BFR and the space industry

[gosnold]

I saw a comment in the SpaceX Mars section about how we should start thinking about what a 20$/kg launch cost would enable, and I did not find a thread specifically dedicated to that. So here's one, to debate and discuss.

I'll start by a little bit of extrapolation based on the 2017 State of the Satellite Industry Report .
Here's the share of the different parts of the industry:

Here's a graph of the revenue from different applications:


So what do you think BFR would change for these applications? What new applications would it make possible?

[rakaydos]

For starters, SpaceX's "Starlink" network is poised to take a hefty bite out of the Satelite Service market.
The size and capability of orbital assets will massively increase as there becomes an affordable superheavy lift.

Additional markets will likely appear as well. Asteroid mining, lunar base servicing, mars gas station servicing, and serious outer system exploration.

I've heard it said that the BFR's cost to orbit is better than an actual magic space elevator. Everything that the space elevator, launch loop, or other magic launch infrastructiure was supposed to unlock, BFR simply does better.

[speedevil]

A _ridiculous_ number of things today are more expensive than $20/kg.

Essentially all manufactured electronics. (Even more once you take the case off).

The tesla model 3. (barely).

When even a nice motorhome costs more per kilo than your space lift cost, how you optimise things becomes so utterly different.

Going onto science things, much, if not most scientific hardware is well over that.
The giant magellan telescope has a moving part of 1100 tons, and will cost around a billion - so $1000/kg.

Lift cost almost goes away, and if you count the ability to get up to service the thing, the landscape changes utterly again.

It's at the point that ridiculous and insane things like Clarkian manned stations at GEO for commsats become feasible.

[Ludus]

Lunar and Asteroid resources start to seem a lot less like distant sci fi. Serious capital may flow into what would have seemed absurdly bold plans to do things like move resource rich asteroids to easier to exploit orbits, especially if there is a legal framework setting standards for claims to space resources.

[AncientU]

If you look at the satellite services table, you'll see that broadband is only $1.5-2B over the course of the covered years.  Starlink is looking to increase this by a few orders of magnitude. 

The internet is a Trillion Dollar industry and space isn't a player-- yet.  That is where the value/growth will come from over the next 5-10 years

[Robotbeat]

Assuming BFR works to $10-20/kg, the following don't make sense:

Commercial lunar propellant being sold in Earth orbit. Still useful on the Moon, but too expensive in Earth orbit, particularly LEO.

Same for asteroid water. Useful at the asteroid, too expensive in Earth orbit.

Space elevator. Estimated cost is about $220/kg to orbit.

[sanman]

It certainly seems worth asking what the payloads will be for BFR, once it comes into service.

Sure, there'll be the existing satellites, but how long will they keep the launch manifest full?

The real market will have to be for space tourism and exploration. But given that this market doesn't yet exist, how long will it take for market participants to emerge, in developing payloads for launch?

It seems like players like Bigelow Aerospace, who are the only ones ready with hab technology, will be critical in ensuring that  space tourists have somewhere to travel to.

[Robotbeat]

The constellation is designed to fill out BFR's manifest. 12000 satellites replaced possibly as soon as every 4 years means 3000 satellites per day. Mueller talked about truly large satellites, so I think the idea is to grow them over time. Could imagine 50-150 ton satellites, which means 1000-3000 BFR launches per year.

And frankly, Bigelow isn't required for hab tech. If your spaceship can fit 100 people for 3-6 months, do a stint on the surface, and be back after ~20-50 months in space, it essentially IS a hab. And for ~$150 fab costs (extrapolated down from last year) at 800-900m^3, it's almost three times B330's volume for about a tenth the cost, has gorgeous windows, and can loop around the Moon, land on the Moon, or loop around Venus or something while you enjoy the cruise.

[Cinder]

So that would mean that for a very large majority of all missions for the first decade or so of BFR, the bigger Bigelow habs would not be worthwhile either?  Is it mistaken to perceive that to mean a very Model T like landscape, for that period at least?

[Robotbeat]

I wouldn't say that.

[KelvinZero]

SpaceX may have unused cargo space on a bunch of early flights. It might be in their interest to initially give essentially free cargo to certain projects, such as creating a space tourist destination.

(edit: sorry, missed bit where RobotBeat said full manifest)

[Nibb31]

Sure, there'll be the existing satellites, but how long will they keep the launch manifest full?

I don't think the existing satellite industry is ready for the fast turnaround that is planned for BFR. It usually takes weeks to integrate, fuel, and checkout satellites at the launch facility. So they are going to have to change the way they build satellites and create new procedures for stack integration.

[sanman]

If BFR makes satellites for LEO so cheap, then LEO will end up more cluttered than ever. How many cubesats do you really need, anyway?

The better route is to develop ASAP the bigger and more ambitious payloads meant to go farther out, and cater to those markets. That will build up the operational experience and infrastructure for the cis-lunar economy sooner rather than later.

So the more interesting question is, where are those prospective market participants, and how quickly will they be ready to step up?

The constellation is designed to fill out BFR's manifest. 12000 satellites replaced possibly as soon as every 4 years means 3000 satellites per day. Mueller talked about truly large satellites, so I think the idea is to grow them over time. Could imagine 50-150 ton satellites, which means 1000-3000 BFR launches per year.

Didn't Iridium lure new launch startups, which quickly died when Iridium didn't happen? If that problem happens again, then that would pull the rug out from under SpaceX.

And frankly, Bigelow isn't required for hab tech. If your spaceship can fit 100 people for 3-6 months, do a stint on the surface, and be back after ~20-50 months in space, it essentially IS a hab. And for ~$150 fab costs (extrapolated down from last year) at 800-900m^3, it's almost three times B330's volume for about a tenth the cost, has gorgeous windows, and can loop around the Moon, land on the Moon, or loop around Venus or something while you enjoy the cruise.

But habs, whether in orbit or on the surface for a Moon base, would serve as an anchor destination for space tourists to travel to. Even cruise ships typically offer stopovers as highlights of the journey. A Moon base could continually expand, starting out as a research station and eventually becoming a full-blown settlement.

But what I think Bigelow needs to do is to upgrade the Transhab technology, to allow the walls to be inflated/filled with a curable foam, to harden them. And that's just until Musk can bring over his Tunnel Boring Machines to build a real underground Moon base.

[JamesH65]

The constellation is designed to fill out BFR's manifest. 12000 satellites replaced possibly as soon as every 4 years means 3000 satellites per day. Mueller talked about truly large satellites, so I think the idea is to grow them over time. Could imagine 50-150 ton satellites, which means 1000-3000 BFR launches per year.

And frankly, Bigelow isn't required for hab tech. If your spaceship can fit 100 people for 3-6 months, do a stint on the surface, and be back after ~20-50 months in space, it essentially IS a hab. And for ~$150 fab costs (extrapolated down from last year) at 800-900m^3, it's almost three times B330's volume for about a tenth the cost, has gorgeous windows, and can loop around the Moon, land on the Moon, or loop around Venus or something while you enjoy the cruise.

3000 per YEAR, not day. 2 orders of magnitude out.

[MP99]

Assuming BFR works to $10-20/kg, the following don't make sense:

Commercial lunar propellant being sold in Earth orbit. Still useful on the Moon, but too expensive in Earth orbit, particularly LEO.

Same for asteroid water. Useful at the asteroid, too expensive in Earth orbit.

Agreed.

More to the point, if SpaceX makes reusable Earth boosters and upper stages, and also uses technology comparable to the upper stage to make reusable Lunar landers, ISTM there are no circumstances where prop in LEO delivered from the Moon would be cheaper than from Earth?

Cheap touch labour on the ground, and volume infrastructure for propellant supply will always keep it ahead of Lunar supply, cost wise. (At least until there is massive infrastructure on the Moon.)

This is another argument in favour of BFR.

Cheers, Martin

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

[high road]

Well, it's not only the cost that drops, isn't it? SpaceX is also a very capable vehicle. If it's intended to keep a crew alive on the way to and from Mars, might it be used to have that crew service satellites and telescopes, either in Earth orbit or even heliocentric orbits? As long as trip times are less than the journey to Mars, and several targets in similar orbits can be serviced at the same time, the cost of those missions drops significantly. Sure, not exactly 20$/kg due to lower launch frequency, but quite low still. And that would build up quite a lot of confidence for the eventual trip to Mars.

Could you imagine the development cost savings if you know when designing a vehicle, there would be humans present to, just as an example, help JWST unfold or change Keplers reaction wheels if need be?

[Athrithalix]

The other question that could be asked, is what is the down-cost? How much would you be asked to pay to bring something down on BFS that didn't go up on it? This would have implications for zero-g manufacturing, and asteroid mining I suppose, though asteroid mining might actually be pushed back if raw material in orbit becomes so cheap to launch.

I imagine that there would be a delicate balance between the cost of sending mass up, bringing it down, and mineral prices that would have to be pretty ideal for it to be worth bringing rare metals from asteroids down to Earth in this manner.

Anyway, yes, does anyone know (or can anyone estimate) how much you'd pay to land something on the BFS?

[speedevil]

The other question that could be asked, is what is the down-cost? How much would you be asked to pay to bring something down on BFS that didn't go up on it? This would have implications for zero-g manufacturing, and asteroid mining I suppose, though asteroid mining might actually be pushed back if raw material in orbit becomes so cheap to launch.

Down mass is free, if the BFS is there anyway, if there is enough spare fuel. Until you reach either the limit of the system to safely slow that downmass - 20-30 tons on BFS perhaps, or you hit ~80% or whatever of capacity on the up journey, and no longer have fuel margin.

