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You can not compare all launches. Most of these launches are not competitive. SpaceX mostly competes with Arianspace for the truly commercial launches. SpaceX h
by nickik 10y ago
You can not compare all launches. Most of these launches are not competitive. SpaceX mostly competes with Arianspace for the truly commercial launches. SpaceX has captured around 50% of that market and the share is increasing.
ULA competes mostly on the Air Force launches. They still have capabilities that SpaceX does not have (large fairings) and some that SpaceX will not have for a long time (vertical integration). For these cases, ULA will still have a market, plus the Air Force always needs to have two providers.
SpaceX will however take quite a chunk out of ULA as we have already seen with the bidding for the GPS flights.
Orbital ATK will have hard time in the commercial market but they might be happy with just flying the COTS contracts.
The main issue SpaceX has to solve is flight rate, that is most of the reason others can still be on the commercial market at all. SpaceX is now so far away from everybody else on price, everybody else is still in the "developing a new vehicle and we have some ideas about reversibility, maybe" stage.
SpaceX can now launch a reusable core for around 50 million, and still make a nice profit. The target price for both ULA Vulcan and Arian 6 are 100 million. For Arian that does not even include the massive amount of development cost. Arianspace will survive because of the political imperative.
- acover 10y ago> plus the Air Force always needs to have two providers Source? Wasn't ULA the only provider for years as Boeing and Lockheed argued it would be cheaper to merge.
- kirrent 10y agoThe EELV program doesn't actually require two different providers to guarantee access to space. It requires two different families of launch vehicles. ULA had the Atlas V and Delta IV families.
- greglindahl 10y ago... and Delta IV Medium is being retired, because it's expensive and no longer needed as the second medium launch vehicle.
- nickik 10y agoAlso, they want Vulcan to replace both Delta and Arian family. Thanks to SpaceX they don't need two anymore.