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The Military Businesses Space The Almighty Buck Technology

The Military Chooses Which Rockets It Wants Built For the Next Decade (arstechnica.com) 107

Posted by BeauHD from the hand-selected dept.
The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded funds to three rocket companies to help them complete development of their boosters. The three winners include:

United Launch Services: $967,000,000 for the development of the Vulcan Centaur launch system.
Northrop Grumman: $791,601,015 for development of the Omega launch system
Blue Origin: $500,000,000 for the development of the New Glenn launch system

The obvious company missing from the list is SpaceX, which did not win an award. Aerojet Rocketdyne also failed to win an award since it "does not appear to have a customer for its AR1 rocket engine, which the military initially supported," Ars Technica reports. From the report: These are hugely consequential awards for the rocket companies. Essentially the U.S. Air Force, which launches more complex, heavy payloads than any other entity in the world, believes these boosters will have a significant role to play in those missions during the next decade. And when the military has confidence in your vehicle, commercial satellite contracts are more likely to follow as well. After speaking with a couple of aerospace sources, Ars has a few theories as to why SpaceX didn't win an award: For one, SpaceX has already built and flown a rocket that can reach all of the Air Force's reference orbits -- the Falcon Heavy. Moreover, the Falcon Heavy is already certified for the Air Force and has won contracts. Air Force officials may also feel that, through NASA contracts for commercial cargo and crew, the government already facilitated development of the Falcon Heavy -- which uses three Falcon 9 rocket cores. It also depends upon what SpaceX bid for. The government would have been more inclined to fund development of an advanced upper stage for the Falcon Heavy or vertical integration facilities. But it seems like the military would not have been as interested in the Big Falcon Rocket, which is more booster than it deems necessary at this time. So if SpaceX bid the BFR, that is one possible explanation for no award.
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The Military Chooses Which Rockets It Wants Built For the Next Decade More

The Military Chooses Which Rockets It Wants Built For the Next Decade

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  • Too Much Rocket, What? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @05:38AM (#57460114)

    It's expected to cost a couple $billion more to finish developing the BFR, although once it's done it's also expected to be cheaper to launch than a Falcon Heavy. It being more powerful seems like a poor excuse when it's also cheaper.
    The BE-4 engine is planned to power both the New Glenn and Vulcan rockets, maybe they figure 2 new rockets is better than 1 new rocket?
    Omega uses an upper stage made by Rocketdyne so they're indirectly getting funded. It also uses boosters based on Shuttle tech which our govt. loves to push for pork-barrel reasons. They haven't even started development so it's probably going to be finished last, aka cancelled, especially since the SLS makes it redundant.

    Anyways, Vulcan, New Glenn, SLS, and BFR should all be ready around the same time, so the 2020/2021 timeframe should be exciting for rocketry (assuming no delays, ha!).

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by nojayuk ( 567177 )

      Too Much Rocket means a fifty-tonne-to-LEO capability when the DoD's payloads top out at 24 tonnes, a fuelled-up spy NRO satellite basically. It's what the Delta 4 Heavy was designed to launch, pretty much. It's possible that Falcon Heavy might get some of those 24-tonne contracts and fly with recoverable boosters but the DoD/NRO only launch one large satellite a year at most.

      It might be possible to ride-share a NRO bird with other satellites on Falcon Heavy to use up the surplus capacity but that leads to

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        It might be possible to ride-share a NRO bird with other satellites

        I doubt it: the NRO does not like to share.

      • when the DoD's payloads top out at 24 tonnes, a fuelled-up spy NRO satellite basically.

        All you have to do is to ask yourself *why* does a fuelled-up spy NRO satellite top out at 24 tonnes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )

      It's expected to cost a couple $billion more to finish developing the BFR, although once it's done it's also expected to be cheaper to launch than a Falcon Heavy. It being more powerful seems like a poor excuse when it's also cheaper.

      It is worth noting that, so far anyway, the BFR has only ever been shown as a launcher for the BFS - a human carrier with re-entry and landing capabilities. We haven't ever seen a cargo-only upper stage for the BFR - something that could deploy satellites. It's like compari

    • The military isn't in the business of funding unnecessarily risky ventures. The unknowns for BFR are much larger than for the other rockets, so if they have no use for the advancement they have no reason to fund it and may as well make a safer pick.

      NASA ought to be funding BFR (and New Glenn) via canceling and diverting SLS funds.

    • This has happened before. The USAF is bound by government purchasing requirements to provide a set of requirements, and only consider bids which meet those requirements. A bidder who exceeds those requirements does not get "extra credit" for being better. So in all likelihood Falcon Heavy was actually penalized for being bigger than "necessary".

      That's what happened with the USAF bid for a tanker to replace the ancient KC-135 (based on the Boeing 707). Boeing and Airbus submitted bids, and Airbus init

  • Either the ULA is really lucky or they lobbied to ensure specific requirements that SpaceX FH and BFR weren't certified for yet. What this does is give the ULA time to catchup to or copy SpaceX and hope they can somehow compete on price. A decade may seem like a long time but for rocketry it's really not. It's unlikely the ULA will survive once this contract ends without making radical changes and heavy investments. Both are unlikely because the ULA is an agreement between two megalithic defense contrac

    • Either the ULA is really lucky or they lobbied to ensure specific requirements that SpaceX FH and BFR weren't certified for yet.

      Or ULA's rocket has more than 1100 contractors spread over 43 States. 43 States means a lot of Senators get a warm fuzzy come reelection time. 1100 contractors means a lot of Congresscritters of both types get that same warm fuzzy come reelection time....

