ULA bows out of Pentagon launch competition, paving way for SpaceX | Hacker News Reader

ULA bows out of Pentagon launch competition, paving way for SpaceX

washingtonpost.com

74 pointsPLenz36 comments

ULA's reasoning was pretty straightforward. The main reason they dropped out of the competition is because the bidding was to be decided largely on price, and they can't compete with SpaceX on price -- their selling point these days is that they're the boring, less-risky option that nobody ever got fired for buying. This is totally a valid selling point, until SpaceX gets a longer track record, but GPS satellites are the kind of payload that wouldn't be too disastrous to lose, so in this case going for the cheaper launch option makes a lot of sense.

    > This is totally a valid selling point

Respectfully, a selling point is only valid if your customer base care.

Once you start losing a couple of 250 -750 million dollar payloads, your customer base will care. This isn't KSP.

If they're not time critical, chances are they don't care that much. They've got insurance on the launch and payload. It'd have to happen enough for the premiums to start going up.

The US government doesn't buy launch insurance.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/05/22/248566.... says NASA self-insures, and the CRS missions appear to carry commercial insurance http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2014/10/29/345...

>NASA self-insures

This just means they don't insure and instead absorb losses. AFAIK they don't even set aside a pool of money like corporate self-insurance tends to do.

>CRS missions appear to carry commercial insurance

This is to (partially) cover the losses to the commercial space companies, since NASA withholds money in the event of a failure. None of it covers the payload. (Actually at least in Orbital's case they get paid a portion of the CRS contract, since there's technically two milestones – ignition/liftoff and mission success. They lose out on the latter.[1])

[1] http://spacenews.com/42658orbital-sciences-entitled-to-parti...

Thanks for bringing this up. This is a oft forgotten point as to why private space flight is so difficult in the US. Private ventures can't compete when the rules are set up so they've been kneecap'd from the start.

Ironically, I can't drive my car without insurance but I can fly a plane without it.

ULA's reasoning was pretty straightforward. The main reason they dropped out of the competition is because the bidding was to be decided largely on price,

The reason they had to drop out is because they're a space launch company without any goddamned engines. The chatter about the bid process is just the typical jawing members of the defense cartel engage in when they deign to speak of competitors. Sometimes they're even successful in reopening the bid process. [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KC-X

As they say in the space industry...

All rocket, no engines.

I don't understand. Can you explain this and the parent's comment on engines?

The ULA launchers use the Russian produced RD-180 engine

Only Atlas-V. Delta-IV uses American hydrogen engines (RS-68); however Delta-IV is rather more expensive than Atlas-V. Even though Atlas-IV is rather more expensive than Falcon-9 - which uses simpler, less performant but cheaper technology.

ULA's vehicles were designed around the RD-180 rocket engine [1][2]. This is an engine built and designed in Russia.

After Russia annexed Crimea, Congress banned the Pentagon from using Russian rocket engines. Russia responded by counter-banning the Pentagon from using its engines [3]. This made things complicated for ULA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-180

[2] http://www.ulalaunch.com/faqs-rd-180.aspx

[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-13/russia-ban...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=all%20hat%2C%...

So if you're a rocket company and don't make your own engines you're not really a rocket company, you're just talk.

Or if you don't have a reliable supplier of engines. In this case world politics meddled with space rocketry, so supplier's goods became less than completely available.

> (From Article) Congress wants to phase out the use of the RD-180 engine for national security launches by 2019 as a result of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

I have't been paying close attention, but maybe you know this. Didn't Russia actually ban export of engines for military launches over Crimea before congress?

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/may/15/us-space-mili... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-russian-rocket-ban-201...

Yes, like most people quit their jobs before they get fired.

Bit embarrassing isn't it, that a joint venture between two of the US's (and world's) largest aeronautics and defence companies doesn't have their own engines – and has to rely on the Russians?

Well, Russians are world leaders in at least kerosene-based rocket engines for one. And ULA doesn't quite lack just any engines - they have RS-68 hydrogen engines.

This would be OK if Space-X had fixed their problems with the Falcon 9. Space-X has been very quiet - they haven't issued a news release for almost four months now. There's still no date for the next launch. Spaceflight Now said "early November" in an article back in September[1], but that date has come and gone. There's "TBD" launch date in December, but that's probably not realistic.

The Falcon 9 explosion, Space-X claims, was due to a strut being far under-strength. When they tested their inventory of struts made by a contractor, some failed at 20% of the rated load. Space-X hasn't provided further details. They claim to be "tightening up their supply chain". That probably means requiring 100% traceability of every structural part back to the raw material and much more testing at incoming inspection. This is standard in aviation (which is why structural failure airplane crashes of production aircraft are very rare) but something Space-X wasn't doing.

One wonders what other problems they've found as they put part after part through strength tests. Probably more than they've admitted, or they'd be launching by now.

[1] http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/09/01/falcon-9-rocket-to-be-g...

One should also take into account that the return to flight is going to be with what is called "Falcon 9 Full Thrust" - essentially, Falcon 9 v1.2 - a lengthened and upgraded rocket. Some of the extra delays have undoubtedly been due to teething problems with this new stack.

You're just not paying attention. They've wrapped up their investigation of the problem, they've conclusively identified it and figured out how to prevent it from happening again (both through more thorough part testing and through beefing up the specs on the particular component so it has even more margin in a "belt and suspenders" approach). They've bundled their mitigation techniques into the roll-out of the next iteration of the F9 (sometimes called the v1.2 but officially called the "FT" or "Full Thrust" version) which will be the version which gets launched from now on. They've done a static fire test on the first stage that has a planned launch in early December and they've done all the other prep-work for a launch then. It's very likely that if the weather cooperates they'll have a return to flight within about 3 weeks.

