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They have been using the same rocket for like 30 years. I'm not sure they are organizationally equipped to innovate anymore. Similar to the standard NASA contr
by gameswithgo 5y ago
They have been using the same rocket for like 30 years. I'm not sure they are organizationally equipped to innovate anymore. Similar to the standard NASA contractors, who are rearranging shuttle parts to make the SLS and costing and order of magnitude more than even SpaceX's outlandish experiments from scratch.
Also its entirely possible the cost of a Soyuz launch is cheaper than a Falcon9 despite re-use, due to it being used for so long and slightly smaller.
- tialaramex 5y agoWell, previously commercial outfits were choosing SpaceX in large numbers. So if Soyuz is cheaper, why not Soyuz. Both these vehicles have government orders which are never going on a foreign platform, so there is no price cap for those, but if I'm a comms satellite outfit (and there isn't currently a war) surely I just pick whichever is cheapest?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jccooper 5y agoSoyuz isn't really in the same class as F9; its GTO payload is something like 2.5t, where F9 is like 5.5t. (The equivalent launcher on the Russian side was Proton at 6+t. And indeed, it sold lots of commercial launches until eclipsed by F9/FH... and its own poor reliability.) So Soyuz wasn't really competitive for most commercial launch, which until recently was largely GEO comsats. It was well-suited for MEO and LEO, which (until recently) was mostly scientific and surveillance, which is mostly government customers. But it was also well placed for the new commercial LEO com constellations, until they decided to throw that away.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]