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Space The Almighty Buck Businesses Earth NASA Technology

SpaceX Finds a Customer For Its First Reused Rocket (arstechnica.com) 121

Posted by BeauHD from the reuse-and-recycle dept.
What do you do after you successfully land a rocket on a floating barge in the Atlantic? You reuse it. SpaceX has been on the hunt for someone to reuse some of its first-stage Falcon boosters, and now SpaceX has finally found a customer. Ars Technica reports: "The Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES said Tuesday that it intends to launch a geostationary satellite, SES 10, on a reusable rocket in the fourth quarter of this year. SpaceX has not yet specified how much it will charge for launch services on one of its flown boosters, but industry officials anticipate about a 30 percent discount on SpaceX's regular price of $62 million for a Falcon 9 launch. The company has not shared how much it is spending to refurbish and reuse a Falcon 9 stage, nor has it offered much public information about the extent to which the vehicle's engines have had to be tested and prepared for a second flight." "Having been the first commercial satellite operator to launch with SpaceX back in 2013, we are excited to once again be the first customer on SpaceX's first ever mission using a flight-proven rocket," said Martin Halliwell, Chief Technology Officer at SES. "We believe reusable rockets will open up a new era of spaceflight and make access to space more efficient in terms of cost and manifest management."
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SpaceX Finds a Customer For Its First Reused Rocket More

SpaceX Finds a Customer For Its First Reused Rocket

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  • We just have to fill up the rocket tanks with used fuel recycled from the exhaust nozzle of their last flight. There is no warranty on it, however.
  • >$62 million That is three times the cost of a Soyuz launch

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It is pretty clear that SES goes into the deal because of political reasons.
      All space agencies that doesn't have their own capability to launch their satellites would benefit from having private entities that can do it for them.
      The countries that do have the capability still wants the competition around to have something to compare their own costs against.
      Even if creating those entities are primarily a US project there are plenty of organizations willing to throw money at it in the hope that they will be su

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 4im ( 181450 )

        It is pretty clear that SES goes into the deal because of political reasons.
        All space agencies that doesn't have their own capability to launch their satellites would benefit from having private entities that can do it for them.
        The countries that do have the capability still wants the competition around to have something to compare their own costs against.
        Even if creating those entities are primarily a US project there are plenty of organizations willing to throw money at it in the hope that they will be su

        • There is a Proton for that. $50m a pop back 10 years ago. I'm sure its cheaper now as the rouble fell. Or for even cheaper LEO lift there are garage made Zenits from Ukraine (original Zenit boosters were reusable), Dnieper, Rokots, Shtil, Cyclone, QA rejected Kosmoses that can still be brought to a flyable state, and tons of other stuff picked from factory scrapyards (Remember that Swiss startup that bought a functioning Almaz just like that)
          • It's small wonder they were trying to get the RD-180 rocket banned recently. Without a well developed staged/closed cycle rocket they're going to have a hard time achieving the kind of launch costs they say they are.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Where did you get you number? That's way lower than what these guys think the Soyuz cost is: http://www.globalsecurity.org/... [globalsecurity.org]

      Also, geostationary != LEO.

    • Is that a Soyuz launch all the way to geostationary orbit or are you comparing apples to orchards?

    • Re:Still higher than a Soyuz launch (Score:5, Informative)

      by Edis Krad ( 1003934 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @03:22AM (#52801381)

      The Soyuz (Actually, Progress [wikipedia.org]. Soyuz is for people) has much smaller capacity. A payload of 2,400 kg and AFAIK, doesn't go past LEO.

      Falcon 9 [wikipedia.org] has a payload of 22,800 kg to LEO, and 8,300 kg to geostationary orbit. Three times more expensive you say? Sure, it can also carry 9 times more stuff and father away.

      • You are comparing apples to oranges. Progress is a spacecraft, not a rocket. Falcon 9 is a rocket, not a spacecraft. They cannot be directly compared, because they aren't even the same class of thing! SpaceX's equivalent of Progress is the Dragon capsule.

