A fast route to a European low cost, reusable, manned launch vehicle.

GW Johnson · 2023-07-03 09:49:01

Kbd512:

Actually, I think we are in agreement. The robust versions of the Atlas make your points and mine quite effectively.

Use large quantities of kerosene and LOX for your lower stage, with sea level engines of max thrust capability, plus some turndown so as not to have too high a gee towards burnout. That minimizes contained volume, which lowers the tankage weight for the masses contained.

Use smallish quantities of LOX-LH2 to maximize Isp and dV capability in your upper stage with a decent-thrust engine that also has some turndown to control near-burnout gees. The smaller propellant mass is still a smallish volume to be contained, even with liquid hydrogen, mostly because the LOX is dense, and it outweighs the hydrogen by a factor near 3.5 to 4.

And, if you are still short on takeoff thrust in your first stage, then add multiple solid strap-ons that are small enough to be made in single casts into unsegmented cases. If you had adequate TVC in your liquid core, the strap-ons need none, which simplifies and lightens the nozzle design. That's the way to get a cheap throw-away strap-on. The cost of fiber-wound cases has come down a lot, but only among those few outfits who have experience doing it. But only do the solids of you have to have gobs more thrust for just little while in the first portion of your ascent, before much liquid propellant weight burns off.

And THAT is the way to get a cheaper orbital launcher quickly. Whether it is reusable or not.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-07-03 09:50:58)

RGClark · 2023-07-03 09:50:36

Tahanson, the discussion on cannon launch or EM launch might be off-topic on this thread, but it reminds me of benefits of high tower launch. This might actually be technically feasible by constructing the tower to space out of “pneumatic” tubes. I’ll start a new thread on that topic soon.

Robert Clark

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-03 10:12:44

For RGClark re #102

Thanks for the heads up about your possible tower topic ... that rings a bell. I think someone already started a topic with that theme.

SpaceNut might be able to find one if it exists.

In the meantime, it appears everyone is back on track with your original theme.

The last report from you was that you were planning to investigate the model rocket software to see if it might be able to model your specific scenario.

If the Apogee company offers a free trial, that might be a way to find out if the software has any chance of working for the large scale you have in mind.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-07-03 10:16:25

RGClark,

ULA has forced ULA to the point of almost going bankrupt. Instead of taking note of where SpaceX was headed and devising an even better competitor product, their executives stubbornly refused to budge in their development plans, to the point that it almost cost them the company. They had years to devise a competitive product. Vulcan is yet to fly. Maybe it flies late this year or early next year. In the mean time, SpaceX is taking a company with some innovative products to the cleaners, because whatever combination of engineering and management they have can't reconcile their internal issues well enough to stay in the game.

Yes, politics is involved in everything, and yes it leads to really dumb solutions at times, but this is also a known and ever-present quantity. It's always been a part of the military and aerospace landscape. At some point, you have to stop worrying about pleasing constituencies to get the job done.

That's what startups like Rocket Lab and SpaceX have done. They were not concerned with pleasing anyone inside or outside the company. They ruthlessly pursue whatever avenue of approach gets them to the target and delivers payload on target. SpaceX figured out that throwing away the most expensive part of the rocket after a few minutes of glory was a garbage plan, so they tossed it in the garbage where it always belonged. Everything else they did stemmed from the assertion, "We must have reusable rockets to acceptably contain costs."

$10M per Vulcain doesn't seem all that cheap to me. That tells me a single Vulcain is as expensive as all 10 engines on a Falcon-9. How are you supposed to remain competitive when all the engine's your competitor's rocket requires cost as much as 1 of your engines? They don't have to compete for ESA launches, but at those prices that's the only market they're likely to provide service to. NASA will purchase some launches if it makes sense, but those purchases will remain the exception, rather than the norm.

Airbus and Boeing products are priced so similarly because for the class of aircraft they both sell, and the markets they sell into, the purchasers can more or less buy either product and run operations the way they normally do, regardless of which selection is made. It's considered normal to have a mix of both types. Southwest is an outlier which focus on specific markets. Such a state of affairs has never been contemplated within the space launch industry, so we have very high development costs, very low total number of launches per year relative to any other parts of the aviation industry, and all launch vehicles are boutique products with no direct substitution competitive products to select from.

If there was a class of rocket, say 10t to LEO, and 3 to 5 direct competitor products all intended to lift 10t, and purchasers buy services based upon market price and availability, then you start to have a real supply-and-demand driven market that tends to force costs downwards to remain in business. The problem is that's not how aerospace and defense corporations wish to operate. They want what are essentially tax payer-subsidized contractual guarantees, regardless of their performance or lack thereof. Well, that's not a market. It's a pseudo-monopoly over an industry segment within their little fiefdom.

This is the problem GW spoke about, regarding defense contractor consolidation. We now have a literal handful of super majors and not much else for producing big money vehicles and weapon systems. Space is tied to military funding, like it or not. Space for exploration's sake only came about as a result of military initiatives to "seize the high ground". It blossomed into something much greater and more noble than merely killing each other, but that remains the basis for all of it. So long as space exploration is tied to the military space programs, sub-optimal solutions for launching payloads into orbit will remain the norm, until the tax payers can no longer shoulder the burden.

kbd512 · 2023-07-03 12:09:01

One serious cost aspect which I could think of in favor of the basic concept of Vulcan, ignoring how it's actually implemented, is this:

Your intent is to recover the engines, electronics, and thrust structure only, because that represents almost all of the cost of the rocket and recovery is easier. Say you could construct a very lightweight steel balloon core stage propellant tank assembly on a completely automated fabrication line, wherein the tank could be manufactured in a matter of hours using $10,000 worth of steel.

Would it make any sense to sacrifice payload performance and therefore money recovering a few tons of steel?

I think not. The real cost is in the engines and electronics. So long as you get those back after every flight, the propellant tank costs considerably less than the propellants. It's effectively "noise" in the grand scheme of things. If the disposable tanks means your rocket can be much lighter and overall cheaper to operate than one designed for complete booster recovery, then you're only loosing money and payload trying to reclaim sheet metal. Materials economics changes in-orbit or on another planet like Mars, but for launch from Earth you're spinning your wheels if you can make the propellant tanks cheaply enough.

