SpaceX granted injunction in rocket launch suit against Lockheed-Boeing
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Wow. Unique requirements that were no doubt co-written by the only party that can provide them.
If the requirements are unique that is still no reason to go no-bid, after all it might be possible for another party to re-tool and/or adapt to those requirement and still beat the only party currently able to supply.
Elon Musk makes a good point when he says that he's willing to lose but he wants the right to bid.
Whose backs were being scratched in that case?
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/12/michelle-obama-and-cgi-fede...
Conclusion
There is no evidence that Townes-Whitley’s connection to the first lady,
or CGI’s campaign contributions, had anything to do with the contract being
awarded to CGI Federal as viral emails suggest.
Company and government officials say the contract was awarded through a competitive
— yet limited — process, and that Townes-Whitley was not involved.I've seen the corruption first hand.. first in the navy and then as a contractor. The joke about the $500 hammer isn't a joke at all.
In Russian there's an expression - to scare a hedgehog with a naked ass - which is exactly the case here, except it's really a shame that it's the space exploration that ends up suffering because of some bullshit political games.
In this case, even if you exclude the Russian factor, the point that ULA was awarded such a huge contract without any competition, most probably didn't happen without political (and/or financial) influence.
edit: nice story, but it's the wrong engine, see below.
You're describing this history of the NK-33 engines, which were originally built for the Soviet lunar program, and then (as you say) hidden in a warehouse after that program was terminated. Some of those were later bought by Aerojet, which then sold them to Orbital for use in their ISS cargo delivery program; neither company is party to the suit, and the injunction doesn't cover them. (Nor could it; Aerojet's stock of NK-33s was bought and paid for quite some time ago now.)
If you're suggesting that the US could go to China for replacement transportation services: not likely. NASA is currently barred by Congress from any cooperation with the Chinese at all on space exploration. At least one of the US commercial crew competitors are likely to have working hardware long before that attitude changes.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/09/14/the-ski... "The collapse of the Soviet Union created the final incentive to go forward. U.S. officials worried that Russian rocket scientists would go to work for rogue nations, spreading missile technology. In 1993, the United States and its allies brought the Russians into the fold for what would now be called the international space station. The international agreements ensured that the funds would keep flowing to the project despite changes in administrations and turnover in Congress."
In retrospect seems like as good an idea as arming the mujahideen in the 80's or putting Lenin on the train from Zurich.
Nowadays with all the budget cuts NASA has been facing, in terms of projects the lines are blurring between the two organizations
Rocket scientists didn't go to work for rogue nations. You have to understand that Soviet space industry was (and still is) veiled in secrecy. Think of it as SkunkWorks but on a massive scale and with 100x of security officers. You couldn't just hand in your resignation and go work for Iran. It just didn't work this way (it still doesn't by the way). For example, people with a security clearance were required to keep their travel passports with HR and they were not generally allowed to leave the country unsupervised. That's if they could get passports issued to begin with. Perestroika or not, all this security scaffolding was still in place and you bet it was functioning. The state was still guarding its secrets and know-hows. Granted, it neglected people behind them, but it wasn't going to let others access its technology.
Ah, I didn't know exactly what those sanctions were. So, does it mean that, as a government official, he's threatening sanctions for a country, because of sanctions that were applied to him personally?
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461279062837968897
followed by:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/461283368693669888
Not sure what Rogozin thought about them apples, but this sure isn't boring!
Probably nothing.
The Soyuz rockets they use are so old they are literally still named after the Soviet Union. This might seem like a bad thing but in rocketry old means reliable and new means "Your payload will probably explode in one of the first 5 missions. Hope it wasn't important!"
In short, it won't be sometime before 2018 before the Dragon Mk 2 rockets become safe enough for Astronauts to use regularly to get to the space station.
There have been relatively recent failures with Soyuz launchers as well (though none with Soyuz FG). Russians have also been developing new things, both as upgrades to the Soyuz launcher and Soyuz spacecraft but also new developments. (Soyuz-2-1v and PTK)
On another hand, the US/Russian space programs and teamwork with the ISS is largely separated from the political issues in Ukraine. There is too much to lose on either side.
But if you look at that scenario and smell the possibility for corruption, you're probably not wrong. ;)
Maybe the bidding process was so corrupt and/or pointless that they just did away with it entirely.
Even if SpaceX's prices go up with EELV launches, and even if they would never incorporate reusability into EELV launches, they would still be able to offer launches for every possible EELV payload at prices far below ULA's. Anything ULA could launch on any of their vehicles SpaceX could launch on the Falcon Heavy, and many launches (like GPS birds) could happen on the even cheaper Falcon 9.