      • This 1100 contractors thing is why space is as expensive as it is today. ULA only builds a small portion of their rocket systems. They are really an integrator that assembles many thousands of components from many thousands of vendors.

        SpaceX's other big disruption was making the vast majority of parts for their kit. That doesn't get discussed as much as it should.

        • This 1100 contractors thing is why space is as expensive as it is today.

          The need for 1100 contractors to get the required votes in Congress for the budget for space is why space is as expensive as it is today.

          Note SpaceX, which doesn't depend on Congress for its R&D budget....

      • Yep, anyone who believes that major DoD contracts are issued on anything other than lobbying and various forms of legal-ish kickbacks are kidding themselves.

    • Re:ULA is on life support. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chainsaw1 ( 89967 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:21AM (#57460310)

      (Disclaimer, I work in DoD)

      It will take longer than 10 years because the USAF / NASA cannot depend on a single contractor if multiple viable companies exist. US Govt is required to encourage competition with DoD having the most scrutiny due to having the biggest single chunk of the budget.

      ULA had a monopoly prior to SpaceX because there weren't any other viable launch companies (also probably why DoD contractors created ULA as opposed to Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop / Raytheon competing), with Roscosmos "not counting" for security reasons. Once SpaceX came along with a viable platform that business plan went tits up and both Space X and the USAF (political appointees excluded) have been smiling uncontrollably since*.

      I am not surprised that funding has been allocated to keep competition up, however it is (personally) concerning that the funding has been allocated so unequally to the various parties.

      *-(based on limited personal discussions I have had with USAF personnel on this and the "Space Service")

    • Sounds like SpaceX didn't want the Government support for the BFR. Hans Koenigsmann made some coments recently about it being difficult to not get government money. https://www.teslarati.com/spac... [teslarati.com]

  • The problem with Mars is there is nothing for us to go to war over on it. Until that problem is solved, Musk is going to have a hard time convincing taxpayers to part with their money for his hippy peace love space mission.

    It doesn't even need to be something logical. If the crypto bubble was still in play, he could have launched a USB drive full of bitcoin there, and we would have had BFR by Christmas.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      The problem with Mars is there is nothing for us to go to war over on it.

      All they need is to blow up a small American town, and find traces of Illudium Pu-36 in the ruins.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Jesus, get your head out of the '60s. The problems, note the plural, are that (a) it's really far away, (b) radiation in the space between Earth and Mars is unhealthy, (c) getting there isn't as hard as getting back, (d) there's squat there that couldn't be ferreted out by a few robots on vehicles.

  • Since when is the US Air Force "military"? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Buncha damn zoomies wearing bus driver outfits.

    Biggest damn military problem they have to solve is trying to fit the runways on an Air Force base around the damn golf courses.

  • I presume this is so they are not putting all their eggs into one basket, especially as Musk is (dare I say it) a high risk investment. The original plan was in any event to have at least two competing launch systems.

    I am surprised that none of the above seeks to advance booster technology significantly, such as (for example) trying to get a viable booster powered by an aerospike engine.

    • I presume this is so they are not putting all their eggs into one basket, especially as Musk is (dare I say it) a high risk investment.

      The eggs in one basket thing I agree but I think you are hugely overstating the risk Musk as an individual brings to the table. Yeah he isn't the usual mold of CEO (not a bad thing IMO) and he obviously has an appetite for risk greater than most but it's kind of hard to argue that SpaceX isn't a very well run company. The military already does quite a lot of work with SpaceX which is prima facie evidence they aren't bothered much if at all by Musk.

      I am surprised that none of the above seeks to advance booster technology significantly, such as (for example) trying to get a viable booster powered by an aerospike engine.

      Why should that be surprising? Such advancements are (gen

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      especially as Musk is (dare I say it) a high risk investment

      Howard Hughes was a bit of an eccentric as well.

  • In related news [slashgear.com], today's launch of a Soyuz didn't go very well, causing the American and Russian bound for the ISS to make an emergency landing (abort, presumably).
    Soyuz launches to the ISS are grounded until they figure out what the problem was. The Dragon 2 capsule can't get ready soon enough, it seems.

  • Two domestic, commercial launch service providers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by D.McG. ( 3986101 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:54AM (#57460392)
    The most important line in the original government post is that they want two Providers, not just two Rockets from one provider. It doesn't matter how many rockets SpaceX has available.

    "This award is part of a portfolio of three agreements that leverage commercial launch solutions in order to have at least two domestic, commercial launch service providers that meet National Security Space requirements, including the launch of the heaviest and most complex payloads."

    https://dod.defense.gov/News/C... [defense.gov]

  • Government constraints are often the reason for limited success, even if government funding may also be a catalyst to success. Look at how the Air Force constraints on the Shuttle limited it's potential.. And the Russian government's demanding of their own space shuttle curtailed the development of a truly more useful and affordable space launch system.

    The mere act of allowing commercial space launch in the United States is what brought about a flurry of new space launch systems at dramatically reduced co

  • There is a pyramid of subcontractors that are also feed the prime contractors. No one wants SAE/US-CU based products. Lastly, we cannot have an entire country illiterate to measuring.
  • Really tragic that Musk's erratic behavior is costing SpaceX. I don't personally have an issue with him smoking a number on Rogan or getting high and tweeting dumb shit to impress his girlfriend but he's too smart a guy not to have known that there'd be significant backlash from his actions.

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