I can't help but wonder if there is a bit too much "fat" in the CRS contracts.
NGIS has enough money to pay full retail launch prices on Atlas V and Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300. Note that Antares hasn't launched any other payloads; so all launch pad costs are fully on CRS.
Some might say that CRS over funding SpaceX and NGIS has been an investment in competitive commercial services, which may be a worthy goal. I don't disagree with that.
It might be nice for NASA (and the ISS budget in general) if upmass costs were driven down
I think the companies look at the contracts over the full term, not simply the individual launch. When Orbital ATK was forced to launch on an Atlas, they might've made negligible profit (or even possibly a loss) for the 3? launches. However, the CRS contract as a whole was still profitable. If they were unable to launch for some time, they might've lost the contract as a whole.
The companies certainly need to make enough profit to make the risks worthwhile. Consider that both providers (Dragon and Cygnus) have experienced a launch failure related to the CRS contract. NASA always knew this was a possibility, so the contracts needed to provide enough money so that a big investigation and grounding wouldn't force the company to simply drop the contract. If margins were razor thin, both companies would've walked away because CRS would've become a net money drain on them.
Recent events support this - NG is supporting the design of a brand new first stage for Antares. They aren't getting a new design contract from NASA to pay for new CRS hardware either. Again, thin profit margins would've made NG cancel the contract instead if they were gonna lose money over the lifetime of the contract.
I understand and agree that in the CRS1 world, NASA had few choices except to fund contracts (both SX and NorGum) that included enough profit/margin to pay for booster development/pad build out/pad rebuild/capsule development etc, etc.
My comment was that this shows the immaturity of the cargo delivery market. Imagine if you had to pay for UPS's development of airports, planes, sorting infrastructure and trucks just to get a package delivered.
It seems like NASA could (soon?) get to a point where the cargo contracts were structured with the expectation that boosters and pads don't need to be developed, and perhaps that cargo craft are well established (paid for) designs. Perhaps we aren't quite there yet. It would be good for the budget of any orbiting station if cargo delivery costs were driven down.
I can't help but wonder if there is a bit too much "fat" in the CRS contracts.
NGIS has enough money to pay full retail launch prices on Atlas V and Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300. Note that Antares hasn't launched any other payloads; so all launch pad costs are fully on CRS.
I don't see it. NGIS had to react to a "force majure" event that killed their Antares supply. They were able to recover because they are big enough and had enough resources, but it probably cut into their profits.
They had a couple of such "events" that they had to overcome. 1st, their booster engines ended up having design issues forcing the dropping of the NK-33/AJ-26 powered Antares 100 first stage. To fulfill the NASA ISS Commercial Resupply contract, the RD-181 powered Antares 200 was given the nod.
Then all Russian engines=BAD happened thus another first stage option was required. As Freddo mentioned, NGIS had to buy 3 x Atlas V and now 3 x Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300.
Seems a torturous path to provide ISS resupply.
I also didn't realize that contracted CRS companies can simply walk away from their obligations just because they'd lose money.
I can't help but wonder if there is a bit too much "fat" in the CRS contracts.
NGIS has enough money to pay full retail launch prices on Atlas V and Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300. Note that Antares hasn't launched any other payloads; so all launch pad costs are fully on CRS.
Some might say that CRS over funding SpaceX and NGIS has been an investment in competitive commercial services, which may be a worthy goal. I don't disagree with that.
It might be nice for NASA (and the ISS budget in general) if upmass costs were driven down
I think the companies look at the contracts over the full term, not simply the individual launch. When Orbital ATK was forced to launch on an Atlas, they might've made negligible profit (or even possibly a loss) for the 3? launches. However, the CRS contract as a whole was still profitable. If they were unable to launch for some time, they might've lost the contract as a whole.
The companies certainly need to make enough profit to make the risks worthwhile. Consider that both providers (Dragon and Cygnus) have experienced a launch failure related to the CRS contract. NASA always knew this was a possibility, so the contracts needed to provide enough money so that a big investigation and grounding wouldn't force the company to simply drop the contract. If margins were razor thin, both companies would've walked away because CRS would've become a net money drain on them.
