3 ms·

I think Blue Origin's biggest problem is they don't currently have a planned or real Falcon 9 competitor. These expected and incremental updates (to a years la

by jmyeet 1y ago

I think Blue Origin's biggest problem is they don't currently have a planned or real Falcon 9 competitor. These expected and incremental updates (to a years late system that still needs to be proven) are putting the payload capacity in the Falcon Heavy range and there's roughly 1 Falcon Heavy launch per year. There are over 100 Falcon 9 launches per year. Yes a bunch are Starlink so you can exclude those when estimating demand from external customers but the point remains that there isn't currently a commercial demand for bigger payloads and/or higher orbits than what Falcon 9 can do. SpaceX has the same problem: Starship is a superheavy lifter where Falcon Heavy has little demand and Starship is even bigger. At least SpaceX has Starlink as induced demand. Blue Origin doesn't. Defenders will argue the greater volume and payload weights will create new possibilities because payloads can only be designed for available launch systems but satellites don't really seem to be getting any bigger and there are only so many geosynchronous military payloadcs and interplanetary probes that need to be launched.

fooblaster 1y ago
Not terribly familiar with the details, but Amazon kuiper has a contract with blue origin and other providers.
- hvb2 1y ago
  Sure, but Kuiper is launching on other rockets to meet an fcc deadline for using enough of their spectrum. They even launch on falcon 9. If other providers had the capacity to launch all of them, I'm sure falcon wouldn't be in the mix there.
  - NetMageSCW 1y ago
    Falcon wasn’t in the mix until Amazon faced a shareholder lawsuit for not contracting with the cheapest provider. I’m not sure if that is true given the volume limitations of F9, but the only hope Amazon has of getting to the FCC halfway point is a lot more F9 launches. No one else can launch fast enough.
notahacker 1y ago
I assume they'll have figured out a deployment strategy for Project Kuiper where the unit economics works; there are advantages and disadvantages to launching more satellites, less frequently. SpaceX isn't that different in creating its own demand: the launch cadence of the Falcon 9 is so frequent mainly because they have a lot of their own satellites to launch. You can make money on infrequent launches of niche stuff (and Blue Origin will target orbit injections and stuff like handling nuclear material for big one-off missions that SpaceX isn't interested in competing for). But New Glenn and to an even greater extent Starship owe their existence to an assumption that we'll be launching bigger stuff than constellation class satellites in volume to build space infrastructure in the next decade: space stations, space solar, lunar resource extraction stuff etc. If that comes to pass, the bigger question is whether New Glenn is too small...
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  Incorrect. Starship is predicated on the idea that reusing the second stage will let them lower the cost of launch another ten times and it won’t matter if you don’t fill Starship completely, it will still be the cheapest option.
  - notahacker 1y ago
    And the unit economics of a smaller launch vehicle with a reusable second stage would be better still, especially since rapid launch cadences are what SpaceX does best. They've built it big because they think the demand exists.
Zigurd 1y ago
Trying to compete against Falcon 9 is like entering the TV market against TCL. At best, you won't lose your shirt trying and can quit gracefully. Several other rockets startups think they do want to try. Let them. Being a better Falcon Heavy is a much more realistic goal. Just having a larger payload fairing is enough to win some business. I'm not sure what Starship is designed for. But I don't think it's worth even comparing until it can demonstrate deploying a payload other than a flat pack satellite, in orbit refueling, recovering both stages and turning the rocket around fast enough that you don't have to build 17 Starships to refuel one in orbit. Before these milestones are reached, the cost-effectiveness is very theoretical. The big difference is that one of these rockets flew a successful mission, and the other one might be years away from key milestones.
- jmyeet 1y ago
  You have no choice. It’s the largest and most profitable sector of your market. If you don’t compete in it, SpaceX can subsidize Falcon Heavy launches with their Falcon 9 launches to put you out of business. I’m honestly not sure what Starship is designed for either. Despite all the hype, it might bankrupt SpaceX. Or seems like the poster child for second system syndrome.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    I strongly suspect they already have been pricing Falcon Heavy launches below cost, with the exception of national security launches. IIRC spaceX claims that falcon heavy has a lower cost per kilogram to orbit than Falcon 9. I also suspect that they are burning capital everywhere and their margins are extremely thin. The charitable assessment of that is that they are being like Amazon and they know what they are doing. A less charitable assessment is that Amazon could simply turn a pricing knob and become profitable. There is no knob at SpaceX. They need to make a very risky rocket project work for things to work in general. Not that that's a pattern in Elon's businesses or anything.
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      "Or seems like the poster child for second system syndrome." is spot on. Finding that they could actually land a Falcon 9 is exactly the serendipitous kind of win that leads to second system syndrome. There's a bit of Cybertruck-ism in the mix, too.
NetMageSCW 1y ago
Starship's maximum payload doesn't matter - it's cost per launch is all that matters, and with full reuse it will be cheaper to launch a medium payload on Starship than F9. SpaceX has already stated some of their launch contracts include the option to switch the launch vehicle to Starship from F9.
- jmyeet 1y ago
  It really does matter because SpaceX has to recover the cost of developing the program. I have no idea what all these test launches cost (where they lose the vehicle) but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the $300-500M range. Plus development time for all the components, particularly the engines. Starship is complex. The Raptor engines are complex. There are valid reasons to use Methane instead of Kerosene (ie to avoid coking and the ccost to reuse) but now you need two chilled propellants with everything that entails. You need to do a lot of launches to become human-rated (like Falcon 9 / Crew Dragon is now). In-orbit refueling is going to take a lot of launches to perfect and prove and it's going to have fairly limited applications to boot. Plus the entire program is a massive opportunity cost. SpaceX is in their Boeing 747 era now. The 747 was such a massive profit center for Boeing for decades, particularly when the program was paid for so it didn't need to be recovered on each plane delivered. Ultimately that ends. Engines are so reliable that they don't make 4 engine commercial planes anymore. I read it's likely that the engine will never have to be replaced for the entire life of the plane, which is a vastly different situation to 50-60 years ago when the 747 was first developed. The Falcon 9 is currently the most successful launch system ever made and it is a cash cow. But if SpaceX spends a decade or more delivering Starship and recovering the program cost, that's a long time for somebody else to come along with an even cheaper platform in the same class as Falcon 9.

