SpaceX Gets Injunction Against Russian Rocket Engines
Preliminary Injunction Issued Prohibits Further Purchases From NPO Energomash, SpaceRef Business
“A preliminary injunction was issued late yesterday in the matter of SpaceX vs The United States with one respect to the complaint. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has prohibited the Air Force and United Launch Alliance (ULA) from “making any purchases from or payment of money to NPO Energomash” effectively blocking any further purchases of RD-180 engines used by ULA on the Atlas V.”
ULA statement from Kevin G. MacCary, United Launch Alliance General Counsel, in response to Preliminary Injunction Related to National Security
“ULA is deeply concerned with this ruling and we will work closely with the Department of Justice to resolve the injunction expeditiously. In the meantime, ULA will continue to demonstrate our commitment to our National Security on the launch pad by assuring the safe delivery of the missions we are honored to support.”
Elon Musk’s SpaceX granted injunction in rocket launch suit against Lockheed-Boeing, Washington Post
“A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge issued an injunction late Wednesday prohibiting a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines. Judge Susan G. Braden’s ruling came after SpaceX, a California-based rocket company, sued the federal government Monday, protesting the Air Force’s award of a lucrative space contract, saying it should have been competitively bid.”
Injunction Order text
– Congressional Concerns Over Use of Russian Engines, earlier post
– Building All-American Rocket Engines, earlier post
I’m a bit surprised at this move. SpaceX’s lawyers seem to be going for the jugular.
We’re talking about over $70 billion in EELV launches over the next 10 years. There are no other big contracts out there like this for SpaceX. So yes, going for the jugular in this case is all about the bottom line, revenue for SpaceX.
I do not believe the $70B over the next 10 years is correct. I think it’s less than half of that. Also, with competition it will not be one big contract (actually never was); it will be a series of much smaller contracts, perhaps one mission at a time.
Sorry, my mistake, it’s through to 2030 as per GAO.
Sometimes you have to do what you have to do…
I wonder if the CST-100 & Dreamchaser are a high enough priority or does DOD come first for the engines in stock? Boeing has said they might use SpaceX F9. SpaceX has never said they would supply them. With reuse there should be plenty of launchers available. Looks like SpaceX has the Crew contract. I did not get if SpaceX asked for an injunction for no more Russian engines or that was a result the Judge had to take.
Thinking farther, this might be the end of CC. No Atlas. Can SpaceX be given the award when they are blocking the competition? May take an emergency order from the President. There is Ares-1 or Liberty. NASA might have to buy launches and capsules and do the control themselves. Could use Delta 4 and Orion. I guess the military launches are more important to SpaceX. It seems that the order was there but nobody was enforcing it. ULA has started taking one engine at at a time rather than bunches.
Boeing’s CST-100 was originally “booster neutral” and they were, at one time, considering the Atlas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9, and Liberty rocket for a booster
http://americaspace.com/wp-…
however, they narrowed their choice down to the Liberty rocket or the Atlas V, and finally in 2011 they chose the Atlas V as their booster and have been designing their interfaces around that choice since then. they would need to design a new adapter and stage interface for the Falcon 9, but that is probably a much simpler and much faster option than trying to fight for an Atlas V launcher or restart work on the Liberty rocket.
of course, SpaceX would gladly take Boeing’s money to launch their spacecraft 🙂
I hope for their sakes, Sierra Nevada has likewise “back-up” launch configuration plans that they can dust off. SpaceX might stonewall the crewed competition, should they come begging for a ride; but then again who knows, business is business and Elon might actually sell them that lift. All the same, I hope the Delta IV might be one of the viable back-ups.
As far as I know, they do not have a back-up plan. based on the estimates of the Dream Chaser’s mass that I’ve seen, I don’t think the Falcon 9 can launch DC, but the Falcon Heavy definitely can, and that would still be a cheaper option than the Delta IV
I don’t think that SpaceX would refuse to launch DC or CST, I think they understand the value of having multiple vehicles for redundant access to space in case something goes wrong with one of them, and each vehicle offers something a little different from the others.
Falcon 9 can launch Dream Chaser or CST-100, and Boeing admitted last year they were exploring that oprion because of Atlas V costs. DC is also launcher agnostic.
As to Falcon 9’s mass to LEO on their website; it’s listed as 13.15t but that counts reusability. Used as an expendable the NASA NLS-II mission calculator reveals F9 can do 16.6t to LEO. More than the Atlas V HR (human rated) builds spec’ed for commercial crew.
good point, thanks for the reminder. though the problem here is the estimate i have for DC mass is 25,000 lb, and that’s an old estimate, from 2011, i think, so i don’t know what it actually is, and the other unknown is the weight of the adapter that DC requires to mate with the rocket.
so, used as an expendable Falcon 9 might be able to launch DC. we’ll chalk that up as “plausible” for the moment, i suppose.
So far, it isn’t clear – Did SpaceX ask for this injunction, is it the result of some other case or is it the judge’s own assessment of what is necessary until SpaceX’s claim is heard?
The Washington Post article contains a link to the original injunction document. As I understood, this was not a separate action by SpaceX, but this injunction was triggered by the original EELV complaint by SpaceX and the sanctions against Dmitry Rogozin.
