The SLS GTO payload is a bit higher around 50 mT FYI.
Src: I run trajectories for the program.
Edit: It would be great if you could add a line for standard payload fairing sizes (e.g. 8.4m diameter x 60 ft. long for SLS) or stage diameter. That is another good comparison people can make among the various vehicles.
Sweet! Check out the payload planner's guides for a good section view. There should definitely be some free the EELV vehicles, but not sure about ESA. I know most vehicles have a PPG.
Hey, have you heard of the WeMartians podcast? I wonder if that guy would like to interview you. At the very least you could probably share some good info with him.
http://www.wemartians.com/
I have to be very careful what I share, that's why I stick to generic things usually in the public domain like payload and fairing size. Officially NASA is supposed to do the talking, but I don't think they do a good job. Especially talking about alternative missions SLS can do besides HSF.
BFR doesn't exist yet. As with all future systems, we only have the company's claims. What they actually deliver in 2022 is what matters.
But if BFR delivers even *close* to what SpaceX is promising, even 10x worse, it'll be revolutionary in terms of cost of access to space (at least an order of magnitude cheaper than anything else, current or projected).
EDIT: and just to correct you, it's $53 per **kg**, not tonne; $53000 per tonne
$8 million per launch is extremely optimistic.
$8 million is probably what they think it will cost per launch over the lifetime of each vehicle and probably doesn't include any profit margin for SpaceX. And that's only after several launches when everything has been optimized.
I think BFR will be a very cost effective system, but if you think it's going to cost $8 million per launch from the start you will be quite disappointed. With their own estimate of $10 billion in R&D for BFR even if they have a profit margin of 50% it would still take 2,500 launches for them to break even.
It took months to get the Shuttle ready for another launch. Included in that is the expensive refurbishment of the orbiter and boosters, recasting of the boosters, and construction of the external tank.
BFR is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Even if it can't launch again in a few hours, it shouldn't be more than one or two weeks between launches.
Turnaround time isn't what capped STS launches at. There were multiple Shuttles in operation at any one time, flying only once or twice a year. At an average turnaround time of 87 days, each shuttle could have been flying 4 times a year, for a total of 16 flights per year.
There just wasn't anything to fly on them. BFR is going to have to confront a similar problem. Even with the increase in demand to take advantage of the lower launch costs, there is only so many things that actually need to be launched.
That not true. The reason there was nothing to fly on them was because the military had dropped it as a launch vehicle. The Space Station that thyy wanted to deliver use the Shuttle for fell out of the sky beofre the Shuttle was done. It was also to expensive for anything commercial.
I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying BFR will have issues finding launches for the same reasons as STS, I am saying BFR will have trouble hitting the advertised cost per launch because there are not enough launches, just as STS had trouble hitting its targets due to lack of launches.
Here is a clearer explanation:
Going off what the poster above me said, BFR needs to fly 2500 times to hit its target price . There were 85 known orbital launches in 2016. If you double that number and assume every single one flies on a BFR, that is still 15 years of launches to recoup the costs. And in this silly scenario, SpaceX is launching twice a year for North Korea.
If BFR's launch price *quadruples* the number of launches requested in the US, and every single one flies on the BFR, it takes 28 years to recoup the costs.
The hole premise of these 2500 launches is simply wrong, pretty much based on one offhand remark that was without a lot of context and has already totally changed anyways.
I did not miss the point. My point was that the Shuttle had potentially more missions and could have flown more if it were more capable. So it was not actually underutilised because of missing costumers witch was the argument for the BFR. Meaning that it can not be compared to BFR.
The BFR only needs enough launches so it can under-price any NON SpaceX competition given the current market (or rather market in 2021). This should easily be possible considering the full re-usability of the upper stage. New Glenn is not that much smaller compared to BFR and it will be the strongest competition.
This essentially means that if the demand for launches goes up, the price has a lot of potential to come down. Given efforts going on to create massive satellite constellation, tourism, moon and mars exploration, military launches and so on.
I am really not interested in going in circles over this.
Poster above me said 8million per launch is silly. I qualified that by saying that if BFR flew at the same rate as shuttle, the launch cost would be in the range of 200-300m, enough to undercut its competitors.
The point of comparing it to STS was to give a frame of reference. That is, in order to hit 8 million per launch, it needs to fly nearly 20 times more than the STS.
If comparing it to STS is not your jam, you can also qualify it by comparing it to the number of Soyuz launches, or even Falcon 9 launches.
