Privately-funded rocket ready for 2nd try

[DanS]

The current price assumes no reusability. Could be cheaper if they can reuse some or all the first stage. Depends on refurbishment costs and the like. They don't have a good handle on it yet.

No other orbital rocket other than the Space Shuttle has any reusable parts.

It is surmised that rockets will become more reliable as well, once they can inspect stages that have been used. Maybe they'll catch some things on the stage that could have created a problem, but didn't.

[Geronimo]

I wonder how profitable the Russian rocket industry is. If spaceX succeeds in making this thing reliable perhaps the Russians could put them out of business simply by dropping their prices further still.

[DanS]

Indeed, that's a possibility. But we don't know how profitable SpaceX is at $7 million per launch either. It would be interesting to see the first price war in space launch regardless of who the ultimate winner is.

Besides, the Russkis still have a reputation as hard to work with, even if their rockets are undeniably good.

SpaceX has about $400 million in contracts already, which will keep them busy for a while. And then there's the desire for the gov't and maybe others to buy American, if the prices and quality are similar.

[DanS]

It looks like they made about 300 km -- well into space. But they never made orbital velocity.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070320_spacex_falc1_test2.html

Elon Musk is positioning this as a 95% successful exercise. That seems like taking some liberties, but I think they should be happy nonetheless about lots of successes on the day. We now know that the rocket mostly works.

For sure, nobody has ever fired the engine, experienced an anomaly, shut down the engine, unfueled, refueled, and then launched an hour later. Such capabilities are new in space launch.

[DanS]

Here's the flight on YouTube. The video cuts out at T +5:14. A beautiful flight up to that point. At about T +4:45 is when the problems start.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by DanS
It looks like they made about 300 km -- well into space. But they never made orbital velocity.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/070320_spacex_falc1_test2.html

Elon Musk is positioning this as a 95% successful exercise. That seems like taking some liberties, but I think they should be happy nonetheless about lots of successes on the day. We now know that the rocket mostly works.

For sure, nobody has ever fired the engine, experienced an anomaly, shut down the engine, unfueled, refueled, and then launched an hour later. Such capabilities are new in space launch.

Does it appreciably add to their launch costs when they shut down, unfuel, refuel, delay, etc?

[Kuciwalker]

I'd expect it adds a lot less than scrapping the launch and trying again later.

[DanS]

I don't know what the figures are, but the weeks-long and months-long delays have to be killer expensive -- if not in dollar figures, then at least in schedule compression and loss of good will from customers. Customers will stay with rocket companies that launch on time. Customers' confidence is increased by launching on time.

As far as I know, rocket companies pay an hourly rate to range employees. Then you probably rent radar, telemetry and communications resources. And SpaceX pays for the barge to recover the first stage. If you delay much, I'm sure the costs add up in ways that might not be readily apparent.

If you always launch on schedule, there's a positive reinforcement loop. Working from the Marshall Islands, the costs probably aren't that expensive. There is little human activity in the environs of the Marshall Islands. But at Cape Canaveral, the most expensive launch range, all sorts of restrictions are in place. Airline flights up and down the East coast are restricted during potential launch times, cops have to patrol the sea and beaches to make sure ships and beach bums don't come within the hazard zone, etc. All of those costs must add up something fierce.

Launch on time and you only have to pay once. If you are able to launch in all weather, that must be a great advantage. I seriously doubt that the Space Shuttle would have launched with the weather in the Marshall Islands yesterday, even though it looked pretty good from the webcast. On the YouTube clip, as the Falcon 1 passed through the clouds, there was lots of water on the rocket. The Falcon 1 can launch with 40 knots of wind so that delays are minimized, etc.

[Thorgal]

I see an obvious problem here: Even if in the future they are able to do a couple of really successful testing launches, will be it enough to attract clients willing to risk his expensive satellites in such unproved and low cost rockets developed from scratch? I mean, having there the Russians very reliable and more than proved rockets at not very higher prices AFAIK, even if they are "hard to work with" i would never risk my expensive satellite with this or another unproved new private company. Why would i? and i bet insurance prices would be much higher too. And even if they get clients i wonder if a private company would survive to a more than probable failure in any of his first serious launches.

[DanS]

Yes, that's a very good point. The solution seems to be to front-load the government customers, if they are willing to take on the risk. DARPA is the designated risk-taker for the U.S. Government. The U.S. government will need launch services until the end of time, so they can make up the cost with price differentials on future launches.

For SpaceX, that means the first private customer will be the 6th launch. MDA of Canada (the folks who built the Canadarm for the Space Station) will be the customer for that launch. The Malaysian space agency is the first non-U.S. Government customer and will take on the 4th launch.

Overall, this problem would go away if there were a private customer that launched frequently. They would be willing to accept some risk on each individual launch, knowing that they would more than make up the difference as they enjoy the price reduction on future launches.