If you flew the rocket 100 times, then at most you saved $1,000,000. The total manufacturing cost could be 5X greater and the amount of money saved remains insignificant. It costs SpaceX more than that to inspect and refurbish their boosters, so the notion that complete recovery should take place at any cost to the mission is another logical fallacy driven by the lack of propellant tank fabrication automation. If you're going to construct very expensive lightweight Aluminum alloy or CFRP tanks, then complete recovery becomes an imperative. How many rockets are capable of surviving 100 flights? None to date. You're better off flying virgin steel if your automated assembly line completes an entire tank assembly in a day or so. You'd have to fly multiple times per day for the cost of the steel to exceed the cost of complete stage recovery. We're nowhere near that capability, but you have to be prepared to iterate the design when we do achieve that sort of launch cadence.

This is just something else to think about when it comes to the economics of trying to compete on a level playing field where price sells launches.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-07-04 08:34:08

Three new European rockets will take off from the Guiana Space Center
https://www.futura-sciences.com/science … is-106005/

Germans and Spanish, I'm not sure if they are doing re-usable but they seem to work on small payloads for now. German start-up Isar Aerospace, RFA is a spin-off / subsidiary the satellite manufacturer OHB Systems, the Spanish start-up PLDSpace.

There might be talk on twitter but I can't look around much and it is acting funny.

Isar Aerospace, signed a contract with Andøya Space to lease the Norway launch pad.
https://www.andoyaspace.no/articles/isa … o-20-years
Porsche acquired a small stake in Isar Aerospace. The financial terms of the deal are not disclosed, but it is known that in the new round of financing, the startup raised about $75 million.

Rocket Factory Augsburg is a German New Space start-up located in Augsburg.2023, RFA announced that it had secured exclusive access to Launch Pad Fredo at the SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland. The company said that the multi-year partnership included a “double-digit million pound investment” in SaxaVord by RFA. The company will use the facility to launch RFA ONE launch vehicle to polar and sun-synchronous orbits. The maiden flight of the RFA ONE will also be launched from SaxaVord
https://europeanspaceflight.com/rfa-sec … aunch-pad/

'HyImpulse' is another name out there, it is bankrolled by Rudolf Schwarz, chairman of German technology company IABG.
https://spacenews.com/dlr-spinoff-hyimp … t-in-2022/

PLD Space has shared the possibility of making launches from the planned spaceport in Azores but the status of this proposal is unknown. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat … ll2020/63/ PLD Space reached an agreement with CNES to study the launch of Miura 5 from CSG, French Guiana, the company won European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC) Horizon Prize “Low-Cost Space Launch”, granted with 10 million euros.

The Spanish in an article say they are working on a recoverable launch vehicle.

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-07-04 08:45:48)

GW Johnson · 2023-07-04 08:37:28

You can design a booster vehicle that puts a certain "payload" mass into low orbit. That "payload" mass can take either of two forms: a shroud surrounding the real payload to be delivered, or some sort of potentially-reentry-capable, potentially reusable item, most often today embodied as a capsule of some sort (although it could be a spaceplane - Shuttle was one).

The deliverable payload rides within that. Dragon is an example of a re-entry-capable, re-usable capsule. Cygnus is a capsule that delivers payload to ISS, but it is not entry-capable, and it is not re-used. Deliverable payload is a larger percentage of liftoff mass with the shroud, because it is shed on the way up, and it is lighter than any sort of capsule or spaceplane.

The booster vehicle is usually a 2-stage liquid rocket , sometimes assisted with solid strap-ons, sometimes not. The first stage shoulders substantially less than half of the total dV to orbit, because it must have lower Isp propulsion suited to atmospheric flight (a shorter bell of lower expansion ratio), and it usually uses a lower Isp propellant combination to get a higher density, for lower contained volume, and a smaller, lighter tankage set.

The upper stage can use higher-Isp vacuum-suited propulsion (the biggest expansion bell that fits in the available interstage space, because there is no such thing as a true “vacuum-optimized” bell), and lower density but higher-Isp propellants, precisely because the upper stage mass is inherently much smaller relative to the lower stage. You don't get into trouble trying to contain the volume of the lower-density propellants, because the tank volumes are still reasonably small in comparison.

Flying back and re-using boosters turns out to be practical and do-able, because the entry speeds are not hypersonic, and the aeroheating is rather modest. The risks of heating and wind pressure-induced break-up can be minimized by coming back "streamline", engines first, and using those engines to control the speeds during entry to survivable values. Propellant containment is a surface/volume ratio thing, where the mass of the tank is proportional to its surface area, not its contained volume.

Flying back traditional upper stages has not proved feasible, much less practical, not yet, anyway. And it won’t become feasible anytime soon, the technologies and materials simply do not exist! Speed at entry is full orbital hypersonic, and the peak heating and airloads are enormous. Those drive your design, not "optimizing" payload fraction to orbit.

But, there is a third path in which SpaceX has so far invested a handful of $billions: make the upper stage not a traditional stage, but instead an entry-capable spacecraft. That is "Starship". It has yet to fly into space successfully, but the odds do favor eventual success, and the operational attractiveness is very, very high indeed. But because of the extra strength to handle entry airloads, and because of the required heat shielding, plus equipment for landing, the inert fraction of such an upper stage spacecraft will NEVER, EVER be as low as a non-reusable traditional upper stage.

Expecting the "Starship" dry inert mass to be in the vicinity of 85 metric tons is UTTER NONSENSE! I expect it will finally end up being somewhere in the range of half again to twice that value. For example, to enter Earth's atmosphere at higher-than-8 km/s speeds, such as coming back from the moon at 11 km/s, even the leeward surfaces will need heat shielding.

This is because of the plasma sheath radiation, and the far higher plasma convective flux, even in a wake zone, due to the far higher effective temperatures. (Rule-of-thumb 11,000 K at 11 km/s, at entry interface. At peak heating about halfway down, 5000-6000 K at 5 to 6 km/s.) Peak heating rates are in the hundreds of W/sq.cm, at least. Failing a means to shed that much heat at that high a rate, your surface material will soak out to the effective temperature in a split second.

You cannot argue with entry physics, those have been slapping us right in the face for some 65+ years now. And you cannot invoke some sort of "unobtainium" to solve your strength/weight problems. Your tank wall must have strength and toughness cold as well as very hot.

