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> A rocket that's thrown away was cheaper per flight than the shuttles, which were only partly discarded. It all depends on how much does it cost to build vs re
by nordsieck 2y ago
> A rocket that's thrown away was cheaper per flight than the shuttles, which were only partly discarded. It all depends on how much does it cost to build vs refurbish. Falcon 9 was designed to be easily refurbished and Ariane 6 was designed to be cheap to build.
It's not just that the Shuttle was expensive to refurbish. It was also very expensive to build.
Whereas Falcon 9 is much less expensive to build new than Ariane 6.
Ariane 6 was designed to be cheaper to build (cheaper than Ariane 5, that is).
- TMWNN 2y ago>Whereas Falcon 9 is much less expensive to build new than Ariane 6. For context, my understanding is that SpaceX builds one new Falcon 9 upper stage (not reused) every day. I doubt there is another entity on earth building a new rocket every month. SpaceX has a large fleet of Falcon 9 reusable boosters, but still needs to build one every now and then.
- nordsieck 2y ago> For context, my understanding is that SpaceX builds one new Falcon 9 upper stage (not reused) every day. Probably not quite that often. They're aiming to launch ~150 this year (although with the recent RUD, that'll be pretty tough). But yeah - 1 every other day is still very impressive.