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Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resuppli

Currently they have to throw away the rockets used for GTO missions (around half of them) and can only attempt landings on LEO missions such as the ISS resupplies. Given their last few landing attempts, it's pretty likely that they'll be able to land a rocket sometime this year, which means that starting next year they might be able to reuse all of their F9 Rockets. A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks), so SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc. It looks like at least a some part of their satellite internet plan was meant to take advantage of this large launch capacity. I'm also very curious to see what the prices for a used rocket launch are. Rockets are obviously expensive, but so are the operational costs in setting them up. Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in spaceflight since the 60s!

toomuchtodo 12y ago
The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.
- FrojoS 12y ago
  Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what's most expensive and the first stage has nine times as many. Ignoring the cost for lunch, landing, refuelling etc. you could at best reduce the cost by 90%, a single order of magnitude. Unfortunately, the first stage might be worth much more. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost distribution is closer to 50-50. The second stage has all the avionics, a special vacuum version of the Merlin engine and might be more weight optimised due to the larger effect on maximum payload. Lets hope the Mars rocket (BFR) will allow full, low cost reusability. I'm sure SpaceX is working very hard on that.
  - nickhalfasleep 12y ago
    I wonder if instead of letting the second stage burn up, they could dock them in space somewhere to serve as material and fluid storage. They might not work for long term cryogenic storage, but a ton of pure aluminum has to be worth something up there.
    - Tuna-Fish 12y ago
      They launch to specific orbits desired by the customers. It might well be extremely expensive to move the second stage from these orbits to some common one where could dock.
      - toomuchtodo 12y ago
        Yes, definitely cost prohibitive from a fuel perspective to change orbits, but the vehicle could be safed for future use. I do not have enough information as to whether though would be valuable unless Tesla as some way to produce fuel on-orbit for the waiting, safed second stages.
        TeMPOraL 12y ago
        Well, FWIW, it works in Kerbal Space Program. But as you said, this would require for the fuel to be brought from somewhere else than Earth's gravity well. Maybe Planetary Resources will find some kerosene on a near-Earth asteroid?
        lmm 12y ago
        No it doesn't, not if you launch satellites where customers want them. Kerbal Space Program should really bring home the big fundamental about orbital mechanics: plane changes are really expensive.
        TeMPOraL 12y ago
        There are ways to make plane changes cheap (do them high enough, use gravity assist, etc.) and they could be useful when shipping fuel higher from Earth's gravity well, but I admit, current space missions are nowhere near that complicated. Also, while expensive, plane changes are still cheaper delta-V-wise than punching through the soup our atmosphere is.
- rst 12y ago
  It's going to be cheaper, but still in the millions, and not just because you still need to pay for a new second stage. There's also nontrivial cost associated with range safety, payload setup, and so forth (which are operations that still involve lots of highly trained personnel, with limited opportunities for automation because, among other things, the payloads aren't all alike).
  - jccooper 12y ago
    Millions would be great, as it's currently a matter of tens (or hundreds) or millions. Order of magnitude can make a big difference.
    - rbanffy 12y ago
      Any sufficiently large quantitative change becomes a qualitative change. Orders of magnitude usually do that.
- tsotha 12y ago
  >The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. Engineers have been scratching their heads for decades trying to figure out where all the money goes. For shuttle launches, depending on who's doing the accounting, fuel was something on the order of 2% of total launch costs. And the shuttle was reusable as well. I think it's that disparity that attracted Musk to the rocket business in the first place. You look at the cost breakdowns and think "What? How can this be so expensive?" If everything goes his way he'll have cut the vehicle cost by a factor of at least 20 by the time he's done.
justin66 12y ago
> A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks) I am certain the insurers will be happy to take a crack at figuring out the risk. That matters a lot. Whether or not you "want to fly on a used rocket," if your company can purchase a flight and insurance on a used rocket for a lot less than it can purchase a flight and insurance on a new rocket, you might be obligated to try it because of the decreased costs. (I'm ignorant as to who actually buys the insurance for these flights, the customer or SpaceX or what, but I'm sure the point still stands)
- trose 12y ago
  Would you fly in a used plane? Eventually no one will care. These rockets will be able to go through hundreds of flights before being retired.
- darkmighty 12y ago
  It's not a straightforward insurance matter since many many applications are time critical. If a rocket blows up they may need many more years until a replacement cargo can be manufactured, fitted into the launch schedule, etc. The coverage for that (specially opportunity costs, which are hard to measure anyway) might be too high, making the insurance premium larger than the gain provided by reusability. I'd believe most companies could prefer [more certain] safety -- which just means SpaceX will have to work on increasing reused rocket numbers by whatever means.
  - jsprogrammer 12y ago
    Specially? You are right though, that there are far more than monetary concerns to consider. Sometimes it seems as though people, particularly on HN, believe that money is the only thing of consideration in any endeavor.
  - pogden 12y ago
    All true. The first used F9 payloads will likely be Geosynchronous communications satellites, where the smaller payload is mostly fuel for apogee kick and station keeping, and the rest is mostly off the shelf hardware. Alternately, operators of large constellations, eg. Iridium that can replace the payload relatively quickly and cheaply. Opportunity cost can be mitigated if some of the payload is intended as on-orbit spares.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
> Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in > spaceflight since the 60s! Yes it is, and we get to use technology from the future this time :-). It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new. In particular the avionics and MEMs manufacturing has allowed the mass fraction of the operations bits of the rocket to plummet. I'm still curious though how they got a 30% improvement, and if it was a retelling of the Merlin 1C -> 1D evolution of if this is really a Merlin 1D+. They have also hinted at a project "Raptor" which is a ginormous engine. And finally it really puts a bad light on "Cost Plus" contracts and the folks at Boeing and ULA who have supplied launch platforms for the last few decades. Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up. Perhaps some of the management there will actually listen to what the engineers have been proposing for years and years.
- termain 12y ago
  "It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new." Minimally, the pintle engine technology came out of NASA work and I suspect much of their technical knowledge comes either directly or indirectly from NASA funding. " Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up." I think many of their engineers cared. But their corporate culture doesn't seem that interested in spaceflight, or at least spaceflight beyond the status quo.
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    Where there are engineers feeling oppressed, there is opportunity to disrupt!
- tsotha 12y ago
  >It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level... We spent more than enough money on NASA to have been decades ago where SpaceX is today. Unfortunately, Congress sees NASA as a source of patronage funding and not a space agency. If it had been run as a space program the shuttle would have been cancelled in the early '80s when it became The Monster That Ate The Budget.
grayrest 12y ago
> SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc. I assumed this was the motivator for their satellite internet backbone scheme.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. I could see SpaceX segmenting their customers into two tiers: mission completion sensitive, and cost sensitive, with who gets which rockets straightforward.

