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#180
by
TrevorMonty
on 22 Aug, 2023 02:45
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
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#181
by
DanClemmensen
on 22 Aug, 2023 02:55
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
I don't think Firefly and/or Antares is in this business, but if SpaceX is launching Starship at a high cadence, it's incremental cost per launch is likely to be low, and that is what the rest of the pack will be competing against. If you want an immediate launch or an exclusive launch, you must buy the whole thing, but the cost of the whole thing is not very high. (This assumes that SpaceX can actually achieve its Starship goals, of course.)
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#182
by
Asteroza
on 22 Aug, 2023 06:24
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My point is that the payloads are easily divisible, so you can look mostly at cost per kg. Neutron has some advantages there over F9, potentially, if they somehow got the flightrate up. Not sure what advantage Antares 300 or MLV would have.
SpaceX agrees with you: it's about cost per kg. You will be competing with Starship, not F9. F9/FH will retire except for specialty missions like Dragon and NSSL. If SpaceX succeeds, Starship will enter service before any of those other LVs (Vulcan, Neutron, NG, Antares 300, ...).
As you said: "mostly". For a few missions you compete on cost per launch, not cost per kg.
DoD, NASA and commercial GEO satellites tend to want dedicated launch. A5 did 2 GEO sats to GTO but good luck organising 4 or 5 that can fly at same time to fill up a SS. The revenue lost per month by these sats waiting for a ride is significant need to trade that against lower launch cost.
I don't think Firefly and/or Antares is in this business, but if SpaceX is launching Starship at a high cadence, it's incremental cost per launch is likely to be low, and that is what the rest of the pack will be competing against. If you want an immediate launch or an exclusive launch, you must buy the whole thing, but the cost of the whole thing is not very high. (This assumes that SpaceX can actually achieve its Starship goals, of course.)
Which introduces a new cost metric into the mix, time to customer payload revenue. Because Starship running "light" (as in a single sub-5m fairing class traditional big GEO bus) also potentially has the capability to go beyond GTO to direct GEO insertion. All those big electric GEO birds with their electric thrusters spiraling up from GTO suddenly no longer have to blow a big wad of propellant for the spiral if using a design as-is (increasing lifetime/agility), and that's with a "unmodified" non-Starship specific bus. That's a tough act to follow.
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#183
by
Robotbeat
on 22 Aug, 2023 16:07
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Antares exists to give Northrop Grumman bargaining power with SpaceX& other launch providers.
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#184
by
TrevorMonty
on 22 Aug, 2023 16:45
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Antares was designed by Orbital to launch Cygnus to ISS. F9 was never an option as LV then as both COTS needed to use different LVs for redundancy. Orbital had hoped to sell a few Antares launches but it wasn't to be.
Not keeping Antares after its failure meant flying on Atlas into foreseeable future.
There maybe a case now for using F9 as its so reliable but that means NG exiting LV business at time when launch demand has never been higher.
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#185
by
Robotbeat
on 22 Aug, 2023 17:02
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Antares was designed by Orbital to launch Cygnus to ISS. F9 was never an option as LV then as both COTS needed to use different LVs for redundancy. Orbital had hoped to sell a few Antares launches but it wasn't to be.
Not keeping Antares after its failure meant flying on Atlas into foreseeable future.
There maybe a case now for using F9 as its so reliable but that means NG exiting LV business at time when launch demand has never been higher.
”& other launch providers.”
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive. And it still is sort of, but now mostly again serving as a way to give better bargaining power.
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#186
by
Zed_Noir
on 23 Aug, 2023 01:22
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Hopefully if there is going to be a new Northrop Grumman launcher, they should spec it to be more capable in the orbital destinations that it can reach.
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#187
by
trimeta
on 23 Aug, 2023 01:53
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Hopefully if there is going to be a new Northrop Grumman launcher, they should spec it to be more capable in the orbital destinations that it can reach.
By total coincidence, that's a perfect description of MLV: take the Antares 330 and replace its solid-motor upper stage with a new liquid stage based on the same engine used for the first stage. And even throw in a third "kick" stage, for especially unusual orbital destinations!
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#188
by
TrevorMonty
on 23 Aug, 2023 06:02
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
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#189
by
Zed_Noir
on 23 Aug, 2023 13:43
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
IIRC Orbital Science got the state of Virginia to contributed to the setup of pad LP-OA and a payload processing facility at Wallops.
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#190
by
Jim
on 23 Aug, 2023 13:49
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The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
They use MMH in the Cygnus SM, so not much of a difference
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#191
by
lrk
on 23 Aug, 2023 14:53
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<snip>
And yes, when Antares was first developed, they expected the cheap engines and low Ukrainian labor costs to keep costs low enough for it to be competitive.....
Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
Given Antares flight rate wasn't lot of point spending money developing more capable US. Would most likely be a RL10 powered so would go head to head with Atlas which had better launch locations for more common orbits.
The RL-10 was probably too expensive for Orbital Science and requires additional pad infrastructure upgrades. They should have grafted something like the Delta-K upper stage with AJ-10 engine(s) on top of the Antares. Yes, Orbital Science will have to put up with using Aerozine 50.
IIRC Orbital Science got the state of Virginia to contributed to the setup of pad LP-OA and a payload processing facility at Wallops.
An RL-10 upper stage was in the design trade for Antares for quite a while. There were plans for a liquid upper stage upgrade at various times, that was shelved after the Orb-3 failure and again more recently when the first stage needed to be replaced.
There is some really great historical info in this Q&A thread with Antonio Elias, who was the GM of advanced projects at Orbital and CTO at Orbital ATK:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=3911.0He's a pretty cool guy - I got to chat with him once about rockets and the design trades that went into Cygnus/Antares. Unfortunately, he said the lawyers made him stop posting on NSF after the merger with ATK.
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#192
by
JEF_300
on 30 Aug, 2023 19:37
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
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#193
by
Zed_Noir
on 31 Aug, 2023 00:02
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
Recall thinking that anyone requiring the extra Delta-V that comes with an add-on kick stage to the Antares be better off buying an Atlas V or an Ariane 5 ECA ride to begin with.
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#194
by
russianhalo117
on 31 Aug, 2023 03:30
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
Recall thinking that anyone requiring the extra Delta-V that comes with an add-on kick stage to the Antares be better off buying an Atlas V or an Ariane 5 ECA ride to begin with.
One of the main recurring reasons they decided to stick with solid motor options for upper stages is the Russian geopolitical conflicts and desabilisation efforts in former Soviet territories and countries and other efforts in the West to destabilise the EU and related organisations. the most noteworthy conflicts have involved Republic of Ukraine and Republic of Georgia have resulted in sanctions. The idea of a Russian provided liquid second stage was dropped due to Sanctions of the Georgian conflicts resulting in them considering a Ukrainian built Zenit Derived second stage with Russian engines to be sourced separately. Then the first Ukrianian conflict killed that powerpoint plan. Then the multiple mergers and geopolitics sealed the design of high energy stages and traditional liquid second stages.
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#195
by
deltaV
on 03 Oct, 2023 02:56
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https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
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#196
by
DeimosDream
on 03 Oct, 2023 15:50
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Unfortunately Orbital Science initially choose and the successor companies kept a solid motor for the upper stage of the various Antares variants. Which restricted it to the LEO market (really just ISS logistics).
It should be noted that OS and OATK offered solid kick stage options, à la Delta II, which would have made higher energy orbits possible. It's just that no one ever bought them, presumably because of a lack of accuracy, which I suppose just reinforces the point.
They also offered a high-precision monopropellant hydrazine kickstage, which nobody purchased either. I'll guess the issue was cost. It wasn't enough cheaper than the Atlas V to overcome the Atlas's proven reliability, and for the cost sensitive Falcon-9 was cheaper, more capable, and didn't have a politically sensitive Russian engine.
If Antares 231 never flew when Atlas V was the proven reliable rocket and Falcon was the new low bidder then I'm not feeling good about MLV's chances when F9 is the proven reliable rocket and Neutron is the new low bidder.
https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
So far two different vehicles seems to be the plan. It is also possible MLV will have a schedule slip into 2026.
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#197
by
jjyach
on 03 Oct, 2023 16:17
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https://fireflyspace.com/mlv/ seems to say that the MLV vehicle with two liquid stages and 16 tonne to LEO capacity will launch in 2025. Antares 330 (which has the same first stage as MLV but the solid upper stage from Antares) is also supposed to launch in 2025. I wonder if they're planning to launch two different new vehicles in 2025 or if Antares 330 has been canceled.
A330 has not been canceled.
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#198
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 03 Nov, 2023 13:58
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https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1720455188949991676 Our Miranda dev engine is officially on the test stand. This hardworking team has worked diligently to achieve this milestone and is making the final preparations for the first hot fire.
Once qualified, 7 Miranda engines - capable of producing 1.6 million pounds of thrust - will power the first stage of Antares 330 and the medium launch vehicle we're co-developing with @northropgrumman.
Stay tuned as we get ready to light this engine up!
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#199
by
spacepiratecaptaingrayloc
on 10 Nov, 2023 04:58
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why is the firefly work being posted in NG?
EDIT: I know in the technical sense I was just pointing out that Firefly employees building a Firefly engine was being posted in an NG space.