Recent events support this - NG is supporting the design of a brand new first stage for Antares. They aren't getting a new design contract from NASA to pay for new CRS hardware either. Again, thin profit margins would've made NG cancel the contract instead if they were gonna lose money over the lifetime of the contract.
And even if NG were making a per-flight loss for each Cygnus-on-Atlas flight, they would still have had revenue flowing in from those flights to pay for ongoing programme costs (e.g. salaries of engineers employed on the Cygnus project). Those expenditures would have continued even if NG had just put Cygnus on hold for 2 years instead, and they would have also risked a skills/experience gap from not flying for a protracted period.
I can't help but wonder if there is a bit too much "fat" in the CRS contracts.
NGIS has enough money to pay full retail launch prices on Atlas V and Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300. Note that Antares hasn't launched any other payloads; so all launch pad costs are fully on CRS.
I don't see it. NGIS had to react to a "force majure" event that killed their Antares supply. They were able to recover because they are big enough and had enough resources, but it probably cut into their profits.
They had a couple of such "events" that they had to overcome. 1st, their booster engines ended up having design issues forcing the dropping of the NK-33/AJ-26 powered Antares 100 first stage. To fulfill the NASA ISS Commercial Resupply contract, the RD-181 powered Antares 200 was given the nod.
Then all Russian engines=BAD happened thus another first stage option was required. As Freddo mentioned, NGIS had to buy 3 x Atlas V and now 3 x Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300.
Seems a torturous path to provide ISS resupply.
I also didn't realize that contracted CRS companies can simply walk away from their obligations just because they'd lose money.
Firm Fixed Price contracts for spaceflight, even for applications such as ISS resupply which are pretty well nailed down by now, still carry inherent risks that provider companies need to take into account. Production-line GEOcomms carry plenty of insurance in case something goes wrong.
The source selection process allows NASA to consider all aspects of a bid in addition to pure bottom-line cost, including technical and programmatic risk management.
Either NASA chooses providers that include risk margin $$ to weather reasonable setbacks, or they choose providers who have signed a contract that puts them at risk of bankruptcy when they discover an unknown unknown. And then NASA gets nothing in the end and has to start clean with someone else.
No FFP contract can force a provider to keep doing work at a loss, hemorrhaging money to eventually deliver results. There will always be escape clauses and termination options, even if they carry penalties.
As spaceflight continues to mature toward the air-travel level of commoditization, reasonable risk margins will shrink through competitive market pressure.
But it's unreasonable to demand at this time that the shift from cost-plus to FFP means that providers aren't allowed to include risk margins in their bids to cover unknowns.
That's quite a trampoline Elon has put together there.
*snip*
My comment was that this shows the immaturity of the cargo delivery market. Imagine if you had to pay for UPS's development of airports, planes, sorting infrastructure and trucks just to get a package delivered.
It seems like NASA could (soon?) get to a point where the cargo contracts were structured with the expectation that boosters and pads don't need to be developed, and perhaps that cargo craft are well established (paid for) designs. Perhaps we aren't quite there yet. It would be good for the budget of any orbiting station if cargo delivery costs were driven down.
Actually, the US Government did do all of that. In the 1920's the Postal Service let contracts for 'air-mail' service that is widely regarded as the birth of the airline industry we know today.
Today's air network and air transportation infrastructure looks nothing like what was first established 100 years ago. Maybe it will take 20 or 30 years to really grow... Maybe less... but this is exactly the same sort of investment.
I can't help but wonder if there is a bit too much "fat" in the CRS contracts.
NGIS has enough money to pay full retail launch prices on Atlas V and Falcon 9, and pay to develop Antares 100, 200, and 300. Note that Antares hasn't launched any other payloads; so all launch pad costs are fully on CRS.
Some might say that CRS over funding SpaceX and NGIS has been an investment in competitive commercial services, which may be a worthy goal. I don't disagree with that.