If you need a special launch, then it's about 7-10 times the cost.

[Ludus]

This would be a good creative challenge for engineering teams at universities and companies something like SpaceX’s competition for a Hyperloop.

Have a few categories. If you have X capabilities at Y budget, what would you do?

[CuddlyRocket]

Down mass is free, if the BFS is there anyway, if there is enough spare fuel.

Free to whom? The price will be what the market will bear; not the cost to SpaceX of providing the service.

An analogy is all those container ships carrying good from China to the US. They have to go back anyway; but if you want them to carry some cargo for you, you still have to pay.

[speedevil]

Down mass is free, if the BFS is there anyway, if there is enough spare fuel.

Free to whom? The price will be what the market will bear; not the cost to SpaceX of providing the service.

An analogy is all those container ships carrying good from China to the US. They have to go back anyway; but if you want them to carry some cargo for you, you still have to pay.

Well, yes. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.
The amount a commercial entity will charge is usually bounded by the actual cost.

This actual cost could vary from near zero to requiring a whole launch, but the price can be significantly higher.
(or indeed, can in some cases be a loss leader).

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Business cases and the $/kg or $/person that they become valid. There may be some argument on the actual values for some of these but this list is  a starting point and a indicator of what the BFR/BFS would enable even in its initial and much more expensive prices.

Possible BFR/BFS Prices for various life(max number of flights per unit)

Life number of flights/unit	1	10	20	100	1000
$/kg	$4,000	$472	$276	$119	$84
$/person to LEO	$1,500,000	$177,000	$103,500	$44,700	$31,470
$/person to Lunar surface	$21,000,000	$2,478,000	$1,449,000	$625,800	$440,580

LEO tourism viable at $200,000/person. Reason: The price must be low enough to get enough tourists to fill a BFS packed with 400 passengers per trip.

Lunar surface tourism viable at $500,000/person. Reason: The price must be low enough to get enough tourists to fill a BFS with 200 passengers per trip. More will want to go even though more expensive because it is an actual visit to another celestial body.

SBPS (Space Based Power Satellite) viable at $250/kg. This is a complex evaluation of the weight of a SBPS for the power it generates and the value of that power in $/KWhr on the national bussbar grid.

Lunar Mining of Rare Earths viable at $100/kg. As these become more scarce due to more environmental restrictions because the Rare Earths are highly toxic. But they are indispensable in integrated circuits manufacture. The rate is primarily for the shipment of equipment supplies and people to perform the exploration and mining of the Rare Earths at a significant quantity and the shipment back to Earth possibly in large quantities 1,000's of mt. In most the flight rate is more of a significant factor than costs.

General mining Lunar and Asteroid for ISRU viable at $500/kg. The key here is cheap shipment of equipment and resupply of the mining operation. A mine can produce several times than for same cost in material to be shipped from Earth therefore always being able to produce for less than the same weight in shipment cost from Earth. But there is a caveat and that is that the equipment/supplies cost must not be totally dominated by shipping costs.

These are but a few examples.

There are other highly specific business cases which may have a highly mobile viability target price.

[speedevil]

Business cases and the $/kg or $/person that they become valid. There may be some argument on the actual values for some of these but this list is  a starting point and a indicator of what the BFR/BFS would enable even in its initial and much more expensive prices.

Possible BFR/BFS Prices for various life(max number of flights per unit)

Life number of flights/unit	1	10	20	100	1000
$/kg	$4,000	$472	$276	$119	$84
$/person to LEO	$1,500,000	$177,000	$103,500	$44,700	$31,470
$/person to Lunar surface	$21,000,000	$2,478,000	$1,449,000	$625,800	$440,580

I'm not sure what numbers you're basing these off.
1000 launches of 400 people at 31K each is 12 billion, 12 million dollars a launch.

This is presumably based off falcon 1s launch cost.
But, in the most recent speech, he said it was lower than F1s cost, not the same. He also said that it was comparable with airline prices.
Later, he clarified that he meant economy prices.

Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and anywhere in under 60. Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.

(on instagram).

This is ~$1-2K, depending on destination, not 31K.

If we assume 400-800 passengers, with a total weight of 150 tons, including seating, (180kg-360kg each) that gets to between 400K-1.6M to launch. (at $1K and 2K price points).
And a cargo cost of $2.6 to $10.6/kg.

I'm not saying that this is likely near-term, but Elon is quite able to do basic math, and isn't going to be out by a factor of 15-30 in calculations.

May he be out in the number of times the vehicle can be reused, or the cost of that reuse - sure.

But, I see no way of justifying $31K for a passenger launch as anything other than a number picked from the air.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Business cases and the $/kg or $/person that they become valid. There may be some argument on the actual values for some of these but this list is  a starting point and a indicator of what the BFR/BFS would enable even in its initial and much more expensive prices.

Possible BFR/BFS Prices for various life(max number of flights per unit)

Life number of flights/unit	1	10	20	100	1000
$/kg	$4,000	$472	$276	$119	$84
$/person to LEO	$1,500,000	$177,000	$103,500	$44,700	$31,470
$/person to Lunar surface	$21,000,000	$2,478,000	$1,449,000	$625,800	$440,580

I'm not sure what numbers you're basing these off.
1000 launches of 400 people at 31K each is 12 billion, 12 million dollars a launch.

This is presumably based off falcon 1s launch cost.
But, in the most recent speech, he said it was lower than F1s cost, not the same. He also said that it was comparable with airline prices.
Later, he clarified that he meant economy prices.

Fly to most places on Earth in under 30 mins and anywhere in under 60. Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that.

(on instagram).

This is ~$1-2K, depending on destination, not 31K.

If we assume 400-800 passengers, with a total weight of 150 tons, including seating, (180kg-360kg each) that gets to between 400K-1.6M to launch. (at $1K and 2K price points).
And a cargo cost of $2.6 to $10.6/kg.

I'm not saying that this is likely near-term, but Elon is quite able to do basic math, and isn't going to be out by a factor of 15-30 in calculations.

May he be out in the number of times the vehicle can be reused, or the cost of that reuse - sure.

But, I see no way of justifying $31K for a passenger launch as anything other than a number picked from the air.

The numbers are based on a booster costing $230M to manufacture and a spacecraft to cost $250M to manufacture. The everything else costs per launch starts at $20M and reduces to $10M as the rate increases. It may be possible to get the everything else costs per launch lower than $10M at very high launch rates. The top values are how many flights can a specific vehicle be reused. As the design matures this number should continue to increase. At 1000 flights per unit the contribution to launch costs of the unit's manufacture becomes <$500K. At high build rates it may be possible to lower the manufacturing costs by as much as a factor of 2. Making the primary driver of the cost of a ticket the everything else costs (maintenance, pad costs, fees, manpower [flight crew], propellant, etc[lots of little stuff that increases the cost of a flight]). I know that my values are pessimistic but if it works with very pessimistic values than it should work economically without a problem with the real ones whatever they may be in the future.

The simple model I used to calculate Prices shows a very interesting thing and that is that even with expensive build costs a vehicle with a reuse count of 100 will open and enable many space industry business cases.

[Robotbeat]

The booster is half the size of last iteration, so should cost almost half as much to build.

And there's no reason 1000 has to be a hard limit for reuse. Or 100 for the booster, especially for these more modest reentry speeds where there is a much larger choice in TPS materials.

[oiorionsbelt]

I think this fits here......

http://www.teslarati.com/us-air-force-rfp-super-heavy-lift-rockets-spacex-bfr/

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

The booster is half the size of last iteration, so should cost almost half as much to build.

And there's no reason 1000 has to be a hard limit for reuse. Or 100 for the booster, especially for these more modest reentry speeds where there is a much larger choice in TPS materials.

The key was that because of reusablity and even for a very expensive to build set of hardware the per flight costs are so small when evaluating what the system is able to do for that cost that most of the currently envisioned proposed business cases will close easily. This includes mass space tourism. And as you mention 100 flight life is not lekly to be the end or even 1000. SpaceX continually improves the vehicles they build every couple of years like they have been doing with F9 improving reliability and performance rapidly while continuing to decrease costs with reuse life extensions.

Then there is the final nail of that if SpaceX being SpaceX the cost per unit is not likely to be very expensive because the major strength that SpaceX has is innovation of manufacture for space systems that result in better performance, reliability and lower costs.

[c4fusion]

Possible BFR/BFS Prices for various life(max number of flights per unit)

Life number of flights/unit	1	10	20	100	1000
$/kg	$4,000	$472	$276	$119	$84
$/person to LEO	$1,500,000	$177,000	$103,500	$44,700	$31,470
$/person to Lunar surface	$21,000,000	$2,478,000	$1,449,000	$625,800	$440,580

I would like to throw on another graph into the mix as sort of best case scenario in regards to prices and a way to attain Elon's numbers of economy class price to any where in the world. In the attached slide from last year's conference, propellent price are stated to be $162/ton.  At this price and approximately 4000 tons of fuel, the total cost of fuel per flight is $672,000. 

The next price to consider is maintenance.  In the slide the cost of maintenance is $200,000, $500,000, and $10,000,000 for the booster, tanker, and the ship respectively.  Here I am going to go out on a limb and say that the cost of maintenance for the ship is slashed by a factor of 10 when it is going to a low earth orbit trip due to lower stress from re-entry and number of trips it will probably perform per year.  So the average total maintenance per use should be $1,200,000. 

Additionally, I am just going to use the total price of $430,000,000 to build the two parts, the ship and the booster as presented in the slide (I would imagine the price for the new BFR will be lower). 