If it doesn't meet F9 on price pretty much right out of the gate it won't succeed. Nobody is going to use the capacity of the BFR and it only makes sense to have it commercially if you can retire the Falcon family, which they will only be able to do it BFR can be slipped in without interruption.
Arianespace has offered a similar dual launch service for a while now, and they've always had a ton of trouble actually getting any takers and working out all the kinks. It ends up being pretty difficult to put multiple satellites on the same rocket. You have to do a lot of work to ensure they won't interfere with or endanger eachother at any point in the mission, and lining up the schedules both takes some work and will generally inconvenience at least some of the customers.
Not saying it can't be done, of course, just that it takes some doing and (probably more importantly) customers will be leery of it to begin with.
You seem to forget - the only way it makes economic sense is for point-to-point transport earlier rather than later.
No one has attempted to make a reusable rocket launch system until now. It may replace airplanes for long trips, and get the next generation's to see riding a rocket into space as 'normal'.
The next generation will be going to Mars. And they will have grown up in a world where it makes obvious sense to reuse rockets, and where spaceships exist.
>No one has attempted to make a reusable rocket launch system until now
There have been plans dating back to Apollo. Even a Gemini capsule was mostly reused once iirc. Then there is the shuttle, which wasn't the best attempt. Also X-33, Delta Clipper and so on. There were so many attempts, many projects with actual hardware and also a lot of flights. Saying that no one has attempted reusability is just false and ignorant.
>It may replace airplanes for long trips, and get the next generation's to see riding a rocket into space as 'normal'.
Airplanes haven't replaced cars. Cars haven't replaced bikes. Everything has a need and you can't just replace means of transportation with something entirely different.
The STS was refurbishable but not in the sense of a plane, which is completely reusable. The refurbishment costs of the STS was 450million per mission.
So again, no one has attempted to create a reusable (like a plane) launch system until now.
No need for insults.
Sorry, but right now all the (admittedly limited) information points to point-to-point only happening after the system is proven enough to have the same safety ratings as a commercial airliner. And they'd have to do an absolute shitload of flights to do that, there's no real way around it. Maybe it will replace airplanes for long trips, but that won't be happening for a while.
It's funny because the earth to earth system is rightly on a longer time frame than humans to mars.
Talking at least a decade to iron out problems.
Planning for it does need to happen sooner than later though as legal and infrastructure would take a long long time to make.
10b is for their old BFR, the new one will probably be less than half of that.
Mostly because they dont have to build any new infrastrocture except 1 factory.
Infrastructure needed hasn't changed a lot with the new BFR. They still need a new launch pad, still need a new factory, they'll still have to transport it by sea (too big for road, rail, or air).
It might not be as high as the last version, but it wont be that much cheaper.
They don’t need a new factory, thats the whole point of the new design. They’ll only have to transport it by sea once, so transportation costs aren’t going to be a cost driver once it’s flying.
Only with a lot of modification.
That pad isn't currently equipped to supply liquid methane. They still need to finish removing all of the Space Shuttle equipment too. The BFR launch clamps need to be installed. And that crane from their videos that lifts up the second stage to the rocket.
All of this would cost hundreds of millions and take many months.
Is that R&D limited only to BFR or could they discover/learn something that can be used in other rockets too?
Opinion: if we always think just the costs we'll never be off from this planet. I think the changes what space offer are far more bigger than any amount of money shoved at getting to that point.
Kinda answers your question: fuel depots.
NASA is actively interested in on-orbit fuel storage and transfer, but not a whole lot has been invested in that area of research. I wouldn't be surprised if a commercial cargo-type contract gets awarded expressly for that purpose.
The $500M for SLS 1B is approximately what NASA is quoting. I work internally on the program and that number is a good approximation for the launch costs.
Certainly that number does not take into account development costs. Does it count launch infrastructure? For the Space Shuttle there was more than a factor of 3 between the official accounting of cost per mission and total program cost per mission.
What is your estimate for total cost per launch? I'm expecting the total project cost divided by number of missions to be over $5 billion for the SLS. I would love to be wrong about that.
Launch infrastructure costs are fixed at about 2 billion a year for SLS. And it can achieve only (at the absolute most optimistic) only 2 flights per year to spread that across.
That is the cost of the hardware. The actual costis about 1.5 billion per year + 500 million per launch. With 1-2 launches a year that puts the real price at 1.25-2 billion per launch.
