Cost of F9/FH stage 2?

[speedevil]

Early on, the comment was made (paraphrasing) that stage one was 60% of the rocket cost.
So, some $20M or so for stage 2, maybe a little less with the fairing recovered.

Have there been further comments on this?
It seems at least plausible that costs to produce stage 2 have come down some.

With obvious implications on the urgency of BFR, as well as its funding.
I don't recall anything else being said about S2, or Mvac costs.

[RedLineTrain]

Rather, I think they have said that S1 is 70-75% of the launch costs.

[Elmar Moelzer]

With S2 reuse being cancelled, I have been wondering whether they have implemented some cost saving measures into S2. IMHO it would make sense to make it cheaper now that reuse is not a consideration anymore. But then, it may not be worth the effort with BFS being relatively close.

[guckyfan]

60% for the first stage sound about right. Besides the second stage there is the fairing that is almost as expensive as the second stage. Surprising to me but it looks that way. Then the pad cost, pad handling cost, handling cost and external like the range.

[Hotblack Desiato]

Well, I guess, you have to differenciate betweel rocket cost and launch cost.

What I have heard so far, the F9-S1 is at about 18 million US$. That's for the 750k$ per engine and the rest of the structure (tank, octaweb, whatever you need to get a full S1).

Obviously, S2 has just 1 engine, not 9. and besides from the bell-size, they are fairly similar. So set a merlin 1D vac at 1,5 million US$ and you should be quite good. Then you get the tank, which is just a shorter version of the S1-tank, and obviously no octaweb-structure.

So set the price of S2 at 4-5 million US$.

The fairing at another 6 million, and that leaves you with the price of the stack at close to 30 million (hardware + production labour cost)... the rocket cost.

They want to earn money, they need the whole processing on the pad, payload integration, they need to transport everything from coast to coast... and you come to 60-80 million US$.

And that shows the massive advantage of FH, they can squeeze 3x the payload out of a single S2.

[vaporcobra]

With S2 reuse being cancelled

Not necessarily cancelled as of a Shotwell comment at an MIT talk in Oct 2017

The second stage is not designed for reuse on the Falcon 9 or the Falcon Heavy. However, we do want to bring it back slowly. Currently, it reenters but too hot. On missions with extra propellant, we want to bring it back to see how it behaves, not to recover or reuse. This data will be very valuable.

In June 2017, she said something pretty similar, stating that "it's hard, really hard, [but we're going to try to recovery the second stage eventually]."

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

[speedevil]

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

The subsequent quotes around 'we could stretch S2 and put on bigger fairings and would if BFR is delayed' - at I think post launch FH press conference from Elon also go to this.
BFR is very much the way they're going.

Might damn near anything else happen if that goes badly wrong, or a customer asks, certainly.
May they be planning on some changes for Starlink deployment - again - quite possible.
Might they already have done work on shaving costs - again, likely.

[vaporcobra]

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

The subsequent quotes around 'we could stretch S2 and put on bigger fairings and would if BFR is delayed' - at I think post launch FH press conference from Elon also go to this.
BFR is very much the way they're going.

Might damn near anything else happen if that goes badly wrong, or a customer asks, certainly.
May they be planning on some changes for Starlink deployment - again - quite possible.
Might they already have done work on shaving costs - again, likely.

Yep, agreed. Both Shotwell and Musk are extremely bullish on BFR/BFS at the moment, but I suspect they will still pursue a program of S2 reentry/recovery, if only leading to data-gathering or soft-landing in the ocean. Unless the first BFS test article really does come together and begin hops/suborbital testing in late 2018/early 2019. If that does happen, S2 recovery testing would be a bad expenditure of time.

[john smith 19]

Well, I guess, you have to differenciate betweel rocket cost and launch cost.

No. You have to differentiate between rocket cost and launch price.
It's like confusing stress and strain. Engineers don't do it. 

Obviously, S2 has just 1 engine, not 9. and besides from the bell-size, they are fairly similar. So set a merlin 1D vac at 1,5 million US$ and you should be quite good. Then you get the tank, which is just a shorter version of the S1-tank, and obviously no octaweb-structure.