Good question. I’m pretty sure SpaceX can’t ask for something like this directly but maybe divulged some industry insider info or something to get the judge thinking.
This little incident, coupled with the Congressional draft-wars over wanting to ban the Government purchases of those engines (via Atlas V), is going to give both ULA and the AF migraines on trying to defend their right to sole-source a national asset lifter that relies on an outsourced propulsion system from Putin’s Russia.
Talk about serendipitous timing for SpaceX, with the fallout from this Russian/Ukrainian situation.
I’ll say this much: There are few coincidences in this world and I believe that the timing of this action is not one of them.
What? Of course it’s a coincidence.
SpaceX isn’t influencing Putin’s invasion plans. The sanctions against these oligarchs were announced before SpaceX’s lawsuit.
Russia is the number one item on Obama’s plate. He’s not worried about some beltway contract squabbles.
SpaceX is making the best of the hand in front of them. Putin’s meddling and Washington’s reaction has just been good timing for them.
If the Air Force suspects there was malfeasance in the block buy, this injunction could be a real opportunity.
The injunction would give the Air Force justification to cancel the deal. SpaceX would then drop their suit and John McCain might be convinced to drop his calls for an investigation.
ULA would scream, but if a suit or investigation would turn up bad acts, their protests wouldn’t be very loud.
The more dirty the ULA deal, the more likely the Air Force uses the injunction to cancel the deal.
This soon after Congress has announced a ban it is the Executive branch of the US Government to implement the new rules. The judiciary, particularly the civil courts, should only get involved later.
Seems like they haven’t read you email Andrew.
Cheers.
I’d say there are bigger fish frying here than just the RD180 issue. At it’s heart, DoD (and this could as well apply to NASA) has been coddling a duopoly/monopsony situation for a generation now. As demand for transportation to and from space has grown, the monposony aspect (being the biggest buyer of launch vehicles) has become self fulfilling, forcing US prices so high that US payload customers go abroad. Inevitably, a new entrant arrives that could provide supply, pushing the US market away from monopoly conditions, but that entrant faces the barrier of a government sponsored entity drawing away what could be lucrative opportunities in a fair and open market.
There is some precedent here-the difference in analogies being that we are dealing with a DoD/national security sponsored entity in ULA. I suspect this will not be the first time the judiciary has to get involved on this broader issue, likely skirting antitrust law, the Sherman Act, and hosts of federal procurement regulations. The thing to keep in mind is that as with other historical analogies (the breakup of trusts, or most recently “Ma’Bell’s breakup) there are people inside the government that want such lawsuits to be successful. Not everyone inside the government sees this as bad. For many, it’s high time and due.
That tells you a bit about inevitable outcomes over the long term-when some of the people a monopoly thinks are it’s sponsors and protectors also include a 5th column.
Are ULA and the AF now thinking Chinese engines? 😉
They are all hypergolic and short of the performance required. The Atlas V needs a stage combustion kerosene engine. It’s Russian engines or nothing for the Atlas V currently.
It’s doubtful Aerojet is capable of bring the Americanized RD-180 online in a timely manner or without a lot taxpayer money. Some estimates I read guess the US manufactured RD-180 will take 5 years and at least $1B. Never mind that the US might not have the metallurgy technology needed.
Five years is the showstopper.
Who’s going to want an RD-180 in five years?
ULA should have contracted an American version back in 2008, when Russian invaded Georgia. Guess they didn’t want to pay for it. They’re paying now.
Time to let Dynetics and AJ-R finish the modernized F-1b and build a Falcon 9-ized version of Atlas VI for it to push uphill.
Orbital .. they love buying old engines and rockets and using them
Just buy the Long March 5.
All this takes is for the administration to alter the wording of their ban. Supposedly there is a 2 year supply of engines and the US could make it themselves, although the cost would be extremely high. I would expect this to play out a bit as the AF, Congress and the administration figure out how best to proceed.
I doubt this will help SpaceX get any of those launches they want unless the AF determines they are light enough to fly on the Falcon 9 and it is reliable enough.
SpaceX already has three FH launches on the manifest. They could certainly accelerate the FH program and get the three launches in for a fraction of the cost of the RD-180. And that would get them 53 metric tons to LEO, providing the EELV program with capability for much heavier spacecraft than the current Atlas and Delta can provide.
The problem is the FH maiden launch is already 2 years late and is now moving from Vandenberg to the Cape. Also, going by the AF rules it will take about 3 flights, the last 2 successful, before it could compete for contracts. Then you have the question, is it reliable enough for multi billion $ payloads.
since the Falcon Heavy is made up of three Falcon 9 cores, one would imagine that the reliability could be established by the flights of single cores. that is essentially what was done with the Delta IV to make the Delta IV Heavy, after all.
Sounds feasible. The main thing then would be how much extra demonstrated or analyzed reliability would be required. It was about 4 years after the first Delta 4 heavy launch before a high value military payload was launched on it.
As I understand it, Delta’s larger configurations didn’t require independent certification.
If Falcon Heavy isn’t preferentially denied, it should require no independent certification.