by jmyeet 1y ago

fooblaster 1y ago

Not terribly familiar with the details, but Amazon kuiper has a contract with blue origin and other providers.

hvb2 1y ago
Sure, but Kuiper is launching on other rockets to meet an fcc deadline for using enough of their spectrum. They even launch on falcon 9. If other providers had the capacity to launch all of them, I'm sure falcon wouldn't be in the mix there.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  Falcon wasn’t in the mix until Amazon faced a shareholder lawsuit for not contracting with the cheapest provider. I’m not sure if that is true given the volume limitations of F9, but the only hope Amazon has of getting to the FCC halfway point is a lot more F9 launches. No one else can launch fast enough.

notahacker 1y ago

I assume they'll have figured out a deployment strategy for Project Kuiper where the unit economics works; there are advantages and disadvantages to launching more satellites, less frequently. SpaceX isn't that different in creating its own demand: the launch cadence of the Falcon 9 is so frequent mainly because they have a lot of their own satellites to launch. You can make money on infrequent launches of niche stuff (and Blue Origin will target orbit injections and stuff like handling nuclear material for big one-off missions that SpaceX isn't interested in competing for). But New Glenn and to an even greater extent Starship owe their existence to an assumption that we'll be launching bigger stuff than constellation class satellites in volume to build space infrastructure in the next decade: space stations, space solar, lunar resource extraction stuff etc. If that comes to pass, the bigger question is whether New Glenn is too small...

NetMageSCW 1y ago
Incorrect. Starship is predicated on the idea that reusing the second stage will let them lower the cost of launch another ten times and it won’t matter if you don’t fill Starship completely, it will still be the cheapest option.
- notahacker 1y ago
  And the unit economics of a smaller launch vehicle with a reusable second stage would be better still, especially since rapid launch cadences are what SpaceX does best. They've built it big because they think the demand exists.

Zigurd 1y ago

Trying to compete against Falcon 9 is like entering the TV market against TCL. At best, you won't lose your shirt trying and can quit gracefully. Several other rockets startups think they do want to try. Let them. Being a better Falcon Heavy is a much more realistic goal. Just having a larger payload fairing is enough to win some business. I'm not sure what Starship is designed for. But I don't think it's worth even comparing until it can demonstrate deploying a payload other than a flat pack satellite, in orbit refueling, recovering both stages and turning the rocket around fast enough that you don't have to build 17 Starships to refuel one in orbit. Before these milestones are reached, the cost-effectiveness is very theoretical. The big difference is that one of these rockets flew a successful mission, and the other one might be years away from key milestones.

jmyeet 1y ago
You have no choice. It’s the largest and most profitable sector of your market. If you don’t compete in it, SpaceX can subsidize Falcon Heavy launches with their Falcon 9 launches to put you out of business. I’m honestly not sure what Starship is designed for either. Despite all the hype, it might bankrupt SpaceX. Or seems like the poster child for second system syndrome.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  I strongly suspect they already have been pricing Falcon Heavy launches below cost, with the exception of national security launches. IIRC spaceX claims that falcon heavy has a lower cost per kilogram to orbit than Falcon 9. I also suspect that they are burning capital everywhere and their margins are extremely thin. The charitable assessment of that is that they are being like Amazon and they know what they are doing. A less charitable assessment is that Amazon could simply turn a pricing knob and become profitable. There is no knob at SpaceX. They need to make a very risky rocket project work for things to work in general. Not that that's a pattern in Elon's businesses or anything.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    "Or seems like the poster child for second system syndrome." is spot on. Finding that they could actually land a Falcon 9 is exactly the serendipitous kind of win that leads to second system syndrome. There's a bit of Cybertruck-ism in the mix, too.

NetMageSCW 1y ago

Starship's maximum payload doesn't matter - it's cost per launch is all that matters, and with full reuse it will be cheaper to launch a medium payload on Starship than F9. SpaceX has already stated some of their launch contracts include the option to switch the launch vehicle to Starship from F9.

jmyeet 1y ago
It really does matter because SpaceX has to recover the cost of developing the program. I have no idea what all these test launches cost (where they lose the vehicle) but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the $300-500M range. Plus development time for all the components, particularly the engines. Starship is complex. The Raptor engines are complex. There are valid reasons to use Methane instead of Kerosene (ie to avoid coking and the ccost to reuse) but now you need two chilled propellants with everything that entails. You need to do a lot of launches to become human-rated (like Falcon 9 / Crew Dragon is now). In-orbit refueling is going to take a lot of launches to perfect and prove and it's going to have fairly limited applications to boot. Plus the entire program is a massive opportunity cost. SpaceX is in their Boeing 747 era now. The 747 was such a massive profit center for Boeing for decades, particularly when the program was paid for so it didn't need to be recovered on each plane delivered. Ultimately that ends. Engines are so reliable that they don't make 4 engine commercial planes anymore. I read it's likely that the engine will never have to be replaced for the entire life of the plane, which is a vastly different situation to 50-60 years ago when the 747 was first developed. The Falcon 9 is currently the most successful launch system ever made and it is a cash cow. But if SpaceX spends a decade or more delivering Starship and recovering the program cost, that's a long time for somebody else to come along with an even cheaper platform in the same class as Falcon 9.