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I suppose the point I'm making is to the general sentiment I'm seeing in this thread. It will take better than a 50% success rate of putting satellites into or

by jstrate 14y ago

I suppose the point I'm making is to the general sentiment I'm seeing in this thread. It will take better than a 50% success rate of putting satellites into orbit before Lockheed starts thinking about the huge disruption I keep hearing about on this website. If you were to put a billion dollar satellite into orbit who would you choose?

DanBC 14y ago
That satellite is a billion dollars because of the expensive existing launch options. Having a launch option an order of magnitude less than what exists at the moment is pretty important - it means people can build and launch two satellites for the same price.
- sek 14y ago
  True. The highest cost is development, producing a second one is far less expensive.
avar 14y ago
I think calling it a 50% success rate is disingenuous. The "failure" they had was because the satellite wasn't the primary mission, it was piggy-backing on the primary mission. It didn't make its orbit because after a recoverable mishap NASA didn't want to take any chances with the orbit of the ISS. That's not a failure of the rocket. It's just the operator of the primary mission calling the shots, and the secondary mission suffering as a result of that. That's the sort of risk you assume when you piggy-back on the primary payload when launching on any rocket.
sek 14y ago
This is also a learning process. Every rocket failure is something SpaceX then can learn from. Spending more money doesn't mean automatically more reliability in this space. Planes are so safe today because every failure worldwide increased the regulations for all planes so this can never happen again. They have a head start, they were able to learn from 66 starts. With every launch SpaceX does they get more reliable. Right now probably Lockheed, in one or two years SpaceX.
JshWright 14y ago
I'm sure Lockheed is keeping a _very_ close eye on what SpaceX is doing (despite the PR statement in the article). Incrementing the successful launcher counter from 0 to 1 is a huge step. Demonstrating the reliability they've shown with Dragon is another huge step. Lockheed is either concerned (and making plans to remain competitive at a much lower price point), or they're stupid (I'd guess it's the former...)

by jstrate 14y ago

DanBC 14y ago

That satellite is a billion dollars because of the expensive existing launch options. Having a launch option an order of magnitude less than what exists at the moment is pretty important - it means people can build and launch two satellites for the same price.

sek 14y ago
True. The highest cost is development, producing a second one is far less expensive.

avar 14y ago

I think calling it a 50% success rate is disingenuous. The "failure" they had was because the satellite wasn't the primary mission, it was piggy-backing on the primary mission. It didn't make its orbit because after a recoverable mishap NASA didn't want to take any chances with the orbit of the ISS. That's not a failure of the rocket. It's just the operator of the primary mission calling the shots, and the secondary mission suffering as a result of that. That's the sort of risk you assume when you piggy-back on the primary payload when launching on any rocket.

sek 14y ago

This is also a learning process. Every rocket failure is something SpaceX then can learn from. Spending more money doesn't mean automatically more reliability in this space. Planes are so safe today because every failure worldwide increased the regulations for all planes so this can never happen again. They have a head start, they were able to learn from 66 starts. With every launch SpaceX does they get more reliable. Right now probably Lockheed, in one or two years SpaceX.

JshWright 14y ago

I'm sure Lockheed is keeping a _very_ close eye on what SpaceX is doing (despite the PR statement in the article). Incrementing the successful launcher counter from 0 to 1 is a huge step. Demonstrating the reliability they've shown with Dragon is another huge step. Lockheed is either concerned (and making plans to remain competitive at a much lower price point), or they're stupid (I'd guess it's the former...)