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#40
by
Sam Ho
on 13 Oct, 2019 17:46
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Did you see the Audi commercial that was done in August. Stargazer looked awesome. Other work than launching Pegasus is in the works.
The commercial is here:
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#41
by
The Vorlon
on 14 Oct, 2019 01:08
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Look at the seats on that plane--you can tell that ad was filmed on nothing modern!
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#42
by
Comga
on 14 Oct, 2019 02:37
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L1011 is in great shape. Plenty of spare parts, spare L1011 and repair shops that can fix components. Stargazer flew from Mojave to VAFB to the Cape, launched Pegasus/ICON and flew back to vafb and Mojave with no problems. Did you see the Audi commercial that was done in August. Stargazer looked awesome. Other work than launching Pegasus is in the works. This aircraft has been flying less than 900 hours since 1993 and is continuing to be maintained as if it was flown in a airliner type operation. Ex-RAF L1011 tankers could fly again in the near future, due to a recent contract for the DOD. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/13486/retired-raf-tristars-will-get-new-life-as-contracted-aerial-refuelers
More pilots. I think Phil Joyce was right in saying the aircraft could last up to another 5 to 10 years. Virgin Orbit still needs to prove what it says it can do. They also will need to sell a bunch of launches to keep that factory going and keep the price down. If they don't, they will have to raise the price just like Orbital had to do.
OOH! One of my little jabs was over the line!
Stop the presses!
Look, I am VERY fond of the L-1011. Lovely lines from the era of three engine jetliners.
Stargazer could well remain operational for another half century. I hope it does.
I also appreciated the Pegasus when it was a small, agile, lower cost alternative to the Atlas V and Delta IV.
That doesn't change the bulk of my arguments.
It doesn't even contradict the statement that L-1011 production is long gone.
Pegasus has MANY disadvantages with respect to Falcon 9.
This is either evidenced by or because of it's much lower launch pace.
Even with two paid-for vehicles, it is unlikely to fly again.
We will see.
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#43
by
starchasercowboy
on 19 Oct, 2019 17:58
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NASA blew it on IXPE. If they would have waited till ICON was launched, they would have saved the taxpayer millions of dollars. NGIS have 2 Pegasus rockets at Vandenburg that are in almost ready to use configuration. Believe me, NGIS would not have agreed to buying those rockets back, if it wasn't a sweet deal. And they are well aware of SX costs. NASA should in its best interests keep Pegasus busy just in case the other new launch vehicles have issues, financially or technically.
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#44
by
Comga
on 19 Oct, 2019 18:16
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NASA blew it on IXPE. If they would have waited till ICON was launched, they would have saved the taxpayer millions of dollars. NGIS have 2 Pegasus rockets at Vandenburg that are in almost ready to use configuration. Believe me, NGIS would not have agreed to buying those rockets back, if it wasn't a sweet deal. And they are well aware of SX costs. NASA should in its best interests keep Pegasus busy just in case the other new launch vehicles have issues, financially or technically.
Not at all
NASA won on IXPE by getting a launch for 80% of what they anticipated. That saved NASA (not the taxpayers) over $10M.
(NASA doesn’t give that money back to Congress. They spend it elsewhere.)
Wait what for ICON? ICON waited two years to iron out kinks in the Stargazer/Pegasus system.
You think NASA should guarantee business for another vehicle like the Air Force did with EELV and ULA? Don’t hold your breath.
SpaceX is a private company not engaging in cost-plus contracts. Their dramatically undercutting the price of Pegasus may be evidence that NASA
doesn’t know the inner workings of SpaceX as well as you suppose.
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#45
by
starchasercowboy
on 27 Dec, 2019 16:58
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Could Pegasus have a next launch coming soon?
NASA has awarded a $13.7 million contract to Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, to develop and operate the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) CubeSat mission to the same lunar orbit targeted for Gateway – an orbiting outpost astronauts will visit before descending to the surface of the Moon in a landing system as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
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#46
by
freddo411
on 27 Dec, 2019 17:30
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Could Pegasus have a next launch coming soon?
NASA has awarded a $13.7 million contract to Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, to develop and operate the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) CubeSat mission to the same lunar orbit targeted for Gateway – an orbiting outpost astronauts will visit before descending to the surface of the Moon in a landing system as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Why? At $40 million a pop, looks to be way over budget, especially compared to either RocketLab or Falcon 9
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#47
by
starchasercowboy
on 27 Dec, 2019 17:41
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Can Rocket lab launch to lunar orbit? I don't think so. Pegasus launched IBEX with a 4th stage that has changed orbits multiple times. I think that Pegasus has proven itself again with NASA after ICON and I believe that SpaceX will not be able to compete on price. Now if SpaceX does a piggy back with the IXPE launch and how a stage would look like for a lunar orbit, that could be interesting. Probably bring the CAPSTONE launch price way down.
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#48
by
Bananas_on_Mars
on 27 Dec, 2019 18:11
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#49
by
freddo411
on 27 Dec, 2019 18:12
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#50
by
jstrotha0975
on 27 Dec, 2019 21:03
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I thought Pegasus launch cost $56M. Falcon 9 launch is only $51M.
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#51
by
Comga
on 27 Dec, 2019 21:34
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Could Pegasus have a next launch coming soon?
NASA has awarded a $13.7 million contract to Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, to develop and operate the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) CubeSat mission to the same lunar orbit targeted for Gateway – an orbiting outpost astronauts will visit before descending to the surface of the Moon in a landing system as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Why? At $40 million a pop, looks to be way over budget, especially compared to either RocketLab or Falcon 9
Where did you get that $40M?
I think the Pegasus for IXPE was priced at >$60M, and lost to Falcon 9 on cost by a huge margin.
