Tailgate88 said:

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If you are an early riser, Saturday morning you can see 43 Starlink satellites go over around 6:06am from a previous deployment, followed by the 60 from today's deployment around 6:24am.

https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/

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Quote:

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...Notably, as part of Phase 1, ULA is on track to receive nearly $1 billion in USSF/USAF aid to develop its next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket and ensure that it meets all of the military's exacting, unique requirements. SpaceX, on the other hand, received a sum total of $0 from that opaque slush fund to meet the exact same requirements as ULA.

For Phase 2, the US military arbitrarily split the roughly two-dozen launch contracts up for grabs into a 60/40 pile. Even more bizarrely, the USAF did everything in its power to prevent two of the three rockets it had just spent more than $1.7 billion to help develop from receiving any of those two or three-dozen available launch contracts all but literally setting $800M of that investment on fire. Short of comical levels of blind ineptitude, verging on criminal negligence, the only possible explanation for the US military's behavior with NSSL Phase 1 and Phase 2 is an all-holds-barred effort to guarantee that ULA and its Vulcan Centaur rocket would have zero real competition.

The arbitrary 60:40 split of the final Phase 2 contract 'lot' further supports that argument. A government agency objectively interested in securing the best possible value and redundancy for its taxpayer-provided money would logically exploit a $1.7B investment as much as possible instead of throwing two-thirds of its ultimate value in the trash. On its own, a block-buy scenario even with a leading goal of selecting two providers is fundamentally inferior to an open competition for each of the dozens of launch contracts at hand.

Further, selecting the block-buy option and failing to split those contracts 50:50 makes it even clearer that the USAF's only steadfast NSSL Phase 2 goal was to guarantee ULA enough Vulcan launch contracts for the company to be comfortable and (most likely) not lose money on a rocket that has yet to demonstrate an ability to compete on the commercial launch market.

Amazingly, despite multiple handicaps in the form of a 60:40 contract split and what amounts to a $1B subsidy that explicitly disadvantages its only competitor, ULA's Vulcan rocket still appears to be ~40% more expensive than SpaceX's Falcon 9. In the latest round of NSSL Phase 2 contracts, seemingly the first in which ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket was selected, SpaceX's Falcon 9 received two East Coast launch contracts worth slightly less than $160M, averaging out to less than $80M each.

Outfitted with four of a possible zero, two, four, or six strap-on solid rocket boosters (SRBs), Vulcan Centaur received two launch contracts for $224M an average of $112M each. Assuming ULA wins exactly 60% (~15) of the Phase 2 launch contracts up for grabs and receives no more than $1 billion in USAF development funding through NSSL Phase 1, some $67 million will have to be added to the cost of each announced Vulcan launch contract to get a truly accurate picture. In the case of the rocket's first two contracts, the real average cost of each Vulcan Centaur launch could thus be closer to $179M ($112M+$67M).

According to ULA CEO Tory Bruno, both Vulcan missions are to "high-energy orbits," whereas a USAF official told Spaceflight Now that SpaceX's two Falcon 9 contracts were to "lower-energy orbits." In Vulcan's defense, if Bruno's "high-energy orbit" comment means a circular geostationary orbit (GEO) or a very heavy payload to an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), it's possible that SpaceX would have had to use Falcon Heavy to complete the same contracts. Against Falcon Heavy's established institutional pricing and excluding ULA's $1B Phase 1 subsidy, Vulcan Centaur is reasonably competitive.

Ultimately, even with several significant cards stacked against it, SpaceX appears likely to continue crushing entrenched competitors like ULA and Arianespace on cost while still offering performance and results equivalent to or better than even than their "next-generation" rockets.

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Centerpole90 said:

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Is today static fire only?

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bthotugigem05 said:

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Centerpole90 said:

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Is today static fire only?

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Supposedly they're going to try and fly if the static goes well.

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Ag87H2O said:

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I live in the Houston area and have many friends that work at NASA, and have always enjoyed following space related news. I check this thread daily and find the conversations and insights both entertaining and informative. Thanks to all who post all the great content.

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nortex97 said:

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Apparently a risk of some sort of molten engine parts dripping down. I kinda doubt the launch today no matter what. These Raptors are just not 'mature' products, much as we might all wish otherwise.

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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lol, looks like it

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PJYoung said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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lol, looks like it

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Yeah it's been on site a few months. No idea why.

Elon has mentioned it before.

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TexAgs91 said:

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PJYoung said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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lol, looks like it

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Yeah it's been on site a few months. No idea why.

Elon has mentioned it before.

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From reddit: this isn't a SpaceX project. The trebuchet belongs to the owner of some private land just off Boca Chica road, unassociated with SpaceX.

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TexAgs91 said:

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PJYoung said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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Aside, is my mind playing tricks on me or is that some sort of trebuchet in the first pic on my post above?

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lol, looks like it

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Yeah it's been on site a few months. No idea why.

Elon has mentioned it before.

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From reddit: this isn't a SpaceX project. The trebuchet belongs to the owner of some private land just off Boca Chica road, unassociated with SpaceX.

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