Falcon 1 vs Minotaur

[Danderman]

Apart from the issue that Minotaur is not commercially available, what is the benefit of Falcon 1, now that its price is rising past $7 million, compared with the $10 million Minotaur? One key benefit of Minotaur is its 100% reliability, whereas Falcon 1 is yet to make it to orbit. So ... if you were a customer, what price differential would cause you to buy Falcon vs Minotaur?  

[Jim]

more mass to orbit

[JIS]

Falcon 1 is a test bed for Falcon 9 which can potentially be crewed.

[Analyst]

Yes and no (and no offense JIS). It is a test bed, but it is also a launch vehicle on its own which hopes to attract its own customers (and already has some). Saying it is only a test bed looks a little like "it does not work (yet), lets compete in another league and declare this a try". What if Falcon 9 fails? Will it be a test bed for Falcon XX?

As much as I want competition and wish New Space success, I still don't buy it what they will do better (cheaper, more reliable) than the old ones. Because this implies Old Space is kind of inefficient, incompetent, stupid, not maximizing profits. I doubt this.

Analyst

[JIS]

Falcon 1 itself is apparently not credible business case. It can have some costumers but can never make any profit as proved by Pegasus or Minotaur. But, if the Falcon 9 is successful then Falcon 1 can stay in operation and be profitable based on assumption the development and infrastructure is paid off by Falcon 9.
Falcon 9 has a big potential. But I expect it takes 5-10 years to find whether Falcon 9 is a success or not.

[savuporo]

Falcon 1, now that its price is rising past $7 million

huh, where do you get that ? SpaceX lists stock Falcon 1 still at $7M. Falcon 1E is listed for $8.5M. i dont think they have changed these numbers.
and they are two different launcher configs, just look at the payload fairing dimensions
http://spacex.com/falcon1.php

[josh_simonson]

SpaceX has slowly been creeping their prices up with 'inflation'.  I think they've gone up something like 15% over 4 years, which is pretty reasonable.

Their hoping that the Falcon 9 will subsidize the Falcon 1 is much like NASA's reasoning that the Ares V program will subsidize the Ares 1 program and make it practical.

JIS - 21/5/2007  6:20 AM  Falcon 1 itself is apparently not credible business case. It can have some costumers but can never make any profit as proved by Pegasus or Minotaur. But, if the Falcon 9 is successful then Falcon 1 can stay in operation and be profitable based on assumption the development and infrastructure is paid off by Falcon 9. Falcon 9 has a big potential. But I expect it takes 5-10 years to find whether Falcon 9 is a success or not.

Disagree - with a newbie like Space-X you need a broad product  range - and you don't necessarily use it.

For example, if you capture some small sat launches for F1, you can later get them to cluster launch on a F9. If then they accept a fraction of a F9, payload creep means you can upsell to more of an F9, or potentially a whole vehicle if risk of sharing a LV is a put off. F1 can also be used as a "loss-leader" or can be used to steer payloads away from companies like Orbital. Conceivably, given Space-X's smaller cost structure and less costly development infrastructure, they could absorb more at cost launches than OSC, where too many of these would be impossible to hide on the schedule K reports, potentially causing public stock analysts to label them a financial poor performer in the sector.

So don't write-off F1 quite so soon.

[Jim]

nobodyofconsequence - 21/5/2007  6:08 PM

Disagree - with a newbie like Space-X you need a broad product  range - and you don't necessarily use it.

For example, if you capture some small sat launches for F1, you can later get them to cluster launch on a F9. [/QUOTE]

That doesn't work.   STP-1 is an aberation

[CFE]

Danderman - 20/5/2007  12:02 PM

Apart from the issue that Minotaur is not commercially available, what is the benefit of Falcon 1, now that its price is rising past $7 million, compared with the $10 million Minotaur?

Danderman,

Your estimates for the price of Minotaur are wildly low.  Once the costs of mission assurance, range fees, etc. are thrown in, the cost of the entire launch campaign grows dramatically.  Then again, I could say the same about Falcon I, except that we have no idea how much Falcon's costs will balloon by the time a commercial payload is successfully orbited.

I must admit, though, that Minotaur provides far more "bang for the buck" than Pegasus.  Getting two large solid rocket stages free from the government does a lot to keep mission prices down.