They may be ready to start bidding on Air Force work as soon as the end of the year.
May not be true. Delta heavy may not use use fuel crossfeed (not sure about this) while the Falcon Heavy is using this approach. So in one design you are strapping 3 independent and previously flown boosters vs 3 previously flown boosters with the addition of a new fuel supply mechanism for the center core booster. That would certainly require certification.
This comes across as a bit of a dick move, but what other choice to they have if they are going to go all in on the fight against Air Force procurement and the ULA
Another case of our brave captains of industry outsourcing a national asset.
G
A more precise description might involve the insistence of some in the House on ‘austerity’; coupled with those crazy deficit hawks has made any sort of progress impossible.
Austerity? What the Boeing Corporation and the Lockheed Martin Corporation can not afford an engine on their own dime? What is that billion a year “assured access” buying anyway? 1000 people sitting around on facebook?
So this could backfire into more support for the non-spacex RD180 replacement?
A us-built RD-180 is going to cost more than one bought from Russia, plus it will need testing/certification. SpaceX would see their price advantage get even better, not the worst backfire.
Actually, not true. The US taxpayers are going to be funding the design and buld because ULA supporters are gioing to be crying redundancy. Even though there really is none with the current single source contract.
There is no way Lockheed isn’t going to get their billions!
Does anyone here have a defensible figure for the shop cost of building a domestic RD-180 engine, maybe in lots of ten or so to get some economy of scale ? The price from Energomash was right at $ 10 million per RD-180. My WAG for having Aerojet-Rocketdyne-P&W-XYZ jigging up and cranking out engines would be somewhere north of $ 25 million per. Who can refine that ? Would be a good figure to banter with before we get too far off in the purple space weeds ( Triffids) here…
The cost of building the rocket engine, as you’ve noted, probably isn’t all that much. we have the blueprints for them, too.
But the problem is the major cost of reverse-engineering the tools and equipment needed to build them. the estimate given by the ULA is 1 billion to start an RD-180 production line.
http://aviationweek.com/awi…
The real problem is the time it would take.
Will anyone want a 25 million dollar US built RD-180 in 5 years time?
an estimate by someone without skin in the game- or from a third party not accustomed to governmental largess- might be more useful.
OTOH, the license to build those engines is time-limited. And we do already have an American-built engine.
Yes, we have an American built engine, but we don’t know if Musk is willing to sell that engine. If he is, it’s most likely not going to be a straight forward swap for any launch vehicle. With all that aside, we still need someone else to produce engines. It’s neither sufficient nor wise to rely on one source.
I agree. We need a second source. That’s why NASA should offer at least two SAAs (i.e. SpaceX, PWR, and/or Aerojet) to build working prototypes of an engine in the 1,000,000 lb class. that way the Atlas could transition without giving up on RP-1 and SpaceX could get the Raptor going sooner.
PsiSquared:
I guess the lowest common denominator would be selling whole reusable booster stages then.
Let the ‘costumer’ deal with second stage and payload. Probably those could be re-tooled for Falcon. The Centaur upper stage has gone through many iterations over the decades.
SpaceX could build the launch site, train the operators, ship the boosters and get on with colonizing Mars.
Boeing doesn’t make money operating the aircraft it builds.
tinker
That would be an interesting and likely good move by SpaceX to make first stages available. Unfortunately that doesn’t obviate the need for another US engine manufacturer and competition in general.
Perhaps Musk’s thoughts on things such as offering engines or first stages to the market will become more clear over the next few months as his lawsuit progresses and the injunction against purchasing Russian engines is fought (as ULA and its congressional fans will no doubt do).
Interestingly this suit and the injunction puts politicians who support ULA in the very awkward position of supporting ULA’s desire to get more engines while not appearing to support economic engagement with Russia while it re-sows (or so it seems) its Soviet era oats.
He sells them in lots of ten for $57m, and throws in tankage for free.
Source?
… the price to launch a Falcon 9 is approximately $57 million…
I never read that Spacex will sell first stages in lots of ten??? Or sell them at all for that mater??
Lolol that one sure flew by me lol maybe I can catch 9 of the engines on the way back 🙂
the ENGINES. Psi’s comment was about the ENGINES. Paul was being snarky when he said that Musk sells them in lots of 10 (there are 10 of them on the Falcon 9, you know) and throws in the tankage for free.
I know that I got it!!!
And when the first stage comes back the other way I’ll catch its nine engines!
if you got it, then why did you ask for a source?
When I asked for the source I had missed the joke. After your first comment I got the joke. See my laugh out loud???so I joked back saying that one (joke) flew right by me I’ll catch the 9 remaining engines on the first stage when it returns
And peculation is fun
What do you think MCT will be like?????
Take risk. Speculate.
Captain Obvious. 🙂
Single core, nine raptors on the first stage. Who knows about the second.
If interested in speculation, check out:
http://www.NasaSpaceFlight.com
But Aviation Week doesn’t explain this number and with example engines in hand to be disassembled and measured I find the 1 billion inconceivable. 100 million maybe. That would fund 1000 engineers/technicians making 100k. Are you telling me 1000 engineers couldn’t disaasemble, measure, ascertain alloys and document this so parts can’t be cast and/or machined with modern CNC manufacturing tools? If so, our country is in dire straights.
