The Reusable Rocket Battle Begins – Vulcan vs Falcon
ULA Unveils Next Generation Launch System with a Little Showmanship [With Video], SpaceRef Business
“At a news conference at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno unveiled their Next Generation Launch System (NGLS) with a crowdsourced new name, Vulcan.
Showing some of the showmanship that Elon Musk of SpaceX has been known for, Bruno tried to follow in Musk’s footsteps ratcheting up the marketing hype to a level not seen in recent years at a ULA event.”
Marc’s Note: Competition is good. It’s good for both companies, it’s good for America, it’s good as it should eventually drive down costs. The question is, can ULA really compete? Can they adapt from their culture to a something like a SpaceX silicon valley culture? It should be fun to watch.
Who is the market? A limited one, for DoD launches, or will ULA succeed in getting private sector, non-government customers on the books? This is THE question for any competitor in the launch business today, for any company looking to really provide launch services and prosper.
Given this is essentially an evolution of Atlas V with a fancy new name, I’d imagine costs won’t drop much, if at all (other than perhaps saving some money by reusing the first stage engines). So, it will likely see use only by DoD and perhaps some NASA missions that require the (yet to be developed) ACES upper stage. In other words, the same customers ULA has today for Atlas V and Delta IV.
Wait, so ULA will go from having to maintain four pads on two coasts to one pad on each coast, two engine providers instead of three, one solid motor provider instead of two, and one assembly line instead of two (albeit currently co-located), and all the engineering and staff needed to support those redundant systems, and you think costs _won’t_ drop?
If they lose half their DoD business to SpaceX, they’ll also halve their launches. In the past, they only had to “compete” within ULA. External competition is a game changer.
Two things would make costs drop. (1) Laying off the labor. (2) Increasing the launch rate at the same workforce. Has ULA emphasized this in their new concept?
how about laying off all the useless administration and business people, getting rid of couple VP’s and some board members, and cutting the salries of the executives? right there you might have couple hundred million dollars in savings!
The Atlas V will be used into the 2020’s and the Delta IV heavy until something replaces it.
Plus, the development costs by ULA’s estimate is $2 billion which must be amortized. Flying lets say 10 launches per year for 10 years by itself adds $20 mil per rocket.
Also the launch facilities will need to be re-engineered for methane support.
And between the time the delta IV mediums are cancelled and some replaces the D4 Heavy, the Heavy launches are “upwards” of a billion dollars each.
I don’t know if the hoped for savings will appear in time to save them in a fast moving market, but we can hope.
Competition is good.
I’m starting to think this is a gigantic manipulation to sabotage American progress in manned space flight.
We have a hundred billion dollar camp site in low orbit, a spacecraft with no service module, two other spacecraft that might fly on vehicles that aren’t yet man-rated. It’s at an inclination such that it can’t be used for anything other than generating dirty laundry.
We have SLS, pork for ATK and Boeing that might fly once and then get cancelled.
And then we have all this fantasy where by the Moon is just “been there, done that” and Mars is more a question of how we spend money and not if we can do it at all (we should not, can not, and will not of course).
Among the fantasy, where a tenth of what energy is available goes to actual hardware… and the focus of things to come during my own last decade or two will be the question of how efficiently America gets its military satellites up. And in the wake we get a robot mission, from time to time.
Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.
It’s the conversation where people talk as if we can get an asteroid, go to the moon, or mars that makes me suspect conspiracy to defraud and sabotage. The big players building this parking lot of rockets are the same guys that say they may one day go somewhere. They can’t actually believe that. Saying B.S. that you don’t believe while you take billions from the government is fraud.
The FBI should be looking at these people.
That’s quite a rant. The fact is, ULA would never have changed had there not been outside pressure from both SpaceX and from Congress due to souring US/Russia relations. Without those external pressures, ULA would have been happy to keep the “status quo” with Atlas V and Delta IV.
Evidence for this is the published paper on the ACES upper stage published back in 2009.
I don’t think so, with respect to ULA and status quo. Keep in mind that all of this is recovery from the end of the shuttle. Up until it burned up on re-entry, and even after that for a bit… it was the vehicle to put people up.
What was Delta then? Putting up electronics alone. Atlas was running that engine that pipes the turbo pump exhaust back into the combustion chamber.
So then you have Bush, Constellation, trying to save face using shuttle parts. Fine. But then that is cancelled. Salvage Orion and what not. Commercial cargo was within all of that as a sort of trucking start up.
Then SLS. SLS isn’t going to do anything. One launch every two years or something? Forget it.