        The Soyuz ROCKET [wikipedia.org], specifically the newest version (called Soyuz-2 [wikipedia.org], has a payload of 8200 kg to LEO and 3250 kg to GTO. It's still not nearly so powerful as Falcon 9, even the reusable configuration (I believe the numbers you quoted omit the F9's grid fins, landing legs, and reserved fuel for recovery), but it's far more than one ninth as powerful.

        Sigh...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What a mixup.

        There's a Soyuz rocket and a Soyuz spacecraft. Progress (pressurised cargo) and Soyuz spacecraft (pressurised humans) are payloads for the Soyuz rocket.
        The Soyuz rocket comes in different variants, all based on the R7 rocket family [wikipedia.org], first flown 1957! In active service are 5 variants.

        Soyuz 2.1b has a payload to LEO of 8,200kg and a listed price of around $50M

        The russian cargo work horse is the Proton-M [wikipedia.org]
        With a LEO capacity of 23,000kg and an estimatet price of $68M

        • In general, the old Soviet standard was to give the rocket a public name after the first satellite launched by the rocket. This makes names confusing.

          Even more confusing, the actual Russian name for the rocket for years used to be simply "Number 7" ("Semyorka")

    • Seat? Same cost, Falcon 2.5X capacity (Score:5, Interesting)

      by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @03:39AM (#52801425) Journal

      Are you confusing the cost of one SEAT on a Soyuz vs the cost of the entire Falcoln 9? Even if so, the whole Falcoln 9 isn't three times the cost of a seat on a Soyuz.

      The Soyuz 2 costs about $57 million to take 7,000 pounds to GTO. The Falcon 9 is about $62 million to take 18,000 pounds. So about the same total cost per launch, but the Falcon 9 FT carries over twice as much.

      I your satellite is 7,000 lbs or less, you can either split the cost with another customer and pay about $30 million on the Falcoln, or pay $57 million on Soyuz. Falcoln wins on cost. If your payload is over 7,000 pounds, Soyuz won't get you there at any cost, unless you split it into multiple launches at $57 million each. Falcoln wins again.

      On the other hand, IF you spent $100 million building the cargo, you might prefer to spend more on the Soyuz due to its proven track record.

      • On the other hand, IF you spent $100 million building the cargo, you might prefer to spend more on the Soyuz due to its proven track record.

        Then again, part of the reason that you spent 100m$ on building the cargo, is that the launch was been so darn expensive.

        You could propably build a supercheap satelite with the exact same functionallity for a fraction of the cost using standard parts. Then again since the launch costs you 60m$-400m$ depending on vehicle and destination, you really wanna make sure the satellite functions perfectly when arriving.

        Just saying that if the launch prices go down far enough we will see a whole another market

        • The engineering is the expensive bit (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @05:52AM (#52801687)

          Then again, part of the reason that you spent 100m$ on building the cargo, is that the launch was been so darn expensive.

          The reason that you spent that much money building the cargo has comparatively little to do with the cost of the launch and everything to do with the fact that you really don't get multiple chances to get it right plus the fact that the destination has pretty much the harshest environmental conditions imaginable. Satellites and probes are expensive because they are (usually) one off bespoke products designed from scratch. If Ford could only sell a single Ford Taurus but it needed to be build to the same standards as the production model you can buy from a dealer you better believe it would cost many millions of dollars.

          You could propably build a supercheap satelite with the exact same functionallity for a fraction of the cost using standard parts.

          I run a company that makes custom wire harnesses for all sorts of applications. We've had some of our products go into space. The notion that you could build a "supercheap satelite" using "standard parts" is more or less nonsense at present. Maybe in the distant future that will be true but for all but a handful of corner cases it isn't true today and won't be for some time to come. It is possible to design a set of standardized space rated components but we're a long way away from that happy state of affairs for most applications.

          First off "standard parts" (stuff you can order from a catalog) are generally not designed with space travel in mind. I buy components daily from distributors and they are designed for particular environmental conditions. You exceed these conditions at your own peril. Space travel is WELL outside of the performance specifications envelope for most off the shelf components. Even for the comparatively few off the shelf parts you can buy that will work, the components are not what really makes it expensive.