It might be nice for NASA (and the ISS budget in general) if upmass costs were driven down
I don’t think there was too much fat. In fact, it seems like recent events show the need for NASA to pay as much as they did or NG/OrbitalATK wouldn’t have had the flexibility to continue the contract.
SpaceX did vertical-integration maxxing and did very well because of it. orbital did Horizontal integration maxxing (Italy built pressure vessel, very Ukrainian first stage, cheap old Russian engines, cheap ATK solid upper stage, etc) and also was able to keep the cost down to flex around significant problems and still not lose money. SpaceX definitely made more of it than Orbital, having now dominated the launch market, but orbital didn’t do bad either.
It’s not like Boeing and Lockheed were forbidden to bid on this stuff. They just lost, or expected to lose.
Cygnus on Atlas V allowed for more cargo, which actually offset most of the extra launch costs.
And you also have to consider the customer’s satisfaction. In the Lunar Outpost Resuppy selection document. NASA rated NG reliability and satisfaction higher than SpaceX’s in the ISS contract. Thus NASA also paid for a known reliable supplier.
Can the Falcon 9 boosters for the NG-20 through NG-22 Cygnus missions be able to return to Landing Zone 1?
Can the Falcon 9 boosters for the NG-20 through NG-22 Cygnus missions be able to return to Landing Zone 1?
Should be able to as Cygnus is <8000kg which is Antares performance.
Can the Falcon 9 boosters for the NG-20 through NG-22 Cygnus missions be able to return to Landing Zone 1?
Should be able to as Cygnus is <8000kg which is Antares performance.
But Baldusi stated that Cygnus on Atlas carried more cargo mass than Cygnus on Antares, and that this was cost-effective. This may mean that they have a choice to use RTLS or not depending on the required cargo mass for a particular mission.
Can the Falcon 9 boosters for the NG-20 through NG-22 Cygnus missions be able to return to Landing Zone 1?
Should be able to as Cygnus is <8000kg which is Antares performance.
But Baldusi stated that Cygnus on Atlas carried more cargo mass than Cygnus on Antares, and that this was cost-effective. This may mean that they have a choice to use RTLS or not depending on the required cargo mass for a particular mission.
Fyi, Cygnus on Atlas carried more than Cygnus on Antares *at the time*. The last few Cygnus vehicles on Antares carried more than the earlier Atlas flights.
Can the Falcon 9 boosters for the NG-20 through NG-22 Cygnus missions be able to return to Landing Zone 1?
Should be able to as Cygnus is <8000kg which is Antares performance.
But Baldusi stated that Cygnus on Atlas carried more cargo mass than Cygnus on Antares, and that this was cost-effective. This may mean that they have a choice to use RTLS or not depending on the required cargo mass for a particular mission.
Fyi, Cygnus on Atlas carried more than Cygnus on Antares *at the time*. The last few Cygnus vehicles on Antares carried more than the earlier Atlas flights.
Do you have the amount Cygnus carried on each of it's flights?
Wikipedia pagePayload mass for each mission is listed in the ’missions’ section.
I don't know is this is right thread, for this question, but I not see other...
Somebody Know why they go to launch 3 Cygnus this year to the ISS?
Somebody Know why they go to launch 3 Cygnus this year to the ISS?
They only launched one Cygnus last year, so perhaps NASA wanted them to launch three to make up for last year.
Somebody Know why they go to launch 3 Cygnus this year to the ISS?
They only launched one Cygnus last year, so perhaps NASA wanted them to launch three to make up for last year.
It's likely that the NG-20 Cygnus mission was originally planned for the end of 2023 (prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine), but there was a slight delay due to it being the first Cygnus to be launched by a Falcon 9.
I don't know is this is right thread, for this question, but I not see other...
Somebody Know why they go to launch 3 Cygnus this year to the ISS?
It's been reduced to 2. NG-22 is now targeting February 2025 according to the FY25 budget request with NG-21 in August 2024.