Don’t you just love it when a bully takes one right on the nose!!!!!!!
POWWW!!!!!!!!!!
How long will it take to develop a new first stage? Possibly using a different fuel.
Looking at the picture of the atlas 5 first stage, why is it so expensive? Didn’t they buy the engine for only 10 million?? Isn’t the rest of the first stage just some tanks and plumbing?? Isn’t the cost of the first stage mostly the engines? What is the cost of an atlas 5? How much does it cost to launch it? Why do they charge so much????
well, the federal government did just mandate that minimum wage for federal projects is $10.10, so even the lowliest toilet scrubber there gets paid twice what i did my first job out of college.
Everyone always likes to ask why a ULA rocket costs so much? Maybe the question should be how can a SpaceX rocket cost so little? Last year they flew 4 Falcon 9 missions. They claim $56M a piece and wikipedia states they have 3800 employees. 4*$56M/3800 = $59,000 per employee. That doesn’t even cover somone’s salary much less taxes, benefits, desk or chair. What about rocket parts or development costs? Do you still think they sell their rockets for the price they advertise?
No, people should definitely be asking why ULA costs so much.
No one costs as much as ULA. Not even government equivalents like Arianespace. ULA is not just more expensive than SpaceX. ULA is the most expensive launch provider on the planet, often by a big margin.
The reason ULA charges so much is because they can. They’ve had a monopoly business serving a politically captive customer.
Your math neglects that SpaceX receives advance payments from bookings, as do most launch services providers. SpaceX has frequently said they are in the black financially.
Spacex launches their next rocket may 9th thats less than a month since last flight!!! When I checked employee count not long ago they were still under 3000 employees. they have to move rockets or launches once the recover thing works. They will launch more than 4 launches this year. You are taking this years employee count putting it with last years launch rate. They are growing? Holding down cost while expanding market share and they also expand the whole launch market.
I have asked why no one else is trying to compete by making recoverable rockets too!!!!!
I guess because they are lazy fat and foolish and to use to charging fat prices on my easy to get hard earned tax money.
These guys have stolen our Space future by Not doing what Musk is doing now years ago!!!!!!!
MAKING ROCKETS cheaper!!!!!!!!
They have been ripping you and me offffff!!!!!
Thank you John McCain for going after the BUMS!!!!!!!!!
“I have asked why no one else is trying to compete by making recoverable rockets too!!!!!
I guess because they are lazy fat and foolish and to use to charging fat prices on my easy to get hard earned tax money.
These guys have stolen our Space future by Not doing what Musk is doing now years ago!!!!!!!
MAKING ROCKETS cheaper!!!!!!!!
They have been ripping you and me offffff!!!!!”
******************************************************
“why is no one else trying to compete by making recoverable rockets”
well, someone has to be the first to build them.
but also because it’s a very difficult thing to do, second in difficulty only to building a SSTO rocket, and because nobody has ever had to before… but they will have to now that someone has actually done it.
the ONLY reason SpaceX is succeeding is because it has built a very powerful and very efficient rocket. they have been able to build margin for extra fuel in their rocket design without reducing the payload to almost nothing – nobody has been able to do this before.
“I guess because they are lazy fat and foolish and to use to charging fat prices on my easy to get hard earned tax money.”
not necessarily. again, SpaceX is succeeding where everyone else had previously come to the conclusion that it was not possible. before now, the technology to do it simply wasn’t there. SpaceX is breaking new ground here, and everyone else will have to do the same to compete with them in the future.
“These guys have stolen our Space future by Not doing what Musk is doing now years ago!”
i do not think it would have been possible “years ago.” i don’t think it even would have been possible before the year 2000. SpaceX was founded in 2002, and then begain using materials, computers, design techniques, etc. that simply didn’t exist before that time to start working on getting where they are today. brand new rocket engine designs and manufacturing techniques, state of the art computers, everything started from scratch. SpaceX is succeeding now because these new materials, manufacturing techniques, computing power, etc. have all finally come together, along with an astonishingly powerful and efficient rocket engine. Nobody else has ever had all that before.
“MAKING ROCKETS cheaper!”
you forget that the EELV program was developed in the 1990s for that specific purpose. and for a while, it was successful. However, using the same design for years on end, while this allows for a very reliable rocket, also means you are relying on increasingly older parts, computers, and manufacturing techniques. this adds cost over time, because you’re basically having to use old machinery and procurement of old parts all the time. you might know how it’s expensive to work on classic cars. imagine how expensive it is to work on classic rockets!
it is only now, thanks to SpaceX, that an alternative to rockets costing billions to design and 100s of millions to launch has arrived. you are judging the old way by a very high (and very recent) new standard.
and you have to keep in mind, that SpaceX has been wildly successful beyond anyone’s anticipations. even NASA, who was working quite closely with SpaceX, predicted that SpaceX would have to spend about 1.5 billion to design and develop the Falcon 9, and they estimated with a cost+ approach, the Falcon 9 would have cost about 3 billion to design and develop.
SpaceX has said the Falcon 9 cost about $300 million to design and develop.