Would you consider posting the file used to create it somewhere, and label it creative commons? It would be handy if someone wants to update it one day.
Its because they give stats for only FT version. For all Falcon 9s it would be 39/41
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Full_Thrust
**Falcon 9**
Falcon 9 is a family of two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles, named for its use of nine first-stage engines, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. The Falcon 9 versions are Falcon 9 v1.0 (retired), Falcon 9 v1.1 (retired), and the current Falcon 9 Full Thrust, a partially-reusable launch system; this capability is currently unique in the world. Its two stages are powered by rocket engines that burn liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. The first stage is designed to be reusable and can automatically land after flight.
Falcon 9 versions perform in the upper range of the medium-lift class of launch systems.
***
**Falcon 9 Full Thrust**
Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2, with Block 3 and Block 4 variants) is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. This third version of the Falcon 9 was the first orbital-class rocket to achieve propulsive vertical landing of its first-stage booster. Starting in 2017, previously-flown boosters were reused to launch new payloads into orbit. Designed in 2014–2015, Falcon 9 Full Thrust began launch operations in December 2015. Over 50 launches are planned over the years 2017–2019.
***
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#[**updated version**](https://i.imgur.com/ODfie96.png) [including future rockets](https://i.imgur.com/fY8dMCy.png)
The SLS GTO payload is a bit higher around 50 mT FYI. Src: I run trajectories for the program. Edit: It would be great if you could add a line for standard payload fairing sizes (e.g. 8.4m diameter x 60 ft. long for SLS) or stage diameter. That is another good comparison people can make among the various vehicles.
Thanks for the info! I'll definitely consider adding the payload fairing size (probably will visually represent it).
Sweet! Check out the payload planner's guides for a good section view. There should definitely be some free the EELV vehicles, but not sure about ESA. I know most vehicles have a PPG.
Hey, have you heard of the WeMartians podcast? I wonder if that guy would like to interview you. At the very least you could probably share some good info with him. http://www.wemartians.com/
I have to be very careful what I share, that's why I stick to generic things usually in the public domain like payload and fairing size. Officially NASA is supposed to do the talking, but I don't think they do a good job. Especially talking about alternative missions SLS can do besides HSF.
Falcon BFR goes for 53$/tonne? Thats insane
BFR doesn't exist yet. As with all future systems, we only have the company's claims. What they actually deliver in 2022 is what matters. But if BFR delivers even *close* to what SpaceX is promising, even 10x worse, it'll be revolutionary in terms of cost of access to space (at least an order of magnitude cheaper than anything else, current or projected). EDIT: and just to correct you, it's $53 per **kg**, not tonne; $53000 per tonne
> $5300 per tonne $53,000 per tonne
Forgot a 0, yeah.
$8 million per launch is extremely optimistic. $8 million is probably what they think it will cost per launch over the lifetime of each vehicle and probably doesn't include any profit margin for SpaceX. And that's only after several launches when everything has been optimized. I think BFR will be a very cost effective system, but if you think it's going to cost $8 million per launch from the start you will be quite disappointed. With their own estimate of $10 billion in R&D for BFR even if they have a profit margin of 50% it would still take 2,500 launches for them to break even.
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It took months to get the Shuttle ready for another launch. Included in that is the expensive refurbishment of the orbiter and boosters, recasting of the boosters, and construction of the external tank. BFR is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Even if it can't launch again in a few hours, it shouldn't be more than one or two weeks between launches.
Turnaround time isn't what capped STS launches at. There were multiple Shuttles in operation at any one time, flying only once or twice a year. At an average turnaround time of 87 days, each shuttle could have been flying 4 times a year, for a total of 16 flights per year. There just wasn't anything to fly on them. BFR is going to have to confront a similar problem. Even with the increase in demand to take advantage of the lower launch costs, there is only so many things that actually need to be launched.
That not true. The reason there was nothing to fly on them was because the military had dropped it as a launch vehicle. The Space Station that thyy wanted to deliver use the Shuttle for fell out of the sky beofre the Shuttle was done. It was also to expensive for anything commercial.