For the last assumption, I assumed that the weight per passenger including their luggage would be 100kg, similar to current airline assumptions, and 50kg for the weight of the seats, life support and so on (this number doesn't have much bases in reality, just a doubling of the approximate 25kg per passenger for amenities in domestic flights).

Below is the table I generated from these values:

Life number of flights/unit	1	10	20	100	1000	10000
$/kg	$2,879	$299	$156	$41	$15	$13
$/person to LEO	$431,872	$44,872	$23,372	$6,172	$2,302	$1,915

It is interesting to note that once you get to 1000 flights, the price the the ship is no longer that big of a concern unless the price of fuel and the price maintenance comes down significantly (maybe the day everyone goes solar/wind/hydro/batteries/etc.?).


Weight Estimates on Air Passengers

[Norm38]

A good thread for this.  Watching the webcast, in the intro during all the payload processing, I couldn't help thinking how delicate it all looks.  Everything wrapped in gossamer foil, the precautions.  How much more mass does it take to build a satellite as a rugged industrial machine?  To optimize for performance and lifespan instead of weight?  To just put a nice big heavy thing like a shipping container in GEO that just works.
Maybe whole platforms.  Where a systems upgrade is just changing out some rack equipment?

[wilbobaggins]

It is a shame that the lowering of price that finally make asteroid and lunar mining attempts possible for private enterprise also crashes the worth of their products at least in LEO.

Perhaps the jump to rare metals needs to be done sooner rather than later or off world produced goods will just not me present in LEO.

[BobHk]

I cannot believe no one mentioned: FACTORIES...

Why send raw ore to earth, lunar ores can be processed, wasting no downmass at all.  Factories can be moved into orbit to make finished products.  Tourism isn't going to dominate space bound human traffic... making things and processing things is.

[Nibb31]

Orbital manufacturing isn't going to require factory workers. We are phasing out manuel labour on Earth. Sending hundreds of factory workers to space and keeping them alive is a huge expense that simply doesn't make any economical sense. If we ever see orbital factories, they will be as automated as possible.

You might not even need a factory. Just stuff the manufacturing equipment and raw materiel into a BFS, launch, produce a batch of your zero-g gizmos, and return the whole thing for maintenance.

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

[CuddlyRocket]

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! But then, you probably need to do a lot more experimentation in space before someone stumbles over such a product.

Of course if you had a colony - even one that just supports a tourist operation or science laboratories - then you'll likely develop local manufacture. A bit like the development of Las Vegas.

[envy887]

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

[savuporo]

..Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing!

Can we just agree to not make substantial quantities of antimatter on earth, ever ? I mean beyond particle accelerator kind of things.
An antimatter factory on the far side of the moon i could live with.

[CuddlyRocket]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

Possibly, though I don't recall reading about any product that has people saying they'd manufacture it in space if only the transportation costs were lower. Anybody got any examples?

Can we just agree to not make substantial quantities of antimatter on earth, ever ? I mean beyond particle accelerator kind of things.
An antimatter factory on the far side of the moon i could live with.

Substantial quantities of antimatter - safely stored antimatter! - is presently unobtanium. But yes, if they ever crack the science and engineering it would be better to site it outside Earth's gravity well!

[RotoSequence]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

Possibly, though I don't recall reading about any product that has people saying they'd manufacture it in space if only the transportation costs were lower. Anybody got any examples?

ZBLAN metal fluoride glass optical fiber has superior transmission bandwidth but develops extensive impurities from convection when it’s pulled. When produced in microgravity, the fibers are clear.

[Semmel]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

Possibly, though I don't recall reading about any product that has people saying they'd manufacture it in space if only the transportation costs were lower. Anybody got any examples?

ZBLAN metal fluoride glass optical fiber has superior transmission bandwidth but develops extensive impurities from convection when it’s pulled. When produced in microgravity, the fibers are clear.

There is an experiment to that nature either going to or already on the ISS. I believe from a company called fittingly 'made in space'

[Nibb31]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

Possibly, though I don't recall reading about any product that has people saying they'd manufacture it in space if only the transportation costs were lower. Anybody got any examples?

ZBLAN metal fluoride glass optical fiber has superior transmission bandwidth but develops extensive impurities from convection when it’s pulled. When produced in microgravity, the fibers are clear.

There is an experiment to that nature either going to or already on the ISS. I believe from a company called fittingly 'made in space'

Sure, there are other prospective ideas like silicon wafers and growing crystals. The question is what is the market and how much is it willing to pay. Maybe BFR will bring down the cost of orbital manufacturing enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe it won't.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! ...

In large part because no matter how hard something is to manufacture on Earth, it's usually easier than paying $10,000 per kg to go to orbit and back.

Possibly, though I don't recall reading about any product that has people saying they'd manufacture it in space if only the transportation costs were lower. Anybody got any examples?

ZBLAN metal fluoride glass optical fiber has superior transmission bandwidth but develops extensive impurities from convection when it’s pulled. When produced in microgravity, the fibers are clear.

There is an experiment to that nature either going to or already on the ISS. I believe from a company called fittingly 'made in space'

Sure, there are other prospective ideas like silicon wafers and growing crystals. The question is what is the market and how much is it willing to pay. Maybe BFR will bring down the cost of orbital manufacturing enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe it won't.

The ZBLAM fiber is worth from $100 to $10,000 per meter of length. A kg of source materiial will produce 6km of fiber or a produce value of $600,000/kg to $60,000,000/kg. Based on quality of fibre. It is expected that the space made fibers will be of exceptional quality therefore worth $10,000/m.

[john smith 19]

Which is the biggest flaw in current ideas of orbital or otherwise off-Earth manufacturing - no-one's found anything worth manufacturing! But then, you probably need to do a lot more experimentation in space before someone stumbles over such a product.

Not strictly true. There are a small number of products that are.

IIRC the top one is mfg a special kind of glass for fiber optic amplifiers, and it's pulling into those fibers.  The good news is such a process could be highly automated. The bad news is the very high power requirement it has for the furnace.

Of course if you had a colony - even one that just supports a tourist operation or science laboratories - then you'll likely develop local manufacture. A bit like the development of Las Vegas.

I'd wonder how much that had to do with it's proximity to various USAF bases and the Nevada Test Site. 
Otherwise Mars is a very long way to play Roulette or Blackjack 

[launchwatcher]

The ZBLAM fiber is worth from $100 to $10,000 per meter of length. A kg of source material will produce 6km of fiber or a produce value of $600,000/kg to $60,000,000/kg. Based on quality of fibre. It is expected that the space made fibers will be of exceptional quality therefore worth $10,000/m.

ZBLAM or ZBLAN?   

How much can you sell at $10/mm?  (The folks who build transoceanic cables will undoubtedly be able to negotiate a better price if it becomes available in multi-thousand-kilometer quantities..).

(There's also the risk that someone clever will come up with a manufacturing process that doesn't require microgravity).

[Robotbeat]

The ZBLAM fiber is worth from $100 to $10,000 per meter of length. A kg of source material will produce 6km of fiber or a produce value of $600,000/kg to $60,000,000/kg. Based on quality of fibre. It is expected that the space made fibers will be of exceptional quality therefore worth $10,000/m.

ZBLAM or ZBLAN?   

How much can you sell at $10/mm?  (The folks who build transoceanic cables will undoubtedly be able to negotiate a better price if it becomes available in multi-thousand-kilometer quantities..).

(There's also the risk that someone clever will come up with a manufacturing process that doesn't require microgravity).

Your last point is why it's critical for prices to orbit to come down. There will always be a lot of pressure to bring the process down to Earth when orbit costs $10,000/kg. But if it's just &10/kg, then why even bother?

[freddo411]

Orbital manufacturing isn't going to require factory workers. We are phasing out manuel labour on Earth. Sending hundreds of factory workers to space and keeping them alive is a huge expense that simply doesn't make any economical sense. If we ever see orbital factories, they will be as automated as possible.

You might not even need a factory. Just stuff the manufacturing equipment and raw materiel into a BFS, launch, produce a batch of your zero-g gizmos, and return the whole thing for maintenance.

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Anything that prefers a clean room or vacuum chamber on here on Earth.   Chip fab?   Carbon fiber autoclaves?

[JamesH65]

Orbital manufacturing isn't going to require factory workers. We are phasing out manuel labour on Earth. Sending hundreds of factory workers to space and keeping them alive is a huge expense that simply doesn't make any economical sense. If we ever see orbital factories, they will be as automated as possible.

You might not even need a factory. Just stuff the manufacturing equipment and raw materiel into a BFS, launch, produce a batch of your zero-g gizmos, and return the whole thing for maintenance.

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Anything that prefers a clean room or vacuum chamber on here on Earth.   Chip fab?   Carbon fiber autoclaves?

I think TSMC's latest fab is going to cost $40B to construct IIRC....anything that makes the chip biz cheaper will be of great benefit. Although I suspect you won't save a lot of that 40B by doing it in space.

[Semmel]

I think one of the limiting factors for chip production is the size of the waver. The waver is a cut from a mono-cristaline silicon structure, which is very hard to get at the sizes that are currently used. I am not a materials scientist but maybe someone can jump in and confirm or debunk the hypothesis that these crystals would be easier to create in microgravity?

[chipguy]

Orbital manufacturing isn't going to require factory workers. We are phasing out manuel labour on Earth. Sending hundreds of factory workers to space and keeping them alive is a huge expense that simply doesn't make any economical sense. If we ever see orbital factories, they will be as automated as possible.

You might not even need a factory. Just stuff the manufacturing equipment and raw materiel into a BFS, launch, produce a batch of your zero-g gizmos, and return the whole thing for maintenance.