So, all in all, the fastest, cheapest way for the Europeans (or anybody else) to create low-cost launch to low Earth orbit is a two stage rocket that delivers either a payload-in-shroud or payload-in-a-capsule. Use LOX-kerosene in the lower stage with sea level engine bells, and use LOX-LH2 in the upper stage with the biggest “vacuum” bell that will fit. If you are short on lift-off thrust, add smaller solid strap-ons. Simple as that. You can cut development costs by using the same engines (different bells only) and propellants in both stages, but your payload fractions will be a bit lower, if you do.

GW

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-04 09:34:22

For RGClark .... Since GW Johnson has taken an interest in your project, I am hoping you will follow up with a series of posts that do two things:

First, please model the existing launch vehicles, if you can find software you can afford that can do the job.

You can save results in Dropbox, and you can show images/tables with imgur.com.

Next, based upon your successful models of existing launch systems (which exist because folks have invested heavily in creating and operating them), you can produce models that demonstrate your ideas for alternative approaches.

It seems to me that GW Johnson has shown the way forward for this topic, if you have time and the energy needed.

You should be able to provide numbers to confirm his predictions (a) and then (b) show how your alternative all-liquid design might work.

I can't speak for all four moderators/administrators of course, but my expectation is that all four would be willing to help if there is something we can do to clear obstacles or otherwise assist.

To my way of thinking, your's is a worth while undertaking, and I sure hope you pursue it.

(th)

RGClark · 2023-07-04 10:54:44

Mars_B4_Moon wrote:

Three new European rockets will take off from the Guiana Space Center
https://www.futura-sciences.com/science … is-106005/
Germans and Spanish, I'm not sure if they are doing re-usable but they seem to work on small payloads for now. German start-up Isar Aerospace, RFA is a spin-off / subsidiary the satellite manufacturer OHB Systems, the Spanish start-up PLDSpace.
There might be talk on twitter but I can't look around much and it is acting funny.
Isar Aerospace, signed a contract with Andøya Space to lease the Norway launch pad.
https://www.andoyaspace.no/articles/isa … o-20-years
Porsche acquired a small stake in Isar Aerospace. The financial terms of the deal are not disclosed, but it is known that in the new round of financing, the startup raised about $75 million.
Rocket Factory Augsburg is a German New Space start-up located in Augsburg.2023, RFA announced that it had secured exclusive access to Launch Pad Fredo at the SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland. The company said that the multi-year partnership included a “double-digit million pound investment” in SaxaVord by RFA. The company will use the facility to launch RFA ONE launch vehicle to polar and sun-synchronous orbits. The maiden flight of the RFA ONE will also be launched from SaxaVord
https://europeanspaceflight.com/rfa-sec … aunch-pad/
'HyImpulse' is another name out there, it is bankrolled by Rudolf Schwarz, chairman of German technology company IABG.
https://spacenews.com/dlr-spinoff-hyimp … t-in-2022/
PLD Space has shared the possibility of making launches from the planned spaceport in Azores but the status of this proposal is unknown. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat … ll2020/63/ PLD Space reached an agreement with CNES to study the launch of Miura 5 from CSG, French Guiana, the company won European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC) Horizon Prize “Low-Cost Space Launch”, granted with 10 million euros.
The Spanish in an article say they are working on a recoverable launch vehicle.

Thanks for that summary of new European launch start-ups. Too bad Virgin Orbit is not still here. I looked at the available info on their air-launched two-stage rocket, and it turns out it would have comparable payload to the SpaceX Falcon 1 and Rocket Lab Electron, in the few hundred kilo to LEO range, just by launching from ground, no air launch required.

For both SpaceX and Rocket Lab though they spent less than $100 million developing their first rockets. But Virgin Orbit spent $400 million. I think requiring the use of that aircraft contributed to that high development cost, and contributed to their bankruptcy.

Launch from Europe presents difficulties though. You want to launch eastward to take advantage of the Earths rotation to maximize payload. But you would overfly dense populated area, including neighboring nations that way.

That was one of the advantages of air-launch that it could fly to a launch position that would not overfly populated areas when the rocket was launched. At least for Virgin Orbit there would have been a convenient solution for ground launch though: partner with one of the former British colonial islands in the Caribbean for a launch site. The British Virgin Islands would have been especially appropriate :-).

Bob Clark

Last edited by RGClark (2023-07-04 22:28:19)

kbd512 · 2023-07-04 15:37:11

Germany's Isar Aerospace's Spectrum small sat launch vehicle can deliver 1,000kg to LEO or 700kg to SSO. It looks an awful lot like a miniature version of Falcon-9, except that it uses LOX / C3H8 (Propane) engines, rather than RP-1. The first stage contains 9 Aquila engines and the second stage contains 1 Aquila engine, both of the same basic type. RP-1 and Propane are both storable fuels that produce high-thrust output for engines of a given weight class, but Isar Aerospace intends to use cryogenic LPG.

Diameter (entire vehicle, 1st stage / 2nd stage / payload shroud): 2m
Length (overall): 28m
1st stage: 9 Aquila LOX / C3H8 engines, 675kN of thrust, burn time 150s
2nd stage: 1 LOX / C3H8 engine (vacuum-optimized), 95kN of thrust, burn time 300s

Rocket Factory Augsburg's "RFA One" launcher aims to deliver 1,300kg to LEO (300km orbit) or 1,200kg to 700km orbit or 650kg to 2,000km orbit. This vehicle will also use 10 engines, both burning LOX / RP-1, with 9 engines in the 1st stage (1,000kN of thrust) and 1 in the 2nd stage (100kN of thrust). It wil also have an optional orbital stage burning "green" storable propellant (MON or HAN?) to deliver 450kg to GTO. The overall height is 30m, overall diameter is also 2m, 1st stage is 20m long, 2nd stage is 5m long, and payload fairing is either 4m or 6m long, with 4m^3 to 10m^3 of usable payload volume.

There's a pattern here. You either have a hefty and powerful 1st stage solid rocket motor like Vega-C, or you have a cluster of 9 liquid engines, like Rocket Lab's Electron or Isar Aerospace's Spectrum or RFA's One launcher or SpaceX's Falcon-9.