And they just filed their standard request with the FCC for radio communications with their landing barge:

https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/STA_Print.cfm?mode=in...

All the pieces are coming together for the next launch, now.

One itty-bitty nitpick. There's one more F9 1.1 launch scheduled: Jason 3 set to launch out of Vandenberg as the 3rd launch after they resume. After that the old ones are done, though.

> This is standard in aviation (which is why structural failure airplane crashes of production aircraft are very rare) but something Space-X wasn't doing.

That is going to require sources. Primary responsibility for quality is going to have been the original manufacturer's. SpaceX of course will have had to (and I don't believe didn't) done their own check testing of components, but you write a contract with a supplier to put the risk on them for the timely supply of to-spec and to-tolerance parts.

And then you take it to your supplier when they've failed to meet their contracted failure rates, which could also be called "tightening up your supply chain."

I'm sure there'll be more quality involvement on SpaceX's side but I'd be awfully surprised if they weren't generally following industry standards.

Failures of novel engineering happens sometimes.

It's pretty straightforward, entering competition would be a lose/lose/lose prospect for ULA at this point.

First off, they can't meet SpaceX's prices, no matter what, so they're unlikely to win out on a straight-up bid on a single launch (they love those block buys).

Secondly, they don't have any more RD-180s to build more Atlas V's, which means they can't realistically promise any future Atlas launches. If they did they'd have to crawl back and say "sorry, can't do it." Alternately, they could try to put forward a Delta IV launch as an option, but that's even more expensive.

Thirdly, putting in a singular bid at this point and trying to cut their profit margin to the bone as much as possible would hit them doubly hard. On the one hand it would mean they'd make no money. On the other hand it would reveal publicly their true costs, and make it blatantly obvious how much they're over-charging on launches with the block buys plus launch assurance subsidy (which run at over $300 million per core, or so).

They're better off laying low and just hoping they can work their connections for more back-door block buys in the future.

Not saying it shouldn't be submitted here, but discussion of SpaceX news is one thing that reddit does better than HN, thanks to the generally excellent moderation of the /r/spacex subreddit.

Here's the corresponding link to this story on that sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3t31gt/ula_says_it_...

As you would expect for a dedicated forum, it is very pro-SpaceX and anti-ULA.

I really don't think that's an accurate characterisation. Space launch isn't a zero-sum game, and SpaceX and ULA aren't sports teams. You don't have to cheer for one at the expense of the other. After all we're all just humans stuck on a rather small planet, painting ULA in any sense as the "bad guys" is extremely silly given a little perspective. If SpaceX pushed ULA entirely out of the commercial launch market it would produce yet another monopoly, and while Elon's motivations are primarily for the betterment of humanity healthy competition is much preferable.

I, for one, am quite excited about ULA's planned Vulcan rocket [0] which incorporates reusability of the engine section, and hope it will be a success. I'm sure you will find that the most active members of /r/spacex feel much the same way.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_%28rocket%29

>SpaceX and ULA aren't sports teams

The reality is that a lot of people treat them exactly that way. They are on team SpaceX, and they root for them and against ULA, who is seen as the establishment who gets ahead using politics and lobbying rather than tech.

One ULA reason for dropping out:

"the Air Force used a procurement process that would give a lot of weight to the prices companies bid"

That's hysterical! The gall of the Air Force to do such a thing!

Dumb question, but what's preventing SpaceX from raising their bid significantly now that they know they're guaranteed to win?

Not just in this case, but plenty of government contracts are sole-sourced. How does the price get decided when there's no competition?

Not sure about this one, but a lot of government contracts are cost-plus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost-plus_contract

The federal government, defense in particular, has been moving to awarding large omnibus-style "contract vehicles" to a set of companies (like a first gate check), then out of those contract vehicles awarding Firm Fixed-Price contracts.

It helps stop the government from telling the contractor to do something new half-way through the contract, and for the contractor to then bump billing without new competition (the race condition leading to a 400% expected cost in a jet engine for example...). Instead, the contract terms are battled over in the beginning to line out exactly what the contractor will deliver, and up to how much they can bill for it (the government, and public, always appreciate it if you can find a way to not spend all the money).

If the government decides, part way through the contract period, that it wishes the contractor to do something extra, a new supplemental contract is drawn up and new extra funding requested and maybe approved. This supplement generally has to be published I think, so other contractors and watch-dogs can call foul if the extra work is significant enough that it should be re-competed.

The risk is that if the terms aren't fantastic and the goal of the contract complex, that you can end up in a quagmire of supplemental contract nightmares.

Some further reading on the benefits and risks of the method:

0 - memo with recommendations of FFP as a more prominent consideration in new contracts to reduce potential costs to the government.

1 - presser on Office of Management and Budgets' directives to retool contract staffs toward FFP.

2 - Discussion in WSJ of why it's not always the best idea.

3 - best practices in the contract writing process.

0: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/pr...

1: http://archive.federaltimes.com/article/20091102/ACQUISITION...

2: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487041215045745936...

3: https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/procurement_guide_pbsc

SpaceX has a history of "leaving money on the table". That's why their Commercial Crew award was so much smaller than Boeing's.

Another issue is that many government contracts specifically prevent bidders from charging the government more than anyone else buying the same.

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