SpaceX is, quite simply, doing things that nobody has ever done before, and are doing them at a cost that nobody ever thought was possible.
Everyone else must now play catch-up. this is already shaking up the entire launch industry. Arianespace, ESA’s launcher, have recently completely reorganized their management and is working to streamline its production processes. JAXA, Japan’s space agency, is looking into new ways to produce cheaper rockets, and etc. etc. and ULA is just one more launch provider that has no choice but to either reinvent themselves, or simply be priced out of the market by SpaceX.
truly the right question was asked by SpaceBad – “how can a SpaceX rocket cost so little?” – it is because they are using new approaches and solutions to very old problems.
That’s a rationale, and well thought out response. Some rationality and perspective was called for.
I agree with one part of your response completely!!!!
They did Not have to compete till now.
The merlin D is not more efficient than atlases Russian engine but even with a less efficient engine Spacex designed their rocket to be reusable.
You can’t compare them as one uses staged combustion while the other doesn’t hence different engines and designs.
For info’ Merlin D is the most efficient RP1/LOX turbo pump engine ever produced by anyone.
Raptor which is SpaceXs next engine is aimed at being the most efficient gas/gas Metholox engine ever produced.
What does a Falcon 9 really cost? What does the 1st stage REALLY cost? Why does Musk lie about the prices??????
Okay, I’ll bite. What makes you think Musk is lying about his prices? Let me know if I need to speak up in case you can’t hear me through that tinfoil hat you’ve got on.
I don’t think he does lie.
Next launch May10th got to hurry!!!!!!!
I think he has the competition beat cold.
And I just realized how easy it will be to soon land his booster on land, So he now has the golden egg.(lol burn a little more fuel on that three engine burn! CAKE!!)
I noticed that the big boys are sitting back and letting Spacex do all the recovery R&D ready to jump in later with all their money.
Musk has said that he will not patient anything because foreign countries like china only steal it.
But wouldn’t it be fun if he changed his mind and marched down to the patent office and shoved one of those at them.
Reminds me of microsoft letting apple do the R&D for windows.
You need to study history a bit better, be it rocket history or software history.
Note that you’re likely part of a very specific and small community that considers landing a booster on land “cake”. That community is unlikely to have any SpaceX engineers as part of its population. Hopefully the SpaceX engineers have their feet firmly rooted in reality.
Folks:
Just remember, SpaceX didn’t ask for this injunction. If you read their complaint, they do ask for an injunction to the block buy contract and (to paraphrase) “‘whatever else the court would deem applicable”.
Apparently, the judge decided that barring the Air Force and ULA from buying Russian rocket engine was both doable and expedient. I’ll bet you that SpaceX folks were just as shocked as their ULA counterparts when the ruling came out.
I’m sure Elon Musk was only ‘making a point’ when he mentioned the Atlas V being reliant on Russian engines. It was just a ‘buy American’ ploy… that seriously backfired!
SpaceX has inadvertently kicked a hornets nest and they know it. The terse two paragraph response from ULA probably sent chills through the cubicles at SpaceX.
So… cut the cards and let’s see how this hand plays out (because luck and chance will matter just as much as the technology war this whole mess is all about!).
tinker
What backfire? I doubt there were any chills at SpaceX. This is Christmas in May.
The injunction is shining a laser onto a foul smelling arrangement both the Air Force and ULA seem to want to hide.
Even had SpaceX won their court case, it may have taken a year or more to reach a verdict or settlement.
This might get SpaceX to the settlement table within a matter of weeks. It’s drinks all around in Hawthorn tonight.
Revanse:
I disagree.
I’ll bet that an injunction on ULA buying Russian engines never came up in SpaceX discussions. They were laser focused on getting the block buy delayed until they could guarantee they met the Air Force’s certification. Then they would have had legal recourse to then challenge the block buy in court.
But, stuff happens, and this is one of those times. SpaceX meant to beat ULA in the market place fair and square, not do lasting damage whether the block buy stands or not. It’s not their… style.
I hate to say it but, as good as SpaceX is in the rocket tech department, they are rank amateurs at strategy, marketing and spin. This isn’t the first time they’ve stepped on something squishy on the sidewalk. They’ve been lucky so far.
tinker
I agree that SpaceX got more than they bargained for. You haven’t spelled out why this is a bad thing.
What ramifications should they be worried about? Are ULA hitmen going to target Musk? Is the Air Force going to illegally conspire to see SpaceX never receive any launch business?
If the ramification is a pissed off ULA and some in the Air Force who will now illegally conspire to deny SpaceX access to contracts, that’s what the courts are for. SpaceX wouldn’t be the first company to use the courts against an old boy’s network.
What’s SpaceX supposed to do. Sheepishly say “We’re sooo sorry. We really, really really didn’t mean to shut off your engine supply. Forgive us!” ??
SpaceX got a win. Pissing off their competitors is a good thing. SpaceX certainly didn’t piss off the entire Air Force. There are some in the Air Force who are fed up with ULA and their monopoly prices.
If this wasn’t a win for SpaceX, please explain how exactly this will hurt them. Not in metaphors, what exactly should they fear?
