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

[LouScheffer]

Regarding indirect subsidy:
[...]
There are several other less extreme examples: TESS, GPS III-F2 & 3, STP 2 + NRO and  X37B missions where prices were undisclosed and probably very high. Maybe others that I am not aware of.

The GPS satellites are an excellent case, since they are going to the same orbit as GALILEO, which ESA launches.  And the prices ARE disclosed.

SpaceX has two GPS launches, for $83 and $97 million.  ESA bought 5 launches for $105 million each on Soyuz.  From this article:

The launch contract was worth 397 million euros -- about $525 million, or $105 million per flight.

So either SpaceX is giving the governement more than competitive prices, or ESA is subsidizing Ariane even more than the USA is subsidizing SpaceX.

I think that Galileo sats are launched by pairs on Soyuz, so the price per sat is around 52M$ in your example.

The two missions are almost exactly equivalent.  GPS-III is 1600 kg, GALILEO is 2x728 kg.  So if SpaceX was carrying GALILEO, it would carry 2, and if Soyuz was carrying GPS it could take only one.  So if this is subsidy to SpaceX, ESA gave an even bigger subsidy to Ariane.

Also, GPS was open for bids (and the government was unhappy to get only one bid for one of them).   Galileo launch was not open for bid, as far as I could find by searching.   Satellite manufacturing was open for bids, but that's true for GPS as well.

[deruch]

3.  Spacex received no money from the government to build its pads.  They only leased the land from the government for $1 per year.  All the construction for the the three pads was paid for by Spacex.  If there was existing infrastructure at the pads that needed demolition, Spacex paid for it (SLC-4 and SLC-40 MSTs and LC-39A RSS)).  If existing infrastructure was useable, Spacex paid to modify it and now maintains it. 

  Spacex built their own payload processing facilities and has taken over some abandoned ones.  But they now run those facilities and the USAF or NASA are not involved.  As far as telemetry, Spacex has its own systems.  They do transmit to Air Force and NASA systems for safety and as a courtesy.


I want people to note that I am defending Spacex.

Wrong (maybe). SpaceX has received some small amounts of government funding for facilities and infrastructure improvement at CCAFS, though so far as I can tell, it was all from the State of Florida and not the federal government (which was the subject in the original comment).  Also, I'm not sure whether any of them--besides #3--can be considered as part of "pad construction", so on a technical reading of your comment those may also not apply.  SpaceFlorida has given them money for at least the following projects: 

#1. Hangar AO Launch Vehicle Integration - $2 million (SF Project Funding Investment)
#2. SLC-40 HIF Payload Encapsulation & Integration - $6.5 million ($5M FDOT/SF grant, $1.5 Funding Investment)
#3. LC-39A Falcon Heavy Hangar & Launch Mount - $5 million (FDOT/SF grant)
#4. South Campus/SpaceX LCC - $unknown (SF Facility Investment)

Source [.PDF warning]
Note: FDOT= Florida Department of Transportation; SF=SpaceFlorida

I don't know whether SpaceX has received similar type funds from CA for Vandy.  They did get some business development funding from the State of Texas for building at Boca Chica.  This was, I believe, in addition to any non-cash incentives offered by the state/local governments for SpaceX choosing to locate their launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.  But all of these are very small level funding streams and not anywhere near the costs SpaceX has borne to build up it's launch infrastructure.  Nor especially relevant to the discussion of government subsidies in spaceflight at the scale previously under discussion.

[Semmel]

In terms of competing with SpaceX, I see several future paths:

A: If SpaceX stay with its F9 rocket family and everybody else develops their newly advertized launcher to actual service, SpaceX would still be the cheapest launch provider by some margin without re-usability. And therefore, if they dont have more failures (and I assume their competitors also have none), SpaceX will have an edge on the market but not a crushing one.

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

C: Add in One Web. This constellation provides many launches to many launch providers worldwide except SpaceX because SpaceX plans to create its own constellation. So if we consider only One Web and a failure of the SpaceX constellation that is unrelated to the launcher (F9), the number of launches per year would not be in such a big favor of SpaceX.

D: Lets get more realistic (a bit at first) and say, the SpaceX constellation will be launched and successful. Then F9 will need to launch additional 40 times per year, maybe even more. Considering the launch price for a reusable F9 of $30M per launch, this has the potential to provide the internet service using the SpaceX constellation for less than half the price compared to One Web, with better service since the satellites are technically more advanced in various ways. This might even kill One Web.