          Second, even if you can find some components that would work in space you most likely are still building a custom product. I can assure you that a single version of anything custom that has to be right the first time is not going to be cheap. If you want your product to work for any meaningful length of time there are going to be very detailed assembly instructions, designs, reviews, audits, checks, test procedures and calibrations. You have to make sure the whole thing works together even if the components individually would be fine in space. You will spend enormous amounts of engineering time to do even the seemingly simplest things because you only get one chance to get them right. All of this is very expensive. You can try to do in on the cheap and hope you get lucky but in my experience customers who buy components for space travel aren't real fans of trusting to luck.

          Third, to reduce costs of engineering you need to be able to design products that can be sold multiple times. Then you can spread the engineering costs across them. I expect that will happen eventually but right now most products intended for space are one off designs so there are no economies of scale to be enjoyed. There will have to be considerable standardization of products before that happens and we're a long way from that right now. Kind of like in the early days of aviation we're still figuring out what works because you don't want to build a lot of something that doesn't work.

          Just saying that if the launch prices go down far enough we will see a whole another market of cheap hardware, where the reason for building really expensive satelites or other cargo partly vanishes.

          They would have to go down a LOT further for that to be the case. I'm talking almost unrealistically cheaper. Science fiction levels of cheaper. Nothing that is likely to happen in my lifetime cheaper. It isn't the hardware that is the primary cost center in many cases. It's the design and engineering and assembly and test

          • The reason that you spent that much money building the cargo has comparatively little to do with the cost of the launch and everything to do with the fact that you really don't get multiple chances to get it right

            I think you need to go back to your initial assumption, which might not be true any longer. With lower $/kg to your selected orbit, replacing a satellite is economically possible and building a satellite with a much shorter projected lifetime is probably optimal because the alternative is for the o

            • The other assumption of spacecraft uniqueness is becoming less and less true. Most of the bigger comm satellites are built on a more or less common backplane. The radios are not one off devices. They are still hella expensive because things have to be fairly robust to get to and survive in space, but we're seeing more and more benefits of commonality and at least low volume production costs.

              Comm satellites costs have come down significantly in the past decade, especially when you figure in performance an

              • AMSAT has been marketing cubesats with a proven radio link to colleges. Common, flight-proven infrasturucture, Phil Karn designed RF modem. You launch it and run your experiment, we get to make it a ham radio satellite.

              • The other assumption of spacecraft uniqueness is becoming less and less true. Most of the bigger comm satellites are built on a more or less common backplane. The radios are not one off devices.

                To a meaningful degree this is true. I would expect some amount of standardization over time and there is some evidence of it happening. But we're still a long time away from spacecraft that are built from parts you can buy from a figurative Digi-Key if you get what I mean. It will (probably) happen but it's going to take a non-trivial amount of time.

            • With lower $/kg to your selected orbit, replacing a satellite is economically possible and building a satellite with a much shorter projected lifetime is probably optimal because the alternative is for the operator to be stuck with 20-year-old technology in orbit

              The $/kg to orbit would need to fall quite a lot to make it practical to design less robust equipment. And the difference in cost between a satellite designed to last 5 years vs one designed to last 10 years or more is probably not a linear function and the engineering costs will be very large in either case. To make up an example with bogus numbers even if you cut 1/3 out of the engineering costs it still will be a big number. Even if you can cut some corners by being able to launch more frequently you

          • The reason that you spent that much money building the cargo has comparatively little to do with the cost of the launch and everything to do with the fact that you really don't get multiple chances to get it right plus the fact that the destination has pretty much the harshest environmental conditions imaginable. Satellites and probes are expensive because they are (usually) one off bespoke products designed from scratch. If Ford could only sell a single Ford Taurus but it needed to be build to the same standards as the production model you can buy from a dealer you better believe it would cost many millions of dollars.

            If you build cheap and many because launch costs are low, then you do get multiple chances. If you build one large then it will damn well have to work perfectly for a very long time. Downside of one large satellite working for a long time is that you are stuck with with outdated hardware.
            You are basically describing old space.

