Discussion Will the SpaceX push to reusability make ArianeSpace obsolete?

[RGClark]

SpaceX Challenge Has Arianespace Rethinking Pricing Policies
By Peter B. de Selding | Nov. 25, 2013

“I have sent a signal to our customers telling them that I could review our pricing policy, within certain limits,” Israel said in an interview with Les Echos, a French financial newspaper. “I think they have appreciated this.”
Israel’s comments came on the day when Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), after a decade of rattling Arianespace’s cage, is preparing its first-ever launch into the geostationary transfer orbit used by most commercial telecommunications satellites, and the place where most commercial revenue is made.
SpaceX Chairman Elon Musk taunted Arianespace again on Nov. 24, the day before his company’s scheduled launch of the SES-8 satellite owned by SES of Luxembourg.
“Unless the other rocket makers improve their technology rapidly, they will lose significant market share to the Falcon 9,” Musk said in a news briefing.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell added: “Competition is always a good thing. It keeps people sharp. They [Arianespace and other competitors] may not look at it that way, but hopefully they’ll come to appreciate it in the future.”
...
“I am looking at our pricing policy and if we must adapt it to the competition, we will,” Israel said. “We’ll look at the overall efficiency of the Ariane business with a view to optimizing it.”
Israel said there are more small telecommunications satellites being designed now than ever, a fact he attributed in part to the arrival of SpaceX, which has stimulated the market.
http://www.spacenews.com/article/la...e-has-arianespace-rethinking-pricing-policies

IF SpaceX succeeds in cutting prices by reusability, then no readjustment of the pricing will be effective. SpaceX is already undercutting them on pricing and if reusability really does cut the SpaceX prices again by a factor of 4 to 10 then ArianeSpace simply will not be able to compete.

This will be all due to their decision to go backwards in technology and not forwards in selecting a solid-fueled version of the Ariane 6. Every other space agency in the world will be able to adapt their liquid fueled rockets to make them reusable to match SpaceX's pricing. Only ESA will be left behind - both technically and economically.

This becomes really bad because they will no longer have the smaller satellites to partially pay for the Ariane 5 launches. This could mean they also lose their entire Ariane 5 market as well! Their entire market for any of their launches will be gone all due to the choice to move backwards in technology.

Ironically, this would mean their real reason for selecting the solid-fuel Ariane 6 would have no meaning as well. The actual reason why France and Italy want the solid-fueled Ariane 6 is to help defray the costs of the solid-fueled ballistic missiles of the French military and the solid-fueled Vega rocket largely built in Italy. But if SpaceX succeeds in cutting costs by reusability then neither the solid-fueled Ariane 6 nor the Vega, will be used because they will be priced far outside the market. So neither of them will wind up defraying the costs of other solid-fueled rockets in Europe anyway.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

Just bad, that currently not even Elon Musk seems to know the true costs of his rockets (see interviews and media events, compared to the people who work for him) nor have any stressable numbers how much costs the reusability will actually cut - or if the effort would even in the mid-term cost SpaceX more money than it saves. (In the long term nobody actually denies that reuse could cut costs if the technology and economy are favorable)

Of course SpaceX is a new competition for the GTO mission. If they succeed to do something that Arianespace can also do. The funny thing is: Arianespace might even in the short term rise the prices, should SpaceX have a worse failure ratio in the next missions as expected.

Even if you think that the rockets of SpaceX are much simpler than the Space Shuttle and can be reused with less costs, that is still a fallacy, that simpler things can become more economic by reusing them:

There is little in the world that is simpler than a simple glass bottle. Still, it is not economic to reuse every bottle once empty - in most cases, it is cheaper to trash the bottles and use the glass just as ingredient for making new glass. The good expensive bottles can only be reused 50 times before they are worn out and must be sorted out. While this reduces the waste and pollution by CO2 - it is also slightly more expensive than using new bottles if the quality of the returned bottles drops and only saves a bit of money if the bottles last the full 50 reuses.

Now the problem for SpaceX is really simple mathematically: Are the costs for reusing the rocket relative to the number of reuses and the initial production costs low enough reducing the costs for the overall process?

You can actually calculate the variables.

 

[Pipcard]

that simpler things can become more economic by reusing them

"Because no one discards an jet airliner after one flight!"

 

[AlfalfaQc]

Before calculating the cost of reusability, they will have to succeed at making a reusable rocket. I think they are on the right track for it. They tried to re-ignite the first stage on the last mission, and obviously they had problems. But it was the first time it was attempted, so there was not a lot of chance of success.

If everything was so easy, we would not be where we are right now, but those kind of problems are fairly hard to solve.

 

[Urwumpe]

"Because no one discards a jet airliner after one flight!"