The single powerful solid or cluster of 9 engines burning dense propellants gives you spectacular frontal thrust density, which means your vehicle performs a 2g to 3g launch, accelerates to between Mach 5 and Mach 7 going almost straight-up to clear the lower atmosphere, followed by a gravity turn, MECO (and boost-back burns if your booster is recoverable), and the 2nd stage pouring on the speed outside the sensible atmosphere to SECO, followed by a brief re-light for the circularization burn if the payload is going to LEO or ISS orbits, or an orbital maneuvering stage takes over to transfer much higher orbits.

The basic pattern for success and cost reduction, long-established by numerous prior launchers, is a high-thrust booster stage with modest Isp, followed by a vacuum-optimized engine in the second stage. Falcon-9 is the most powerful and capable of the utility rockets. The new launchers coming online are merely copying the successful design features of Falcon-9 and adding their own little innovations along the way. So, anything that will be commercially successful will follow the design feature pattern / precedent set by Falcon-9, regardless of the specific engine technologies used. There are only so many "right ways" to solve the economics problem using rocket engines, and most of them use liquid fuel engines burning dense propellants (LCH4, LC3H8, RP-1) or solids (PBAN, HTPB) of modest cost for the booster stage. The upper stage can use LH2 or LCH4 or LC3H8 or RP-1 and it's going to work well, regardless, but LH2 is the stand-out performer for upper stages.

Any attempt to deviate much from the pattern is going to produce an expensive boutique solution that doesn't add much total performance to the set of existing or forthcoming practical solutions. We've already exhausted the list of practical oxidizer / fuel combinations and our engines operate about as close to theoretical maximum specific impulse as they reasonably can. Hypergolics are available and work well as rocket propellants, but not when cost is an issue, as it most certainly is for the commercial market. Only inordinately more performant / radically different engines (mostly detonation wave or supersonic inlet engines) or entirely different launch concepts (cannon or spin launch) can drastically reduce launch costs, rendering certain types of rocket vehicles, such as Falcon-9, uneconomical to operate.

kbd512 · 2023-07-04 17:44:55

If I use a single P-120C booster for the first stage, and a Centaur-like steel balloon tank upper stage with a single Vinci engine (loaded with 5t of additional propellant), then I can deliver ~2,000kg to a 300km by 300km orbit with a 45 degree inclination, from Kourou. My liftoff TWR is 2.57:1, and Ariane-6 TWR is about 2.05:1. This indicates that I should add upper stage propellant and tank mass to bring that back down to 2.05:1, which will also add a small amount of additional payload. I will try to get my upper stage's TWR to roughly Match Centaur with a single RL-10 engine to see how much payload I can add. The Vinci engine (180kN of thrust, 457s Isp, 550kg) is roughly equal to a pair of RL-10 engines (198.4kN, 450.5 Isp, 336kg for 2 engines) in terms of thrust and specific impulse. Vinci's O/F ratio is 5.88.1 vs 6:1 for RL-10, so pretty close there as well.

This seems to me like a good compromise design for small Earth observation satellites and single occupant spacecraft that could remain cost-competitive while using the exact same engines that ESA / ArianeGroup has already developed for larger rockets. I estimate that cost would be around $35M for a satellite launch and $50M for a crewed launch. It's nearest competitor is ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, which costs around $25M per launch, and uses solid boosters and core stage, plus hypergolics.

This is a very simple rocket, 1 solid booster and 1 LH2-fueled upper stage engine, and we've not iterated the design to its maximum payload potential, which will likely top out somewhere around 3t to the same orbit listed above. This is enough for most of the kinds of smaller satellites, not communications-related, and not going to GEO. Someone can obviously develop a competitor product using all-liquids for less cost per launch, but ESA / ArianeGroup has Vulcain / Vinci / P-120C solids to work with. This proposed design is entirely within their wheelhouse, so development costs will be minimized.

Cost per seat for crewed flights will be less than Russia's Soyuz or SpaceX's Dragon V2. I have no idea about China and India. I suspect India's costs will be lower, but by how much remains to be determined. China won't fly Europeans, so their costs are irrelevant. The only way they're going to compete with Falcon-9 or Dragon is by developing a rocket that looks an awful lot like a Falcon-9, and a capsule that looks an awful lot like Dragon. Starliner's cost per seat is projected to be $183M. DreamChaser's cost per seat will be about $70M, which is actually below the cost per seat for Dragon. ROSCOSMOS charges somewhere between $75M and $80M per seat for ride aboard Soyuz. That means this new proposed rocket could be the lowest cost per seat for astronauts. If we can squeeze in two people, then this is really low cost per seat. Starship will ultimately take a battle axe to per-seat costs when compared to all prior launch vehicles, but that won't happen for another 10 years, minimum. In the mean time, ESA / ArianeGroup could provide the lowest-cost rides to ISS or other LEO space stations that are on offer.

RGClark · 2023-07-04 23:54:07

GW Johnson wrote:

I looked this one up. Vega C is a four stage launcher of small satellites (a bit over 1-ton class). The lower 3 stages are solids, the 4th stage is a liquid (which is how you get the most precise trajectory results (a technique pioneered in the 1960's with the Minuteman ICBM).
…
GW

The Vega C using the larger P120C solid of the Ariane 6 as its first stage raises the LEO payload beyond the Vega’s ~1,000 kg to ~2,000 kg. It’s launch cost is reportedly about the same as the Vega in the $37 million range.

This illustrates the point I’m making. Large solids are not cost competitive. Of all the small commercial launch start-ups planned or already operating in the U.S. and Europe, none, that’s zero, nada, zilch, use solids. Remember these small start-ups are aiming for all of low development cost, low launch cost, and reusability. None decided to use solids on that basis

The cost for these small launchers is in the $8 million to $12 million range for a few hundred to ~1,000 kg to LEO, compared to the $37 million Vega and Vega C.

Robert Clark

Last edited by RGClark (2023-07-05 23:00:20)

GW Johnson · 2023-07-05 08:41:30

Bob:

As I said in post 107 above, use only smaller solids if you have to use them at all. There is an inherent size limit due to manufacturing limitations for solids, beyond which you have to go to segmented motors, and THAT is horribly expensive!

There is more to the picture than just the cost to build a solid vs the the cost to build a liquid. With ALL liquids, there is a series of checkout and verification activities that MUST be performed to achieve success at all, much less reliability. These include multiple propellant load and unload activities to support pre-launch static tests of the engines, before attempting a launch. That obtains the best reliability. All those activities require a lot of time and effort to carry out, and you must pay the salaries of a significant-sized crew to do it.

