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SpaceX makes aerospace history with successful landing of a used rocket
- mr_overalls 10y agoThe obvious question: how much cheaper should this make it, per pound, to put something in orbit?
- srssays 10y agoNot much, because SpaceX is currently the cheapest launch provider in its category (except perhaps the Russians). And their capacity is maxed out. If anything they should put the price up.
- curtis 10y ago> And their capacity is maxed out. Re-usable rockets should increase their capacity...
- blackguardx 10y agoIs their capacity limited by rocket construction or pad operations?
- jessriedel 10y agoIt's a bit a both right now, but I think the constraints from launch sites become much more relaxed in a couple of years when Boca Chica opens up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_South_Texas_Launch_Site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_South_Texas_Launch_Site
- artursapek 10y agoIs there a reason launch pads tend to be on a shore?
- zaphoyd 10y agoRockets generally want to fly over unpopulated areas to avoid raining debris on people should they explode. They get a boost as well when flying east due to the earths rotation. As a result, launch pads are located in areas where the rocket will be able to fly east over an ocean or unpopulated area.
- WalterBright 10y ago> a boost as well when flying east due to the earths rotation This will slow the earth's rotation slightly. Future generations will rue our profligate wastage of earth's angular momentum.
- bashinator 10y agoIf that's a problem, then I'll be a happy ancestor
- dotancohen 10y agoIf the hardware comes back down then it's returning the angular momentum on burn-up or landing. Only interplanetary hardware is robbing posterity of angular momentum.
- snowwrestler 10y agoStop Global Slowing!
- TeMPOraL 10y agoOr at least #SlowGlobalSlowing!
- AstralStorm 10y agoWe can always launch more rockets the other way.
- schoen 10y agoMy understanding is to make it less likely to hit populated areas in case of a launch failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_708 There's an energy benefit for some launches at lower latitudes, but that's separate from being near an ocean: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-launches-to-orbit-take-place-at-low-latitudes https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-launches-to-orbit-take-pla...
- nickik 10y agoCurrently pad operations. Soon, building of second stages.
- zzalpha 10y agoI don't think that's the question. You're speaking of what they charge. I'm curious (and fwiw I'm not the OP, so I have no idea if they were asking this... :) what it costs. Put another way, I wonder what this does to their margins?
- agildehaus 10y agoAnother thing to think about is SpaceX's customers don't buy the rockets, they buy the launch. So every first stage a customer pays SpaceX to build, once it completes it main mission, is now a stage SpaceX can use for their own purpose ... like building a LEO constellation of 11,943 satellites.
- AstralStorm 10y agoWhy would you want that much trash in LEO?
- justinjlynn 10y agoBecause it doesn't have to stay there.
- Kubuxu 10y agoLEO in most cases decay by themselves as for small amounts of air still being present. This means that LEO trash will burn in the atmosphere sooner or later.
- gnode 10y agoTrash in LEO goes away; trash in GEO doesn't. The LEO satellite constellation replaces (with much lower latency, and greater locality) a bunch of GEO satellites.
- Tuna-Fish 10y agoDepends on how many times they can re-use a core. The upper limit comes from the fact that they are currently only reusing the first stage, and that the first stage core is ~75% of the cost of a launch. So, if they can use a core n times, they get a % discount: 2 38% 3 50% 4 56% 5 60% 10 68% They are planning on additional future reuse, the next portion is probably recovering the fairings.
- Diederich 10y agoYes. One of Elon Musk's core goals is to make humanity a multi-planetary species. To do that, he needs to make a lot of money. At this point, the other commercial orbital lift companies are basically cooked, it's a matter of time. Blue Origin could be an interesting player, but who knows. The question is this: can he drive even more demand by lowering the price somewhat? That's an interesting question, and one I'm sure being discussed at SpaceX.
- ams6110 10y agoChina is reportedly poised to challenge SpaceX in the next decade or two.
- GauntletWizard 10y agoAll the more reason Musk should be printing money with his launch-price advantage now.
- valuearb 10y ago"poised" and "a decade or so" aren't very congruent.
- wayn3 10y agoElon Musk wants to be on mars in "a decade or two".
- mvpu 10y agoI once heard Elon quote these: cost of a launch is roughly $60 million. Assuming the rocket can be reused 60 times it'll go down to about $1000 which is what he wants. IOW, he wants to make space travel ad cheap as international flight travel.
- jessriedel 10y agoEither you misinterpreted or he was being hyperbolic. There are lots of other costs involved in a launch that do not scale like the reusable first stage. A sub $10M launch cost is very optimistic and would be considered a stupendous success.
- mvpu 10y agoI heard the cost of fuel and other logistical things per flight is less than $300k but sorry guys can't find the video..
- jessriedel 10y agoFuel is ~$200k. "Logistical things" is much more.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoLogistics is getting streamlined as well. Range safety used to take ~150 people per launch. The Falcon 9 is now responsible for its own range safety, and will terminate itself faster than a human would if it deviates from its ascent profile substantially. (This was developed by the Air Force in partnership with SpaceX) http://www.patrick.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1095084/air-force-eastern-range-innovates-expedites-access-to-space http://www.patrick.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/10950...
