CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp will fly its first mission for the U.S. Air Force in August when it launches the military's X-37B miniature spaceplane, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said on Tuesday.
Four previous X-37B missions were launched by United LaunchAlliance Atlas 5 rockets. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co .
"SpaceX will be sending the next Air Force payload up into space in August," Wilson said during webcast testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. She later specified that the payload would be one of the Air Force's two X-37Bspaceplanes.
Launch contracts are usually announced about two years before a flight but the Air Force did not disclose the X-37B contract until Tuesday, a mere two months before the flight. The Air Force declined to say when the contract was awarded or provide other details.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell declined to comment.
SpaceX's first publicly disclosed launch contract for the Air Force was awarded last year for a next-generation Global Positioning System satellite flight in 2018. A second GPS launch contract was awarded in March. The contracts are valued at $83million and $96.5 million, respectively.
In May 2016, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office disclosed it had hired SpaceX to launch a spy satellite aboard a Falcon 9. The mission, which was arranged through an intermediary, Ball Aerospace, took place last month.
SpaceX is owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Musk, who is also chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
From what I hear, it's actually kind of a double-edged sword for ULA. On the one hand they have more competition, which is bad for business. On the other, Falcon 9 being certified means that Delta doesn't have to be one of ULA's two active rockets and they can phase it out. Delta is an expensive waste of money with the exception of the Heavy variant - which is a princely $400m a launch, but is good for launching heavy payloads. No one knows if F9H is coming any time soon so for now it has a place.
Good for the AF though, since it saves them a nice sum of money.
On June 07 2017 09:50 LegalLord wrote: Why do you say that? Personally I see the opposite here...
I do like the system and the idea behind it,lifting of with a plane and then launch a booster high up in the atmosphere. it has a high degree of reusability in itself and it is a more or less proven system,just on a much bigger scale. The designer also has a good track record with spaceship one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne
That's the point though, they tried to scale it up and they failed. They failed to do it for Virgin Galactic and now they failed to scale it with Stratolauncher. Also Virgin Galactic failed to scale the same system with other contractors.
That's not to say it's impossible, but it is more difficult than just geometric scaling. Apparently a lot of new problems appear that need to be solved.
In the meantime Blue Origin built a fully reusable suborbital system with a similar amount of resources based on the traditional architecture. And now they have a clear path towards a heavy orbital launcher. Something that isn't possible even in theory with air launch.
From my uninformed opinion the big problem with air launch is that the size of your carrier aircraft acts as a hard constraint on the rocket. Look at how much Falcon 9 changed over the years. It got physically taller and heavier. If every change required building a new billion dollar aircraft the process would have been prohibitively expensive.
There's also an advantage in having ground equipment close by. Ground launches can be scrubbed after the engines ignited. It has happened with Falcon 9 and I believe with the Shuttle as well. In an air launch, after the rocket is released the dice is cast. If the engines don't ignite or show the wrong thrust, tough luck.
"Ground launches can be scrubbed after the engines ignited."
Briefly looked, I couldn't find anything about that. I might be being semantic, but at least according to NASA terminology, it's an abort when it's after launch. And Musk called it an abort as well in the only "launch cancelled after ignition" I could find. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but I'm wondering if it was actually considered a scrub in one such situation.
On June 07 2017 23:20 LegalLord wrote: "Ground launches can be scrubbed after the engines ignited."
Briefly looked, I couldn't find anything about that. I might be being semantic, but at least according to NASA terminology, it's an abort when it's after launch. And Musk called it an abort as well in the only "launch cancelled after ignition" I could find. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but I'm wondering if it was actually considered a scrub in one such situation.
But that's unimportant for my point. Which is that with ground launches you have the option of starting the engines but not launching if something looks fishy. With air launches, there's no such option. By the time the rocket fires it's in freefall 10 km above ground level.
It's just one example where an air launch is inferior to a ground launch. Unless you are willing to fire your rocket before releasing it from the carrier aircraft, which sounds like a terrible idea.