Spin..? Perhaps (recalling batteries burning) but I disagree that SpaceX (Elon Musk) fails at strategy and marketing (hexacopter footage of rockets landing!). Elon is super smart. All he had to do was to remind people that the Atlas engines come from Russia. I saw that in the original request, and to me, those seemed to be the “spill words.”
In sales, you look for the emotional connection that people scarcely dare to breathe, for fear it will be used to force the sale. Apparently casual comments or other toss-aways are very often the actual meat in an interaction.
You are being to Dam nice Tinker. Maybe because you are not an American taxpayer.
The hornet is the poor American taxpayer, Me!!!!!!!!!
Tired of paying too much for way to little.
Our big expensive DoD space industry can’t even build rocket engines!!!
They buy they them from some place else at a fire sale. Hook them up to a few tanks then charge me double triple quadruple the price!!!!!!
Sick of being ripped off
Joe Q American TAXPAYER!!!!!
Well you don’t carry much influence, and the rest of the American electorate apparently doesn’t care much at all about where engines have come from. In fact the vast majority of the electorate likely has no idea where the engines come from, and they very likely don’t care. Their attitude comes from their general apathy toward and ignorance of the space program.
The idea that someone has “been ripped off” is something that has not been proven.
Elon Musk is proving it!!!
John McCain is proving it!!
ULA knows it!!!!!
How much does it cost to build and fly an Atlas 5 ????
How much juice is on top of that cost?????
Actually, nothing is proved in court or in Congress. Arguments are won or lost. That’s it.
If you want the system to be improved, then you have to be able to objectively view the system and its behavior. Viewing it as politicians do, with bias and personal opinion, will not fix the system. It only serves to increase the noise of political cheerleading or heckling.
Spacex is proving it in the market not the courts.
No, SpaceX is proving that their business model is working. You’re imposing your political assumptions and biases on their actions.
Tinker, I always love your insite, but looking at the news, I think you may have been your best analysis ever. I do not think Musk EVER expected this to happen. It’s like that guy who throws pebbles at an air craft carrier. You never expect them to notice, you just want your friends to be impressed that you threw the rocks. Elon knows his role is to be the “whinny buy american guy” while he builds his really good systems. He is not ready for this fight. This is kinda like when Gates told IBM he had an op system. He did not expect IBM to want it NOW! This is going to be a bigger PIA for Space X than for ULA. ULA will get the politicians to fix this when it needs to be fixed. Space X has now guaranteed itself an air strike.
Well isn’t it our role to not let them fix it!!!!!
DTARS:
I agree with Objose, ULA will fix this as soon as they can. Why? Because it will be way cheaper and quicker than doing research and development on new engines or reverse engineering the Russian engines (and good luck with that! ).
SpaceX’s ‘secret’ is that they plan to use all of their profits on research and development… with the absolute blessing of their private investors!
Boeing and Lockheed Martin have to answer to their shareholders (whom they are ripping off as much as the government!). Research and development makes shareholder’s eyes glaze over. They want ‘it’ (profits) now!
tinker
John Gardi,
LockMart and Boeing have shareholders, but, like IBM, they are also under pressure (usually Sarbanes-Oxley) to ONLY concentrate on the current quarter.
Their bean-counters follow the mantra of “R&D, as well as customer service, do NOT add to share-holder value THIS QUARTER”.
AFAIK, investing in order to ensure a future beyond the current quarter, again, does not add to share-holder value this quarter.
SpaceX’s investors have, apparently, chosen to invest in a future and are not clamoring for major dividends NOW.
And yet Boeing’s commercial aircraft division is perfectly capable of designing and producing a new generation of jumbo jets every few years, not to mention a bunch of concept aircraft research projects (including a supersonic airliner, a variety of high efficiency designs, double-decker concept, hydrogen-powered jets, etc. Plus the whole “Yellowstone” project to replace the entire line with a single base.)
Meanwhile, the rocket division won’t get out of bed until the government funds a getting-out-of-bed capability maintenance project.
Objose:
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
I’ve been trying to get the point out there (publicly and privately) that SpaceX didn’t ask for this particular result. I’ve helped ‘correct’ a few news stories already. Actually, I think that this misstep by SpaceX is the real story here! 🙂
I think that ULA and the Air Force will have this sorted out in short order.
LOL on the air strike! That was my first thought too!
tinker
No don’t agree. SpaceX is in the business to win business. They’re may not have expected the judge to make this move but they’re not going to be in any way perturbed by it.
Cheers,
Neil
And what if Rogozin is serious with his ‘trampoline’ tweets and US loses access to ISS on Soyuz, while commercial crew alternatives are not yet ready? Get pragmatic and talk to the Chinese, their Shenzhou docking interface is ISS compatible.
Crash program to put a crude life-support system and seats into the CRS-4 or 5 Dragon-cargo. No launch abort system, no automated docking, and hard splash-down, but better than nothing.
Then the first Dragon-crew prototype goes up with the cargo from CRS-4 or 5, but stays on station as the return vessel for the crew launched on the converted Dragon-cargo.
