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I wonder what the cost savings to space there are for buying a trip for a satellite on a "used" booster. Also if SpaceX is recycling the 1st stage, I wonder if

I wonder what the cost savings to space there are for buying a trip for a satellite on a "used" booster. Also if SpaceX is recycling the 1st stage, I wonder if they have plans to "Recycle" the 2nd stage in orbit.

quux 12y ago
I imagine the cost savings would be huge. The fuel and oxidizer for a typical satellite launch is only a few hundred thousand dollars, but the rocket is in the 10's of millions. Even if you add a million or 2 for refurbishing the used booster it's still huge. IIRC SpaceX's next generation of rockets will be designed so a reusable second stage will be possible.
ufmace 12y ago
We'll just have to see on that - it depends a lot on how many times the 1st stage can be reused, how much the refurbishment costs, and what the risk involved is. The first launch is pretty low-risk at this point, but how risky is the tenth launch on the same 1st stage? IIRC, they are on record as wanting to eventually recover the 2nd stage as well. It's a much tougher problem though - the 2nd stage has much higher velocity at engine cutoff, its engine is a variant designed to operate in vacuum and reportedly can't be made to operate in the atmosphere easily, and any additional hardware added to the 2nd stage has a much higher penalty on the rocket's performance than on the 1st.
krasin 12y ago
Somebody on /r/spacex made the following spreadsheet to demonstrate the effect of savings due to the reusability of the first and potentially second stages: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhFJHvEz4SHQdDBvanoxSzhUbEhnd05OZENiTDBBR0E&usp=sharing#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhFJHvEz4SHQdDB...
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  That's interesting, though it doesn't take into account all the non-rocket costs in the launch. Also the factory has to exist, probably the yearly cost does not scale linearly with the number of engines produced. That said, once you go there, if launch prices drop to one tenth, all kinds of other things can start to happen.

quux 12y ago

I imagine the cost savings would be huge. The fuel and oxidizer for a typical satellite launch is only a few hundred thousand dollars, but the rocket is in the 10's of millions. Even if you add a million or 2 for refurbishing the used booster it's still huge. IIRC SpaceX's next generation of rockets will be designed so a reusable second stage will be possible.

ufmace 12y ago

We'll just have to see on that - it depends a lot on how many times the 1st stage can be reused, how much the refurbishment costs, and what the risk involved is. The first launch is pretty low-risk at this point, but how risky is the tenth launch on the same 1st stage? IIRC, they are on record as wanting to eventually recover the 2nd stage as well. It's a much tougher problem though - the 2nd stage has much higher velocity at engine cutoff, its engine is a variant designed to operate in vacuum and reportedly can't be made to operate in the atmosphere easily, and any additional hardware added to the 2nd stage has a much higher penalty on the rocket's performance than on the 1st.

krasin 12y ago

Somebody on /r/spacex made the following spreadsheet to demonstrate the effect of savings due to the reusability of the first and potentially second stages: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhFJHvEz4SHQdDBvanoxSzhUbEhnd05OZENiTDBBR0E&usp=sharing#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhFJHvEz4SHQdDB...

Gravityloss 12y ago
That's interesting, though it doesn't take into account all the non-rocket costs in the launch. Also the factory has to exist, probably the yearly cost does not scale linearly with the number of engines produced. That said, once you go there, if launch prices drop to one tenth, all kinds of other things can start to happen.