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>Atlas 5 is already completely obsoleted by the Falcon Heavy which costs about half as much, for a reusable launch, and carries about 3x as much. Which is why
by TMWNN 3y ago
>Atlas 5 is already completely obsoleted by the Falcon Heavy which costs about half as much, for a reusable launch, and carries about 3x as much.
Which is why the rocket has been discontinued.
This is also why Boeing Starliner is dead man walking. Starliner is only certified for Atlas 5, and there are enough spare boosters for the launches NASA contracted with Boeing for, no more. The consensus is that Boeing will fulfill the contract then that'll be the end of Starliner, which is great for Boeing in the sense that it'll finally close that money-leaking wound, but not great for NASA because the whole point of Starliner + Crew Dragon was to have two separate US-owned ways to send people into space.[1] Even if Starship passes every test going forward ahead of schedule and gets man-rated, NASA would prefer to not have one company provide both methods, but I don't know what would be a better alternative. Sierra finally gets that big contract to man-rate Dream Chaser? Blue Origin?
[1] Setting aside how everyone at the time believed that Starliner would be the first one into orbit
- dotnet00 3y agoThere is still the possibility of either New Glenn or Vulkan being crew rated to carry Starliner. With Vulkan the concern was mainly that no one was willing to foot the bill, but with the rumored acquisition of ULA by Blue Origin, there's a chance they might want Starliner as their own crew vehicle. The main limitation being that Boeing has already shutdown Starliner production, only making the 2 needed for the ISS contract. So even if anyone else wanted them, they'd have to put in a bunch of money to restart production. Putting all those costs together it might just become better to do something else, e.g. crew rate Dreamliner. That said, right now it's kind of up in the air, since as it stands, Dragon's second crew contract and Starliner's existing contract are likely to cover all remaining ISS launches. So what's needed afterwards depends on the commercial space stations NASA is pushing for.
- adolph 3y ago> Starliner is only certified for Atlas 5 I'm not certain what is meant by "certified" because it still hasn't made a human flight test yet. Notwithstanding the retirement of Atlas and Delta, Starliner was intended to be compatible with multiple launch vehicles, including the ULA Atlas V and Delta IV, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Starliner