Apparently not. There is a comment somewhere that in fact a Merlin(vac) is 90% different to a Merlin(SL).

I don't know why, but that's what either Musk or Shotwell have said.
So set the price of S2 at 4-5 million US$.

Not necessarily cancelled as of a Shotwell comment at an MIT talk in Oct 2017

The second stage is not designed for reuse on the Falcon 9 or the Falcon Heavy. However, we do want to bring it back slowly. Currently, it reenters but too hot. On missions with extra propellant, we want to bring it back to see how it behaves, not to recover or reuse. This data will be very valuable.

"Not to recover or reuse."
So how do you study something you don't recover?
Sounds like telemetry and picking up the wreckage after it hits the water (or the ASDS)

"not designed for reuse" suggests S2 reuse on F9 or FH is basically dead.

[Oersted]

SpaceX are going all-in on BFS/BFR. They won't be investing in Falcon S2 reuse. 

[niwax]

"Not to recover or reuse."
So how do you study something you don't recover?
Sounds like telemetry and picking up the wreckage after it hits the water (or the ASDS)

Apply BFS reentry heating simulation to S2, measure S2 temps, see if it lines up. If it doesn't, rethink BFS reentry.

[cppetrie]

I could see them placing some TPS experiments on S2 with embedded sensors for data collection. Test performance during normal deorbit. But beyond that, S2 recovery doesn’t seem applicable to BFS since the OMLs are nothing alike.

[MikeAtkinson]

Well, I guess, you have to differenciate betweel rocket cost and launch cost.

No. You have to differentiate between rocket cost and launch price.
It's like confusing stress and strain. Engineers don't do it. 

Launch cost = rocket cost + range cost + payload integration + launch campaign + insurance + propellant cost + a few other things.

Depending on accounting, you might want to include corporate overhead, asset depreciation, selling cost and even R&D.

[philw1776]

With S2 reuse being cancelled

Not necessarily cancelled as of a Shotwell comment at an MIT talk in Oct 2017

The second stage is not designed for reuse on the Falcon 9 or the Falcon Heavy. However, we do want to bring it back slowly. Currently, it reenters but too hot. On missions with extra propellant, we want to bring it back to see how it behaves, not to recover or reuse. This data will be very valuable.

In June 2017, she said something pretty similar, stating that "it's hard, really hard, [but we're going to try to recovery the second stage eventually]."

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

Two points.  I read somewhere here that re-entry design engineers have commented that all re-entry shielding is over designed and that nobody has instrumented systems to provide detailed real world data to optimize (minimize) said designs.  That may be some of the valuable data Gwynne alludes to.

Secondly, a pet technology  of mine is Magneto Plasma Aerocapture

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Kirtley_2012_PhI_PlasmaAerocapture.pdf

where a low power intensive magnetic field interacts with re-entry plasma early on to brake a vehicle.  NASA is interested in such aerobraking technology for orbiter missions to Uranus & Neptune.  If SpaceX was able to use this to shave off even a couple Km/sec of entry velocity, the heat would decrease as the cube and enable longer service life for TPS thereby decreasing operational costs.

[vaporcobra]

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

The subsequent quotes around 'we could stretch S2 and put on bigger fairings and would if BFR is delayed' - at I think post launch FH press conference from Elon also go to this.
BFR is very much the way they're going.

Might damn near anything else happen if that goes badly wrong, or a customer asks, certainly.
May they be planning on some changes for Starlink deployment - again - quite possible.
Might they already have done work on shaving costs - again, likely.

Yep, agreed. Both Shotwell and Musk are extremely bullish on BFR/BFS at the moment, but I suspect they will still pursue a program of S2 reentry/recovery, if only leading to data-gathering or soft-landing in the ocean. Unless the first BFS test article really does come together and begin hops/suborbital testing in late 2018/early 2019. If that does happen, S2 recovery testing would be a bad expenditure of time.