And in the mix of all this… all of the sudden ULA has to be accountable?
A reusable rocket component? From an American aerospace company that like, knows better?
The work I see being done here is finishing off American manned space flight.
Good Job! USA! USA! USA!
The biggest impediment to manned spaceflight is the high cost of launching anything into space (i.e. LEO is half way to anywhere, in terms of delta-V). SpaceX is reducing launch costs, which is a good thing. Because they are undercutting ULA, ULA is now forced to reduce costs (reusing engines would help them with that), which is a good thing.
I agree SLS is a boondoggle, because Congress could not accept the loss of jobs (i.e. pork) from Ares V being cancelled. The high cost of the infrastructure needed for SLS coupled with the high per flight costs is sucking up far too many billions of dollars that manned spaceflight could spend in a more cost effective way. Eventually, I hope SLS will be killed because at some point everyone will realize we’re just throwing good money after bad.
I don’t think money is so important. I think they’re running out of time. In the real world you can’t screw around forever. People get sick of it.
The Space Transportation System was worse than what the Space Launch System will be and they flew it for way, way too long. Then there’s buying tickets on the Russian vehicle, and now it’s the development of three space craft at once… they really should pick one and start launching it now, develop an orbital fuel station, something. Anything.
They’re stuck in this weird state of developing stuff that is either no big deal or won’t work at all.
If you are interested in results faster, then “commercial” procurement with two, or more, competing providers will do that. When the government is in complete control, like SLS, politics weighs heavily on the project. The very existence of SLS is due to the fact that the Congress couldn’t bear to let Ares V die, and lose all the pork that went along with it. The “need” to spread contracts over many congressional districts introduces so much overhead and complexity to a project that it’s bound to be slow.
It is important to keep in mind that much of what you are saying are your fears and not based on demonstrable evidence of evil conspiracies or unreachable fantasy goals by deluded organizations..
No. The reusable rocket idea is not new and so has been tested. It does not work. You can build a system where the hardware is reused, but the cost of it is not cheaper than disposable systems.
This is just a historical lesson and possibly there’s some new aps on these fancy phones that will push the envelope of efficiency and so allow this historical barrier of profitable reuse to finally be broken.
Probably not though. To see one entity take it on, that’s not really a big deal. But to see a combination of two corporations loaded with experience on reuse try… well, stranger things have happened than sabotage.
I thought about it for a few minutes and I’m not scared of anything. I just would like to see the nation go back to where Apollo was cut short.
I suppose that if it is true that there is sabotage, conspiracy is implied; it’s not possible that one person alone could affect the decisions of so many people without collaboration.
The FBI doesn’t need to investigate NASA. Wih all the terrorism work the FBIs jobs are safe!
Jobs baby jobs lol
Your Imaginary American Space Program
Lewis you sound like a guy that Really wants us to go to space, If that’s so, your only real hope is Elon Musk.
You hear Ulas lastest play it safe 2nd place survival plan. They are so far behind they just want a comfortable second place.
Dude, Musk does not want to go to space. He is just working industry that has government subsidy. So the car, the solar panels, and yes, the rockets… it’s just where the welfare is. And when that’s even not enough, the guy starts suing people.
He is looking to launch Air Force payloads after the ISS is decommissioned. He is also looking to launch a bunch of communication satellites, which has a history you’re probably not familiar with.
Then, because space is not cheap and DOES require massive government spending and management, that will be the end of Space X. Do you know why?
Because anyone that has ten or fifteen million dollars to ride in a space craft has a very good life and they don’t want to have the good life ionized in an explosion.
It is what it’s been for half a century. The government takes a paltry 1 to 5 percent of the take in taxes and bond sales, converts that into big, expensive, dangerous machines, and then test pilots with military experience dropping bombs on people fly them.
A lot of stuff blows up, a few people get killed, and then guys plant a flag on a moon. There is no profit.
Dude, Musk does not want to go to space.
Evidence of how you know what he “wants”, please
He pushed 90 million of “space money” into solar panel bonds that nobody else wants to buy.
He’s just into making money in businesses where there’s welfare assist.
You know, you look at what somebody does, it tells you what they’re interested in.
Disagree. There have been space tourists and there will be more. Lots of astronauts (all?) come from decent lives and all choose to take the risk of riding on a rocket launch. But about Musk just working industry with government input – I don’t think that’s the reason he started SpaceX. Government input obviously helps his and SpaceX’s goals, and they coincide in a lot of places. If you’re making a rocket that is meant to be quite a bit cheaper than what’s out there, why wouldn’t you take on government satellite and commercial satellite launching business???