The solids do not require any of this at all. You pay some extra during development and production for the quality control necessary to achieve 1 in a million failure rates. So the bottom price is NOT your goal here, just the lowest price that includes the correct quality control. Beyond that, it's hit the button and go. There is no checkout and verification. No large crew is required to carry out activities like that. The launch crew is quite small, a single handful of people.

Which is EXACTLY why all modern ICBM's are solids. The liquid ICBM idea went by the boards in the 1960's, and the last of the Titan ICBM's stood down by the 1970's. It's been Minuteman 1, 2, or 3 ever since. And with VERY GOOD REASON: far faster and far more affordable! The same applies to tactical rockets: there are no liquids anymore, all the modern items are solids.

So, I object to your claim that solids are inherently expensive. You are forgetting (or ignoring) all the salaries that you do NOT have to pay with solids. But your program has to pay them, whether you admit to it, or not.

The truth is, solids are more expensive to manufacture, but they cost you zilch in salaries to use. The liquids are cheaper to manufacture, but they cost you gobs in salaries to operate. NEITHER is actually cheap! Neither ever will be.

The only real difference here is reusability. You can do that with liquids, but not in any practical sense with solids. Which is why I said use them for extra liftoff thrust, but only if you have to.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-07-05 08:46:28)

tahanson43206 · 2023-07-05 10:54:51

For RGClark re situation ....

GW Johnson has set up an opportunity for you to find and publish costs of various activities in the rocket business, if you have time and find the challenge interesting.

My guess is that published costs from rocket companies are roll-ups, and not very useful for making cost comparisons in sub-categories as GW Johnson suggests may be helpful.

I have no way of knowing what your interests might be along this line, but I'm hoping you are able to find a breakout of costs of staffing for the solid portion of a launch vs the liquid portion.

The business model SpaceX seems to be pursuing could lead to reduced costs for human support, if the requisite reliability can be achieved, and if much of the support activity can be automated.

(th)

kbd512 · 2023-07-05 13:58:28

With sufficient production capacity, you can actually build a stockpile of solids available for anytime use. If you properly store solids, they can sit around for many years while your team or business partners mess around with every other aspect of the vehicle and mission, as both space agencies and satellite manufacturers are so fond of doing. You can't stockpile liquids or liquid engines in any practical sense. After you buy the liquids, you better have a tank farm to put them in and it'd better be real close to "go time". Tank farms are anything but cheap to operate and maintain. LOX is a problem to store and transport. Things that we normally think of as "highly resistant to corrosion", simply aren't whenever LOX is involved.

LH2 is use / lose, with a strong emphasis on "lose" if you don't use it very quickly after it's made and transported to the launch site. You can short-term (3 months at most) stockpile RP-1 because it's storable. In practice, small batches are delivered and rapidly consumed. Anything fed into a jet engine must be kept fastidiously clean and free of water. LCH4 requires constant input energy and infrastructure costs until it's consumed, even though it technically doesn't "go bad" the same way jet fuel does.

So, yeah, I would agree that liquid engines are no cheaper than solid engines in practice. You spend the money in different areas, but at the end of the day it still costs $20M to re-fly a Falcon-9, even though not much of that money is spent on "new engine parts". That's still better than paying full purchase price for a brand new rocket, but it's not "gas-and-go" by any stretch of the imagination. There's a literal army of people who must re-qualify a vehicle for its next flight. All upper stages are still throwaway items, so that cost never goes away.

If the "catch" to operating reusable liquid rockets is that your payload has to wait its turn to be delivered to the correct orbit, and launch is subject to booster and mission slot availability, then the value proposition to the customer of an anytime launch that stockpiled solids could potentially enable, becomes more and more compelling. The customer only cares about their payload and delivering services to their customers when they promise to deliver them. Most satellites aren't heavy and/or physically large enough to require a Falcon-9 launch. That's why you still see all the small sat launchers in business. If value proposition was purely a matter of up-front cost, then none of these small sat companies could exist, because their payloads would be delivered on Falcon-9 flights. They can charge customers a few more dollars per month or year if their service is reliable and available. Right now, all industries are having serious problems with on-time and available.

Falcon-9 could also be viewed as a single-point-of-failure. Whatever manages to ground that single vehicle could hold up business, and it's had problems with the Helium pressure vessels and valves in the past, kinda like the valve problems that Starliner had. If multiple small sat launchers are available, then most of the market is adequately served, even if launch prices remain nominally higher than what's achievable using a Falcon-9. Business men are opportunists. If a Falcon-9 launch slot is available, they would seize it to reduce operating costs, but business must continue even when SpaceX can't provide a launch. What would happen if the US supply of RP-1 was gone tomorrow? It's not as if there are a bunch of manufacturers to choose from. It's better to have a diverse mix of solids, RP-1, LCH4, LC3H8, LH2. It's a lot harder to halt operations when we multiple pads and multiple different kinds of launchers in multiple states and countries.

It's best not to get too obsessive about cost when launching things into space. There are too many variables to definitively assert that one launch vehicle is better than all others. Falcon-9 wins on cost, but not availability. They're booked until the end of time. Want your little shoebox-sized satellite launched? SpaceX can't do it. Contracts have been signed and money has already changed hands. It's a done deal. If you tried to shuffle the schedule, it'd be a royal mess. Well, guess what? Small launchers that use solids or RP-1 or Propane or other low-cost technologies can get the job done in the next few months. Companies like Rocket Lab / Firefly / Isar Aerospace / RFA, have at least some schedule flexibility to offer more launches. They can fly a rocket per month. They eventually pursue larger launchers because their own manufacturing capacity limits their ability to expand. I can't really explain what went wrong at Virgin Galactic, and nobody knows what's going on at Blue Origin, because it's all a big secret. All of these companies are now run by industrious but highly eccentric personalities. What takes precedence is mostly unknown to all but a few people who aren't saying anything.

Ariane-5 is noted for extreme payload insertion accuracy. Are we going to get rid of Ariane-6, because Falcon Heavy is cheaper, when we may need to place another giant multi-billion dollar space telescope in an exceptionally precise point in space? Or spend a couple billion more on a SLS launch? That'd be pretty dumb. So, all objections over cost aside, Ariane-6 still has its place, just not in the commercial satellite launch market.