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Anything that prefers a clean room or vacuum chamber on here on Earth.   Chip fab?   Carbon fiber autoclaves?

I think TSMC's latest fab is going to cost $40B to construct IIRC....anything that makes the chip biz cheaper will be of great benefit. Although I suspect you won't save a lot of that 40B by doing it in space.

The majority of the cost are the state of the art photolithographic tools going into that fab.

Absolutely nothing about space makes wafer fab easier or cost less. Quite the opposite actually.

In fact, IMO the very last thing an otherwise self-sufficient Mars colony will need to import from Earth are high end ICs.

[speedevil]

In fact, IMO the very last thing an otherwise self-sufficient Mars colony will need to import from Earth are high end ICs.

Perhaps not quite the very last - engineered viral, bacterial and fungal cultures can be some orders of magnitude more expensive than the highest end IC, and replicate so the value can be ridiculously more.

Seeds too perhaps.

[ZachF]

Orbital manufacturing isn't going to require factory workers. We are phasing out manuel labour on Earth. Sending hundreds of factory workers to space and keeping them alive is a huge expense that simply doesn't make any economical sense. If we ever see orbital factories, they will be as automated as possible.

You might not even need a factory. Just stuff the manufacturing equipment and raw materiel into a BFS, launch, produce a batch of your zero-g gizmos, and return the whole thing for maintenance.

All we need is to figure out what gizmos will economically benefit from being made in zero-g.

Anything that prefers a clean room or vacuum chamber on here on Earth.   Chip fab?   Carbon fiber autoclaves?

I think TSMC's latest fab is going to cost $40B to construct IIRC....anything that makes the chip biz cheaper will be of great benefit. Although I suspect you won't save a lot of that 40B by doing it in space.

Manufacturing in space could be a good way to protect IP though.

[IainMcClatchie]

I think one of the limiting factors for chip production is the size of the waver. The waver is a cut from a mono-cristaline silicon structure, which is very hard to get at the sizes that are currently used. I am not a materials scientist but maybe someone can jump in and confirm or debunk the hypothesis that these crystals would be easier to create in microgravity?

My dad used to have the end of a germanium ingot on his desk, from the 1960s.  2 inches in diameter.

Last year in the lobby at SunEdison I saw a monocrystalline silicon ingot.  12 inches in diameter.  20 feet long.

Photovoltaic manufacturers used to build their modules from scrap silicon wafers that had been rejected by the integrated circuit manufacturing industry.  Solyndra was started at a time when PV manufacturing had soaked up all the scrap, and was starting to buy their own wafers.  At the time, it seemed like the transition to paying full freight for the silicon was going to be a problem.  Solyndra was going to make a focussing system to get more out of each square cm of silicon.

So then a bunch of Chinese silicon foundries started cranking out monocrystalline silicon ingots specifically for PV manufacture.  They were below the cost of scrap IC wafers.  Nowadays the dominant use of silicon wafers is for PV and not for integrated circuits.  The tail and the dog have swapped roles.  Solyndra bet on the wrong technological fork and died.

[chipguy]

In fact, IMO the very last thing an otherwise self-sufficient Mars colony will need to import from Earth are high end ICs.

Perhaps not quite the very last - engineered viral, bacterial and fungal cultures can be some orders of magnitude more expensive than the highest end IC, and replicate so the value can be ridiculously more.

Seeds too perhaps.

I am not saying other items can't be more valuable either absolutely or in value per unit mass.

The key point is the manufacturing infrastructure for state of the art semiconductors is the most difficult to duplicate and bring up on another planet. Gene sequencing and splicing equipment is making huge strides right now in miniaturization and cost reduction. R&D and production scale facilities for engineered biologicals are already much smaller and far less expensive than a wafer fab for leading edge process technology and this gap will likely grow rather than shrink. Then there is the question of secondary infrastructure for production of ultra-pure consumables for a wafer fab. Biological processes are far more forgiving of input quality.

[envy887]

Convection (which micro-g solves) doesn't seem to be an issue for growing defect-free silicon crystals. But does seem to be an issue for growing some other potentially useful crystals like silicon carbide.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

The ZBLAM fiber is worth from $100 to $10,000 per meter of length. A kg of source material will produce 6km of fiber or a produce value of $600,000/kg to $60,000,000/kg. Based on quality of fibre. It is expected that the space made fibers will be of exceptional quality therefore worth $10,000/m.

ZBLAM or ZBLAN?   

How much can you sell at $10/mm?  (The folks who build transoceanic cables will undoubtedly be able to negotiate a better price if it becomes available in multi-thousand-kilometer quantities..).

(There's also the risk that someone clever will come up with a manufacturing process that doesn't require microgravity).

Your last point is why it's critical for prices to orbit to come down. There will always be a lot of pressure to bring the process down to Earth when orbit costs $10,000/kg. But if it's just &10/kg, then why even bother?

Sorry your are correct it is ZBLAN.

But the sense I get from some of the comments by MIS and their co-sponser for this project who is the current primary manufacturer of ZBLAN is that to be able to manufacture exceptional quality ZBLAN at the same price as the current low quality ZBLAN. What this would do is cause an explosion in the usage of ZBLAN and creating much more revenue and profits than what they are experiencing currently. As long as the quality and difficulty remains as it does now the market for ZBLAN will struggle. But lower the price and it would boom.

But the sad part here is that this is but a single very special case. Other cases of similar nature will likely be rare. But if the cost of travel to and from space becomes little more that the cost of travel to another continent then very marginal cases and complete impossible cases become a competitive business solution. That is what BFR very low prices will do for Space Industry.

[launchwatcher]

I think one of the limiting factors for chip production is the size of the waver. The waver is a cut from a mono-cristaline silicon structure, which is very hard to get at the sizes that are currently used. I am not a materials scientist but maybe someone can jump in and confirm or debunk the hypothesis that these crystals would be easier to create in microgravity?

My dad used to have the end of a germanium ingot on his desk, from the 1960s.  2 inches in diameter.

Last year in the lobby at SunEdison I saw a monocrystalline silicon ingot.  12 inches in diameter.  20 feet long.

My understanding is that most of the big fabs use 300mm (~12 inch) wafers these days but 200mm is still used.   An industry push to move to 450mm a few years back appears to have stalled; the increased weight of larger-diameter ingots and wafers was cited as one of the factors in the news reports I read.

Round wafers are carved into rectangular chips.   The main motivation for larger-diameter wafers is less wastage around the edge when you slice a circular wafer into rectangular chips.    The growth in chip area seems to have slowed down which reduces the urgency of moving to bigger wafers.

[Semmel]

I think one of the limiting factors for chip production is the size of the waver. The waver is a cut from a mono-cristaline silicon structure, which is very hard to get at the sizes that are currently used. I am not a materials scientist but maybe someone can jump in and confirm or debunk the hypothesis that these crystals would be easier to create in microgravity?

My dad used to have the end of a germanium ingot on his desk, from the 1960s.  2 inches in diameter.

Last year in the lobby at SunEdison I saw a monocrystalline silicon ingot.  12 inches in diameter.  20 feet long.

My understanding is that most of the big fabs use 300mm (~12 inch) wafers these days but 200mm is still used.   An industry push to move to 450mm a few years back appears to have stalled; the increased weight of larger-diameter ingots and wafers was cited as one of the factors in the news reports I read.

Round wafers are carved into rectangular chips.   The main motivation for larger-diameter wafers is less wastage around the edge when you slice a circular wafer into rectangular chips.    The growth in chip area seems to have slowed down which reduces the urgency of moving to bigger wafers.

I am not sure that the waste at the edge is the driver. The machine that imprints (to keep it simple, ok?) the chip layout onto the wafer is enormous and using it expensive. Exchanging wafers is a large waste of time for the machine so you want as large wafers as possible. It boils down to: If you had larger wafers, chip production would be cheaper.

So if you could make wafer ingots in space that have double the diameter than on earth, you could practically cut the price of one chip by a factor of 4. And if the price for the crystal ingot was double or triple the original price, it wouldn't even matter. Not sure if that is a good motivation to go to space though. After all, a wafer factory in space and servicing it would be mighty expensive as well.

@edit: see italic.

[IainMcClatchie]

I hadn't heard that the 450mm transition had stalled.  I was surprised that the solar industry was still at 300mm diameter -- they'd be the obvious folks to lead the way to larger diameters, as the rectangles they cut out of those things are far bigger than the IC folks, and they just produce much more area now.

BTW, Semmel, the critical machine that prints the various layers is called a stepper.  It doesn't image the entire wafer in one go, but rather has a reticle size, usually around 20 mm diameter.  It prints that, moves over, and repeats.  Larger wafers take more time.  There is a little savings with big wafers because you spend less time moving it in and out of the stepper.  I think the big savings are all the whole-wafer operations, like spinning on photomask and etching.  PV manufacturing doesn't need a stepper.

I think the idea of manufacturing in space is just bonkers.  The future seems pretty obvious to me.  It's going to be LEO comsat constellations.  There will be three, SpaceX, OneWeb, and a Chinese one.  Once the first generation shows profitability, the second generation will grab most of the internet and cellphone market.  Launch vehicles will get optimized for putting this second generation in orbit, and everything else will make do with those vehicles.  Things will be pretty good -- reusable two stage launchers with big fairings for fluffy payloads with lots of antennae and solar arrays and thermal radiators.  The BFR is a fine idea, the BFS is daft, SpaceX will either go with a simple reusable second stage by themselves, or Blue Origin will show them how to do it.