As far as the Stratolauncher, my issue is this: I'm sure we all have at one point or another thought that it would be really neat to launch a rocket off a plane. At least in principle it makes a lot of sense. The problem is that rockets are fucking heavy. It takes a high-capacity cargo plane or a barge to transfer unfueled boosters. And fuel is around 90% of the weight so you need one powerful airplane to move that around. One that very quickly starts to look like Hitler's Ratte supertank that was killed by being completely and utterly impractical.
In terms of reusability, it has to be worth it; I don't see it as a virtue in and of itself. Reusability is better described as "capable of being rebuilt" since unlike a car or plane you can't be able to just put it back on the pad and take off again. If it costs more to rebuild it than to make a one off model each time, then it's worse than worthless. SpaceX made a lot of hype around reusability and while I can't say their scheme is ineffective, the hype around reusing rockets simply isn't proportional to its effectiveness. In the case of giant airplanes, a whoosh machine like that would probably have to spend many hours in the shop repairing and being cleared for reflight, on top of the standard rocket issues. A logistics nightmare of the highest caliber.
@hcube: yep, just a technical difference; doesn't really affect the argument in this case
The New NASA class of astronauts was announced today. One of the new astronauts is a navy submarine officer. That really hurts my chances during the next round of applications :<
NASA and SpaceX engineers are working together at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to build a full-scale Crew Dragon model, or Recovery Trainer, that will be used by the U.S. Air Force to perform flight-like rescue and recovery training exercises in the open ocean later this year.
The model, shown above with astronauts Dan Burbank and Victor Glover inside, is built to mimic the Crew Dragon spacecraft that SpaceX is developing with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. In certain unusual recovery situations, SpaceX may need to work with the U.S. Air Force to send parajumpers to recover astronauts from the capsule. The Recovery Trainer will be used by the Air Force to prepare procedures and train for this contingency scenario. The trainer also has two working hatches and other simulated components similar to the ones astronauts and support teams will encounter in real missions.
Scott Colloredo, deputy director of Kennedy’s Engineering Directorate, said the engineers adapted SpaceX designs of internal elements to be compatible with the trainer and worked with Kennedy’s Prototype Development Lab to produce the parts quickly and install them inside the trainer. The Prototype Development Lab designs, fabricates and tests prototypes, test articles and test support equipment. The lab has a long history of providing fast solutions to complex operations problems. The lab’s teams of engineers use specialized equipment to produce exacting, one-of-a-kind items made from a range of materials depending on the design.
“We perform things that complement what the partners and programs provide,” Colloredo said. “The team delivered right to the minute.”
SpaceX is now finalizing modifications to the trainer to ensure it floats in water in the same way as the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Following those modifications, the trainer will enter service as the primary training vehicle for Crew Dragon astronaut recovery operations.
On June 08 2017 08:44 micronesia wrote: The New NASA class of astronauts was announced today. One of the new astronauts is a navy submarine officer. That really hurts my chances during the next round of applications :<
You have an advantage of having lived on the surface. That's closer to space than being in a submarine.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp will fly its first mission for the U.S. Air Force in August when it launches the military's X-37B miniature spaceplane, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said on Tuesday.
Four previous X-37B missions were launched by United LaunchAlliance Atlas 5 rockets. ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co .
"SpaceX will be sending the next Air Force payload up into space in August," Wilson said during webcast testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. She later specified that the payload would be one of the Air Force's two X-37Bspaceplanes.
Launch contracts are usually announced about two years before a flight but the Air Force did not disclose the X-37B contract until Tuesday, a mere two months before the flight. The Air Force declined to say when the contract was awarded or provide other details.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell declined to comment.
SpaceX's first publicly disclosed launch contract for the Air Force was awarded last year for a next-generation Global Positioning System satellite flight in 2018. A second GPS launch contract was awarded in March. The contracts are valued at $83million and $96.5 million, respectively.
In May 2016, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office disclosed it had hired SpaceX to launch a spy satellite aboard a Falcon 9. The mission, which was arranged through an intermediary, Ball Aerospace, took place last month.
