 'cheap' rockets that are as reliable as their current expensive ones?
100 launches a year, with 5 failures, at $30m per launch, and no backlogs in their manifest. The only fly in the ointment would be enforced stand down periods imposed by the regulators each time a failure occurs. Not sure how one gets around that issue.
Quote from: AncientU on 07/05/2017 02:06 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 07/05/2017 01:27 pmQuote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 08:45 amWill we ever get to a point where a higher failure rate - on unmanned flights - becomes an acceptable price to pay for dramatically lower launch costs?Say 5 failures in every 100 launches, but in exchange for an order of magnitude drop in launch costs?5 percent is the overall current failure rate for orbital launch vehicles world-wide, expendable or not. Falcon 9 has an 8 percent failure rate so far if AMOS 6 is included. SpaceX will have to improve that rate no matter what it charges for a launch if it wants to compete with Arianespace and ULA, which have demonstrate 1-3% failure rates. - Ed KyleSpaceX is competing with Arianespace and ULA. Ariane 5, Delta IV-M, and Atlas V itself are being retired -- due to that competition -- before another hundred (cumulative) launches, and new economized rockets will be their replacements. Are you assuming each of these vendors is able to create new, 'cheap' rockets that are as reliable as their current expensive ones?ULA is retiring Atlas and Delta not due to competition, but because it is being forced to stop using RD-180. Europe wanted to reduce its Arianespace costs, which largely led to Ariane 6, though SpaceX appears to have been an influence.Launch reliability is not just about the rocket. It is also about the corporate cultures, the methods and processes, etc. Arianespace and ULA (and its predecessors) have established their top-tier reliability records while using several different launch vehicles. SpaceX is on a path to approach their results, but as it keeps tweaking its designs and launch processing methods, it is still on the "learning curve" where failures are more frequent. - Ed Kyle
Quote from: M.E.T. on 07/05/2017 02:11 pm100 launches a year, with 5 failures, at $30m per launch, and no backlogs in their manifest. The only fly in the ointment would be enforced stand down periods imposed by the regulators each time a failure occurs. Not sure how one gets around that issue.The only way to get around that is much higher reliability. I don't see any stand down shorter than 3-5 months. Also for a new generation of fully reusable launch vehicles with 100-1000 launches the only way to achieve that is a reliability of better than 1 in 100 to 1000.SpaceX can not afford a 5 or even 3% failure rate.
Delta is 100% being retired because it is not cost competitive -- nothing to do with RD-180. The supply of RD-180s extends to the horizon due to political boosterism. Atlas V as-is is not cost-competitive... and its renowned reliability is insufficient to overcome that fact. As the new Block 4/5 come into play, the Atlas V 531/541/551 versions will be even less competitive because they are all going up against the same Falcon as the 401.
Quote from: AncientU on 07/05/2017 02:29 pmDelta is 100% being retired because it is not cost competitive -- nothing to do with RD-180. The supply of RD-180s extends to the horizon due to political boosterism. Atlas V as-is is not cost-competitive... and its renowned reliability is insufficient to overcome that fact. As the new Block 4/5 come into play, the Atlas V 531/541/551 versions will be even less competitive because they are all going up against the same Falcon as the 401.If Atlas 5 is not competitive, why does it keep winning new launches? If Delta 4 is not competitive, why is it slated to most-likely out-last Atlas 5? Did SpaceX even make a profit launching Bulgariasat for $60 million, or whatever it was (given the company's $1 billion cost to develop first stage recovery)? My guess is that ULA made money launching WGS 9, etc.. - Ed Kyle
Russia has a plan to compete with SpaceX, but it has a flaw
...the biggest threat to Russia's preeminence now clearly comes from SpaceX.Publicly, at least, Russian officials were slow to acknowledge the threat from SpaceX. Even last year, the country's space leaders dismissed SpaceX's efforts to build reusable launch systems to lower overall costs. But that tone has started to shift in 2017, as SpaceX has begun to fly used boosters and demonstrate this emerging capability.
The expendable Soyuz 5 would be less complicated than earlier versions of the Soyuz family while costing as much as 20 percent less to fly. "If we achieve this goal, it will ensure its competitiveness," Komarov said. He is betting that SpaceX, with its aggressive push toward reusability, will only succeed in reducing the cost of launch by 15 to 20 percent over the next five years.
Consider the following: five years ago in 2012, SpaceX had only flown the Falcon 9 rocket three times, all on demonstration flights. Since then, the company has flown the booster about three dozen times, with three significant upgrades to increase performance and make the first stage recoverable. A final version, Block 5, is due late this year or early in 2018. That will be designed for dozens of uses—and it's being expressly designed to lower costs and improve turnaround times.If SpaceX has come this far in five years, it is difficult to see the company only offering a 15 or 20 percent reduction in launch costs by the year 2022. It seems more likely the reduction will be on the order of 50 percent or more, especially if the company makes strides on recovering the second stage and payload fairing of the rocket—which it is working avidly toward.
It is assumed in many circles that there will be a failure in less than a year
Quote from: Jim on 07/05/2017 01:19 amIt is assumed in many circles that there will be a failure in less than a yearYes, among their competitors. Considering SpaceX has had only one actual major launch failure in 36 launches and that SpaceX is continually learning, it's pretty stupid for their competitors to count on them getting another Falcon 9 failure within the next, say, 20 launches.I'd put the probability of another F9 launch failure within the next ~20-30 launches at about 30%. It's stupid for a competitor to count on that(FH failures are more likely in the first few FH launches, but they'll also only be doing like 2-3 of those within the next year.)