Well, I certainly wasn't wrong!

[DigitalMan]

...
...
Well, I certainly wasn't wrong!

Indeed.  I think this is going to be something to behold.

[niwax]

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

The subsequent quotes around 'we could stretch S2 and put on bigger fairings and would if BFR is delayed' - at I think post launch FH press conference from Elon also go to this.
BFR is very much the way they're going.

Might damn near anything else happen if that goes badly wrong, or a customer asks, certainly.
May they be planning on some changes for Starlink deployment - again - quite possible.
Might they already have done work on shaving costs - again, likely.

Yep, agreed. Both Shotwell and Musk are extremely bullish on BFR/BFS at the moment, but I suspect they will still pursue a program of S2 reentry/recovery, if only leading to data-gathering or soft-landing in the ocean. Unless the first BFS test article really does come together and begin hops/suborbital testing in late 2018/early 2019. If that does happen, S2 recovery testing would be a bad expenditure of time.

Well, I certainly wasn't wrong!

Context:
@elonmusk
SpaceX will try to bring rocket upper stage back from orbital velocity using a giant party balloon

[LastStarFighter]

That certainly doesn't mean that SpaceX is actually going to design a TPS system or a landing method to get them back intact, but I'm sure they would like to do so, if only to inform BFS development.

The subsequent quotes around 'we could stretch S2 and put on bigger fairings and would if BFR is delayed' - at I think post launch FH press conference from Elon also go to this.
BFR is very much the way they're going.

Might damn near anything else happen if that goes badly wrong, or a customer asks, certainly.
May they be planning on some changes for Starlink deployment - again - quite possible.
Might they already have done work on shaving costs - again, likely.

Yep, agreed. Both Shotwell and Musk are extremely bullish on BFR/BFS at the moment, but I suspect they will still pursue a program of S2 reentry/recovery, if only leading to data-gathering or soft-landing in the ocean. Unless the first BFS test article really does come together and begin hops/suborbital testing in late 2018/early 2019. If that does happen, S2 recovery testing would be a bad expenditure of time.

Well, I certainly wasn't wrong!

Context:
@elonmusk
SpaceX will try to bring rocket upper stage back from orbital velocity using a giant party balloon

I’m assuming it will be very similar to the European/Russian IRDT missions in the early 2000’s. It’ll be exciting seeing this technology finally used (or something else if SpaceX has a new method in mind!)

[Ludus]

...and land on a bouncy house

[Ludus]

As long as they’re putting second stages into orbit all the time, might as well play around with reentry and recovery. They often have excess capacity. They’re having good results with farings.

[Ludus]

...and some more detail

[Klebiano]

...and some more detail

Seems like they already have a pretty good estimate of where the stage will fall, probably very little control is needed and the size of the landing area is easy to cross with Mr. Steven 2.0.

[john smith 19]

Launch cost = rocket cost + range cost + payload integration + launch campaign + insurance + propellant cost + a few other things.

Depending on accounting, you might want to include corporate overhead, asset depreciation, selling cost and even R&D.

Depends. Can you directly charge some (or all) of those costs to a specific launch?
However, as a customer I don't care about any of that.

It's the launch price that matters to me. Lowering launch costs is irrelevant to me.
They are internal to SX.
The only thing they affect is SX's profit margin, which (as a commercial customer) is also irrelevant to me, as long as it's high enough that they stay in business long enough to launch my payload.

WRT to the thread title let's see. Base price is about $63m. Assuming 20% gross profit margin that's $52.5m for all direct costs. It's been said S1 is about 70% of that so the rest is $15.75m. However Musk has said the fairing is about $6m. In hindsight it's obvious if you wanted low hanging fruit the fairing is the next easiest candidate to go for. So depending on where you assign launch costs a returned US could save up to $9.75m, which is profit to SX.

If refurb cost $1.75m and only got you a 2nd flight and you did this from the first F9 launch that's an extra  $8m every 2 flights, or about $216m to date.