E: Lets get every launch vehicle on the same footing: All new launcher concepts work as advertised. Partia reuse of Vulcan and Ariane 6 are going to be a thing, etc. But also the 9m BFR ITSy will work as advertised. This means, full re-usability of first and second stage. in this case, ITSy might cost $50M per launch, with 100mT to constellation orbits. Thats in the order of 20 launches for the entire constellation. So launch costs of roughly $1B. I have in mind (and I might be wrong about that number) that OneWeb launch costs are about $2.5B and a total cost of about $3.5B. If SpaceX satellite constellation costs a similar $1B, then they have a $1.5B advantage over OneWeb. This es essentially enough to pay for the entire development of the 9m BFR/ITSy launcher. So if that happens, I dont think even BO can compete in price or performance with SpaceX and BFR/ITSy. This is by far the strongest and most positive outcome for SpaceX. And I havent heared or seen anything that might be capable of competing with that from SpaceX.

Maybe I have it a bit on the optimistic side for SpaceX. And of course none of the other launch providers will go away, not even in (E). There are other considerations than competitiveness that are relevant. But then again, if there is no competition, competing with SpaceX is pointless anyway. So in the sense of a competition, SpaceX has to fail hard on its proposed concepts in order for the other launch providers to "compete" in a "competition".

[AbuSimbel]

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

 Why wouldn't a scenario with SpaceX and Blue Origin being the only two LSP competitive in terms of price kill any competitor, at least commercially? And if you add that New Glenn would be certified for Gov launches far sooner than an eventual competitive, reusable LS developed by ULA, why wouldn't SX and BO be more than enough for US Govt launches, at far better prices not to mention launch cadence/manifest agility?

[AncientU]

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

 Why wouldn't a scenario with SpaceX and Blue Origin being the only two LSP competitive in terms of price kill any competitor, at least commercially? And if you add that New Glenn would be certified for Gov launches far sooner than an eventual competitive, reusable LS developed by ULA, why wouldn't SX and BO be more than enough for US Govt launches, at far better prices not to mention launch cadence/manifest agility?

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

[AbuSimbel]

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

 Why wouldn't a scenario with SpaceX and Blue Origin being the only two LSP competitive in terms of price kill any competitor, at least commercially? And if you add that New Glenn would be certified for Gov launches far sooner than an eventual competitive, reusable LS developed by ULA, why wouldn't SX and BO be more than enough for US Govt launches, at far better prices not to mention launch cadence/manifest agility?

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

I've read on this forum that the US gov would want to keep at least two healthy LSPs for redundancy

[Robotbeat]

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

 Why wouldn't a scenario with SpaceX and Blue Origin being the only two LSP competitive in terms of price kill any competitor, at least commercially? And if you add that New Glenn would be certified for Gov launches far sooner than an eventual competitive, reusable LS developed by ULA, why wouldn't SX and BO be more than enough for US Govt launches, at far better prices not to mention launch cadence/manifest agility?

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Maybe, but not sure that's an arrangement that SpaceX would even prefer.

[AncientU]

In terms of competing with SpaceX, I see several future paths:

A: If SpaceX stay with its F9 rocket family and everybody else develops their newly advertized launcher to actual service...

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. ...

C: Add in One Web. ...

D: Lets get more realistic (a bit at first) and say, the SpaceX constellation will be launched and successful. ...

E: Lets get every launch vehicle on the same footing: All new launcher concepts work as advertised. ...

Maybe I have it a bit on the optimistic side for SpaceX. And of course none of the other launch providers will go away, not even in (E). There are other considerations than competitiveness that are relevant. But then again, if there is no competition, competing with SpaceX is pointless anyway. So in the sense of a competition, SpaceX has to fail hard on its proposed concepts in order for the other launch providers to "compete" in a "competition".

A. Already moved way past this, but this seems to be the target that existing development by the competition is aiming at.

B. The existing POR -- exceeding expectations so far.

C. Market expansion is a good thing for all; question arises as to who is best positioned to meet emergent demand.

D. Game over.

E. F9/FH/ITSy dominate world-wide competed market and stimulate growing space economy, including BEO exploration in the 2020s.  China, Russia, Arianespace, maybe ULA retain domestic (uncompeted, or 'managed competition') launch base, though market share at best (primarily China) remains the same, or at worst drops to marginally sustainable launch rates.

[AncientU]

B: Adding in re-usability for F9 makes it by far the cheapest launch provider. And again, given a good flight rate and no failures, this might suck up the most commercial launches worldwide, generate the highest profit but it will not kill any competitor. Maybe BO can match the price with a reusable New Glenn, but who knows? None of the other concepts seem to get close.

 Why wouldn't a scenario with SpaceX and Blue Origin being the only two LSP competitive in terms of price kill any competitor, at least commercially? And if you add that New Glenn would be certified for Gov launches far sooner than an eventual competitive, reusable LS developed by ULA, why wouldn't SX and BO be more than enough for US Govt launches, at far better prices not to mention launch cadence/manifest agility?