- StavrosK 10y ago> cost of a launch is roughly $60 million. Assuming the rocket can be reused 60 times it'll go down to about $1000 Don't you mean $1m?
- MarkMc 10y agoIn the short term SpaceX will not reduce their prices - they will simply make a larger profit. When SpaceX has effective competition that can deploy a single ticket multiple times, prices will drop dramatically.
- tempestn 10y agoThat might be one logical approach, but it's not actually true. "Flight tested" rockets already offer a 10% discount to customers, and they say the plan is to get to 30% eventually.
- ygra 10y agoDid anyone ever state the discount SES got? To my knowledge all we got were vague notions. In any case, considering the four-month refurbishment the reflown core may actually have ended up more expensive than a new one. That's okay for now. SpaceX offered a discount to get a customer to fly on it instead of having to pay the launch cost completely on their own. Currently I wouldn't say the discount is any indication about how much cheaper reflying a core currently is. But with the first stage being about ¾ of the launch cost there are of course great potential savings, which is where the 30 % come in.
- ATsch 10y agoSES explicity stated that they would not disclose the discount they recieved, but confirmed they recieved a discount.
- xorxornop 10y agoNo doubt it was hefty, because of first-mover advantage - SpaceX badly needed an entity willing to take the _perceived_ risk, and SES was not only willing but eager to do it. I bet they got a great discount.
- Eridrus 10y agoMaybe. Or maybe making it cheaper to fly will increase demand enough that it makes sense to lower prices to meet it
- InclinedPlane 10y agoSort of depends on the details, some of which we don't know (we don't know actual internal costs, for example, only external prices which include markup). Here's some quick napkin math though: We know the price of a Falcon 9 launch is about $65 million, and we know that the hardware cost of the first stage is about 3/4 of the total hardware cost. Assuming everything has the same profit margin markup that puts the effective price of the first stage at $49 million. They've said they think they can do 10 launches per booster core, if so that puts the amortized price at only $4.9 million per flight. Add the $16 million for the 2nd stage and that gives you a ballpark figure of $21 million per flight with the same profit percentages they have today. Add a few million dollars per flight for operational overhead and the cost of other components and you're probably not far off a reasonable estimate for what they could offer, let's call it $25 million just to be safe. At 22,800 kg to LEO, that's $1000 per kg ($500/lb). How much lower that could go depends on how much profit margin SpaceX would want to shave off and how much overhead they have for reuse. In comparison, the industry standard Ariane 5 can do roughly $8k per kg to LEO, the Atlas V is similar, the Proton is about $4k/kg.
- api 10y agoWhat's the prospect for second stage reuse? I know they have talked about it but my understanding is it is much harder due to energies involved and payload margin.
- Coincoin 10y agoMy understanding is second stage is harder, first because of the rocket equation. Every Kg on the second stage is much more costly than an additional Kg on the first stage. Second, the second stage needs to go into orbit before it can return. That's much more speed and a harder reentry. Third, you have to deal with thrust. Falcon 9 has 9 engines, which means the landing burn can uses 1 engine for 1/9 of the thrust. This is still too much power and F9 currently needs to do a suicide burn. You can't do that with only one engine on a stage that is 1/10 lighter than the first one. Fourth, second stage has a vacuum engine with a nozzle not fit for atmospheric use. It's so thin and flexible it would probably crumble or disintegrate upon entry.
- imh 10y ago> SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell has said that customers that fly on a used Falcon 9 could eventually get discounts of up to 30 percent.
- hinkley 10y agoFor sale. One rocket. Only used once, on a Sunday. $2M OBO. Ask for Elon.
- peter303 10y agoCuts costs about 60%. A bit better than spacebshuttle economics which was more like 40%.
- venomsnake 10y agoThe space shuttle was also really good at killing its crews for no good reason ...
- valuearb 10y agoSpaceshuttle economics were $50k/lb, so not like SpaceX.
- matt4077 10y agoThe Atlantic writes that launch costs are expected to be 30% lower (40 Million instead of 60 Million), butt customers currently only get 10% off: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/spacex-reusable-rocket/521475/?utm_source=feed https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/spacex-r...
- Diederich 10y agoI heard that Musk said that the next goal is to get Falcon 9 total turnaround time to under 24 hours. That's a direct dress rehearsal for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITS_launch_vehicle plan, where it takes off and returns directly to its pad, where it's refueled and 2nd stage loaded on top, for immediate turnaround. We're living in the fuckin' future.
- schoen 10y agoIt's kind of weird to think that it would be so reliable that it wouldn't even need serious inspection before flying again! But I guess other vehicles like cars and trucks are in that category (they don't typically receive an in-depth safety inspection before and after each trip), so maybe rockets can get there too...
- greglindahl 10y agoAirplanes are the comparison that SpaceX uses.
- collinmanderson 10y agoExactly. Airplanes get inspected between flights, but it takes hours, not days to do the inspections.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoIt does not take hours. Southwest turns a 747 around in 20 minutes. That includes baggage unload/reload, fueling, and pilot pre-flight.