[Bananas_on_Mars]

With obvious implications on the urgency of BFR, as well as its funding.
I don't recall anything else being said about S2, or Mvac costs.

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

[john smith 19]

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

which means either
a) That extra big nozzle extension is very expensive in materials and labor.
b) There's a shed load more difference between a Merlin Vac and a regular 1D.

[Rabidpanda]

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

which means either
a) That extra big nozzle extension is very expensive in materials and labor.
b) There's a shed load more difference between a Merlin Vac and a regular 1D.

Or just that the MVac is different enough to require a lot of its own tooling and assembly line and therefore doesn't benefit from the 9x economies of scale of the regular 1D.

[Bananas_on_Mars]

When doing a search where those numbers come from, i stumbled across a post of a former SpaceXer who used to assemble Mvac engines. He said there's about 90 percent difference in parts. M1Ds are assembled in an assembly line, while MVac engines are assembled by small dedicated teams (island assembly?). There's also a lot more documentation, additional checks etc.

Falcon 9 has engine-out capability on the first stage, but only one engine on the second stage!

[niwax]

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

which means either
a) That extra big nozzle extension is very expensive in materials and labor.
b) There's a shed load more difference between a Merlin Vac and a regular 1D.

Or just that the MVac is different enough to require a lot of its own tooling and assembly line and therefore doesn't benefit from the 9x economies of scale of the regular 1D.

That would mean interesting knock-on effects from S1 reuse with increased S2 production if they can reduce upper stage cost by another million just by making more.

[john smith 19]

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

which means either
a) That extra big nozzle extension is very expensive in materials and labor.
b) There's a shed load more difference between a Merlin Vac and a regular 1D.

Or just that the MVac is different enough to require a lot of its own tooling and assembly line and therefore doesn't benefit from the 9x economies of scale of the regular 1D.

That would mean interesting knock-on effects from S1 reuse with increased S2 production if they can reduce upper stage cost by another million just by making more.

OTOH US reuse would actually raise costs as they would not have the practice of building even this number of Merlin Vacs.

[Robotbeat]

I remember having read something about 800-900 k$ per Merlin M1D and 2.4 Mio $ for a Merlin MVac, but i can't definitely say where i saw those numbers. But my gut feeling says they shouldn't be off by a lot.

which means either
a) That extra big nozzle extension is very expensive in materials and labor.
b) There's a shed load more difference between a Merlin Vac and a regular 1D.

Or just that the MVac is different enough to require a lot of its own tooling and assembly line and therefore doesn't benefit from the 9x economies of scale of the regular 1D.

That would mean interesting knock-on effects from S1 reuse with increased S2 production if they can reduce upper stage cost by another million just by making more.

OTOH US reuse would actually raise costs as they would not have the practice of building even this number of Merlin Vacs.

i think you’re perhaps right that keeping Merlin Vac production open while doing reuse could make them even more expensive, but that’s only if they aren’t launching many Falcons. If they just stock pile a bunch, shut down production, and stretch out the supply using reuse, then it makes sense.

[Bananas_on_Mars]

Reuse of the upper stage will not work for all trajectories (for Falcon 9). The use case would be LEO deployment with a lot of spare capacity. How many missions of that kind do they have once all iridium satellites are launched?

There's not a lot of economies of scale for between 20 and say 50 Mvac engines per year. For economies of scale to have a serious impact, it's orders of magnitude, not doubling or tripling your production.

SpaceX has said in several occasions that reuse allows them to have more launch capacity with only a small rise in investions (without r&d efforts of course) and workforce. So those (possible) efforts for upper stage reuse point more into the direction "we want to launch a lot more" than simply "we want to save money".

[rst]

Reuse of the upper stage will not work for all trajectories (for Falcon 9). The use case would be LEO deployment with a lot of spare capacity. How many missions of that kind do they have once all iridium satellites are launched?