With reusability, which SpaceX seems to have a good handle on, those costs get slashed, especially the cost of the Falcon Heavy. Any EELV payload could be launched on a reusable Falcon Heavy, even if it meant forgoing crossfeed. Even if the first stages could only be reused twice (a paltry amount) that would lower the cost of a reusable Falcon Heavy to around the cost of a Falcon 9, around $50 million.
Keep in mind that every ULA launcher uses an RL-10 in the upper stage, and that's a $40 million engine. Even at discounted prices simply having an engine that expensive (to say nothing of the rest of the vehicle) on every launch makes it impossible to offer launches as cheap as SpaceX could.
The Delta IV Heavy throttles down the center core during launch and peels away the outer cores first in a sort of "virtual crossfeed" scenario, though this comes at the cost of liftoff thrust.
The only problem with crossfeed for the Falcon Heavy is that it leaves the center core traveling a lot faster and a lot farther down range than the first stage of a Falcon 9 normally would be, which might make it a lot harder to return to the launch site for reusability. However, as a worst-case scenario the Falcon Heavy could be operated without crossfeed with all lower stage cores burning out at the same time, which would reduce payload significantly but the cost savings would probably make it worthwhile even so.
What's a core? Why would the stages burn at the same time? I thought the second stage wouldn't turn on until the first stage is jettisoned?
The Falcon Heavy uses the same "2nd" stage but it uses 3 first stages instead of just one, which are called "cores". Each core is just a Falcon 9 first stage, for the most part. The idea of the Falcon Heavy (similar to the way the Delta IV Heavy works) is that you have three times as many first stages pushing, which leads to increased payload.
With the cross-feed option you end up with effectively a 3-stage launcher. The outer two cores becomes like the first stage, and they are jettisoned when empty, then you have the inner core which now becomes a 2nd stage, and the previous 2nd stage is now a 3rd stage (or just "upper stage", to avoid confusion).
But, as mentioned, when you fly this way the 2nd stage core ends up way faster and way farther away when it's done thrusting, so in the prospect of having it keep around some extra propellant so it can thrust back to the launch site and land so it can be reused becomes much more difficult. But in a worst-case scenario all of the "cores" can be run at the same time, so they burn out the same distance away from land and can each return and be reused (saving a lot of money). You end up with only a 2 stage vehicle (3 1st-stages all running at the same time plus the upper stage) which would decrease performance, but because you recover all of the first stage cores (instead of only 2/3 of them) the cost benefit would probably be worth the payload reduction.
So on the Falcon heavy, is the plan for all three cores to return to the launch pad independently? Just landing a few hundred feet away from each other?
Also, I missed a reusability scenario with Falcon Heavy. You use crossfeed, you return the outer 2 first stage cores, and you dump everything else. This is more expensive than reusing all 3 1st stage cores, of course, but it provides a considerably amount of payload for the cost of essentially an expendable F9 plus the use of the reusable boosters. So you'd get very heavy lift capacity (I dunno, maybe 30+ tonnes to LEO) at well under $100 million, which in the current launch market is a crazy price.
Falcon 9 heavy (no crossfeed) has a first stage and a second stage. But the first stage consists of 3 cores that run in parallel. All three cores start and stop at the same time. So 27 engines start at the pad.
Falcon 9 heavy with crossfeed has sort of two or three stages, depending how you count. Outwards it looks very similar to the no-crossfeed Falcon 9 heavy. The topmost stage is similar to the two already mentioned configurations. The three cores look pretty similar. All three cores start at the pad (27 engines running), but the propellant for the center core's engines is taken from the outer cores' tanks. This means the outer cores run out of propellants quite quickly. They can then be discarded in flight, and the center core starts using propellants from its own tanks. Now it can fly without the dead mass of the outer cores and as a result the rocket can carry a bigger payload.
Why start the core engine at the pad, and not make it a real second stage that starts up only higher? Because then you get more thrust, the engines are not dead weight during early flight.
Some rockets like Titan IV had a somewhat similar parallel configuration but they did not start their center engine except at high altitude.
For the same reason a company that sells a CRUD app might only support Oracle and not other databases. Always working with the same vendor each time reduces technical complexity. People will knee-jerk and say "corruption" but an engineer should be able to at least see where the USAF is coming from.
Given that this is national-security grade stuff, there's also some political and practical considerations. The DOD can't really allow a true market for defense equipment and services. Markets are messy, they go through transition and disruption. That's not acceptable in a national-security context.
