We worked on a very detailed design, manufacturing and ConOps exercise for one
of the major players in 2014. The vehicle had a lot of similarities to Falcon
at the time. The first and second stage propulsion system in particular. It's a
long story including a prior court challenge over certain aspects of propulsion
IP.
At the time, recycling of the first stage system was discounted very early. The
refurbishing cost was not any less than building a new booster, primarily due
the analysis indicating less than 12% of the system component cost was cleanly
reusable for lack of a better term. It was difficult to merge the recovered
booster back into the production cycle without complicating what was believed
to be a simple and cost-effective production plan. It really required a whole
separate recovery and production line right down to delivery of the finished
booster otherwise it killed the cost efficiencies of the proposed line. This
also increased the plant NRE as well as field operations cost significantly.
The planned approach was KISS.
The current SpaceX recovery method would at first glance be a lot gentler on
the hardware than the recovery method that we reviewed at the time, but we
didn’t have to carry a lot of extra fuel and additional systems to accomplish
the task, just a measurably higher amount of thermal protection, payload and
structure. Taking all this into consideration, my question is what reason is
there to think that refurbishment costs for a Block 5 first stage are *less*
than manufacturing costs. I've been involved in four orbital system propulsion
projects since 2000 and I'm currently working at the flight hardware level of
my fifth. I'm not convinced of the claimed economics of recovery and re-use in
a cost effective launch system given the utilization rates, current state of
the art manufacturing methods and performance limits of available propellants.
Maybe Mr. Musk will share his secret someday.
Anthony J. Cesaroni
President/CEO
Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace
http://www.cesaronitech.com/
(941) 360-3100 x101 Sarasota
(905) 887-2370 x222 Toronto
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Rand Simberg
Sent: Monday, July 1, 2019 4:35 PM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: Human Rated Hydrogen Tanks (was Re: Re: tank frost (was >
SpaceX's customers neither buy satellites by the pound, or pay for launch by
the pound. Launch costs per pounds aren't particularly relevant to launch
economics except for bulk commodities (which are not yet a launch market). For
example, CRS payloads tend to be volume limited, so SpaceX is still better off
getting the booster back than not. Do you have some reason to think that
refurbishment costs for a Block 5 first stage are more than manufacturing costs?