            They would have to go down a LOT further for that to be the case. I'm talking almost unrealistically cheaper. Science fiction levels of cheaper. Nothing that is likely to happen in my lifetime cheaper. It isn't the hardware that is the primary cost center in many cases. It's the design and engineering and assembly and test requirements. Those are harder to minimize without having economies of scale. Don't get me wrong, I think it will happen eventually but it's going to take quite a while. Launching stuff into space is so expensive that the pace of progress is necessarily slow. It's going to take decades if not centuries to get a set of standardized products we can launch into space with very low cost.

            You are wrong. There are companies building satellites from standard cheap components already today. They send up many smaller ones, instead of one large expensive.

            This is one of my

        • > Then again, part of the reason that you spent 100m$ on building the cargo, is that the launch was been so darn expensive.

          Having worked in Boeing's space system division, this is explicitly a trade-off we do and understand. You can spend more engineering effort to make a satellite lighter. This allows you to pack in more transponders or fuel, increasing the revenue the satellite can earn. Lighter happens from better solar arrays, TWT amplifiers, structural materials, and propulsion systems. These co

    • Cheaper than Soyuz, and lifts much more (Score:4, Informative)

      by hkultala ( 69204 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @05:08AM (#52801611)

      Soyuz rocket launch cost is 48-61 millions depending on configuration (LEO launches cheaper due no upper stage)
      Soyuz capasity to is 8.2 tonnes to LEO and 3.25 tonnes to GTO.

      Falcon 9 expendable capasity is 22.8 tonnes to LEO and 8.3 tonnes to GTO,
      and Falcon 9(stage 1 recoverable) capasity is over 13 tonnes to LEO(propably much more) and 5.5 tonnes to GTO.

      So, falcon 9 on fully expendable mode lifts over 2.5x more than soyuz, and falcon 9 on stage 1 recoverable mode lift over 1.5 x more than soyuz.

      This means that:
      for LEO launches, reused reusable(assuming the 30% discount) falcon 9 is 10% cheaper than Soyuz, while lifting over 1.5 times more.
      for GTO launches, reused reusable(assuming the 30% discount) falcon 9 is 29% cheaper than Soyuz, while lifting about 1.7 times more.

      • This means that:
        for LEO launches, reused reusable(assuming the 30% discount) falcon 9 is 10% cheaper than Soyuz, while lifting over 1.5 times more.
        for GTO launches, reused reusable(assuming the 30% discount) falcon 9 is 29% cheaper than Soyuz, while lifting about 1.7 times more.

        That may all be true but we hate Capitalism, the West, and Elon Musk, so Soyuz is better. /s

        Strat

        • Given all the government funding SpaceX is sucking up, that's quite funny.

          • SpaceX received government funding to develop capabilities the government wanted. Which they have done.

            And competitors (specifically ULA) got the same deal with government-funded development---they just started decades ago as individual companies, so everyone forgot that it happened.

            Private commercial launches are not subsidized in any way. If SpaceX survives at $62m per launch, that is an improvement over the status quo.

      • Russia uses Proton for heavy lifting, Soyuz for lighter loads and manned flights. Proton is more or less the same as Falcon 9 FT in launch cost and capacity, with the difference that Proton is man-rated, even though it never had a manned flight.

    • When was the last time you looked at Soyuz launch pricing?
    • Remember when Rogozin [twitter.com] said the U.S. should get its astronauts to ISS with a trampoline? He's singing a different tune now. SpaceX is currently operating at a very significantly lower cost than Russian rockets in terms of $/kg to the specified orbit. And that's in the expendable configuration. Given successful reuse by SpaceX, Russia probably won't have a place in the market.

    • >$62 million That is three times the cost of a Soyuz launch

      While I've been curious to see SpaceX's progress and the evolution of their technology, the one thing I have always been highly skeptical of are their launch costs. I simply don't believe them. They have to be covering them through an accounting trick via an investor scam or government subsidies.