Bigelow will be happy, NASA will be happy, Elon will probably be frustrated, and folks with ground-based telescopes will be annoyed at the ubiquitous antennae flares.

[192]

  The BFR is a fine idea, the BFS is daft, SpaceX will either go with a simple reusable second stage by themselves, or Blue Origin will show them how to do it.

I'm curious as to what you think is daft about the BFS, or at least the satellite launch variant, and what you think a "simple reusable second stage" looks like in comparison.

You say the BFR is fine, by which I presume you mean the booster, so I take it you don't object to the scale/ carbon fibre tanks/ raptor.

Other than those the main differences between BFS and a conventional second stage: are an integrated fairing, a heat-shield, winglets, landing engines and legs. Which of these do you object to and why? and how would you do it differently?

Most of these are a necessary part of their reentry and landing strategy. The only one that isn't is the integrated fairing, but if you're going fully reusable you want it back, and having one reentry solution in place of two seems like the simpler solution to me. Yes it has a mass penalty by taking the fairing all the way to orbit, but it provides extra surface area and an aerodynamic nose for reentry, it simplifies recovery and reuse operations, and the mass penalty is less important on a fully reusable vehicle. 

[IainMcClatchie]

Well said.

I'm especially fine with the scale.  They are going to need gobs of lift for the comsat constellation.  Elon is right on point when he says that chartering a 747 from North America to Australia, and back, costs about what a new Cessna 206 goes for.  A 747 is 220 tonnes.  Last year's iteration of BFR was penciled at 275 tonnes, this year it's smaller.  It'll be an evolutionary step for building large composite airframes.

I'm a little less impressed with the switch from 12m to 9m.  Rockets don't scale well with height.  Essentially you are lifting a tank of LOX on a base of compressed gas.  If that column gets taller the average pressure at the base must get larger.  Booster engine exit pressure wants to be around 40-50 kPa, and average base pressure can increase with increasing chamber pressure... but it's not 1:1.  So once the rocket is as tall as the Saturn V, stop scaling height and scale diameter instead.  Also, SpaceX should budget for lower density payloads, which implies larger diameter fairings.  The 3.6m road transport standard was a smart move, but once they commit to barging it they should go big and squat.

Unnecessary problems with BFS:

Integrated Fairing  The payload is bigger in volume than the upper stage.  That fairing is huge and heavy (the F9 fairing is about the same mass as the second stage!) and as you say is expensive to take to orbital velocity and back.  I don't think it should come down on its own, because then you need ships out there to get it regardless of where the booster is landing.  It should be a part of the BFR and land with that.  This means it encapsulates the second stage as well as the payload, but that's got benefits as well as costs.

Heat Shield  PICA-X is great stuff, but like the Shuttle tiles it's porous.  The BFS design puts it on the outside of the spacecraft to get rained on while on the pad.  The absorbed water will freeze while in orbit and can break the tiles, and can also break tiles while vaporizing during reentry.  The Shuttle had lots of delays and work associated with its exposed heat shield.

The obvious place for the heat shield is inside the fairing.  It'll still need refurb because it gets exposed to moisture after landing, but for high-tempo operations they might conceivably get the PICA inside a controlled low-humidity atmosphere before it gets cold.

Legs  They will have the technology to land on a cradle.  I'm not as exercised about this as the fairing, as the legs are 1/6th as much mass.

People  Since the vast majority of upmass in ten years will be comsats, people and their related gear should go in something that doesn't affect the comsat launching missions.  If I was going to Mars, I'd want to see something that had an inflatable part that aerobrakes but doesn't reenter, and maybe large propellant tanks that get filled while in orbit around Mars.

[Asteroza]

I think one of the limiting factors for chip production is the size of the waver. The waver is a cut from a mono-cristaline silicon structure, which is very hard to get at the sizes that are currently used. I am not a materials scientist but maybe someone can jump in and confirm or debunk the hypothesis that these crystals would be easier to create in microgravity?

My dad used to have the end of a germanium ingot on his desk, from the 1960s.  2 inches in diameter.

Last year in the lobby at SunEdison I saw a monocrystalline silicon ingot.  12 inches in diameter.  20 feet long.

My understanding is that most of the big fabs use 300mm (~12 inch) wafers these days but 200mm is still used.   An industry push to move to 450mm a few years back appears to have stalled; the increased weight of larger-diameter ingots and wafers was cited as one of the factors in the news reports I read.

Round wafers are carved into rectangular chips.   The main motivation for larger-diameter wafers is less wastage around the edge when you slice a circular wafer into rectangular chips.    The growth in chip area seems to have slowed down which reduces the urgency of moving to bigger wafers.

I am not sure that the waste at the edge is the driver. The machine that imprints (to keep it simple, ok?) the chip layout onto the wafer is enormous and using it expensive. Exchanging wafers is a large waste of time for the machine so you want as large wafers as possible. It boils down to: If you had larger wafers, chip production would be cheaper.

So if you could make wafers in space that have double the diameter than on earth, you could practically cut the price of one chip by a factor of 4. And if the price for the crystal ingot was double or triple the original price, it wouldn't even matter. Not sure if that is a good motivation to go to space though. After all, a wafer factory in space and servicing it would be mighty expensive as well.

Making wafer ingots in space strikes me as more viable due to return packaging issues (easier to carry a single ingot than lots of wafers back to earth).

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that the new Nvidia GPU's are maxing out the reticle size of the steppers at TSMC, which are around 80mm. Size of reticle up to a point improves throughput at higher wafer diameter.

[IainMcClatchie]

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that the new Nvidia GPU's are maxing out the reticle size of the steppers at TSMC, which are around 80mm. Size of reticle up to a point improves throughput at higher wafer diameter.

No.

NVidia's largest GPU is the Tesla V100 and is 815 mm^2.   It sits on top of a 1200 mm^2 silicon interposer.  TSMC has said it uses reticle stitching for the interposer, and it's possible they are stitching the V100 as well.  If not, it would require a 40mm reticle diameter, which is astonishing.  Among other things, such an enormous reticle would require a new, larger and higher performance lens at this process node.  These lenses take years to build and are a significant portion of the R&D effort for a new process node.  That is, can it be done at all.  There is no way they'd build a custom lens for even 10% of TSMC's fab output.  The V100 is maybe 0.0001% at best.

Below is an image of a stepper.  I swear, Lars, that I will not respond to another post not having to do with rockets.

[Lars-J]

The BFR is a fine idea, the BFS is daft, SpaceX will either go with a simple reusable second stage by themselves, or Blue Origin will show them how to do it.

Unnecessary problems with BFS:

Integrated Fairing  The payload is bigger in volume than the upper stage.  That fairing is huge and heavy (the F9 fairing is about the same mass as the second stage!) and as you say is expensive to take to orbital velocity and back.  I don't think it should come down on its own, because then you need ships out there to get it regardless of where the booster is landing.  It should be a part of the BFR and land with that.  This means it encapsulates the second stage as well as the payload, but that's got benefits as well as costs.

Heat Shield  PICA-X is great stuff, but like the Shuttle tiles it's porous.  The BFS design puts it on the outside of the spacecraft to get rained on while on the pad.  The absorbed water will freeze while in orbit and can break the tiles, and can also break tiles while vaporizing during reentry.  The Shuttle had lots of delays and work associated with its exposed heat shield.

The obvious place for the heat shield is inside the fairing.  It'll still need refurb because it gets exposed to moisture after landing, but for high-tempo operations they might conceivably get the PICA inside a controlled low-humidity atmosphere before it gets cold.

Legs  They will have the technology to land on a cradle.  I'm not as exercised about this as the fairing, as the legs are 1/6th as much mass.

People  Since the vast majority of upmass in ten years will be comsats, people and their related gear should go in something that doesn't affect the comsat launching missions.  If I was going to Mars, I'd want to see something that had an inflatable part that aerobrakes but doesn't reenter, and maybe large propellant tanks that get filled while in orbit around Mars.

I thought you were arguing for a *simpler* reusable upper stage.   

[su27k]

I think the idea of manufacturing in space is just bonkers.  The future seems pretty obvious to me.  It's going to be LEO comsat constellations. 

That's like saying the obvious application of better 3D graphics card is better 3D games, yes it's obvious but it is also missing the unknown unknowns. It turns out better 3D graphics card has a huge usage outside games and enables a whole new industry to emerge, this was not obvious at the time.

[envy887]

Well said.

I'm especially fine with the scale.  They are going to need gobs of lift for the comsat constellation.  Elon is right on point when he says that chartering a 747 from North America to Australia, and back, costs about what a new Cessna 206 goes for.  A 747 is 220 tonnes.  Last year's iteration of BFR was penciled at 275 tonnes, this year it's smaller.  It'll be an evolutionary step for building large composite airframes.

I'm a little less impressed with the switch from 12m to 9m.  Rockets don't scale well with height.  Essentially you are lifting a tank of LOX on a base of compressed gas.  If that column gets taller the average pressure at the base must get larger.  Booster engine exit pressure wants to be around 40-50 kPa, and average base pressure can increase with increasing chamber pressure... but it's not 1:1.  So once the rocket is as tall as the Saturn V, stop scaling height and scale diameter instead.  Also, SpaceX should budget for lower density payloads, which implies larger diameter fairings.  The 3.6m road transport standard was a smart move, but once they commit to barging it they should go big and squat.

Unnecessary problems with BFS:

Integrated Fairing  The payload is bigger in volume than the upper stage.  That fairing is huge and heavy (the F9 fairing is about the same mass as the second stage!) and as you say is expensive to take to orbital velocity and back.  I don't think it should come down on its own, because then you need ships out there to get it regardless of where the booster is landing.  It should be a part of the BFR and land with that.  This means it encapsulates the second stage as well as the payload, but that's got benefits as well as costs.