And nobody discards a car after driving 200 miles.

But if you drive at 400 km/h for 10 minutes with a Bugatti Veyron, you need new tires for €20,000 each.

 

[Pipcard]

Will it ever be possible to create a truly "reusable" launcher, not a "refurbishable" one?

 

[Urwumpe]

Will it ever be possible to create a truly "reusable" launcher, not a "refurbishable" one?

Never as long as we have not the frictionless bearing seal. But could a launcher even fly two missions before being refurbished?

In theory, this would be no big deal, it would just mean making the critical components last about 2.5 times as long. But would this also be cheaper?

 

[C3PO]

Short answer: No.
Long answer no!

 

[MattBaker]

SpaceX replacing Arianespace? Hahahahahaha...Um...Hahahahaha. No.


One has a proven rocket with over 50 consecutive successes delievering 10 tons to GTO.

The other have a rocket flown six times, with more or less flaws delievering not even 5 tons to GTO.

Additionally I would note how often SpaceX's launches get scrubbed due to technical difficulties that have to be fixed and how often Ariane's.

Costs are currently out of question except if you trusted the Soviet Kreml with statistics.


I would know who I'd chose as a satellite launch contractor.


Note: SpaceX hasn't launched any GTO satellites until a few minutes from now (which isn't really a reliable countdown again but...).

---------- Post added at 11:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 PM ----------

As I said: Reliable countdown.

 

[Codz]

Pretty soon people will start calling it ScrubX...

 

[Alfastar]

Before calculating the cost of reusability, they will have to succeed at making a reusable rocket. I think they are on the right track for it. They tried to re-ignite the first stage on the last mission, and obviously they had problems. But it was the first time it was attempted, so there was not a lot of chance of success.

If everything was so easy, we would not be where we are right now, but those kind of problems are fairly hard to solve.

On the right track? What there really showed in that case successful? Only a subsonic rocket who got only one engine, can going to just max about 1-2 km, is heavy modified and got almost noting on it what would move in the real Falcon 9 (1.1).

There failed so far in history now with the real try's for recovery / re-usability.

So the arguments that SpaceX go kicking out ArianeSpace based on the re-usability points is just talking about things what SpaceX only showed that on paper, talking and a heavy modified rocket (Grasshopper).

 

[Pipcard]

One question: is this an anti-SpaceX thread now?

 

[N_Molson]

Well, given the original post, don't expect to get flowers, especially from europeans that are rather proud of Arianespace performance...

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, given the original post, don't expect to get flowers, especially from europeans that are rather proud of Arianespace performance...

At least we don't have Russians rushing in and stating: "We build rockets like sausages". :lol:

 

[garyw]

One question: is this an anti-SpaceX thread now?

No. Why would it be?

SpaceX are doing well for a non-government funded start up but to ask if SpaceX can bring down ariannespace is ludicrous.

Maybe in 20 years when SpaceX have a string of success behind them this question can be asked but for now, No. Not a chance.

 

[Xyon]

Pretty soon people will start calling it ScrubX...

Better it scrub than go off and blow the payload to pieces. It will launch, when the numbers work out.

 

[Urwumpe]

Better it scrub than go off and blow the payload to pieces. It will launch, when the numbers work out.

But it should also not happen too often, because this casts a bad light on your previous testing efforts and quality assurance.

Now, it is a bit hard to give a good number for scrubs without subjective feeling: For me, 3 scrubs in ten successful launches would be a good number. It still means that 2/3rd of the launches worked without nasty surprises.

A rocket is a complex machine and something can always easily be defect. But this should still be the exception and not the rule.

 

[N_Molson]

Oh and by the way it isn't "ArianeSpace", but "Arianespace". "espace" meaning "space" in French, it's a "word fusion" between "Ariane" (mythological character) and "espace". Merci. :tiphat:

 

[garyw]

Better it scrub than go off and blow the payload to pieces. It will launch, when the numbers work out.

But it should also not happen too often, because this casts a bad light on your previous testing efforts and quality assurance.

Whilst I agree with you both the biggest concern I have is that last night they seemed to have a touch of go fever by keeping pushing the launch window. I think that they even extended it by 20 minutes?

I'd rather them scrub, take the rocket down, give it a good inspection, work out what caused the abort, look at where else that issue could crop up, put in the fix, then try again even if that means a turnaround of several weeks.

 

[Urwumpe]

I'd rather them scrub, take the rocket down, give it a good inspection, work out what caused the abort, look at where else that issue could crop up, put in the fix, then try again even if that means a turnaround of several weeks.

I would scrub and promise to never ever get a scrub because of this cause again, if it is of technical nature.

That the strong winds at the Cape caused higher LOX boiloff rates was no concern to SpaceX it seems.