SpaceX is owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Musk, who is also chief executive of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
SpX is going to launch another reused F9 within a week. I'll be interested to see how well the next few such launches do, since that will be the real test of whether or not reuse was worth it. That and the financials that we won't be getting because SpX doesn't share those.
On June 11 2017 01:18 Equalizer wrote: Is there a record of how long it has taken SpaceX to rebuild its recovered booster rockets before reusing them?
Maybe comparing that to the time needed to build a new booster rocket would give some indication of the economics.
I think the issue is more cost than time. Of course, being able to rebuild a recovered booster rocket faster will help drive down cost. On the other hand, you need to consider storage space and large equipment transportation, man-hours, and reused materials/components, all which are accounted for by cost comparisons (if done fairly).
On June 11 2017 01:18 Equalizer wrote: Is there a record of how long it has taken SpaceX to rebuild its recovered booster rockets before reusing them?
That specific reuse was of a booster landed 11 months earlier. Although, considering "reused rocket launch is right around the corner" was the case for all of two years, it's interesting that it wasn't an older one. It makes me wonder if there was some number of false starts and failed reuses on the other ones. But I admit that that's just straight up speculation.
On June 11 2017 01:18 Equalizer wrote: Maybe comparing that to the time needed to build a new booster rocket would give some indication of the economics.
Micronesia covered part of it; it's more so man-hours than time spent that matters. But I'd actually go further and consider a few other aspects of it. First of all is the obvious aspect of increased risk; every mission loss that can be directly traced back to reusability will fuck up any savings for at least the next dozen reuses. The booster will be significantly damaged and though it can be repaired and relaunched, there is little guarantee that that will yield the same reliability as a booster fresh off the shop floor. On a lot of rocket parts, the margins can be very thin, and every upgrade you do (which SpX does a ton of) could be the upgrade that causes a loss of the mission.
And here's the other point, one that's a little more difficult to pin down. In reusing a booster, SpX gives up about ~35% of the payload capacity on their entire rocket. That's quite a bit and one might wonder whether it's better to simply make a smaller expendable rocket (more specifically, a smaller configuration of the same rocket) that costs less. The savings on that has the potential to be quite large; I've seen 50% as a reasonable number for that. Naturally, you have a smaller supply chain if you have just the one configuration, but it starts to become a fair bit more tricky overall if you consider that aspect of the economics.
It's certainly an interesting scheme to try out. But the real test of whether or not the reuse is successful is not the flashy launch videos and the cheering crowd as the booster lands, but whether the financial aspects of it check out. Pretty much every other space organization says that by their own calculations the savings on that reuse could top out at 10 percent, which leaves much to be desired and isn't the greatest of business cases compared to other alternatives. And for Musk's companies, profit is the thing they are least effective at. Not to mention they continue to repeat utter BS like "the savings potential on rockets is to reduce prices down to the cost of fuel" and "we profited on our first reusable launch" (it's an R&D cost, there is pretty much no way they profited here).
This isn't to say that reuse is bad and can never work. But it's important to realize why it hasn't worked in the past to appreciate why there is reason to be suspicious of Musk's claims now. Until the financials check out, it's just a flashy video worth of benefit from this launch scheme. And Musk's companies are all very bad at profit unless you consider investment minus operating loss as profit.
On June 11 2017 01:18 Equalizer wrote: Is there a record of how long it has taken SpaceX to rebuild its recovered booster rockets before reusing them?
Maybe comparing that to the time needed to build a new booster rocket would give some indication of the economics.
I think there's too much research/experimentation going on now, to get a real idea of the savings. The real test will be Block 5, the final version of Falcon 9, which was designed with cheap and fast reusability in mind.
If you have time you should read this interview with Tom Mueller, head of propulsion at SpaceX. The conclusion is that for Block 5 there will be no rebuild after each flight, and the cost of getting the first stage ready for the new flight will be negligable compared to building a new one.
My god. That interview reads like a Trump speech, what with all the absurd hyperbole and appeal to the lowest common denominator of space fanboyism.
Why can't you reuse rockets like cars? Well for one a car isn't a bomb on a stick. And it won't explode and kill everyone inside if it fails to start. What a terrible analogy...
EPT