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

I've read on this forum that the US gov would want to keep at least two healthy LSPs for redundancy

They need two reliable/dissimilar launch vehicles for all classes of payload -- Atlas V + Delta IV, for instance. 
Two 'healthy' LSPs isn't a technical requirement.

[rpapo]

Two 'healthy' LSPs isn't a technical requirement.

Having two reliable and technically distinct launchers satisfies the technical requirement, but as we have seen, when they both come from the same launch provider it provides little incentive for cost containment nor for improvement of those launchers.  Only a limited amount of carrot, and no stick.  Unfortunately, for many corporations the carrot only matters a little (as it usually entails work to obtain it), while the stick means a lot.

[meekGee]

Two 'healthy' LSPs isn't a technical requirement.

Having two reliable and technically distinct launchers satisfies the technical requirement, but as we have seen, when they both come from the same launch provider it provides little incentive for cost containment nor for improvement of those launchers.  Only a limited amount of carrot, and no stick.  Unfortunately, for many corporations the carrot only matters a little (as it usually entails work to obtain it), while the stick means a lot.

This was obvious when ULA was formed, but still it happened.

The cover was "reduced operational costs", which was ludicrous even back then and only made sense in lobby-world.

I hope it doesn't happen again, but I hope the second provider is not ULA/Vulcan but a second reusable rocket like BO's NG.

[Semmel]

D: Lets get more realistic (a bit at first) and say, the SpaceX constellation will be launched and successful. ...

E: Lets get every launch vehicle on the same footing: All new launcher concepts work as advertised. ...

D. Game over.

E. F9/FH/ITSy dominate world-wide competed market and stimulate growing space economy, including BEO exploration in the 2020s.  China, Russia, Arianespace, maybe ULA retain domestic (uncompeted, or 'managed competition') launch base, though market share at best (primarily China) remains the same, or at worst drops to marginally sustainable launch rates.

D: Why game over?

E: I think that competition will stop before any of the foreign launch providers go out of business. Of course ITSy will dominate the launch market if it works. Its better in performance and likely cost, which is what it takes to accomplish that. And its no wonder either. Its the most advanced and ambitious design of them all. That is to say, it will likely force the existing providers to go the same path in some fashion. In this scenario, for some time to come, SpaceX will dominate the competed launch market. But national launch providers are such an important capability for each country, they will not die because of that.

In my opinion, its much more likely that laws will put into place to follow the path of SpaceX and clear incentives to satellite operators could be made to use domestic launch providers. Like for example requesting that TV sats that cover China will have to be launched on a Chinese rocket or there will be no license issued for the relevant TV transmission frequency. Something like that can easily be done in Russia, India, Europe, etc. So seriously, I would think that competition will stop by law before anyone can "win" the current competition.

[Bynaus]

Other LSPs will not collectively go out of business, even if the SpaceX steamroller picks up additional speed. Evidently, lower price and launch rate at SpaceX will increase demand for SpaceX launches, clogging up their manifest (there are only so many launch sites, only so many minimum days between launches) and maxing out their production facilities (only so many upper stages, and eventually, reusable boosters which can be produced in a given time interval). There will always be a certain incentive to launch now for 160 M$ versus in a few years for 60 M$. The more of the latter are sold, the more attractive that alternative starts to look. So other LSPs definetly have time to chase the industry leader - but only to a point. They need to start now(ish), or their future niche will quickly be filled by those who do even slightly better than them (you would still pick the LSP offering a launch for 150 M$ now vs. 160 M$ now).

Also, the more flights SpaceX carries out, the more likely an additional set-back (a RUD) becomes (even though the probability of the individual flight failing might continue to go down over time). If a RUD means grounding the fleet, any stand-down period will have a disproportionatly larger impact on a steamroller-SpaceX compared to non-steamroller-SpaceX, because there are more cancelled or delayed missions overall, and more lost revenue, all the while the probably more expensive infrastructure of steamroller-SpaceX (especially salaries) has to be kept running.

In the next two years, I expect only gradual changes: a rising market share for SpaceX, more launches overall (world-wide), and more potential future competitors launching (but not yet consistently recovering) their vehicles. I am not optimistic to anyone developing a true "industry follower" profile over the next two years (not even BO).

[Jim]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

 Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

[AncientU]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Looking at SpaceX infrastructure limitations.

1- Each pad can turnaround reliably in 14 days -> 24 times a year with only 14 days schedule padding for slips

2- Only 4 pads for at least 6 years and only 3 pads through late 2019.

3- Max launches if every available pad is launching at it's max rate is 72/yr through to late 2019 and 96/yr after Boca Chica becomes fully operational (also requires an update to the EIS to allow 24 launches vs the currently approved 12).