That buys you up to six-months. If you get emergency funding from Congress, you throw it at the three Commercial Crew teams. Regular Dragon-crew should be ready by then, with CST-100 following a year later. Dream Chaser maybe a year after that.
We should be doing that anyway and not paying the Russians another dime.
DTARS– Would you agree or disagree to skipping the “in-flight” abort test to speed up the timetable? Granted, Dragonrider (ha! who uses the old terms??)’s escape system is novel.. but does it deserve this time-eating roadblock??
Replied to myself since your reply button was off
Hi. DragonRider’s the program. SpaceX haven’t yet named their crew vehicle other than Dragon Crew.
Jeff
Hard to say
Personally I would feel pretty safe flying in a cargo dragon without the escape system. I feel the falcon 9 1.1 with its engine out capability is much safer than the shuttle ever was. Spacex unveils Dragon 2 in a month how different will that be than cargo dragon?? Should they fly a cargo mission before you put humans in it??
I would have no problem flying a flight or two before they did the inflight abort test but I wouldn’t skip it. I would do it as soon as possible.
Dragon on a falcon with the pusher abort system which doesn’t need to be jettisoned will be the safest designed human spacecraft ever built in my opinion.
Would I risk a couple flights to not waste all that moneyon the Russians
Hell yeah!!!! 🙂
Perhaps you’re forgetting that shuttle demonstrated its engine out capability in 1985 when it suffered an SSME out in flight.
A couple of differences however – Falcon is designed to complete its mission with one engine out, which it did as advertised on the CRS-1 flight, delivering Dragon to ISS in spite of losing an engine just over a minute into the launch. The secondary payload was lost but that was due to a safety requirement of NASA which the secondary payload customer had previously agreed to. On STS-51F however the loss of an engine at nearly six minutes into the ascent resulted in ATO (Abort to Orbit) at a lower than planned orbit, which for a rendezvous flight would have meant a failed mission. Fortunately STS-51F was a Spacelab flight, and after taking stock of the situation MCC decided that the altitude was good enough and the mission continued.
Another difference is that on the CRS-1 flight the engine partially shredded, but due to the design there was no damage to the rest of the vehicle. If the same thing had happened to an SSME it would not have been a good day.
No. What should be done is to insure that the next US manned system is ready for the task. Crash programs and rushes haven’t served the space program well in the past. Remember it was a rush to launch, pressure to maintain the launch schedule, that contributed to the loss of Challenger.
No, the emphasis should be on doing things right.
The premise was a sudden loss of access to Soyuz. Assuming that the current US crew is permitted to return on Soyuz, that gives you maybe three months to find an alternative or lose access to ISS. My solution was based on that scenario.
Not necessary to play games with cargo Dragons. SpaceX is going to peel back the covers on Dragon 2.0 on May 29. So they have at least one already built. Given that pad abort and in-flight abort tests are scheduled for this summer and fall, there are probably at least two Dragon 2.0’s either finished of close to it. Could well be more.
That depends of course on the definition of ‘perfectly good business’.
Throw Blue Origin into the mix. They have test fired their engine. They have to build 9 engines. The rest is standard stuff. They will reuse, so how many do they need? They say they will land on a barge. They can use a lot of SpaceX information. Like the nitrogen thrusters. SpaceX says they are not going to patent any of it. If they wanted to, they could fly very quickly. They may only want to fly there biconic design though. It is Amazon. They may want sales. Boeing and SNC ought to ask them.
As Far As I Know, Blue Origin’s rocket engines are all Hydrogen and LOX, not RP-1 and LOX
BO is not in the mix. They haven’t even developed their systems for sub-orbital let alone leo. Oh you’re joking. Sorry , my mistake.
What about this?
What if the intentions was to create a “Mexican Standoff?”
Suddenly, Elon gets out of the way and removes his objections in return for ULA getting out of the way of SpaceX on human rating issues?
I have no idea what you’re on about here. ULA isn’t in SpaceX’s way on human rating issues. NASA defines human rating requirements, not ULA. The only interest ULA has in human rating of rockets is for Boeing’s CST-100 and Sierra-Nevada’s Dreamchaser, both of which currently intend to launch atop an Atlas V. That puts ULA in the same boat SpaceX. They each need jump through all the designated NASA hoops and come out the other side with a passing grade.
The Ukraine situation isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse. The White House isn’t going to relax these sanctions until Putin pulls out
of Eastern Ukraine.
The Air Force and ULA can bitch as loudly as they like, these engines are a side show to Ukraine. If Ukraine doesn’t get better, neither will ULA’s situation.
Don’t forget that Russia has a lot of say in this.
Even if Ukraine quickly gets better and the White House clears a path for engines to be paid for, will Putin allow them to be sold?
It would be just like Putin to wait for the White House to relax the sanctions, then immediately ban engine sales.
Ya think?!?
I’m beginning to think they should just fully fund the Dynetics/AJ-R F-1b modernization and build a Falcon-ized (KISS, lighter etc.) Atlas VI for it to push uphill.
http://m.valleymorningstar….
This article says that Spacex can only launch up to 12 flights per year there.
That’s not enough for a reusable commercial Spaceport 🙁
12 launches a year has not been seen since the height of the Cold War. SpaceX would love to have that many contracts. Should it get them it will have to erect more buildings and hire more people.