      The reusable thing has been a pipe dream for many decades, but I can't see it being done by standard rockets. The recovery of the vehicle, checking and the shear violence and wear and tear of the process just mak

      • I have always been highly skeptical of are their launch costs. I simply don't believe them.

        If you are concerned about the "shear violence", I suggest you go to 1 Rocket Rd, Hawthorne, CA, cross-street is Crenshaw. Stand in front of the building. SpaceX has left a rocket right on the front lawn for you to look at, a first stage that returned from lifting the Dragon capsule to ISS. It got to 1/5 orbital velocity (the second stage does the rest), burned its rockets for about 2.5 minutes, was in the air for les

        • And SpaceX has that chunk of metal sitting on their lawn because they plan to relaunch it?

          No, it's just a hulk on cinder blocks, like people find in lower income neighborhoods all around the country. Yep, they're gonna get that thing running, sometime....

          • This is the part I have a hard time understanding about groundnuts. The title of the story is that they sold a flight on one of those, for somewhere north of 40 Million. And you're still telling yourself "'aint gonna happen".
            • I also like the "SpaceX must be scamming something somewhere because reasons!" argument.
              • They've been around for 10+ years......and alas it's time for Musk to show everyone the money. That's starting to look excruciatingly difficult.
            • I think you need to learn the difference between convincing someone to do something once, probably with a few carrots dangling, and a long-term, viable, profitable and economical way of doing this repeatably and reliably. Space travel had been around for a few decades before Musk turned up, and there's quite a few people who already know what's involved..............

              That's the part about blind faith regarding SpaceX, Tesla, Musk et al I find perplexing. People unable to use the grey matter between their

            • Reusable launch of the hulk of metal on their lawn isn't going to happen.

              The reuse concept still has to be proven. More than 'proven possible' it has to be proven cost-effective.

              The problem with space-heads is they consider every challenge to be not only attainable, but worth attaining.

              Generally, they figure we can trash this planet, because we're moving on out. The tricky thing is, we're not as individual as some might pretend. Do you know all the symbonic links necessary to maintain your life? Will it

              • If you are so ready to monkey wrench, nuclear war is still the #1 risk of wiping out the ecology completely. Get at it. Second to that, you should work on the lazziez-faire economics variety of capitalism and the me-first variety of libertarianism, because they are the major political movements campaigns for those who ignore externalities of their activities. Neo-liberal economics of the Alan Greenspan variety should be a target too. And then all of the folks who feel that they should have as many babies as

        • If you are concerned about the "shear violence", I suggest you go to 1 Rocket Rd, Hawthorne, CA, cross-street is Crenshaw. Stand in front of the building. SpaceX has left a rocket right on the front lawn for you to look at, a first stage that returned from lifting the Dragon capsule to ISS. It got to 1/5 orbital velocity (the second stage does the rest), burned its rockets for about 2.5 minutes, was in the air for less than 10 minutes overall.

          Yadda, yadda, yadda. I hear this crap constantly. It need to functions and turn around like an airliner for this whole thing to be profitable and reduce costs in the amount needed. That ain't going to happen with a rocket. Ever.

      • The recovery of the vehicle, checking and the shear violence and wear and tear of the process just make it a dead-end IMO.

        People with better qualifications than you believe otherwise.

        My grandpa is a technology enthusiast, and he still remembers the naysayers in the 1950s and 1960s who were absolutely certain that travel to the moon was impossible. They had all kinds of reasons why it was nothing but a sci-fi dream and a boondoggle. And we know how that turned out.

        Could they make a reusable rocket in 1969? Absolutely not. Since 1969, however, our modeling, materials, and avionics have all improved tremendously. The wall of "the

    • Firstly, it's estimated at 30% off the $62M list price, so ~$40M. Secondly, the latest version of Soyuz (Soyuz 2) can carry 8,200 kg to LEO, while the Falcon 9 can carry 22,800 kg (almost 3 times as much). Lastly, the price of a Soyuz 2 isn't $20 million ( that's about the price of a single tourist seat on a Soyuz capsule), list price for a Soyuz 2 is $60M--$70M. So 3 times the payload for 30% less cost

  • The satellite is doing this for the publicity.