I can tell you’re frustrated, and rightfully so. And DTARS is right, it sounds like you really want us to go to space and advance faster than we are. Probably all of us here do. It sucks it will be taking a long time yet, and it sucks what politics does to our planning and progress. Why can’t we have a sustainable space program with long term goals that is consistently managed? The military has this for the most part. Some developments in recent years have helped, but there is still too much uncertainty.
Any thoughts on the recovery technique? From my non-expert eye, it seems pretty clever to avoid the additional complication of having to land even if you get less reuse.
mid-air retrieval of rocket engines isn’t a totally new concept. the old Atlas missiles from the early 60s used to drop engines to reduce weight during launch, there were recovery systems studied at the time, but the costs of rebuilding the engines turned out to be too much so this was cancelled.
ULA studied a system almost exactly like this as part of the EELV program, in 2008 –
http://www.ulalaunch.com/up…
mid-air retrieval was used regularly to recover film canisters from the early Corona and Gambit spy satellites.
so the mid-air retrieval part shouldn’t have too many question marks. this engine recovery scheme is based heavily on work done years ago, and in theory, it should allow the engines to be more reusable, since they are only being fired once, rather than 4 times as SpaceX does to return and land its rocket.
There are strategic difference between the plans.
The ULA direction commendably salvages the engines, and I would assume the avionics. These are then refurbished and a new rocket is built. The cost savings are possible, but I don’t see as game-changing. Having to essentially manufacture brand new rockets looks like a system designed for a business-as-usual launch manifest of less than 20 launches per year.
SpaceX has very deliberately not gone that way. They are specifically designed to be refuelled and reflown. Their very specific goal is a less than 10 hour turnaround to restack, refuel, and launch. They see the market as supporting launch rates at the near term of less than weekly, the mid-term, daily, then multi-daily. Essentially an airline model.
And some mighty sharp minds have gone in this analysis.
With true re-usability, and not ULA-style refurbish and rebuild, SpaceX is targeting massive discounting, first by a factor of 10, then 100, if the get the Falcon Heavy fully re-usable and more than 40 flights per year.
So you think that SpaceX can return a rocket to the pad, re-fuel it, and re-launch it! But ULA cannot return the rocket engins to the pad, attach them to a new booster tank, and re-fly? because why? I don’t see it as building a new rocket. Or do you just think they are not as capable as SpaceX?
“SpaceX can return a rocket to the pad, re-fuel it, and re-launch it! “
You missed the re-stack, but yes.
The ULA requires building a rocket for each flight and installing the recovered engines module and other parts. Significantly different process. Compare the process to the way a airliner is readied between flights.
As to capability, it is more a mindset than a skillset.
ULA had a chance, and Astrium had a chance, and they both withered when it came to going clean sheet.
In any case. Spacex is working NOW to make it happen. ULA is THINKING about doing it IF and WHEN it has the money.
Remember ULA is in a massive contraction while SpaceX is in massive expansion.
Remember, SpaceX’s plan (whether realistic or not) is simply to do a diagnostic and then reuse the stage. No muss, no fuss.
This is ULA’s “reusability”:
“It takes a good seven to eight reuses before you can pay off the additional cost of all the extra equipment and the logistics of recovering it and then bringing it back to the factory with a reasonable amount of refurbishment that you have to do,” Bruno told Aviation Week in an April 15 interview. “You can’t just dust it off and reuse it. You have got to do plumbing and new cables and insulation and all this kind of stuff. Our calculations say [it takes] 7-8 uses to break even … To really make it worth while, you have really got to reuse it about 15 times.”
And then integrate it into a brand new, throwaway rocket body with tanks and all the other hardware.
Completely different.
Yeah that surprised me when I heard them say that, the 15 uses to make it worthwhile. Maybe they can improve that with more modular-type connections or something.
Thanks for the response! The airline model is interesting. It may be my lack of imagination, but will there really be a need to 40 flights per year? I just don’t see enough heavy payloads.
Well, of course payloads are expensive partly because launches are expensive. No one knows what the demand will be at $20M, or $6M, or…. SpaceX has the virtue of engine-out reliability, and the ability to launch big payloads with the Heavy — 50 tons to LEO with a 5 meter envelope, better than the Space Shuttle — and then build up bigger things, optimized for whatever purpose, in the 0g space environment, using multiple launches, That keeps the launch rate high, and should lower costs, until they start to hit their maximum capacity. By that time, it should be more clear how to proceed.
