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On the reusable boosters -- has Spacex released any information on what the inspection / refurbishment costs (and time) are for the ones that have been reused a

On the reusable boosters -- has Spacex released any information on what the inspection / refurbishment costs (and time) are for the ones that have been reused already (or is there any educated guesses)? Also, if they end up being highly reliably reusable, wouldn't that slow down the production of new boosters, thereby making them much more expensive to produce?

stcredzero 8y ago
Also, if they end up being highly reliably reusable, wouldn't that slow down the production of new boosters, thereby making them much more expensive to produce? Only if you assume the market demand is constant. We already know that's not true.
annerajb 8y ago
They give customers a discount for reused boosters and their production rate is kinda stable thanks to falcon heavy and customers like the federal government asking for brand new rockets for some missions.
Robotbeat 8y ago
Folks at forum.nasaspaceflight.com and reddit.com/r/spacex do a meticulous job of tracking the booster numbers. You can tell when a reused booster was last flown which puts an upper limit on the amount of time it takes to refurb a booster (and a rough proxy upper limit for cost). This info is summarized in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... One booster seems to have been reused in just 2 and a half months (launched July 25, 2018 and October 8, 2018), compared to a new-production time of about 18-24 months from aluminum stock to launch. So a ~tenth the time of production and so probably about a tenth the labor (for the first stage). As far as slowing down production... ...SpaceX's production rate of new boosters has been roughly flat while their launch rate has increased, so this effect has not occurred. In fact, you can make a good argument that the primary benefit of reuse for SpaceX is that it has allowed them to squeeze a lot more launches (double) out of the same production capacity. They launched cores 23 times (3 at once for Falcon Heavy) in 2018, and only 10 of those were new. In 2017, it was 18 total launches, 5 with reused cores and 13 new. SpaceX can switch resources between upper stages and first stages, too, and eventually mothball first stage production or convert it to BFR production, thus giving them a benefit from reuse that you might not consider from a first-pass analysis.
mrep 8y ago
> Also, if they end up being highly reliably reusable, wouldn't that slow down the production of new boosters, thereby making them much more expensive to produce? They still have to build expendable second stages for the falcon 9 and that uses practically the same engine (it's optimized for vacuums). Also, I doubt rocket companies gain much from economies of scale considering how low launch rates are so scaling back production probably doesn't increase costs much.

stcredzero 8y ago

Also, if they end up being highly reliably reusable, wouldn't that slow down the production of new boosters, thereby making them much more expensive to produce? Only if you assume the market demand is constant. We already know that's not true.

annerajb 8y ago

They give customers a discount for reused boosters and their production rate is kinda stable thanks to falcon heavy and customers like the federal government asking for brand new rockets for some missions.

Robotbeat 8y ago

Folks at forum.nasaspaceflight.com and reddit.com/r/spacex do a meticulous job of tracking the booster numbers. You can tell when a reused booster was last flown which puts an upper limit on the amount of time it takes to refurb a booster (and a rough proxy upper limit for cost). This info is summarized in this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He... One booster seems to have been reused in just 2 and a half months (launched July 25, 2018 and October 8, 2018), compared to a new-production time of about 18-24 months from aluminum stock to launch. So a ~tenth the time of production and so probably about a tenth the labor (for the first stage). As far as slowing down production... ...SpaceX's production rate of new boosters has been roughly flat while their launch rate has increased, so this effect has not occurred. In fact, you can make a good argument that the primary benefit of reuse for SpaceX is that it has allowed them to squeeze a lot more launches (double) out of the same production capacity. They launched cores 23 times (3 at once for Falcon Heavy) in 2018, and only 10 of those were new. In 2017, it was 18 total launches, 5 with reused cores and 13 new. SpaceX can switch resources between upper stages and first stages, too, and eventually mothball first stage production or convert it to BFR production, thus giving them a benefit from reuse that you might not consider from a first-pass analysis.

mrep 8y ago

> Also, if they end up being highly reliably reusable, wouldn't that slow down the production of new boosters, thereby making them much more expensive to produce? They still have to build expendable second stages for the falcon 9 and that uses practically the same engine (it's optimized for vacuums). Also, I doubt rocket companies gain much from economies of scale considering how low launch rates are so scaling back production probably doesn't increase costs much.