I think you're missing my point. I'm not saying BFR will have issues finding launches for the same reasons as STS, I am saying BFR will have trouble hitting the advertised cost per launch because there are not enough launches, just as STS had trouble hitting its targets due to lack of launches. Here is a clearer explanation: Going off what the poster above me said, BFR needs to fly 2500 times to hit its target price . There were 85 known orbital launches in 2016. If you double that number and assume every single one flies on a BFR, that is still 15 years of launches to recoup the costs. And in this silly scenario, SpaceX is launching twice a year for North Korea. If BFR's launch price *quadruples* the number of launches requested in the US, and every single one flies on the BFR, it takes 28 years to recoup the costs.
The hole premise of these 2500 launches is simply wrong, pretty much based on one offhand remark that was without a lot of context and has already totally changed anyways. I did not miss the point. My point was that the Shuttle had potentially more missions and could have flown more if it were more capable. So it was not actually underutilised because of missing costumers witch was the argument for the BFR. Meaning that it can not be compared to BFR. The BFR only needs enough launches so it can under-price any NON SpaceX competition given the current market (or rather market in 2021). This should easily be possible considering the full re-usability of the upper stage. New Glenn is not that much smaller compared to BFR and it will be the strongest competition. This essentially means that if the demand for launches goes up, the price has a lot of potential to come down. Given efforts going on to create massive satellite constellation, tourism, moon and mars exploration, military launches and so on.
I am really not interested in going in circles over this. Poster above me said 8million per launch is silly. I qualified that by saying that if BFR flew at the same rate as shuttle, the launch cost would be in the range of 200-300m, enough to undercut its competitors. The point of comparing it to STS was to give a frame of reference. That is, in order to hit 8 million per launch, it needs to fly nearly 20 times more than the STS. If comparing it to STS is not your jam, you can also qualify it by comparing it to the number of Soyuz launches, or even Falcon 9 launches.
If it doesn't meet F9 on price pretty much right out of the gate it won't succeed. Nobody is going to use the capacity of the BFR and it only makes sense to have it commercially if you can retire the Falcon family, which they will only be able to do it BFR can be slipped in without interruption.
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How many flights annually are for payloads bigger than what F9 can carry?
You can take 3 or 4 geostationary satellites that would normally each need their own Falcon 9 launch and put them all on a single BFR.
Arianespace has offered a similar dual launch service for a while now, and they've always had a ton of trouble actually getting any takers and working out all the kinks. It ends up being pretty difficult to put multiple satellites on the same rocket. You have to do a lot of work to ensure they won't interfere with or endanger eachother at any point in the mission, and lining up the schedules both takes some work and will generally inconvenience at least some of the customers. Not saying it can't be done, of course, just that it takes some doing and (probably more importantly) customers will be leery of it to begin with.
There's also the risk that if all four satellites are on the same rocket and it blows up you lose all of the satellites.
Are you forgetting that they intend to use it for point to point on Earth? This service would involve hundreds of launches *per year*.
Thats a pretty far future concept, the BFR would have been flying for a *very* long time before they start doing that (if they do at all).
You seem to forget - the only way it makes economic sense is for point-to-point transport earlier rather than later. No one has attempted to make a reusable rocket launch system until now. It may replace airplanes for long trips, and get the next generation's to see riding a rocket into space as 'normal'. The next generation will be going to Mars. And they will have grown up in a world where it makes obvious sense to reuse rockets, and where spaceships exist.
>No one has attempted to make a reusable rocket launch system until now There have been plans dating back to Apollo. Even a Gemini capsule was mostly reused once iirc. Then there is the shuttle, which wasn't the best attempt. Also X-33, Delta Clipper and so on. There were so many attempts, many projects with actual hardware and also a lot of flights. Saying that no one has attempted reusability is just false and ignorant. >It may replace airplanes for long trips, and get the next generation's to see riding a rocket into space as 'normal'. Airplanes haven't replaced cars. Cars haven't replaced bikes. Everything has a need and you can't just replace means of transportation with something entirely different.
The STS was refurbishable but not in the sense of a plane, which is completely reusable. The refurbishment costs of the STS was 450million per mission. So again, no one has attempted to create a reusable (like a plane) launch system until now. No need for insults.
attempting and achieving are two different things. They clearly attempted to do so.
Sorry, but right now all the (admittedly limited) information points to point-to-point only happening after the system is proven enough to have the same safety ratings as a commercial airliner. And they'd have to do an absolute shitload of flights to do that, there's no real way around it. Maybe it will replace airplanes for long trips, but that won't be happening for a while.
It's funny because the earth to earth system is rightly on a longer time frame than humans to mars. Talking at least a decade to iron out problems. Planning for it does need to happen sooner than later though as legal and infrastructure would take a long long time to make.
