SpaceX Updates (Thread 8)

By DocM
in Science News & Discussion

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Grand Master

FloatingFatMan

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22 hours ago, DocM said:

This is going to put serious heat on ULA/Boeing/LockMart as regards Vulcan "reuse" by way of parachuting the engine bay & engines, catching it with a chopper. This design still needs solid boosters.

I see 3 possible outcomes for such a stupid idea.

 

1.  No pilot will agree to attempting something so monstrously stupid, nor will the FAA or other similar organisations

2.  A clean miss

3.  A dead chopper crew

 

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Grand Master

DocM

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Such retrievals were done of US Corona spysat film return capsules, and the Ryan Firebee recon drones over SE Asia from 1964-1975. Thousands of missions.

 

The Vulcan engine bay would be larger, but the principle is proven. Just a bit costly and a logistical nightmare vs. doing as God and Robert A. Heinlein intended ;)

 

140114-F-DW547-008.JPG

 

Ryan Firebee

140114-F-DW547-004.JPG

 

Go to 3:45 of this video to see a chopper snatch a parachuting drone

 

 

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PaulRocket

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11 hours ago, DocM said:

The first reused Dragon, CRS-11 - formerly CRS-4, is getting ready to ship.

 

 

Is it correct that a Dragon costs about $50-60M? 

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Grand Master

DocM

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4 hours ago, PaulRocket said:

Is it correct that a Dragon costs about $50-60M? 

Under the CRS Round 1 contract SpaceX was allocated 12 missions at a cost of $1.6 billion, or about $133.3 million a mission. Musk has said about half of this was the cost of Dragon 1, so about $67.7 million.

 

This contract was extended twice, first adding 3 missions then another 5 for a total of 20 CRS missions and at each an inflation factor was applied.  These missions now cost about $140 million each.

 

SpaceX, OrbitalATK and Sierra Nevada were each awarded 6 initial CRS Round 2 missions with SpaceX getting the highest evaluation score and per mission award, but that amount isn't accurately known yet.  The total CRS Round 2 contract for all 3 providers maxes out at $14 billion, counting 6 missions each and the likely additional missions past those, and as stated SpaceX will get the largest chunk.

 

All SpaceX CRS Round 2 missions will fly using Dragon 2, and the baseline mission includes propulsive landings at LZ-1.

 

What's interesting about CRS Round 2 is that both Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and Lockheed's entry were eliminated early. Starliner couldn't hold enough pressurized cargo/mission, and Lockheed was eliminated for high costs and mission complexity - it required 2 vehicles.

 

 

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PaulRocket

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20 minutes ago, DocM said:

Under the CRS Round 1 contract SpaceX was allocated 12 missions at a cost of $1.6 billion, or about $133.3 million a mission. Musk has said about half of this was the cost of Dragon 1, so about $67.7 million.

 

This contract was extended twice, first adding 3 missions then another 5 for a total of 20 CRS missions and at each an inflation factor was applied.  These missions now cost about $140 million each.

 

SpaceX, OrbitalATK and Sierra Nevada were each awarded 6 initial CRS Round 2 missions with SpaceX getting the highest evaluation score and per mission award, but that amount isn't accurately known yet.  The total CRS Round 2 contract for all 3 providers maxes out at $14 billion, counting 6 missions each and the likely additional missions past those, and as stated SpaceX will get the largest chunk.

 

All SpaceX CRS Round 2 missions will fly using Dragon 2, and the baseline mission includes propulsive landings at LZ-1.

 

What's interesting about CRS Round 2 is that both Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and Lockheed's entry were eliminated early. Starliner couldn't hold enough pressurized cargo/mission, and Lockheed was eliminated for high costs and mission complexity - it required 2 vehicles.

 

 

Thanks for the answer! Looks like SpaceX will have a lot of Dragons sitting around waiting for being reused on some commercial missions. 

Regarding 24h refurbishment time, do we know if SpaceX is still planning on getting Brownsville up and running by 2018? I imagine this is quite important since they will probably be limited to one launch per 2 weeks at the Cape...

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DocM

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2018 still appears to be "the plan," and things are moving there with road improvements, lots of surveying, and the STARGATE tracking/R&D building having gone up. One 10 meter tracking dish is up, and anothers base has been poured. More land acquisitions too. We'll likely see major cement work soon.

 

And keep in mind: this is a $100 million project, and a lot of it has been soil preparation - as in drying it out. This takes installing thousands of deep "wick drains," a lot of dirt piled on top for weight, and time.

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Grand Master

DocM

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This video seems so prescient 6 years later....and the music choice of Uprising (Muse) was absolutely perfect.

 

CC: Richard Shelby

 

 

 

>

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious
(So come on)

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Grand Master

Unobscured Vision

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They've already lost. There's so much coming down the pipe in the next two years that it would take OldSpace probably twenty years to get to this point IF they could be bothered to try. Let alone have any kind of forward-thinking or risk-taking in the underlying technologies that have gotten SpaceX this far already.

 

Nope. I keep saying this, but it's really the only thing that can sum it up. OldSpace are really just here for the Participation trophies at this point. The best they can do is to latch onto one of the NewSpace companies like leeches (and they have, in fact -- Blue Origin) and try to survive. OldSpace is at the mercy of NewSpace, make no mistake. They had their chance to do things their way, develop their own engine and completely pish-poshed the funding. Now they've missed the train. And the plane. And the boat. And finally the rocket.

 

The AR-1 engine, while halfway decent, is really, really out of step and out of touch with current technology -- and still three years from being ready for anything. It should have been ready TEN years ago when it was REALLY needed.

 

And they'd better thank their lucky stars that Elon and Bezos aren't absolute sharks ... because if the tables were turned, NewSpace would have already been plowed under without a second glance.

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SALSN

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I completely agree with your assessment, I was actually thinking about the other new space companies, Blue Origin seems to have something to show, but stuff like Orbital, I'm not so sure about, and Virgin Galactic seems to be postponing indefinitely, while their product slowly becomes less and less impressive in comparison to the competitors tech and prices. What about the Dream chaser will there still be a market for that one when the Dragon 2 is flying?
We don't need a new monopoly situation, even if it is SpaceX sitting on the monopoly.

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Grand Master

DocM

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1 hour ago, SALSN said:

>

Whatabout the Dream chaser will there still be a market for that one when the Dragon 2 is flying?
>

Dream Chaser has a CRS Round 2 ISS cargo contract, joining SpaceX and OrbitalATK, and is ramping to another glide/landing test.  Part of this development is a big cargo Trunk to meet the CRS Round 2 volume requirements. 

 

Fun fact: Dream Chaser beat out both Boeing and Lockheed Martin in the competition.

 

They're also working with Germany and a few others on DC4E, Dream Chaser for Europe, to fly on Ariane. This should let them fly to either the ISS or Chinese station. Part of this work is that Dream Chaser would use a European built version of the International Docking Adapter. 

 

CRS R2 unmanned Dream Chaser

maxresdefault.jpg

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