Heat Shield  PICA-X is great stuff, but like the Shuttle tiles it's porous.  The BFS design puts it on the outside of the spacecraft to get rained on while on the pad.  The absorbed water will freeze while in orbit and can break the tiles, and can also break tiles while vaporizing during reentry.  The Shuttle had lots of delays and work associated with its exposed heat shield.

The obvious place for the heat shield is inside the fairing.  It'll still need refurb because it gets exposed to moisture after landing, but for high-tempo operations they might conceivably get the PICA inside a controlled low-humidity atmosphere before it gets cold.

Legs  They will have the technology to land on a cradle.  I'm not as exercised about this as the fairing, as the legs are 1/6th as much mass.

People  Since the vast majority of upmass in ten years will be comsats, people and their related gear should go in something that doesn't affect the comsat launching missions.  If I was going to Mars, I'd want to see something that had an inflatable part that aerobrakes but doesn't reenter, and maybe large propellant tanks that get filled while in orbit around Mars.

The first problem with a fairing on the booster is that F9 stages before fairing sep, and BFR will stage even sooner. Atlas can get away with it because the booster is 10x as large as Centaur, but the BF booster is barely 2x the size of BFS and will stage low and slow enough that many payloads still need cover.

The other problem is you need an aerodynamic profile on the way up AND on the way down, so shedding your aero nose upon reaching space causes significant issues for the return. Now you can't get your large and expensive satellite dispenser system back, and you have to mount the payload dispenser through the heatshield.

Water ingress can be solved by covering or spraying the heatshield on the ground. IMO they will have to put a frame around the BFS for transport and lifting atop the BF booster anyway (see the frame around the F9 fairing), so a heatshield cover could be built right into that frame and only removed shortly before launch.

Edit: the F9 fairing is heavy mostly because it carries the full weight of the payload and PAF during integration. The BFS will probably not do vertical encapsulation like F9, so the "fairing" never has to carry payload mass, and is load-limited either by Max-Q (most likely) or reentry (probably not).

[oiorionsbelt]

IIRC the silver-ish coating on the Dragon PICA X heat shield is exactly that. A waterproof covering.

[IainMcClatchie]

The first problem with a fairing on the booster is that F9 stages before fairing sep, and BFR will stage even sooner. Atlas can get away with it because the booster is 10x as large as Centaur, but the BF booster is barely 2x the size of BFS and will stage low and slow enough that many payloads still need cover.

As you point out, it's possible to stage earlier or later.  The current F9 stages about 20 seconds before fairing separation.  It's possible to stage later.  Why would BFR stage sooner?

Also, Starlink satellites are going to 1000 km orbit.  That's a more lofted trajectory than the 400 km ISS or 650 km LEO sat orbits, so there is less performance loss associated with staging right around fairing sep.

Finally, if the later staging ended up being a performance issue, BFR could land on a barge, partially refuel, and then boost back to its launch site.  I expect this would only show up as a problem once orbital deliveries were in full swing.

The other problem is you need an aerodynamic profile on the way up AND on the way down, so shedding your aero nose upon reaching space causes significant issues for the return. Now you can't get your large and expensive satellite dispenser system back, and you have to mount the payload dispenser through the heatshield.

I agree that the dispenser is now no longer reusable.  That's a drawback.

Dragon mounts to its trunk around the heatshield, and the BF2 can mount to its payload in some similar way.

Water ingress can be solved by covering or spraying the heatshield on the ground.

IIRC the silver-ish coating on the Dragon PICA X heat shield is exactly that. A waterproof covering.

This is a good idea.

Edit: the F9 fairing is heavy mostly because it carries the full weight of the payload and PAF during integration. The BFS will probably not do vertical encapsulation like F9, so the "fairing" never has to carry payload mass, and is load-limited either by Max-Q (most likely) or reentry (probably not).

That's odd.  The weight of the payload and PAF are all borne through the base of the fairing, where it attaches to the second stage, right?  Isn't this where the external frame used during horizontal integration attaches as well?  So why would those loads go through any part of the fairing except the ring at the base?

[rakaydos]

That's odd.  The weight of the payload and PAF are all borne through the base of the fairing, where it attaches to the second stage, right?  Isn't this where the external frame used during horizontal integration attaches as well?  So why would those loads go through any part of the fairing except the ring at the base?

Leverage and torque. With several tons suspenced sideways from 1 side, the fairing would be reinforced to not let the payload droop, and as a rigid structure the weight of payload+fairing is distributed such that supporting the top of the fairing makes sencse.

[envy887]

The first problem with a fairing on the booster is that F9 stages before fairing sep, and BFR will stage even sooner. Atlas can get away with it because the booster is 10x as large as Centaur, but the BF booster is barely 2x the size of BFS and will stage low and slow enough that many payloads still need cover.

As you point out, it's possible to stage earlier or later.  The current F9 stages about 20 seconds before fairing separation.  It's possible to stage later.  Why would BFR stage sooner?

Ratio of delta-v available from each stage determines staging velocity, which with trajectory shaping (lofting) determines altitude. BFR will fly a lofted trajectory, but it will also stage early for RTLS. Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing. Higher staging velocity and distance makes RTLS exponentially more difficult.

[IainMcClatchie]

Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing.

Why would that be?  SpaceX is committed to making BFR able to refly reliably.  Why not just land on a barge, refuel, and fly home?

The infrastructure for sea launch seems daunting, but note that it's just the infrastructure for launch, and not the infrastructure for integrating the payload.  They are already talking about it with the P2P trips.

Moving the fairing from the second to the first stage cuts nearly in half the amount of mass that must be landed from orbit.  That is a very significant benefit.  The cost of staging 20 seconds later seems small in comparison.  However, I have not done the simulations yet to show this.  I do have a simulator, but it's 2D and not at all as good as the other simulators here.

[Robotbeat]

Whether down range landings are worth it or not depends on the ratio between first stage and upper stage refurbishment costs for the tanker.

[Lars-J]

Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing.

Why would that be?  SpaceX is committed to making BFR able to refly reliably.  Why not just land on a barge, refuel, and fly home?

Because it will only be economical if it flies a lot. And reduces time and expense of refurbishment. This is why the plan is to land back at the launch mount - They don't even want to spend time moving it between a landing area and its launch pad. So this is why it is RTLS only.

You can dream up other scenario for your "perfect launcher" all you want, but this is what SpaceX is doing.

[2552]

I wonder if a better way to go than downrange landing + refuel + relaunch is to add a pair of strakes like New Glenn has to the sides of the booster but still RTLS directly. The lifting reentry would eliminate the reentry burn and allow staging later for the same amount of boostback fuel, because the boostback burn wouldn't need to move the IIP all the way back to the launch site, since the lifting reentry would take care of the rest of the distance back.

This could possibly increase payload to 180 tons or a bit more. It would also avoid the need for a ship to land on, fuel tankers to ship relaunch fuel to it, nosecones that need to be robotically attached to the booster before launch, and a second launch and reentry. Also reduces engine starts for recovery to 2 vs the 3 of current SpaceX boostback, reentry and landing burns.

[livingjw]

The first problem with a fairing on the booster is that F9 stages before fairing sep, and BFR will stage even sooner. Atlas can get away with it because the booster is 10x as large as Centaur, but the BF booster is barely 2x the size of BFS and will stage low and slow enough that many payloads still need cover.

As you point out, it's possible to stage earlier or later.  The current F9 stages about 20 seconds before fairing separation.  It's possible to stage later.  Why would BFR stage sooner?

Ratio of delta-v available from each stage determines staging velocity, which with trajectory shaping (lofting) determines altitude. BFR will fly a lofted trajectory, but it will also stage early for RTLS. Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing. Higher staging velocity and distance makes RTLS exponentially more difficult.

We did a "RTLS" staging trade off years ago and found that for a high performance staged combustion HC rocket the optimum (minimum takeoff mass) staging velocity was around 6500 ft/s.

John

[IainMcClatchie]

I wonder if a better way to go than downrange landing + refuel + relaunch is to add a pair of strakes like New Glenn has to the sides of the booster but still RTLS directly. The lifting reentry would eliminate the reentry burn and allow staging later for the same amount of boostback fuel, because the boostback burn wouldn't need to move the IIP all the way back to the launch site, since the lifting reentry would take care of the rest of the distance back.

This could possibly increase payload to 180 tons or a bit more. It would also avoid the need for a ship to land on, fuel tankers to ship relaunch fuel to it, nosecones that need to be robotically attached to the booster before launch, and a second launch and reentry. Also reduces engine starts for recovery to 2 vs the 3 of current SpaceX boostback, reentry and landing burns.

Note that if the fairing is part of BFR, there is no need to mess with nosecones.

I think the reentry burn is to protect the bottom of the booster from the shockwave heat, and not so much to slow it down.  If you eliminate the retroburn you need to figure out how to survive the heat, and in particular how the engines are going to survive the heat.

[envy887]

I wonder if a better way to go than downrange landing + refuel + relaunch is to add a pair of strakes like New Glenn has to the sides of the booster but still RTLS directly. The lifting reentry would eliminate the reentry burn and allow staging later for the same amount of boostback fuel, because the boostback burn wouldn't need to move the IIP all the way back to the launch site, since the lifting reentry would take care of the rest of the distance back.