[edkyle99]

CFE - 21/5/2007  6:28 PM

Danderman - 20/5/2007  12:02 PM

Apart from the issue that Minotaur is not commercially available, what is the benefit of Falcon 1, now that its price is rising past $7 million, compared with the $10 million Minotaur?

Danderman,

Your estimates for the price of Minotaur are wildly low.  ...

That's right.  Last May, the Air Force announced two Minotaur launch contracts (for Tacsats 2 and 3) totaling $36 million.  That's $18 million per launch.  Only $23 of the $36 million was going to go to Orbital Sciences, according to my notes.

 - Ed Kyle

Jim - 21/5/2007  5:48 PM That doesn't work.   STP-1 is an aberation

Ariane V launches multiples all the time. In fact, the business plan REQUIRES it to make up an acceptable number of heavy launch opportunities. I don't have the time to list them, but there must be at least 20 or so in the last decade.

[Jim]

nobodyofconsequence - 21/5/2007  12:03 AM

Jim - 21/5/2007  5:48 PM That doesn't work.   STP-1 is an aberation

Ariane V launches multiples all the time. In fact, the business plan REQUIRES it to make up an acceptable number of heavy launch opportunities. I don't have the time to list them, but there must be at least 20 or so in the last decade.

Dual launches are not the same as clustering which means more than 2.  GTO is a "commercial" orbit and there are plenty of spacecraft going there.  Like I said, STP-1 is an aberation.   The dual NASA missions on the west coast, one or both spacecraft compromised their requirements to allow dual manifesting

[savuporo]

Long story on SpaceX
http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/15-06/ff_space_musk
some interesting bits ( and drama )
"By next year, we'll be building 30 to 40 rocket engines a year, more than any other company in the US, getting economies of scale that have never been achieved before."
I think they are leaving out Estes

[stockman]

savuporo - 22/5/2007  7:07 AM

Long story on SpaceX
http://www.wired.com/science/space/magazine/15-06/ff_space_musk
some interesting bits ( and drama )
"By next year, we'll be building 30 to 40 rocket engines a year, more than any other company in the US, getting economies of scale that have never been achieved before."
I think they are leaving out Estes

The last paragraph of this article was interesting. I don't know if I have missed this before or not but since when was the falcon 9 going to be a man rated vehicle in time for that 2010 to 2015 gap? Exactly what manned vehicle will the F9 send into orbit?

"In 2010, NASA plans to retire its fleet of space shuttles. The replacement, the crew vehicle called Orion, doesn't come online until 2015. In the meantime, Musk says, "SpaceX's Falcon 9 will be the only manned US spacecraft." It will be amazing — if he can get it to fly. "

[savuporo]

that would be SpaceX Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

[stockman]

savuporo - 22/5/2007  10:36 AM

that would be SpaceX Dragon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

ahhh.. I assumed that Dragon was a cargo carrier and not man rated. Thanks for the clarification.

Jim - 22/5/2007  5:15 AM  

nobodyofconsequence - 21/5/2007  12:03 AM  

Jim - 21/5/2007  5:48 PM That doesn't work.   STP-1 is an aberation

Ariane V launches multiples all the time. In fact, the business plan REQUIRES it to make up an acceptable number of heavy launch opportunities. I don't have the time to list them, but there must be at least 20 or so in the last decade.

 Dual launches are not the same as clustering which means more than 2.  GTO is a "commercial" orbit and there are plenty of spacecraft going there.  Like I said, STP-1 is an aberation.   The dual NASA missions on the west coast, one or both spacecraft compromised their requirements to allow dual manifesting

We're talking past each other. Comes from speaking concisely. Let me try again.

Think of the business reason to do dual launches to GTO - one expensive rocket divided by two payloads to almost identical orbits.

This certainly doesn't work with most launches for obvious reasons. You are right that STP-1 isn't common. But you correctly pointed out  "one or both spacecraft compromised their requirements to allow dual manifesting". This is a "sales tool" for selling low end launch commitments and will not go away. You are exactly right to point this out - and it does have consequences. Particularly of limiting the scope of such launch customers - it's not as compelling as 2xGTO.

So I'm suggesting to you that there are more compromise cases available - not necessarily from NASA.