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Not all flight plans can lead to a recoverable rocket. GTO and polar orbits can't land back. This means there will be unrecoverable rockets from time to time.

Not all flight plans can lead to a recoverable rocket. GTO and polar orbits can't land back. This means there will be unrecoverable rockets from time to time. But your question still applies to recoverable flight plans. How many do they need to cover all those?

mikeash 10y ago
GTO and polar orbits can still land, they just use the barge ("Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship") instead of returning to the launch site. There are launches which don't have enough margin to land at all. The upcoming EchoStar 23 launch is one of these. This is a GTO launch of a really heavy satellite, so getting it up there requires using the fuel the rocket would need to land. However, this is rare, and it's likely that this will only happen a few more times at most
- alpos 10y ago
  I think the key point there is that SpaceX can offer many new options for launch that seriously expand the kinds of contracts they can accept. If your payload and destination allow for reuse then the cost of your launch is (cost of the whole rocket) / (number of reuses) + (landing & refurbishing costs) If you require the full fuel of a Falcon 9 it might make sense to accept higher risk and launch on a rocket that is at it's last launch. If you also don't want that risk, then maybe a mid-life Falcon Heavy can be cheap enough for you. If Falcon Heavy is still too expensive even with re-use then maybe a one shot Falcon 9 is right for you.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  > However, this is rare, and it's likely that this will only happen a few more times at most Especially once Falcon Heavy comes online.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    Only six more months! As it has been for the last four years....
JshWright 10y ago
Very few of their future flights will be expendable (in fact, the Echostar-23 launch coming up next will likely be one of the last). The Block 5 upgrade will bring the performance of Falcon 9 (in a recoverable configuration) up to the point where flights like Echostar will be able to make downrange barge landings. Heavier payloads (which are _very_ rare nowadays) will fly on Falcon Heavy. Polar orbits are almost always low-earth orbits, and therefore are much easier to recover. I would be very surprised if they ever flew an expendable launch out of Vandy in the future.
- rkangel 10y ago
  > Heavier payloads (which are _very_ rare nowadays) Yes, but how much of that is because there isn't anything to launch them? When Falcon Heavy is up and running, a commercially feasible option will exist for the first time. Maybe that'll change, and we'll start seeing things in space that weren't commercially feasible before.
  - JshWright 10y ago
    It's only commercially feasible if SpaceX is willing to sell that service. They are pretty firmly committed to the philosophy of reuse. They have to fly expendable now, because customers can just fly on Ariane/Atlas/etc if SpaceX said no. Once Falcon Heavy is flying, there won't be any competitors with the same payload capacity (until New Glenn, which is also planning first stage reuse, but is still very much a paper rocket at this point).
- WesleyLivesay 10y ago
  There will always be payload that pushes the rocket to its limits, make a rocket with larger lift capacity and payloads will increase. However, they can build that into the cost of the lift. If the rocket isn't recoverable because of what they want to put in it, just charge them for the rocket. Either way it is better than what we have now.
  - LoSboccacc 10y ago
    yeah if computer ram size growth taught me anything is that once there's capacity, there'll be consumption. /me looks sternly at DooM

mikeash 10y ago

GTO and polar orbits can still land, they just use the barge ("Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship") instead of returning to the launch site. There are launches which don't have enough margin to land at all. The upcoming EchoStar 23 launch is one of these. This is a GTO launch of a really heavy satellite, so getting it up there requires using the fuel the rocket would need to land. However, this is rare, and it's likely that this will only happen a few more times at most

alpos 10y ago
I think the key point there is that SpaceX can offer many new options for launch that seriously expand the kinds of contracts they can accept. If your payload and destination allow for reuse then the cost of your launch is (cost of the whole rocket) / (number of reuses) + (landing & refurbishing costs) If you require the full fuel of a Falcon 9 it might make sense to accept higher risk and launch on a rocket that is at it's last launch. If you also don't want that risk, then maybe a mid-life Falcon Heavy can be cheap enough for you. If Falcon Heavy is still too expensive even with re-use then maybe a one shot Falcon 9 is right for you.
ceejayoz 10y ago
> However, this is rare, and it's likely that this will only happen a few more times at most Especially once Falcon Heavy comes online.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Only six more months! As it has been for the last four years....

JshWright 10y ago

Very few of their future flights will be expendable (in fact, the Echostar-23 launch coming up next will likely be one of the last). The Block 5 upgrade will bring the performance of Falcon 9 (in a recoverable configuration) up to the point where flights like Echostar will be able to make downrange barge landings. Heavier payloads (which are _very_ rare nowadays) will fly on Falcon Heavy. Polar orbits are almost always low-earth orbits, and therefore are much easier to recover. I would be very surprised if they ever flew an expendable launch out of Vandy in the future.

rkangel 10y ago
> Heavier payloads (which are _very_ rare nowadays) Yes, but how much of that is because there isn't anything to launch them? When Falcon Heavy is up and running, a commercially feasible option will exist for the first time. Maybe that'll change, and we'll start seeing things in space that weren't commercially feasible before.
- JshWright 10y ago
  It's only commercially feasible if SpaceX is willing to sell that service. They are pretty firmly committed to the philosophy of reuse. They have to fly expendable now, because customers can just fly on Ariane/Atlas/etc if SpaceX said no. Once Falcon Heavy is flying, there won't be any competitors with the same payload capacity (until New Glenn, which is also planning first stage reuse, but is still very much a paper rocket at this point).
WesleyLivesay 10y ago
There will always be payload that pushes the rocket to its limits, make a rocket with larger lift capacity and payloads will increase. However, they can build that into the cost of the lift. If the rocket isn't recoverable because of what they want to put in it, just charge them for the rocket. Either way it is better than what we have now.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  yeah if computer ram size growth taught me anything is that once there's capacity, there'll be consumption. /me looks sternly at DooM