This could possibly increase payload to 180 tons or a bit more. It would also avoid the need for a ship to land on, fuel tankers to ship relaunch fuel to it, nosecones that need to be robotically attached to the booster before launch, and a second launch and reentry. Also reduces engine starts for recovery to 2 vs the 3 of current SpaceX boostback, reentry and landing burns.

Note that if the fairing is part of BFR, there is no need to mess with nosecones.

I think the reentry burn is to protect the bottom of the booster from the shockwave heat, and not so much to slow it down.  If you eliminate the retroburn you need to figure out how to survive the heat, and in particular how the engines are going to survive the heat.

The entry burn is both to slow the booster and push the shockwave away.

New Glenn is planned to forgo the entry burn and reduce heating by using lift to get more deceleration in the upper atmosphere. This is fine for downrange landings where the entry angle is low and the vehicle spends a lot of time in the upper atmosphere, but does not work for RTLS where the vehicle is plunging almost directly down, passing through the thin upper atmosphere very quickly.

[envy887]

Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing.

Why would that be?  SpaceX is committed to making BFR able to refly reliably.  Why not just land on a barge, refuel, and fly home?

The infrastructure for sea launch seems daunting, but note that it's just the infrastructure for launch, and not the infrastructure for integrating the payload.  They are already talking about it with the P2P trips.

Moving the fairing from the second to the first stage cuts nearly in half the amount of mass that must be landed from orbit.  That is a very significant benefit.  The cost of staging 20 seconds later seems small in comparison.  However, I have not done the simulations yet to show this.  I do have a simulator, but it's 2D and not at all as good as the other simulators here.

Landing from orbit allows 99% of the downrange energy to be dissipated by the heatshield, while for RTLS it has to be entirely propulsively dissipated, plus return energy added. At some point, it's more payload efficient to carry more mass to orbit than to carry your booster further downrange, and I'm sure SpaceX is evaluating this tradeoff.

One thing you're missing is that Elon wants a Mars lander, and he's going to make that Mars lander be a vehicle that can be used for everything else (sat launch, Moon support, Earth returns) because that's the only way to pay for it. A Mars lander means lots of downmass through atmospheric entry (and upmass atmospheric launch, because the same vehicle has to be used for Earth return because $$$). Any design that does not get significant downmass to Mars and Earth is right out for SpaceX.

SpaceX has little use for a vehicle that's mostly reusable (potentially fully) but doesn't get significant downmass. They have Falcon 9 already, and it does the same thing.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

The first problem with a fairing on the booster is that F9 stages before fairing sep, and BFR will stage even sooner. Atlas can get away with it because the booster is 10x as large as Centaur, but the BF booster is barely 2x the size of BFS and will stage low and slow enough that many payloads still need cover.

As you point out, it's possible to stage earlier or later.  The current F9 stages about 20 seconds before fairing separation.  It's possible to stage later.  Why would BFR stage sooner?

Ratio of delta-v available from each stage determines staging velocity, which with trajectory shaping (lofting) determines altitude. BFR will fly a lofted trajectory, but it will also stage early for RTLS. Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing. Higher staging velocity and distance makes RTLS exponentially more difficult.

We did a "RTLS" staging trade off years ago and found that for a high performance staged combustion HC rocket the optimum (minimum takeoff mass) staging velocity was around 6500 ft/s.

John

1.981 km/s

[ZachF]

Remember that BFR only does RTLS as far as we know, not downrange landing.

Why would that be?  SpaceX is committed to making BFR able to refly reliably.  Why not just land on a barge, refuel, and fly home?

The infrastructure for sea launch seems daunting, but note that it's just the infrastructure for launch, and not the infrastructure for integrating the payload.  They are already talking about it with the P2P trips.

Moving the fairing from the second to the first stage cuts nearly in half the amount of mass that must be landed from orbit.  That is a very significant benefit.  The cost of staging 20 seconds later seems small in comparison.  However, I have not done the simulations yet to show this.  I do have a simulator, but it's 2D and not at all as good as the other simulators here.

Landing from orbit allows 99% of the downrange energy to be dissipated by the heatshield, while for RTLS it has to be entirely propulsively dissipated, plus return energy added. At some point, it's more payload efficient to carry more mass to orbit than to carry your booster further downrange, and I'm sure SpaceX is evaluating this tradeoff.

One thing you're missing is that Elon wants a Mars lander, and he's going to make that Mars lander be a vehicle that can be used for everything else (sat launch, Moon support, Earth returns) because that's the only way to pay for it. A Mars lander means lots of downmass through atmospheric entry (and upmass atmospheric launch, because the same vehicle has to be used for Earth return because $$$). Any design that does not get significant downmass to Mars and Earth is right out for SpaceX.

SpaceX has little use for a vehicle that's mostly reusable (potentially fully) but doesn't get significant downmass. They have Falcon 9 already, and it does the same thing.

They have transferred more impulse on to the second stage in the new iteration versus the old one.

ITS 2016 had a 6,975 tonne first stage and a 2,100 tonne second stage (sans payload); 3.32:1
BFR 2017 has a ~3,065 tonne first stage and a 1,185 tonnes second stage (again w/o payload); 2.59:1

[IainMcClatchie]

Landing from orbit allows 99% of the downrange energy to be dissipated by the heatshield, while for RTLS it has to be entirely propulsively dissipated, plus return energy added.

This statement is misleading.  In particular, landing from orbit must take at least as much fuel as landing downrange.  The heatshield (and mostly the atmosphere) can dissipate much of the excess energy.

If SpaceX is forgoing downrange landings for BFR (and I doubt they are certain of that yet), then they must think those downrange ops cost more than the lost payload of BFS vs something closer to a traditional second stage (I'm calling that BF2 here).  Maybe they are thinking that (a) satellite payloads won't scale up to what BF2 could deliver, and BFS is good enough, and (b) nobody else is going to compete with BFS, in particular, ULA and BO will both fail to field a big rocket, in an environment where the Air Force is willing to spend more than SpaceX has so far to ensure two competitors are flying their payloads.  That could happen, as Air Force payloads are small compared to BFS scale payloads.  I wouldn't bet on it.

One thing you're missing is that Elon wants a Mars lander, and he's going to make that Mars lander be a vehicle that can be used for everything else (sat launch, Moon support, Earth returns) because that's the only way to pay for it. A Mars lander means lots of downmass through atmospheric entry (and upmass atmospheric launch, because the same vehicle has to be used for Earth return because $$$). Any design that does not get significant downmass to Mars and Earth is right out for SpaceX.

Agreed.  If they stick to this idea they'll have a system which is inefficient for the majority of launches, and they'll get their asses handed to them by Blue Origin and fail to make enough profit to get to Mars.

[cppetrie]

Landing from orbit allows 99% of the downrange energy to be dissipated by the heatshield, while for RTLS it has to be entirely propulsively dissipated, plus return energy added.

This statement is misleading.  In particular, landing from orbit must take at least as much fuel as landing downrange.  The heatshield (and mostly the atmosphere) can dissipate much of the excess energy.

If SpaceX is forgoing downrange landings for BFR (and I doubt they are certain of that yet), then they must think those downrange ops cost more than the lost payload of BFS vs something closer to a traditional second stage (I'm calling that BF2 here).  Maybe they are thinking that (a) satellite payloads won't scale up to what BF2 could deliver, and BFS is good enough, and (b) nobody else is going to compete with BFS, in particular, ULA and BO will both fail to field a big rocket, in an environment where the Air Force is willing to spend more than SpaceX has so far to ensure two competitors are flying their payloads.  That could happen, as Air Force payloads are small compared to BFS scale payloads.  I wouldn't bet on it.

One thing you're missing is that Elon wants a Mars lander, and he's going to make that Mars lander be a vehicle that can be used for everything else (sat launch, Moon support, Earth returns) because that's the only way to pay for it. A Mars lander means lots of downmass through atmospheric entry (and upmass atmospheric launch, because the same vehicle has to be used for Earth return because $$$). Any design that does not get significant downmass to Mars and Earth is right out for SpaceX.

Agreed.  If they stick to this idea they'll have a system which is inefficient for the majority of launches, and they'll get their asses handed to them by Blue Origin and fail to make enough profit to get to Mars.

Inefficient how? In fuel? Who cares; fuel is cheap. Based on the architecture they’ve described, the capital cost of the machine is high but is fully reused 100s of times meaning the portion of machine cost per launch is small. The cost of launch is driven by fuel and ops, which are being designed to be cheap. Spend more on machine to reduce cost of operations. The economics of this model are well-proven in other industries such as air travel as is cited regularly. Now, whether this architecture is achievable is another question altogether, but I don’t think you can argue with the economics of what is described. The same basic plane designs are configured in numerous ways to accomplish many operational missions (passenger, cargo, etc.). The unique purpose-built plane that is designed for one specific use case (e.g. the guppy) is the rarity. If SpaceX is able to realize the architecture they have proposed, they will be just fine.

My 2 cents, anyway.

[envy887]

Landing from orbit allows 99% of the downrange energy to be dissipated by the heatshield, while for RTLS it has to be entirely propulsively dissipated, plus return energy added.

This statement is misleading.  In particular, landing from orbit must take at least as much fuel as landing downrange.  The heatshield (and mostly the atmosphere) can dissipate much of the excess energy.

If SpaceX is forgoing downrange landings for BFR (and I doubt they are certain of that yet), then they must think those downrange ops cost more than the lost payload of BFS vs something closer to a traditional second stage (I'm calling that BF2 here).  Maybe they are thinking that (a) satellite payloads won't scale up to what BF2 could deliver, and BFS is good enough, and (b) nobody else is going to compete with BFS, in particular, ULA and BO will both fail to field a big rocket, in an environment where the Air Force is willing to spend more than SpaceX has so far to ensure two competitors are flying their payloads.  That could happen, as Air Force payloads are small compared to BFS scale payloads.  I wouldn't bet on it.