FrojoS 12y ago
Unfortunately, they can not reuse the second stage yet and they might never be able to with Falcon 9. I think Elon has already stated as much. The payload penalty due to the required heat shield, thrusters, fuel and legs for the second stage would be too much. For arguments sake, lets assume that the second stage was 10% of the manufacturing cost and the first stage was 90%. You could argue, that the engines are what's most expensive and the first stage has nine times as many. Ignoring the cost for lunch, landing, refuelling etc. you could at best reduce the cost by 90%, a single order of magnitude. Unfortunately, the first stage might be worth much more. I wouldn't be surprised if the cost distribution is closer to 50-50. The second stage has all the avionics, a special vacuum version of the Merlin engine and might be more weight optimised due to the larger effect on maximum payload. Lets hope the Mars rocket (BFR) will allow full, low cost reusability. I'm sure SpaceX is working very hard on that.
- nickhalfasleep 12y ago
  I wonder if instead of letting the second stage burn up, they could dock them in space somewhere to serve as material and fluid storage. They might not work for long term cryogenic storage, but a ton of pure aluminum has to be worth something up there.
  - Tuna-Fish 12y ago
    They launch to specific orbits desired by the customers. It might well be extremely expensive to move the second stage from these orbits to some common one where could dock.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Yes, definitely cost prohibitive from a fuel perspective to change orbits, but the vehicle could be safed for future use. I do not have enough information as to whether though would be valuable unless Tesla as some way to produce fuel on-orbit for the waiting, safed second stages.
      - TeMPOraL 12y ago
        Well, FWIW, it works in Kerbal Space Program. But as you said, this would require for the fuel to be brought from somewhere else than Earth's gravity well. Maybe Planetary Resources will find some kerosene on a near-Earth asteroid?
        lmm 12y ago
        No it doesn't, not if you launch satellites where customers want them. Kerbal Space Program should really bring home the big fundamental about orbital mechanics: plane changes are really expensive.
        TeMPOraL 12y ago
        There are ways to make plane changes cheap (do them high enough, use gravity assist, etc.) and they could be useful when shipping fuel higher from Earth's gravity well, but I admit, current space missions are nowhere near that complicated. Also, while expensive, plane changes are still cheaper delta-V-wise than punching through the soup our atmosphere is.
rst 12y ago
It's going to be cheaper, but still in the millions, and not just because you still need to pay for a new second stage. There's also nontrivial cost associated with range safety, payload setup, and so forth (which are operations that still involve lots of highly trained personnel, with limited opportunities for automation because, among other things, the payloads aren't all alike).
- jccooper 12y ago
  Millions would be great, as it's currently a matter of tens (or hundreds) or millions. Order of magnitude can make a big difference.
  - rbanffy 12y ago
    Any sufficiently large quantitative change becomes a qualitative change. Orders of magnitude usually do that.
tsotha 12y ago
>The rocket is paid for with its primary mission. Elon has said that the fuel is a very small cost compared to the entire launch, so I would assume the cost to refly a "used" rocket is going to be orders of magnitude cheaper than the original flight. Engineers have been scratching their heads for decades trying to figure out where all the money goes. For shuttle launches, depending on who's doing the accounting, fuel was something on the order of 2% of total launch costs. And the shuttle was reusable as well. I think it's that disparity that attracted Musk to the rocket business in the first place. You look at the cost breakdowns and think "What? How can this be so expensive?" If everything goes his way he'll have cut the vehicle cost by a factor of at least 20 by the time he's done.