- wl 10y agoSouthwest doesn't fly 747s, only 737s.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- fwefwwfe 10y agoHow do they know how many times they can re-use the rocket? Do they xray it for cracks every 5 flights?
- aeleos 10y agoFor this rocket, the process for figuring out if they can use it and how was very complex. This rocket was originally flown for the CRS-8 mission on april 8th, 2016. So it took them just shy of a year to ensure that this rocket could be reflown, and that they felt comfortable putting a customers payload on it. They also fired it on the ground many times, and I would imagine checked it for every imaginable component failure. How ever, for the future, only time will tell how confident they will be able to be in the re-usability of their rockets. Most likely they will retire this rocket, as with the one that was first landed, and put it on display somewhere. After they research it, of course.
- Denzel 10y agoMinor correction, Gwynne said that this rocket only took 4 months to inspect. The rest of the delay was due to pushing the launch schedule back after one of their rockets exploded, with payload atop, during testing. You are correct, they are retiring this rocket. In fact, SpaceX is giving a piece of the rocket to SES to hang in their conference room.
- gozur88 10y agoSometimes I think SpaceX is landing stages so it can put them in museums, parking lots, and conference rooms. Did they say why they're retiring this stage? A commenter at Ars said they spent a lot of time bringing it up to the latest rev. Seems like a shame not to fly it again.
- aeleos 10y agoBecause once you have shown it is possible once, it means it can be done again. Why destroy a piece of history when you can destroy number 2 trying to fly it a third time? They most likely spent the time bringing it up to the latest rev because of the performance improvements and increased reliability of the newer version. They didn't really care about how much time it took to get the second one to fly, as long as they could get it done. This was a really big milestone for their future plans, so it didn't really have a monetary or time limit.
- peter303 10y agoBlue Origin has reused their Shepard rocket 4(?) times. Their rockect has not gone into deep space.
- frisco 10y ago> Their rocket has not gone into deep space Nor has Falcon 9. It would be more correct to say that no Blue Origin rocket has been to very high energies though, much less returned from them.
- jessriedel 10y agoThese are not really comparable. The Shepard rocket is sub-orbital and achieves something like 1/5 or less of the same speed as the Falcon 9.
- Retric 10y agoIt's also not carrying a giant payload and 2nd stage.
- sytse 10y agoIt is not space vs. deep space. It is space vs. orbit. Orbit means having the speed to not fall back to earth.
- parcec 10y agoTo be fair, Falcon 9 stage 1 has never been to orbit either.
- ge96 10y agoThank you for making progress for humanity. Being useful haha. edit: damn I could imagine something like a long assembly line, one building is a massive x-ray machine, rocket slides into it like a sub-sandwich going into a Quizno's oven, parts get pulled out, replaced with robotic arms, refueled, payload attached, stands up, boom back into space! haha
- yitchelle 10y agoDoes the mean the amount of space vehicles (satellite, space stations, transport space crafts etc) will explode in next few years? I wonder if there any infrastructure to support this.
- jernfrost 10y agoExciting! I'd like to see the faces of all those people arrogantly writing off SpaceX and Elon Musk. He isn't just a flamboyant marketing man, just doing stuff NASA did 40 years ago or whatever sour comments I've seen directed towards the achievements of SpaceX. It is very inspiring to see a man with a dream reach this far, despite being ridiculed for years. It wasn't supposed to be possible, but he did it anyway. From now on one can always point to Elon Musk if somebody tries to put you down and say something can't be done. Of course most are not anywhere near the talent and focus of Elon Musk, but it proves what people often seem to discount that startups can make a dent and challenge the big established players. I see the same when people discuss Tesla. People are very quick to write off Tesla believing it is only a matter of time before Diamler Benz, Audi, Toyota, etc knock them down with a superior electric alternative. Personally I think we will see in both space launch and the car industry an iPhone moment, where long time established players eventually get destroyed or made irrelevant. It has nothing to do with difference in talent, but when you work in an established company you know very well how slow it can be for a company to change their ways in fundamental ways. The change in priorities, strategy and mindset will come too late for many of the players.
- kayoone 10y agoAlmost feels like, the Elon Musk cult is like a religion for the generation Y.
- skdotdan 10y agoIt would be awesome if much more capital was assigned to the space industry. Imagine a whole ecosystem of space companies both competing and cooperating.
- spiraldancing 10y agoNapkin-math ... Long-term, Falcon9 exists to fund Spacex' R&D for Mars. Until now, Musk has said <5% of Spacex budget goes to ITS dev. I expect that to change now. 1st stage costs $40m, targeting 10 flights = $4m/flight, amortised. Add another 2-3 million for refurbishment, storage, etc., and reusing the 1st stages should save Spacex ~$33m. Shotwell, however, has stated that customers will receive up to 30% discount. On a $62m flight, that's a savings of <$19m ... giving Spacex an extra $12-15m pure profit on every flight ... which I hope/expect to get channeled into ITS dev. Spacex is already the cheapest in the industry, and they now have a 3-5 year head-start in reusability, they simply don't need to lower their prices more.