Don’t we have to be able fly many payloads to orbit much much cheaper to kick off commercial space????
Uhm, you can’t “fly many payloads” without customers providing payloads. The reality of that and the facts surrounding that reality appear to escape you.
It doesn’t Mr. Squared
The hope is if you can drop price enough that you will generate business.
Some have said that Spacex will not be able to drop price enough to generate more business. They may be right?
Build a highway and maybe they will come?
Till Musk we haven’t even tried.
Some times reality works against you
In reality you can’t recover and reuse a rocket booster, yet Musk decided to do it anyway.
Thus a new reality.
Actually you’re wrong and don’t understand reality. In reality you can land a booster stage. Obviously. Perhaps you should invest some time in learning how scientific discovery and technological advancement make things possible that once weren’t. Engineers and scientists understand as much. Maybe people who study design don’t.
And engineers could have made fly back boosters long ago but didn’t. Doug is wrong. You could use 9 of those Russians engines which would give you more fuel to play with and fly the same flight profile and it would work. No one believed it was possible enough to try.
Lack of creativity.
I recall when Musk decided to put nine engines on a falcon 9. I wonder what all his reasons were at that time?
I remember. Cost of developement and lack of funds for a large engine. After that, along came smaller production costs, engine-out capability, ability to cluster, single engine to do both stages, etc. etc.
Cheers,
Neil
He proposed variants with one and five engines but had no customers. He quickly discovered the minimum payload capacity customers would buy was also needed to compete for the COTS program. There was no time to develop the bigger engine he was thinking about at the time, so he just stuffed nine of his existing engines onto it. The original tic-tac-toe arrangement proved heavy and caused irregular heating problems so he switched to the circle of eight with one center engine. Musk does not always guess right the first time, but he learns faster and changes course more quickly than the established companies. Like Steve Jobs, he is said to be extremely demanding of his employees, but perhaps that’s what it takes.
While SpaceX skipped over the proposed F5 when they won NASA funding, it wasn’t because they “had no customers”. F1 had plenty of customers, F1 was only cancelled when they all flocked to become secondary payloads on F9. I don’t think Musk realised that each successive version of Falcon would eat the previous market. (The same thing will probably happen with FH. Four times the capacity, but only twice the price.)
Nor did Musk create the 9-engine version because he somehow ran out of time; F1/5/9/H was always the proposed pathway, with Merlin 2 (now presumably Raptor) being developed later. The only change was skipping F5 and changing Raptor/M2 to run on Methane via staged-combustion, and changing configuration of the 9-engines.
I suspect he now also intends to skip the proposed FX and FX-Heavy and jump straight to FXX (as MCT), which also suggest skipping the F9-2/FH-2 versions But we don’t know yet.
F5 turned out to have some unexpected instabilities arise during modelling and once they had an actual engine running. In addition, F5 wouldn’t have provided sufficient payload capacity so they skipped it and went for a 9 engine first stage. Don’t know the details however I know that they were discussed.
Cheers.
i am not wrong. the technology necessary to make a practical fly-back booster has only existed in the past ~10 years or so. SpaceX is the first to do it.
the materials (lightweight yet strong aluminum alloys for the tanks, carbon fiber for the legs / interstage, etc.), assembly techniques (particularly friction stir welding), engines (SpaceX’s combination of powerful yet relatively simple design and inexpensive manufacturing techniques), and, critically, the computing power necessary to do so have only been around recently.
no other rocket booster has had the extra mass fraction to play with to even consider including extra fuel in the design to boost it back to the launch site.
before now, the extra things a rocket would require to land (such as landing legs) would have just plain been too heavy to be practical.
Winged flyback boosters were feasible some years ago and a number of proposals were advanced. I agree that recent developments have allowed vertical landing to leap ahead.
That’s your designer opinion. Let us know when you understand engineering and have some facts in hand.
Everyone involved in Liquid Fly Back Booster believed it was possible. No lack of creativity. No Bucks, no Buck Rogers
The launch services market follows the law of supply and demand. Government demand is generally insensitive to price, and probably will not change, but commercial demand is quite sensitive to price and commercial sales will almost certainly increase if price comes down.
That’s a given, but demand isn’t going to skyrocket, and SpaceX is a long way from having the demand for 12 launches a year, especially if those are non-governmental launches. Discussions about the realities of space exploration and commercialization are best when they actually are rooted in reality.
You haven’t been taking notice. Why do you think ESA is reacting the way it is? Because they know that commercial payloads are price sensitive within certain ranges. As further evidence, take a look at the SES comments and there are others.
Launch price is going down. Hopefully demand follows the negative exponential.
That’s my hope Andrew
Need more than 12 flights a year to do it.
Maybe next Saturday we get some pretty video of that booster landing. That should scare them more. Maybe they will do something.
I would think you would want demand to not follow a negative exponential. No one wants demand to go down.
Demand along the horizontal axis, cost along the vertical axis.
That makes more sense. Thanks.
No. SpaceX has already cut the price. Time to fly more cubesats.
Hey, no worries, there are plenty of people in Florida begging them to do another dozen here!