One thing you're missing is that Elon wants a Mars lander, and he's going to make that Mars lander be a vehicle that can be used for everything else (sat launch, Moon support, Earth returns) because that's the only way to pay for it. A Mars lander means lots of downmass through atmospheric entry (and upmass atmospheric launch, because the same vehicle has to be used for Earth return because $$$). Any design that does not get significant downmass to Mars and Earth is right out for SpaceX.

Agreed.  If they stick to this idea they'll have a system which is inefficient for the majority of launches, and they'll get their asses handed to them by Blue Origin and fail to make enough profit to get to Mars.

Blue has to launch at all, and then launch cheaper. SpaceX does not optimize for per-launch efficiency, they optimize for cost. Sending a spaceship that is twice as big as it needs to be to LEO? No problem, as long as its the cheapest because it's the same ship they use for everything else.

And you are assuming that SpaceX cannot profit sufficiently from downmass. If someone finds something that's profitable to bring to space and back (like people) or manufacture in space and return to Earth (ZBLAN fiber, perhaps) than that downmass is worth a lot of money.

[Robotbeat]

It's not just down range recover ops cost, it's a completely different approach. To do down range landing and shipping back takes a long time and then needs an enormous crane to move the booster back to the launch pad. To do down range landing and then flyback means you essentially need TWO launch sites (and then do you put something on top of the booster to cover that hole/interstage?) and means the booster has to go through two mission cycles. That takes longer.

For RTLS, you can do more orbital launches in a day than either of those approaches.

[Athrithalix]

If P2P transport is planned to be a thing, there should be plenty of launch/landing pads dotted around, could it be possible to launch from one, have the booster land at the next one round, and cycle across them?

Would the spacing of launch/landing pads prohibit this, or would it result in some sites having more boosters landing than they can handle, or is there some other obvious problem I've not spotted?

[jded]

If P2P transport is planned to be a thing, there should be plenty of launch/landing pads dotted around, could it be possible to launch from one, have the booster land at the next one round, and cycle across them?

Would the spacing of launch/landing pads prohibit this, or would it result in some sites having more boosters landing than they can handle, or is there some other obvious problem I've not spotted?

P2P starts making sense >~5000 km distance, and the downrange landing point would be much closer.

[IainMcClatchie]

It's not just down range recover ops cost, it's a completely different approach. To do down range landing and shipping back takes a long time and then needs an enormous crane to move the booster back to the launch pad. To do down range landing and then flyback means you essentially need TWO launch sites (and then do you put something on top of the booster to cover that hole/interstage?) and means the booster has to go through two mission cycles. That takes longer.

I'm suggesting the fairing is part of BFR, not BFS.  It lands on the launch cradle -- there is no crane.  You are right that down range recovery and flyback requires twice as many cycles.  If the BFR requires maintenance between every recovery and relaunch, that's a problem.  But BFR is operating in a well-proved part of the flight envelope and requires nothing expendable, unlike BFS or even BF2.  My sense is that the launch back can literally be gas-n-go, and maintenance happens before you restack it with BF2.

And you are assuming that SpaceX cannot profit sufficiently from downmass.

Yup.  I've seen nothing even close to a business case.  Anything involving people or even tonne-quantity downmass can use a Dragon (whatever rev is current at that time).

I'll suggest something further.  They should build their launch/recovery systems on semisubmersibles (not quite the barge shown in their video), and forgo launching from land altogether.  Just standardize on one launch system, and build them in one drydock, and tow them into position.  This is going to simplify GSE engineering because there are not multiple site specific versions, and there is no real estate commitment problem.  (What happens when SPI says they want only 20 launches next year?)

[guckyfan]

And you are assuming that SpaceX cannot profit sufficiently from downmass.

Yup.  I've seen nothing even close to a business case.  Anything involving people or even tonne-quantity downmass can use a Dragon (whatever rev is current at that time).

Elon said more downmass will be useful for point to point on earth. Makes a lot of sense to me.

[envy887]

And you are assuming that SpaceX cannot profit sufficiently from downmass.

Yup.  I've seen nothing even close to a business case.  Anything involving people or even tonne-quantity downmass can use a Dragon (whatever rev is current at that time).

I'll suggest something further.  They should build their launch/recovery systems on semisubmersibles (not quite the barge shown in their video), and forgo launching from land altogether.  Just standardize on one launch system, and build them in one drydock, and tow them into position.  This is going to simplify GSE engineering because there are not multiple site specific versions, and there is no real estate commitment problem.  (What happens when SPI says they want only 20 launches next year?)

Dragon isn't really designed for rapid reuse, especially with hypergol RCS, parachutes, and water landing. I doubt SpaceX will want to put major dev efforts into a legacy system when BFS offers more capability and simpler operations.

I think simply retrieving the payload dispenser for constellation sats is enough of a business case to justify adding the downmass capability. Plus there is potential for orbital tourism, P2P, and orbital manufacturing to close, even 10+ years from now when BFR/BFS is highly proven.

I agree that a semi-submersible platform would be pretty ideal in the near future, even if it only goes from the port of Brownsville or Port Canaveral to about 20 miles out for launch, and returns to get a new upper stage stacked.

[kaiser]

And you are assuming that SpaceX cannot profit sufficiently from downmass.

Yup.  I've seen nothing even close to a business case.  Anything involving people or even tonne-quantity downmass can use a Dragon (whatever rev is current at that time).

I'll suggest something further.  They should build their launch/recovery systems on semisubmersibles (not quite the barge shown in their video), and forgo launching from land altogether.  Just standardize on one launch system, and build them in one drydock, and tow them into position.  This is going to simplify GSE engineering because there are not multiple site specific versions, and there is no real estate commitment problem.  (What happens when SPI says they want only 20 launches next year?)

Dragon isn't really designed for rapid reuse, especially with hypergol RCS, parachutes, and water landing. I doubt SpaceX will want to put major dev efforts into a legacy system when BFS offers more capability and simpler operations.

I think simply retrieving the payload dispenser for constellation sats is enough of a business case to justify adding the downmass capability. Plus there is potential for orbital tourism, P2P, and orbital manufacturing to close, even 10+ years from now when BFR/BFS is highly proven.

I agree that a semi-submersible platform would be pretty ideal in the near future, even if it only goes from the port of Brownsville or Port Canaveral to about 20 miles out for launch, and returns to get a new upper stage stacked.

This makes a good point -- downmass business case may also be partially fueled by insurance costs.

If a fairing fails to open, or a sat dispenser jams, a stage underperforms, or, or ,or....you may be able to bring the payload back down and try again.  That would eventually have to have an effect on insurance rates I would imagine, particularly in the beginning on an unproven system -- the fact that a mulligan is at least a possibility reduces risk.

[speedevil]

This makes a good point -- downmass business case may also be partially fueled by insurance costs.

If a fairing fails to open, or a sat dispenser jams, a stage underperforms, or, or ,or....you may be able to bring the payload back down and try again.  That would eventually have to have an effect on insurance rates I would imagine, particularly in the beginning on an unproven system -- the fact that a mulligan is at least a possibility reduces risk.

Or you could even have checkout in orbit, by your own engineers before throwing it out the airlock.

(This does limit to a 3.6*3.6*8m or so single payload size)

[guckyfan]

Downmass capability was already given at 50t, which is plenty except for point to point.

[gosnold]

Big news in satellite communications today: SES (one of the biggest GEO satellite operators, and owner of the O3b MEO constellation too), has announced the design or its future GEO sats:
- fully digital, for completely flexible spectrum/footprint allocation
- use of less expensive commercial components
- low mass, at 2000kg
- low volume, to launch up to 4 at a time (stacked)
- short lifetime, less than 7 years
- cheap, at less than 50M$ to build
- 18 month from contract to GEO slot (vs more than 30 currently)

That's the same philosophy as for the next-gen O3b constellation built by Boeing: fully digital with a phased-array antenna for maximum flexibility

The source is Peter B. de Selding:
https://www.spaceintelreport.com/ses-tells-satellite-builders-prepare-total-rethink-business/

Quick and cheap launch are essential for those satellites, so BFR should fare well if this is the new market. If BFR does injection into GEO and consequently saves 4 months of electric orbit raising + the cost of high-power electric thrusters, it could become especially interesting.

[envy887]

Big news in satellite communications today: SES (one of the biggest GEO satellite operators, and owner of the O3b MEO constellation too), has announced the design or its future GEO sats:
- fully digital, for completely flexible spectrum/footprint allocation
- use of less expensive commercial components
- low mass, at 2000kg
- low volume, to launch up to 4 at a time (stacked)
- short lifetime, less than 7 years
- cheap, at less than 50M$ to build
- 18 month from contract to GEO slot (vs more than 30 currently)

That's the same philosophy as for the next-gen O3b constellation built by Boeing: fully digital with a phased-array antenna for maximum flexibility

The source is Peter B. de Selding:
https://www.spaceintelreport.com/ses-tells-satellite-builders-prepare-total-rethink-business/

Quick and cheap launch are essential for those satellites, so BFR should fare well if this is the new market. If BFR does injection into GEO and consequently saves 4 months of electric orbit raising + the cost of high-power electric thrusters, it could become especially interesting.

I wonder if they could fit 3 stacks of 4 into cargo BFS. 12 birds, 24 tonnes straight to GTO in a single launch with full reuse.