The part I find most baffling is why ESA won't develop its own crewed transport vehicle. They already have all the bits and pieces of the technology puzzle to do it, and probably some more advanced stuff than any other single country has, like sharp leading edge hypersonic vehicles, advanced upper stage engines that maximize payload performance, and host of other little innovations. NASA likes developing new tech, but drags its feet whenever it comes to actually relying upon the new tech. The Europeans don't have that problem, as far as I can tell. Russia is about legacy and tradition, and all of their "new" vehicles look a lot like refinements of their old vehicles. China is a lot like the US. They dabble in a bit of everything, with no singular focus or interest. India is a bit of a wild card, but they dabble in things like the US and China. JAXA and other Asian space agencies appear more interested in robotic exploration of the outer planets than anything else. Maybe they're looking for something. The only way for ESA to truly "advance" beyond satellites and robotic exploration, is to join the crewed space flight club. It's a pretty exclusive club, but they have the tech and know-how to do it.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-07-07 07:11:37

It seems Europe today has no Ariane, no Soyuz in Guiana due to sanctions after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and now only the Italian Vega Rocket

'Europe leans on SpaceX to bridge launcher gap'

https://spacenews.com/europe-leans-on-s … ncher-gap/

The successful final Ariane 5 launch July 5 means that Europe temporarily has no ability to launch payloads into orbit. The Ariane 5’s successor, Ariane 6, is still in development and appears increasingly unlikely to be ready for its inaugural launch before 2024. The Soyuz is no longer available in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Vega C remains grounded after a December 2022 launch failure, and its return to flight, previously planned for late this year, is facing delays after an anomaly during a static-fire test June 28 of that rocket’s Zefiro 40 motor.

Aschbacher praised SpaceX for its role in launching Euclid. “SpaceX has been very proactive, very quick, very professional in providing this launch service. And I’m very happy now that this has been conducted successfully.”

He reiterated past comments that the problems with Ariane 6 and Vega C and the loss of Soyuz had created a “launcher crisis” in Europe. “We are in a crisis and we should use the opportunity to convert this crisis into actions and changes that need to be adopted in order, in the future, to develop a robust launcher system for Europe,” he said, looking beyond Ariane 6 and Vega C.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-07-08 11:45:09

Scott Manley social media video

Europe Retires Ariane 5 Before Ariane 6 Is Ready????

https://odysee.com/@ScottManley:5/europ … ariane-6:f

^
you might need to copy and paste the link above depending on your phone / browser

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-07-08 13:57:23)

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-08-06 07:28:18

Perhaps the era of an expendable launch system is over, with landing and recovery of a first stage SpaceX has proven the reusable launch system. The public-private partnership with the majority of the funding coming from various ESA government sources — €2.815 billion — while €400 million = 440.4 million US Dollars is reported to be "industry's share" it Delivers 21,500 + kg or 47,399 + lbs to LEO for now info from news report say it will still be another expendable launch system.

'ESA still seems shy about sharing news on Ariane 6 rocket testing'

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/e … t-testing/

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-09-05 10:19:24

The powerful Dinosaur, old space ideas continue

ESA to set Ariane 6 target launch date after key engine test

https://interestingengineering.com/inno … get-launch

Mars_B4_Moon · 2023-09-07 07:13:17

an update on PLDSpace

Spain a rocket company developing a family of reusable microlaunchers to provide suborbital & orbital launch services to small satellites & payloads

MIURA 1 is back at the launch base after the summer!
https://twitter.com/PLD_Space/status/16 … 8963512456
We are in conversations with INTA to announce our next launch attempt window soon!

Last edited by Mars_B4_Moon (2023-09-07 07:14:36)

RGClark · 2023-10-12 20:00:36

ArianeSpace is asking for a 150% increase in *subsidies* to operate Ariane 6 otherwise it’ll go bankrupt:

ArianeGroup Wants €210M Per Year More to Operate Ariane 6
A look at how we got into this mess
ANDREW PARSONSON
OCT 11, 2023
https://europeanspaceflight.substack.co … -year-more

The solution is obvious. The only thing ESA has to acknowledge is the cost of large solid side boosters is prohibitive. Eliminating them entirely and using instead multiple Vulcains on the Ariane 6 would result in launchers cheaper than the Falcon 9, able to be made reusable like the Falcon 9, and capable of manned spaceflight like the Falcon 9:

Monday, October 9, 2023
Towards return of Europe to dominance of the launch market.
http://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2023/1 … nance.html

Robert Clark

Last edited by RGClark (2023-10-15 02:14:00)

RGClark · 2023-10-15 16:07:04

ArianeSpace Vega solid rocket launcher is also having trouble competing with SpaceX:

The Accidental Monopoly
How SpaceX became (just about) the only game in town
Jeff Foust
October 13, 2023
SpaceX came with these Transporter missions, which have been really disrupting,” said Marino Fragnito, senior vice president of the Vega business unit at Arianespace. They have been a boon for smallsat developers, he acknowledged, offering low-cost access to space. “But at the same time, they have created a big problem in terms of the business case for all of the other players.”
He accused SpaceX of, in effect, predatory pricing, willing to lose money on Transporter missions to drive out competition. He noted that past Vega smallsat rideshare missions sold payloads at $25,000 per kilogram, whereas SpaceX has sold Transporter launches for one-fifth that price. “It’s crazy.”
https://spacenews.com/the-accidental-monopoly/

This has been warned about for several years now:

Europe is starting to freak out about the launch dominance of SpaceX
The Falcon 9 has come to dominate commercial satellite launches.
ERIC BERGER - 3/22/2021, 11:24 AM
However, there now appears to be increasing concern in Europe that the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets will not be competitive in the launch market of the near future. This is important, because while member states of the European Space Agency pay for development of the rockets, after reaching operational status, these launch programs are expected to become self-sufficient by attracting commercial satellite launches to help pay the bills.
Economic ministers in France and Italy have now concluded that the launch market has changed dramatically since 2014, when the Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets were first designed. According to a report in Le Figaro newspaper, the ministers believe the ability of these new European rockets to compete for commercial launch contracts has significantly deteriorated since then.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/03 … of-spacex/

The leadership of the Vega team can not acknowledge the same issue as the Ariane 6 team, large solid rockets are not price competitive. Like with the Ariane 6, to be price competitive the solid rocket launcher Vega needs to be replaced by an all-liquid rocket:

Saturday, November 29, 2014
A half-size Ariane for manned spaceflight.
https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2014/ … anned.html

Robert Clark

Last edited by RGClark (2023-10-15 16:12:10)

GW Johnson · 2023-10-15 16:13:13

The reason large solids are too expensive and small solids are not, is that there are very few manufacturers who can actually cast a large solid. It's a near-monopoly, so why should high prices be surprising?