We're drifting here -- but the range of trajectories for which it works will depend on the mass of the ballute (or whatever it is), and associated support hardware. (And also payload mass, which trades off against recovery hardware one to one.) And one advantage of the ballute-guided-onto-bouncy-house recovery scheme over a hard heat shield plus landing thrusters (as in ye olde concepte videoe) is significantly lower mass. A bit more, including possibly relevant citations, over on the S2 recovery thread, here:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42637.660

[Bananas_on_Mars]

Reuse of the upper stage will not work for all trajectories (for Falcon 9). The use case would be LEO deployment with a lot of spare capacity. How many missions of that kind do they have once all iridium satellites are launched?

We're drifting here -- but the range of trajectories for which it works will depend on the mass of the ballute (or whatever it is), and associated support hardware. (And also payload mass, which trades off against recovery hardware one to one.) And one advantage of the ballute-guided-onto-bouncy-house recovery scheme over a hard heat shield plus landing thrusters (as in ye olde concepte videoe) is significantly lower mass. A bit more, including possibly relevant citations, over on the S2 recovery thread, here:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42637.660

Recovery of an upper stage from a GTO orbit will need quite some longevity (onboard power) from the stage.

With chemical GSO insertion on the satellite, i think they time the GTO insertion so that the drift time to the GSO slot of the satellite is reduced, which can put your perigee on about any longitude.

They are currently not doing a deorbit burn at apogee because of lack of longevity and to not endanger the satellite.

What's missing is that, for a successful recovery, you do not only need to bring the stage through the athmosphere unharmed and land it some way, you also need to have control over time and place of the deorbit (unless you go the way where you attach a card to your giant party balloon and ask the finder to notify you where it came down).

[rst]

Recovery of an upper stage from a GTO orbit will need quite some longevity (onboard power) from the stage.

With chemical GSO insertion on the satellite, i think they time the GTO insertion so that the drift time to the GSO slot of the satellite is reduced, which can put your perigee on about any longitude.

They are currently not doing a deorbit burn at apogee because of lack of longevity and to not endanger the satellite.

That certainly is a constraint. FWIW, they have demonstrated 6 hours longevity on the Falcon Heavy demo launch, which I think gets you to apogee on a typical GTO, but puts severe constraints on where you wind up. (And extra propellant could relax those constraints, but at an obvious cost to the payload.) But LEO is certainly easier.

[john smith 19]

Recovery of an upper stage from a GTO orbit will need quite some longevity (onboard power) from the stage.

With chemical GSO insertion on the satellite, i think they time the GTO insertion so that the drift time to the GSO slot of the satellite is reduced, which can put your perigee on about any longitude.

They are currently not doing a deorbit burn at apogee because of lack of longevity and to not endanger the satellite.

I wonder how many people have remembered for US that's 1: trade stage for payload mass? The other factor that makes US reuse hard.

[TrueBlueWitt]

Reuse of the upper stage will not work for all trajectories (for Falcon 9). The use case would be LEO deployment with a lot of spare capacity. How many missions of that kind do they have once all iridium satellites are launched?

What about that huge LEO internet constellation? 
Could save a lot of money, and increase flight rate, if you're trying to launch before BFR is available.

[Bananas_on_Mars]

Reuse of the upper stage will not work for all trajectories (for Falcon 9). The use case would be LEO deployment with a lot of spare capacity. How many missions of that kind do they have once all iridium satellites are launched?

What about that huge LEO internet constellation? 
Could save a lot of money, and increase flight rate, if you're trying to launch before BFR is available.

Seems that thread here made a gravity turn and is now running in parallel to this thread.

But yes, i think them looking into F9 S2 recovery is related to Starlink or simply because they can in my opinion.

[guckyfan]

But yes, i think them looking into F9 S2 recovery is related to Starlink or simply because they can in my opinion.

A combination of the two, I think.

They have learned a lot from their fairing recovery efforts which makes an attempt of doing the second stage this way promising. Remember Elon making a statement that this could work for second stages which was pretty much dismissed back then.

Plus the large number of LEO launches for Starlink that makes it economically promising. Given their present launch manifest going for only LEO recovery it is not worth it probably.