Then we should not beat around the bush and pretend we live in a Capitalist system when we clearly must make exceptions for only the private, for-profit contractors that we spend billions of dollars and the majority of the federal budget on.
But now SpaceX comes along. It's offering just what the government has been trying to create for decades.
Yet SpaceX has to sue the government, to get to play on a level field.
So the government had trouble with the companies trying to tilt the field. Now a new company has a problem with the government.
What an odd reversal of things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_azyt1JhI0
Elon basically going head-to-head with Michael Gass from the ULA and holding his own quite well.
Edit: Strike that ... 1/3 of the experts is asking to compete for the government's business. 1/3 already have a monopoly for this work.
I'd say that's pretty "head to head".
How many manufacturers of rocket engines are there?
Edited: Grammar correction.
Parties realistically capable of supplying those are few:
- Oribital Sciences
- SpaceX
- Sea Launch
- Starsem
- United Launch Alliance
- EADS/Arianespace
- ILS
- ISC
edit: combined EADS/Arianespace tx nraynaud
(BTW, quite a few of the rocket makers you named buy their engines from others. ULA also buys engines from Pratt and Whitney, and Orbital has several suppliers for its various launchers.)
The larger suit does concern a block purchase of whole rockets from ULA, but the injunction does not interfere with the block buy, just payments to the Russian subcontractor.
I can see how if they are dimensioned in such a way that they will fit only a launch vehicle by a single party how that might be usable as a trick to lock out competitors (first order launch vehicles without engines, then order engines without launch vehicles). Both of those would be harder to compete with than ordering whole rockets!
There is an American manufacturer that has licensed the RD-180 design, and technically has the rights to build them here, but they haven't --- and since that would involve duplicating Russian metallurgy, there's some skepticism that they could. (At a recent Senate hearing, it was the head of ULA(!) who said the Russian design did "things we found that our textbooks said were impossible".)
If you're asking why ULA can't just buy something else from, say, Pratt and Whitney, then the short answer is, "they don't sell anything that fits on an Atlas V". Think about trying to use the engine from a VW bug (or a large truck) to replace the engine in a pickup: even if the fuels are the same (and you can't take that for granted!), the fittings and performance characteristics are different enough that the combined thing just wouldn't work.
The YF-100 has already gone through a full-length test firing on the ground, and the CZ-7 rocket that it's mounted on is scheduled for a test flight later this year.
If the Chinese have been able to make it, then I see no reason why we can't.
P.S. Does Pratt & Whitney still make rocket engines? I thought they sold Rocketdyne to Aerojet?
About the engines: heck, the Space Shuttle Main Engine was staged-combustion Oxygen-Hydrogen. The question isn't whether the US could produce such an engine. It's how soon, and how reliably. ULA has laid in what they say is a two-year stock of engines as a hedge against ... hiccups in the supply chain, but they'd need new engines after that. For a clean-sheet design, that would be a crazy aggressive schedule. With RD-180 design docs in hand, well... we may soon see.
With kerosene, you must go oxidizer-rich. Nobody has mastered that except Russia. Nobody really knows how much it costs, or how they came up with it.
SpaceX uses the far simpler gas generator cycle.
In staged combustion, you pump some of the propellants to some absurd pressure like 300 bars, burn them, put them through a turbine that extracts some power that lowers pressure to 250 bars or so. Then the turbine exhaust is put into the main combustion chamber, together with the other propellants that were pumped up to 250 bars. All propellant contributes to thrust.
In a gas generator, you pump all propellants to perhaps 70 bars, divert some small part to a gas generator that burns them, the exhaust is put to a turbine that exhausts to ambient air. The turbine powers the pump. So that part of the propellant flow does not contribute directly to thrust. If you go to higher pressures with a gas generator engine, you waste a larger portion of the propellant to run the pump and it's just not worth it. So gas generator engines are limited to much lower pressures than staged combustion engines.
Lower pressure means bigger engines are needed for the same thrust. Also the efficiency is worse. A large (tall) rocket can have problems with limited base area per mass, hence for example the low pressure engined Saturn V had an expanded base.
Space Shuttle's main engines ran with high pressure and could fit on the back of the relatively small reusable orbiter vehicle.
Other than those companies, if you want a liquid fueled rocket engine with more than 100 kN of thrust then you'll have to make one for yourself or go begging to one of the vertically integrated rocket makers (Snecma makes the Ariane 5 first stage engine, China, India, and Japan have their own launchers, as do a few other countries).
Alternatively, they could take a leaf from NASA's book and embrace the COTS approach that seems to be working for NASA already, so much of the development time is already resolved?
[1]: http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1405/01engine/#.U2MpMig6lTw