There are very few who can cast large solids because you cannot cast them piecemeal. It has to be done from one mix-and-cast operation, or you risk blowing it up from mix-to-mix burn rate variations. The closest thing to piecemeal is the segmented solid, and we already know how expensive and fraught with risk that is. It also suffers from mix-to-mix burn rate variations.

The burn rate you get from any given mix is a function of the particle size distributions for oxidizer, and the other solid ingredients. It is also a function of which lots of raw materials you are using. The particle size thing is used to compensate for the lot-to-lot thing. Ugly little fact of life, but there it is. Big solids change lots of materials more often, because the mix-and-cast operations are bigger.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2023-10-15 16:17:54)

RGClark · 2023-10-20 07:34:13

Oops—It looks like the Ariane 6 rocket may not offer Europe any launch savings
Europe is subsidizing the launch of Internet satellites for Jeff Bezos.
ERIC BERGER - 10/12/2023, 11:26 AM
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/10/o … h-savings/

The recent news is ArianeSpace will be asking for a €350 million($380 million) a year subsidy to keep the Ariane 6 launches going. Berger notes in this article that at a launch cadence of 5 launches per year this is a subsidy of $75 million per launch. This means European tax payers will be paying over a billion dollars for the 18 launches on the Ariane 6 of the commercial venture the Kuiper satellite system of Jeff Bezos. Effectively, European tax payers will be paying a 1 billion dollar subsidy to Jeff Bezos, the second richest man in the world.

European tax payers have the right to ask where the great expense of the Ariane 6 launcher is deriving from.

No one in European space community is willing to ask or answer the question, “How much just to add a second Vulcain to the Ariane 5/6 core?”

Then can someone, anyone in the European space community at least ask the question, “Does a single P120 solid rocket used for the Ariane 6 SRB’s and the Vega-C first stage really cost €20 million?”
“So that the two SRB’s on the Ariane 62 cost €40 million, and the four on the Ariane 64 cost €80 million?”

Robert Clark

RGClark · 2023-11-05 08:00:43

Europe is beginning to freak-out about the inability of the Ariane 6 or the Vega-C to compete with SpaceX in price. A translated article from the French:

———————————————————————————————————————

Europe's space rockets on the verge of implosion.

By Véronique Guillermard

Ariane 6. S MARTIN / S MARTIN

DECRYPTION - The Europeans are torn apart over public aid for the operation of Ariane 6. Berlin and Rome want to put an end to ArianeGroup's monopoly in heavy launchers.

It is a summit of European space ministers, accompanied by a council of the European Space Agency (ESA), which will be held on November 6 and 7 in Seville, Spain. In the background, the unprecedented European rocket crisis. Europe no longer has independent access to space. Ariane 6, four years late, will not fly before 2024. It is therefore not yet ready to take over from Ariane 5, which carried out its final mission last July.

Vega C, the new version of the small Italian Vega rocket, is unavailable until the end of next year, since the failure of its first commercial mission at the end of 2022. And it is no longer possible to count on Soyuz, since the cessation of cooperation with Russia, in the wake of the aggression of Ukraine.

Rethinking European strategy

Hence the urgency to fundamentally rethink the European strategy in terms of space transport. And, in the short term, to do everything possible to make Ariane 6 a success, by agreeing on its operating conditions. These have given rise, for weeks, to a standoff between the 13 ESA member states out of 22, which finance the program, and ArianeGroup, the prime contractor for Ariane 6, as well as its subcontractors. . The industry is in fact calling for a reassessment of public support, in order to balance the operation of the new rocket. In short: a substantial annual subsidy so as not to lose money on the commercial market. ArianeGroup is asking for 350 million per year, more than double the amount granted in 2021.

Also read|Space tourism, giant rockets, constellations... The rush for the stars is causing risks to explode

However, when Ariane 6 was launched in 2014, ESA and Cnes (National Center for Space Studies), to which the European agency had until now delegated project management of the Ariane rockets, had agreed to leave this responsibility of project management at ArianeGroup, just created by Airbus and Safran. In return, the latter had promised to no longer request public support for exploitation. “Industrialists have not kept this commitment and have requested public support from 2021,” specifies Toni Tolker-Nielsen, director of space transport at ESA.

In 2021, we estimated the need for Ariane 6 at 140 million per year for a launch rate of 9 rockets per year.

Toni Tolker-Nielsen, director of space transportation at ESA

Request accepted due to a profound change in the market since 2014, with the rise of SpaceX, which slashed prices with the Falcon 9 launcher, and the arrival of high-speed internet constellations. Without forgetting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. “In 2021, we estimated the need for Ariane 6 at 140 million per year for a launch rate of 9 rockets per year,” specifies the director of space transport at ESA. This help covers the first 16 missions.

The rule of geographic return

Since then, manufacturers have had to deal with the return of inflation, the rise in energy prices and the additional costs linked to Ariane 6 delays. “As it is not possible to pass on the entirety of inflation on commercial customers, States are once again called to the rescue,” summarizes Toni Tolker-Nielsen of the ESA. The fact remains that the 13 states do not want to sign a blank check. In particular France and Germany, the two biggest contributors to the Ariane 6 program, from which their industry captures the largest benefits. “Industrialists from these two countries share 50% and 20% respectively of the added value of Ariane 6,” specifies the ESA. “There will be no new subsidy without compensation. It will be give and take,” we summarize.

ESA requires an effort to reduce industrial costs. According to our information, ArianeGroup has accepted “a double-digit reduction in its costs.” Negotiations are proving more difficult with the 600 European subcontractors. They are protected by the Geographic Return (GEO) rule, which states that each State contributing to a program receives a workload aligned with its financial commitment. This benefits its manufacturers, without ArianeGroup being able to choose them or negotiate prices. “Certain price increases made by suppliers are not justified. They must make an effort adapted to their size,” emphasizes Toni Tolker-Nielsen.