justin66 12y ago

> A lot of customers may not want to fly on a used rocket though (no one knows the risks) I am certain the insurers will be happy to take a crack at figuring out the risk. That matters a lot. Whether or not you "want to fly on a used rocket," if your company can purchase a flight and insurance on a used rocket for a lot less than it can purchase a flight and insurance on a new rocket, you might be obligated to try it because of the decreased costs. (I'm ignorant as to who actually buys the insurance for these flights, the customer or SpaceX or what, but I'm sure the point still stands)

trose 12y ago
Would you fly in a used plane? Eventually no one will care. These rockets will be able to go through hundreds of flights before being retired.
darkmighty 12y ago
It's not a straightforward insurance matter since many many applications are time critical. If a rocket blows up they may need many more years until a replacement cargo can be manufactured, fitted into the launch schedule, etc. The coverage for that (specially opportunity costs, which are hard to measure anyway) might be too high, making the insurance premium larger than the gain provided by reusability. I'd believe most companies could prefer [more certain] safety -- which just means SpaceX will have to work on increasing reused rocket numbers by whatever means.
- jsprogrammer 12y ago
  Specially? You are right though, that there are far more than monetary concerns to consider. Sometimes it seems as though people, particularly on HN, believe that money is the only thing of consideration in any endeavor.
- pogden 12y ago
  All true. The first used F9 payloads will likely be Geosynchronous communications satellites, where the smaller payload is mostly fuel for apogee kick and station keeping, and the rest is mostly off the shelf hardware. Alternately, operators of large constellations, eg. Iridium that can replace the payload relatively quickly and cheaply. Opportunity cost can be mitigated if some of the payload is intended as on-orbit spares.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

> Anyway, these are probably the most exciting times in > spaceflight since the 60s! Yes it is, and we get to use technology from the future this time :-). It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new. In particular the avionics and MEMs manufacturing has allowed the mass fraction of the operations bits of the rocket to plummet. I'm still curious though how they got a 30% improvement, and if it was a retelling of the Merlin 1C -> 1D evolution of if this is really a Merlin 1D+. They have also hinted at a project "Raptor" which is a ginormous engine. And finally it really puts a bad light on "Cost Plus" contracts and the folks at Boeing and ULA who have supplied launch platforms for the last few decades. Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up. Perhaps some of the management there will actually listen to what the engineers have been proposing for years and years.

termain 12y ago
"It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level could have a lot of useful data in the 'bank' as it were, but by and large much of the stuff that makes what SpaceX does possible is relatively new." Minimally, the pintle engine technology came out of NASA work and I suspect much of their technical knowledge comes either directly or indirectly from NASA funding. " Clearly nobody in the "old guard" really cared about space, they just wanted to keep the money flowing. I am profoundly glad that they are being shaken up." I think many of their engineers cared. But their corporate culture doesn't seem that interested in spaceflight, or at least spaceflight beyond the status quo.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  Where there are engineers feeling oppressed, there is opportunity to disrupt!
tsotha 12y ago
>It is bittersweet for me, the opportunity lost to keep funding NASA at a reasonable level... We spent more than enough money on NASA to have been decades ago where SpaceX is today. Unfortunately, Congress sees NASA as a source of patronage funding and not a space agency. If it had been run as a space program the shuttle would have been cancelled in the early '80s when it became The Monster That Ate The Budget.

grayrest 12y ago

> SpaceX may end up with quite a large number of rockets, which they'll have to fly to establish costs/risks/etc. I assumed this was the motivator for their satellite internet backbone scheme.