The FH is supposed to become the workhorse. Remember – it is reusable. The fuel is (relatively) cheap. It will carry quite small payload – or – massive ones.
ISTM the real reusable competition in 4-5 years will be SpaceX vs Blue Origin.
Vulcan, if the name survives Paul Allen’s Vulcan Aerospace protest, seems to nibble around the edges of reusability. I also wonder if they’d have been better off with 3 engines instead of using solids.
Also “Vulcan” or in French, Vulcain, is the name of the Ariane’s rocket engine.
And can SpaceX support a high launch rate with few delays?
Note they’ve already demonstrated a higher launch rate, through this period of time since introduction (16 in five years) than Atlas 5 (16 reached in seven years) or Delta IV (16 reached in 8 1/2 years).
SpaceX is approaching Atlas flight rate but they still need to demonstrate they can sustain it and with few launch delays.
Comparing Atlas V and Falcon 9, the past 12 months Atlas had 10 launches to Falcon’s 8. The 12 months before that, Atlas had 6 launches to Falcon’s 3. SpaceX has had several recent Falcon launches delayed though.
Everyone in the space launch industry is affected by schedule slips. It happens. Comparing the flight rate of a mature launch system with one that has only been operating for a few years is not really a fair comparison… though as you would do well to note, the flight rate of the Falcon is quickly approaching that of the Atlas, and SpaceX is going to be opening up two new launch sites in the next couple of years.
That’s why I said they still need to demonstrate it. If they haven’t accomplished it, then that’s something they still need to do.
define “delays”
This launch went up on the second attempt, and the first scrub was due to the weather.
From SpaceFlightNow: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the eighth Dragon spacecraft on the sixth operational cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. The flight is being conducted under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Delayed from Dec. 5, Feb. 4, April 8 and April 10. Scrubbed on April 13. [April 13]…
And after today’s CRS-6 flight the TurkmenAlem GTO launch is still scheduled for April 24, a 10 day reset.
SpaceX is building out 4 launch sites and multiple landing sites. They are currently the largest big rocket engine maker in the world, and they are multiplying output two-fold. They are producing only 2 extremely comparable cores. They plan to move to 2 week or less launch cycles in the very near term.
They will launch from VDB in CA, Brownsville, and Canaveral 39a and 40. All with essentially interchangable rockets.
So at the end of the day, how will this set of prices, SpaceX v ULA v Vulcan, all fill out, deciding where ULA ends up? (Corrected picture)
Vulcan is ULA. They are basically putting together the best parts of the Atlas and Delta rockets, along with new engines from Blue Origin, to make the Vulcan.
The table seems to have been lost before-added again.
Maybe ULA should have looked up the names of the Russian heavy lifter designs first…
From what I’ve seen, once it has its new upper stage, Vulcan will be very like the EELV Phase II. I wonder if ULA have plans for a heavy or super-heavy version with multiple parallel cores?
It’s interesting that ULA are planning to downsize to one pad on both coast. Is that indicative of a pessimistic view of the commercial viability of Vulcan. Or, rather, does it indicate that they intend to seek USG launches only and thus do not anticipate a high enough flight rate to justify more than one pad?
Good question. Perhaps they realize it will take a while for Vulcan to get to it’s most optimum configuration. Then they can choose to make a new pad available at that time depending on how things work out.
Using an internal combustion engine…is this a kludge, like it seems to my non-scientist eyes? How does such a thing work, I wonder? Haven’t seen anything in detail. anybody know? And is this part of a Centaur replacement? Confused.
In any case we are watching a CEO exercise huge authority, leading a sprawling company in new directions. This test of Mr. Bruno is easily as interesting as the new rocket. There are a lot of key decisions to be made, decisions mired on old think. That’s where Mr. Musk had a huge advantage, really; he came to rocket building with truly fresh eyes, and it shows.
The idea is to use gaseous hydrogen and oxygen boil-off to produce power. Using an internal combustion engine to do this is certainly “old tech”, but it’s also proven tech and can be easily scaled up to whatever power output level is required. An alternative solution common to aerospace would have been a fuel cell, which is also proven tech, so this could also be an engineering cost trade off. Or it could have been a reliability trade off, given the issues in the past with fuel cells (I believe at least one shuttle mission was cut short due to a fuel cell problem).
It also provide mechanical drive and pumping.
Its rather sweet.
That definitely caught my eye as well. Very interesting. And I totally agree about your CEO points… not just leading a sprawling company, but one with big players Boeing and Lockheed.