We don’t know if NG has offered discounts on the reputed two existing Pegasus vehicles. Selling them for a fraction of “list price” might be better than letting them sit there.
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#52
by
Comga
on 27 Dec, 2019 21:39
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I thought Pegasus launch cost $56M. Falcon 9 launch is only $51M.
There are rarely “list prices” for launches, particularly NASA launches which require “extra services”.
That said your numbers are not correct.
The difference for IXPE was much greater.
YRLMV (Rocket Launch 😁)
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#53
by
freddo411
on 27 Dec, 2019 21:41
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Could Pegasus have a next launch coming soon?
NASA has awarded a $13.7 million contract to Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, to develop and operate the CAPSTONE (Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment) CubeSat mission to the same lunar orbit targeted for Gateway – an orbiting outpost astronauts will visit before descending to the surface of the Moon in a landing system as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
Why? At $40 million a pop, looks to be way over budget, especially compared to either RocketLab or Falcon 9
Where did you get that $40M?
I think the Pegasus for IXPE was priced at >$60M, and lost to Falcon 9 on cost by a huge margin.
We don’t know if NG has offered discounts on the reputed two existing Pegasus vehicles. Selling them for a fraction of “list price” might be better than letting sit there.
I sourced it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(rocket)
You make a good point that the remaining stock of Pegasus rockets might be priced at a discount.
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#54
by
TrevorMonty
on 28 Dec, 2019 03:22
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They will need to sell them at $15m to compete against new 1000kg LVs coming on market in next year or two.
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#55
by
Comga
on 28 Dec, 2019 04:21
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They will need to sell them at $15m to compete against new 1000kg LVs coming on market in next year or two.
Lots of groups SAY they will compete with Pegasus.
If and When Launcher One gets to orbit twice real (built and adequately financed) missions will consider and compare them.
Maybe someone else but don’t hold your breath
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#56
by
starchasercowboy
on 28 Dec, 2019 18:22
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If a lunar launch price is $15m for Rocketlab or VO for 1 time in the next 2 years for NASA what kind of profit can these companies make? With all the infrastructure (launch sites, aircraft) costs, personnel, R&D, new hardware, software all these expenses has to be a huge liability. How can small profits sustain them? How many more competitive launch vehicles will come to b in the next few years?
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#57
by
TrevorMonty
on 29 Dec, 2019 08:03
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If a lunar launch price is $15m for Rocketlab or VO for 1 time in the next 2 years for NASA what kind of profit can these companies make? With all the infrastructure (launch sites, aircraft) costs, personnel, R&D, new hardware, software all these expenses has to be a huge liability. How can small profits sustain them? How many more competitive launch vehicles will come to b in the next few years?
Where did you get $15m for RL lunar mission?
Electron is $7.5m, Photon should only add $1-2m.
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#58
by
john smith 19
on 29 Dec, 2019 10:19
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I wouldn't read too much into it. The ICON bid was the highest the contractor thought it could be while still having a good chance of winning the contract (which they did btw). With the loss of IXPE, that calculus simply changes. Pegasus likely can still outbid Falcon 9 given the entire rocket masses about 20% as much as the falcon 9 upper stage.
I doubt that Pegasus has a future due to it's costs. 500kg on the monthly scheduled F9 ride share flights is priced at $2.5 million. Pegasus can't fly their L1011 for that, much less the rocket.
Say, double that if you want to go to a somewhat different LEO orbit via upper stage delivery. This is much, much less than Pegasus's costs.
Probably a lot more than double given it would have to drop off starlink payloads at 53 degrees and then do a 20 degree inclination change (for ICON). That is a delta v of 2.7 km/s. Not sure about IXPE and what determines the orbit there, but ICON wants to focus on the equatorial regions as interesting activity occurs there in the ionosphere.
Now that is a good point.
In earths atmosphere plane change (for a winged 0th stage) is a case of choosing a take off site and flying the right course. for a satellite it's a much more involved process.
So that raises the question "How many payloads
need such specialized orbits that neither F9's standard launches or RL's custom launches cannot satisfy them either in terms of mass to orbit, achievable orbital parameters or delta v needed by the payload to get them to their destination orbit" ?
It's a sort of "reverse Goldilocks" problem. Payloads too big for Electron, too much delta v needed for an F9 rideshare or starlink launch for the payload to accommodate. IE just
wrong for both.
And of course given the expense of a Pegasus launch most payload developers would be looking hard to
avoid needing that option to begin with (assuming launch costs come out of their budget. The situation is different if they can get launch costs paid for in another way).
NG are betting that that their
are enough such payloads to keep them in the launch business. Pegasus is fully developed (unlike the OmegA or liberty paper rockets they pledged to continue to development of when NASA didn't fund them) so the assets already exist and are operational.
IDK the smallsat launch market well enough to know how restrictive RL's and F9's payload and orbit limits really are. Time will tell if it's big enough to sustain the pegasus operation or if staff should start considering early retirement or reskilling.
BTW I did not realize that now
both the ELV mfg and it's major engine mfg are part of the same corporation.
That
should allow more flexibility on setting internal prices and hence the competitiveness of the overall package.
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#59
by
TrevorMonty
on 29 Dec, 2019 14:20
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BTW I did not realize that now both the ELV mfg and it's major engine mfg are part of the same corporation.
That should allow more flexibility on setting internal prices and hence the competitiveness of the overall package.
The annual cost of maintaining launch crew and ground systems (plane in case of airlaunch) are fixed. These costs need to amortised over the year's launches. SpaceX and RL have high enough flight rates to help amortise these costs, NGIS typically have one if any launches a year.