Also read|Francis Rocard: “The objective of landing men on the Moon in 2025 with Starship seems unrealistic”

The ESA also requires new governance which gives it the right to review and audit Ariane 6. This is to ensure that all manufacturers respect a fair price policy. And that Ariane 6 is not sold off on the commercial market, to the detriment of institutional customers. The ESA, the European Commission, Eumetsat, which operates the weather satellites, and the States have already agreed to pay more than commercial satellite operators. The Europeans have adopted the same logic as NASA and the Pentagon, who often buy their launches twice as much, so that SpaceX is ultra-competitive on the commercial market. It is therefore via a massive and overpaid public order that SpaceX is in reality also subsidized. The American institutional market is in fact five times larger than the European one.

Price and competition

But, on the Old Continent, “the institutional prices defined in 2021, which have not increased since with significant inflation, cover the launch costs, no more”, specifies Toni Tolker-Nielsen, of the ESA. However, if the price charged to institutional clients increases further, they will be tempted to turn to American, Indian or Japanese rockets. In the absence of an equivalent to the Buy American Act, a federal law that came into force in… 1933, European countries are not obliged to buy Ariane 6, which they nevertheless finance! A grotesque situation. Berlin has never been without it: in April 2021, an observation satellite was entrusted to SpaceX, to the detriment of Ariane 5.

The German Spectrum mini-launcher. Isar Aerospace

The ESA hopes to reach an agreement on the operation of Ariane 6 (subsidy, cost reduction, new governance) by next Monday. This new psychodrama around Ariane 6 makes it more necessary than ever to overhaul the space transport strategy. Germany, which dreams of taking leadership from France in heavy launchers, sees this as an opportunity to obtain the introduction of intra-European competition on this market. Which, in the eyes of several specialists, would create emulation beneficial to innovation.

France is not afraid of competition, it draws on decades of expertise in a complex and risky industry

Close to ArianeGroup

In mid-2021, Berlin has already obtained a competitive bid from Paris in the mini and microlauncher segment. ArianeGroup immediately reacted by creating a new entity, MaiaSpace, in start-up mode, with the mission of developing a mini-launcher, ready to fly in 2025. And starting point for a new family of rockets. “France is not afraid of competition, it draws on decades of expertise in a complex and risky industry. But it requires its corollary: total freedom for the industry, which was not the case for Ariane 6, whose difficulties can be explained by maintaining the geographical return,” explains a person close to ArianeGroup.

Also read|“Europe’s spatial disconnection”

Across the Rhine, where it is repeated that the historic manufacturer has not kept its cost and deadline commitments, Berlin is counting on Isar Aerospace or RFA to take the lead. The German outsiders are developing mini-rockets which are expected to give rise to a range of increasingly powerful launchers.

The Italian rocket Vega E. Jacky Huart

In its fight, Germany is joined by Italy. Avio, the manufacturer of Vega, has, on good authority, received the creation of MaiaSpace very poorly. “A decision taken against Italy, aiming to do without Vega rockets,” according to a person close to the Italian group. The latter is developing Vega E, a version 20% more powerful than VegaC, which is due to make its first flight in 2026. It will be a direct competitor to one of the two versions of Ariane 6. This encourages Rome to regain its independence commercial. So no longer go through Arianespace, which markets European rockets, revealed La Tribune at the end of October. In order to calm things down and get Avio on board in preparing for the future, he was asked to become a shareholder in MaiaSpace. Proposal declined at this stage.

Ariane 6 delays and difficulties

For its part, the ESA has decided to rethink its role. The delays and difficulties of Ariane 6 “show that the next launchers will have to be developed in a radically different framework from the one we know today,” predicted, in the spring, Philippe Baptiste, president of Cnes.

Should rockets be taken out of the ESA framework? The idea is promoted by certain manufacturers. From a very good source, launchers should be considered as objects of sovereignty, treated at community level by the European Commission, and not by the ESA. Brussels has already equipped the Union with strategic infrastructure with Galileo (navigation and positioning) in order to free itself from American GPS, Copernicus, the world number one in Earth observation, and the future Iris2 constellation. However, there is no consensus on this path. Or should the ESA be transformed into a real EU agency, modeled on NASA, which buys rockets and manned capsules without getting involved in their design?

Also read|The European space elite joins forces to put the Iris 2 constellation into orbit

On the verge of implosion, Europe's launchers must urgently put everything back together. And create new effective governance and put an end to the GEO return rule, which undermines the competitiveness and speed of execution of the industry, without taking into account real skills. The system is running out of steam. The shock wave caused by SpaceX's successes highlighted this.

In Seville, the Europeans must succeed in going beyond their divisions. Otherwise, they risk fratricidal wars. To the greatest benefit of SpaceX… whose ultra-domination (68 successful launches at the end of October, out of 100 planned for 2023) worries customers, eager to have the choice.

———————————————————————————————————————

Original article in French:

L'Europe des fusées spatiales au bord de l'implosion
Par Véronique Guillermard
https://archive.ph/XldxI

Usually, to make some great advance in a technical field you need the great experts in the field to make the key insights. Quite ironic is that in order to solve the crisis in the European launch industry all it requires is someone, anyone to simply ask some pointed questions.

EU Space Week is this week: https://www.euspaceweek.eu/

Every European space journalist will be reporting on it if not being there in person. Will any journalist or anyone in the audience ask the questions of the ESA:

“Does a single P120 solid rocket used for the Ariane 6 SRB’s and the Vega-C first stage really cost €20 million?” “So that the two SRB’s on the Ariane 62 cost €40 million, and the four on the Ariane 64 cost €80 million?” “So that out of the €115 million ($125 million) recommended price of the Ariane 64, €80 million is just for the 4 solid side boosters?”

For if the answers to those questions is yes, then it becomes clear why the current version of the Ariane 6 is not price competitive to the SpaceX Falcon 9. And it also becomes clear how to get an Ariane 6 version that matches the Falcon 9 both in payload and price:

Towards return of Europe to dominance of the launch market.
https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2023/ … nance.html

Bob Clark

New Mars Forums

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