That's why this is so big, dropping the costs significantly could easily pull a significant fraction of those other launches to SpaceX. Pretty soon the ability to re-launch the same booster will be considered a must-have feature if you want to be in the rocket business, unless you fly missions so close the maximum payload or trajectory that recovery is impossible.
SpaceX is still struggling with launching frequently and reliably. I'm hopeful that they will solve those problems, but until they do, other launch providers will have a leg up for customers who really need their payload not to be destroyed and really need it to be launched on time. Keep in mind that some of these satellites being launched cost hundreds of millions of dollars, so paying a few tens of millions extra for a more expensive launch provider isn't necessarily a big deal.
That's true, but overall their failure rate is really not all that bad. Only the Russians are doing better and they're doing better because they are not innovating at all.
I could 3 out of 33 as failures, one of those is a partial failure.
The only area where SpaceX really can't compete yet is manned flight, everything else looks quite rosy.
10% is pretty bad. ULA has launched over a hundred times with no failures. The much-maligned Shuttle had two failures in 135 flights (and, strictly speaking, only one of those failures would have prevented a payload from getting to orbit). I'm pretty sure the Russians are the only ones doing worse right now.
But you'd have to compare their first thirty launches with these to compare. Anyway, notice has been served today I think, now let's see what it leads to.
Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovative than what SpaceX is doing because we simply had not launched any rockets of that size at all and so there were many more failures.
It probably won't be the last SpaceX failure either because they plan on making fairly big changes soon and those will come with new failure modes, the best way to get to very high degrees of reliability is to stop making changes other than to fix problems but that does not square with SpaceX's way of doing business.
Well no, you don't have to compare to the first thirty launches with those when we're talking about competition for launch services. Somebody choosing a launch provider for their satellite today doesn't care what the reliability of the Atlas was in the 1960s, they only care what it is today.
If I was arguing that "SpaceX sucks and they deserve to fail because they're so unreliable" then you'd have a point, but I'm not.
"Of course the beginnings of what is now ULA were much more innovative than what SpaceX is doing because we simply had not launched any rockets of that size at all and so there were many more failures."
So of course the situation is not 1:1 comparable. But given that it is a new platform some failures were to be expected, it doesn't take a lot in rocketry to have a failure. How many launch failures would you consider to be acceptable over the course of the first 30 launches for a new platform?
You're confusing my comment with some sort of value judgment. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying that some customers care more about reliability than cost, and those customers will provide a steady stream of revenue for ULA and friends until SpaceX improves in this area.
I have no opinion about what is "acceptable" or not, but my opinion doesn't matter. What matters is the opinion of the customer. There are enough customers out there which find SpaceX's ~10% failure rate to be too high to keep ULA around for now even at a hefty premium.
So then the race is on in a way: will SpaceX be able to get their next platform stabilized before the competition catches up to being able to re-use their first stage? If they can there might be some actual competition which should drive down prices even further.
Sounds right to me. Other launchers are probably living on borrowed time at this point. ULA and others should have many more years to capitalize on their advantages, but it won't last forever. They'll either sit there, reap short-term profits, then fade away, or innovate. I'm hopeful it'll be the latter. Tory Bruno, ULA's CEO, occasionally comments on SpaceX discussions and seems to be quite with it.
> It probably won't be the last SpaceX failure either because they plan on making fairly big changes soon and those will come with new failure modes
My understanding is that they are now producing and flying Block 5 Falcon 9's which means no more changes to the hardware.
Falcon heavy is obviously a different kettle of fish but the chat around SpaceX on Reddit has been that things are settling/reaching maturity with Falcon 9
Even worse than the expense of the payload is the time: some payloads take several years to build and some literally can't be replaced (e.g. Webb telescope, though it could be replaced it probably wouldn't get funded).
SpaceX would still have to deal with scheduling: making enough upper stages and having limited launch/landing pads they share with NASA/ULA/ATK. So those with less cost-sensitive payloads (governments) would probably still pay a premium to launch their payloads sooner rather than cheaper.
That doesn't add up: SpaceX will be able to use a chunk of their savings to outbid their competitors for launch capacity. So any premium paid by a competitor would have to be passed on to their customers to stay afloat whereas SpaceX would merely give a slightly lower discount.
SpaceX really caused some sleepless nights today with the executives of other rocket companies they are several years away from being able to begin to play catch-up. This was one very long bet SpaceX made and it paid off today and will continue to pay off for years to come.
I agree with you: everyone else will be playing catch-up, probably for a decade.
But what I mean is say I have a payload I want to launch. I go to spaceX and they say they can put my payload on their manifest for 2019 for $60 million. I go to another provider and they say they can get me up into orbit in 2018 for $120 million. If I'm a government and don't care so much about the cost, but do care about getting my payload into space, I'll go with the 2018 date.
So, there will still be other non-reusable providers out there. For example, European governments want to keep Ariane around regardless of the cost to keep the launch capability around (for national security issues).
Yes, but those launches would be subsidized, so technically loss leaders which you should not even want to compete with. SpaceX is in business with first mover advantage of a kind you can only dream of.
SpaceX did all of their landing/reusability testing with disposable rockets. When they started all rockets were thrown away, so adding a bit of fuel or grid fins was a small price to pay for the development. Once reusability becomes common any competitor would have to test by sacrificing rockets where failures will be very expense - I mean who would throw away a rocket right?