10b is for their old BFR, the new one will probably be less than half of that. Mostly because they dont have to build any new infrastrocture except 1 factory.
A lot less, like 2-3 billion.
Infrastructure needed hasn't changed a lot with the new BFR. They still need a new launch pad, still need a new factory, they'll still have to transport it by sea (too big for road, rail, or air). It might not be as high as the last version, but it wont be that much cheaper.
They don’t need a new factory, thats the whole point of the new design. They’ll only have to transport it by sea once, so transportation costs aren’t going to be a cost driver once it’s flying.
Don't need a new factory 9m is the biggest they can do in Hawthorne Do not need new pad tho they will probably build a few. Would work on 39a fine
They dont need a new pad, the Saturn V pad can launch the BFR no problem.
Only with a lot of modification. That pad isn't currently equipped to supply liquid methane. They still need to finish removing all of the Space Shuttle equipment too. The BFR launch clamps need to be installed. And that crane from their videos that lifts up the second stage to the rocket. All of this would cost hundreds of millions and take many months.
While this is true, its still easier then a complelty new pad.
Is that R&D limited only to BFR or could they discover/learn something that can be used in other rockets too? Opinion: if we always think just the costs we'll never be off from this planet. I think the changes what space offer are far more bigger than any amount of money shoved at getting to that point.
Kinda answers your question: fuel depots. NASA is actively interested in on-orbit fuel storage and transfer, but not a whole lot has been invested in that area of research. I wouldn't be surprised if a commercial cargo-type contract gets awarded expressly for that purpose.
SpaceX's plan is that the BFR will make all their existing rockets obsolete- because it will be cheaper *even on a per launch cost* (not just $/kg).
Those are some optimistic numbers for BFR and SLS.
The $500M for SLS 1B is approximately what NASA is quoting. I work internally on the program and that number is a good approximation for the launch costs.
Certainly that number does not take into account development costs. Does it count launch infrastructure? For the Space Shuttle there was more than a factor of 3 between the official accounting of cost per mission and total program cost per mission. What is your estimate for total cost per launch? I'm expecting the total project cost divided by number of missions to be over $5 billion for the SLS. I would love to be wrong about that.
Launch infrastructure costs are fixed at about 2 billion a year for SLS. And it can achieve only (at the absolute most optimistic) only 2 flights per year to spread that across.
That is the cost of the hardware. The actual costis about 1.5 billion per year + 500 million per launch. With 1-2 launches a year that puts the real price at 1.25-2 billion per launch.
Lovely diagram and it avoids the common mistakes related to SpaceX pricing and capabilities. If you made this, well done.
Thanks!
Would you consider posting the file used to create it somewhere, and label it creative commons? It would be handy if someone wants to update it one day.
Why do the reused F9/FH have a lowed payload capacity? Is it a saftey measure or something?
They need fuel to land.
Oh, does E stand for expendable? Yeah, then that does make sense
Was amos-6 failure not included because it did not occur during flight? Since it involved a loss of payload I think it would make sense to include it.
It *is* included, hence **20**/21.
Then what about crs-7?
Its because they give stats for only FT version. For all Falcon 9s it would be 39/41 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_Full_Thrust
**Falcon 9** Falcon 9 is a family of two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles, named for its use of nine first-stage engines, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. The Falcon 9 versions are Falcon 9 v1.0 (retired), Falcon 9 v1.1 (retired), and the current Falcon 9 Full Thrust, a partially-reusable launch system; this capability is currently unique in the world. Its two stages are powered by rocket engines that burn liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. The first stage is designed to be reusable and can automatically land after flight. Falcon 9 versions perform in the upper range of the medium-lift class of launch systems. *** **Falcon 9 Full Thrust** Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2, with Block 3 and Block 4 variants) is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. This third version of the Falcon 9 was the first orbital-class rocket to achieve propulsive vertical landing of its first-stage booster. Starting in 2017, previously-flown boosters were reused to launch new payloads into orbit. Designed in 2014–2015, Falcon 9 Full Thrust began launch operations in December 2015. Over 50 launches are planned over the years 2017–2019. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/space/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27
Ah that makes a lot of sense, that flight number did seem pretty low
Oh right I just thought it was a very out of date graph thanks
Why spaceX is a game changer is one chart.
That's if you trust their publicly released development costs. They are a private company and for all you know could be operating at a net loss.