4- If the current manufacturing of stages at Hawthorne is not expanded then if it only practically built 2nd stages it could build ~54 to 80 2nd stages with a few 1st stages ~5. To manufacture more would require manufacturing infrastructure expansion (building and tooling). This can be done fairly rapidly but the labor element to this expansion will be the hardest and longest item to fulfill -> ~2years from expansion start to full manufacturing rate.

5- Testing of stages is not that big of a problem but would require more 2nd stage test stands to keep up with build rate. Testing of 1st stages activity would drop significantly from current rate of nearly 20 per year to less than 10 per year (completely refurbish stages - engine swapaouts requiring stage retest + a few new stages). McGregor manpower would be about same as it is now with a possible slight increase.

6- Stage storage/rework/inspection floor space becomes a significant problem. If the time for turn around of a 1st stage from launch to launch again is a minimum of 2 months then at the cape there would need to be extra floor space for 8 stages in their various process phases. This is already being addresed but at the moment with the prior to Block 5 F9 the storage space is maxed out. The re-flight rate must increase. Otherwise SpaceX will be pilling up usable stages. If a stage can fly just 3 times then the ratio of new to used must be 66% of all flights being used. Once stages have met their 3 flight number they might go on to be re-manufactured for another 3 flights. This would set up a cycle through a probable new facility. These heavily refurbish stages would qualify as if they were new in the ratio of new/used flight rate. Eventually the actual new stage build rate would drop to very small single digit numbers of 5 or less where any individual stage has a total of flight of ~20 before being completely scrapped/flown EXPD.

So what this shows is that flight rates have some significant ceilings in available infrastructure that will be existing in 2 years and as far out as 5 years. They will need new pads new buildings new test stands and a lot more manpower to get past the theoretical high level launch rate of 96/yr in 2020. In fact I do not think they will reach this theoretical maxed out rate but something closer to 50-75% of it of 50 to 75 launches/yr. With demand in 2020 growing by up to 50 more medium/heavy payload class launches someone has to step up and take the other up to 20 that SpaceX will not be able to handle. That has been postulated as being BO with NG but a new launch will not be able to jump right in and start launch at that rate so the remaining half would go to the other existing launchers around the world. Everyone's launch rate goes up unless your the very tail of the dog (highest price) in which case you get only those not able to contract with someone else for reasonable launch date slot.

[jpo234]

But also the 9m BFR ITSy will work as advertised. This means, full re-usability of first and second stage. in this case, ITSy might cost $50M per launch, with 100mT to constellation orbits.

"Working as advertised" for ITSy might mean a per launch price in the single digit million dollar range, e.g. an order of magnitude lower than the $50mln. This is what Elon showed last year and what Tom Mueller hinted at in his Skype interview.

I don't know how realistic that is, but this is clearly the target.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

Quite a while on expendables.  Even Falcon 9 is partly to fully expendable.  Most of its GTO missions this year (the meat and potatoes of the business) were fully expendable.

 - Ed Kyle

The future is tricky to predict.

But one item mostly overlooked is that the big launchers 100+mt size and even some of the 50+mt size(FH/NG) are aiming at very different payloads and customers many of which currently do not exist. This is such that the existing payload market would still need rides on smaller LV's. This split will continue until a LEO industrial infrastructure has been built up that practically builds/assembles sats on demand in-orbit (something kin to a Dell computer method of assemble to order from a wide mix of interchangeable bus subsystems and attachable instruments). This is somewhere around 5 to 10 years after he high flight rate capability of very cheap heavy lifters 100+mt are established. So for the next 12 to 20 years the partial and even expendable boosters will still be in operation with them slowly morphing into highly specialized launchers for a highly specialize payload customer. As the primary bulk market grows this specialty payload markett may grow as well but likely not shrink.

[AncientU]

Why wouldn't F9, FH, and ITSy be sufficient without New Glenn?

Because they aren't.  Still too much in common and ITSy is not a replacement for F9.   And if it was, Spacex would not keep F9 going.

Spacex is not taking over the US launch business no matter how much you wish it.

Vulcan is going to be around for a few decades.

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

Quite a while on expendables.  Even Falcon 9 is partly to fully expendable.  Most of its GTO missions this year (the meat and potatoes of the business) were fully expendable.

 - Ed Kyle

A few decades?  'Quite a while' is 30+ years?

Those who trudged through the last 3-4 decades might be least qualified to say what the next few will hold -- especially those who don't think the industry stagnated during those years.  Just my opinion, of course.

[Jim]

That's quite a crystal ball you have, Jim.
We don't really know if Vulcan will ever become viable, let alone how long expendable launchers will exist.

Same goes for reusable rockets. 
Expendable rocket are not obsolete.

But I know ULA (Delta IV/Atlas V/Vulcan) is going to outlast us.