  • .. Should have a name.

    Here's hoping for a successful re-launch.

    • A poll suggested to name it Rockety McRocketface.
    • Its name used to be "F9-023". My vote for a name would be "This one's for you, Dimitry Rogozin!", after the Russian minister of space and war who suggested that the U.S. use a trampoline to get its astronauts to ISS.

  • In case you don't know who SES is (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    SES is the operator of the Astra satellite fleet that provides satellite television to Europe. It has literally hundreds of millions of satellite dishes pointed at their satellites.

  • I like how the customer uses the term "flight proven", I bet they only buy "pre-owned" cars rather than used cars too :)
    • There's a point to it, though. Would you rather fly a brand-new 737 that is going to do it's first take-off with you aboard, or leave that to Boeing's test pilot?

      • Bruce, as a space systems engineer, I can tell you it's all about fatigue life. Materials like aluminum and titanium have a finite number of load cycles they can withstand as a function of the stress level - more stress, less cycles. A 737 is designed to fly around 25,000 times, so the stress has to be low enough to allow that. Traditional expendable rockets literally evolved from ICBM's, and by their nature ballistic missiles are one-use products. So they can be used at higher stress, and therefore lig

        • Agreed. But besides the metallurgy, SpaceX accepted a bunch of challenges that nobody else wanted to do, to get as far as they have so far.

          Nobody else thought fuel densification was worth it. It complicates the launch window because densified fuel has to be unloaded and cooled off if you don't launch in time, and SpaceX had a few technical hiccups to resolve when they started using it. But it gives them more fuel to work with.

          We've been able to land rockets on their tail manually since the terrestrial LEM s

          • You are mistaken in thinking that dense fuel is something nobody else wanted to try. USSR did that in the 1970ies, they have even developed a special high density fuel (syntin) but stopped using it in the 1990ies due to high cost of it.

            • You are mistaken in thinking that dense fuel is something nobody else wanted to try. USSR did that in the 1970ies, they have even developed a special high density fuel (syntin) but stopped using it in the 1990ies due to high cost of it.

              Sorry, I should have known that most readers would not be up to speed on what SpaceX has done, and I should have explained densification as they've done it. While the Soviets used a chemically denser hydrocarbon, SpaceX has made conventional LOX and kerosene denser by cooling

              • Like i said, fuel cooling was also done by the Soviets - but they have decided that making the fuel more dense chemically is a more practical approach for them. Chills fuel meant more infrastructure (that was always a problem there) and also means that the rocket needs some thermal isolation of the fuel tank, which would make it heavier.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Plammox ( 717738 )
      I bet they only buy "pre-owned" cars rather than used cars too :)
      I see you never visited Luxembourg... (GDP per capita index 271 in 2015 compared to Germany's 125...)
    • BMW used to use very old engine blocks to build their Formula 1 turbo engines. Rumour has it that employees used to urinate on them when they were stashed outside.

  • SpaceX reusing a booster is a significant milestone but it will really start paying off with Falcon Heavy [wikipedia.org] when they can reuse three boosters from each launch.

  • No Discount Should Be Offered (Score:3)

    by pubwvj ( 1045960 ) on Wednesday August 31, 2016 @02:34PM (#52804271)

    They shouldn't offer a discount to fly on a used rocket.

    Rather they should simply guarantee every flight.

    This is product vs service.

    • If this proves to be successful, then we may see a flat cost model. However, this launch will be a first of its kind. There needs to be some incentive to be first when the possibility of your multi-million dollar multi-man-year project has a non-trivial chance of blowing up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

        Yes, and the incentive is the guarantee of success and having your company name associated with that success. That's all it takes. This is marketing.

        • That's all it takes. This is marketing.

          Yeah, except there's no marketing value for being the first satellite operator to launch on a reused rocket.

          Their customers are not the general public; their customers are enterprise, and features/prices matter more than some fleeting bit of newsprint.

          I would agree if SES sold to consumers, but they don't. They have no branding in the mind of your average citizen.

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