Main Engine Cut Off - T+83: Falcon 9 Block 5, RL10 on Centaur V

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

Two events worth discussing happened while I was on vacation—the first Block 5 Falcon 9 took flight, and ULA selected RL10 for Centaur V. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 33 executive producers—Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Barbara, Stan, Mike, and six anonymous—and 164 other supporters on Patreon. Bangabandhu Satellite-1 Mission | SpaceX SpaceX launches Bangladeshi satellite on debut Block 5 Falcon 9 mission - SpaceNews.com RL10 Engine to Power ULA’s New Vulcan Centaur Upper Stage | Aerojet Rocketdyne ULA selects Aerojet to provide Vulcan upper stage engine - SpaceNews.com Episode T+63: Centaur V, BFR Updates - Main Engine Cut Off Email your thoughts and comments to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, I am Anthony Colangelo. This is probably the last recording from the venerable podcast closet as I am moving this week, so it might get a little bit echoey the next couple of weeks, but hang in there. I'll have a new permanent studio soon with some big plans for that coming up. So keep an eye out. I have a couple of announcements coming up

with some plans as I get all moved in. But for now, I missed a couple of news items while I was on vacation last week. I heard from a lot of you that you enjoyed the John Goff conversation. Very glad to have him on the show. But I did miss two big news items that are very relevant to Main Engine Cutoff. So I wanted to break down those topics today. Block 5 of the Falcon 9 finally flew. So I want to go through some thoughts on that and where that leaves SpaceX over the next couple of years.

And then we had an announcement that RL-10 is going to be used on Centaur 5, which is not much of a surprise, but there is a little bit to break down there. So let's jump into Block 5 first. SpaceX launched Bangabandhu 1 on the first Block 5 Falcon 9, which is the fully upgraded version that we have talked about for an extraordinary length of time here. But it's huge that it finally flew because this is the one that's really optimized for reusability. It kind of encapsulates all of the lessons learned over the past couple of years from SpaceX.

And it's, you know, their best thinking, their best work put into that booster. So there's really three things to watch coming out of this first Block 5 flight. And the first one is they need to fly Block 5 seven times before they can put crew on top of Falcon 9. So that's really simple. We're just going to keep watching to see

how quickly they get the Block 5 launch rate up. You know, the one that just launched and came back to port was looking in great shape, but they do need to tear it down to verify all of their thinking, make sure that things worked the way they expected once they were fully put together. So I'm not sure exactly how quick they're going to ramp up the flight rate here of Block 5, specifically regarding reuse. I don't know when the second flight of a Block 5 booster will come, but it will probably be in a few months here. So it'll be interesting to see how they manage the manifest to make sure they get those seven flights of Block 5 underway by the time that they are ready to fly crew. by the time that they are ready to fly crew. The other big piece of that is the load-and-go fueling piece of drama that has been going on since the AMO-6 incident way back when.

It is seeming like there's been a lot of thought pieces coming out lately about load-and-go and how it's now seemingly viable. And there seems to be some sort of sea change in the feelings towards load and go. A couple of months back, we heard that SpaceX was going to demonstrate to NASA that they could fuel Block 5 safely several times, that they were going to demonstrate that once they had a Block 5 booster. So they've already done it a couple of times at this point. They've had static fires in Texas. They've had static fires on the pad in Florida. They've had one launch. So they've

already had a handful of Block 5 fuelings, and it's only another launch or two. You know, full launch flow is at least, you know, three or four fuelings of the booster. So it's only another launch or two before they've had, you know, a dozen fuelings of a Block 5 booster. It's probably a lot more than that privately for themselves. But to demonstrate to NASA, I'm not sure when they can do that and deem it a full test for the load and go scenario. But we have seen these, you know, articles come out recently with some thoughts from the aerospace safety panel that has been, you know, throwing their arms up about load and go for so long that it does seem that they're like, you know, seeding the news cycle with, you know, okay, we may be okay with this now. We may be okay with this now. So, you know, I think you and I know that this has been an overblown issue, and it's kind of one of those things that always seems to be, well, this is unnatural because it's not the way that my daddy's NASA did it.

It's not the way that his daddy's NASA did it. And it's just one of those things that, you know, it was always done the other way. So the fact that it's different is making people uncomfortable. But, you know, the logic from the SpaceX side always seemed to make sense to me. I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but overall, this issue seems to be sorted out. So those two things are really what they need to get down to fly crew, and that's a really huge milestone for SpaceX.

That one, that's kind of just keeping a tally. We won't really be talking about that too much until we get a lot closer to it. The next one is the headline feature of Block 5, which is that reuse and operations that they want to work out. They have bundled so much into Block 5 that is supposed to lead to quicker turnaround. And even Elon Musk is talking up that that 24-hour recycle test is going to happen next year where they land a booster and less than 24 hours later launch it again. Now that one, you know, a lot of people are focused on that, but I've always seen that as a statement of what is possible, not necessarily something that would make its way into everyday use for another handful of years. But the mere fact that this thing would be able to land back

at landing zone one, be towed over to the launch pad again, fueled up and go within a day is a big statement of utility in a way to show that the technical side is totally worked out. We've already seen this year SpaceX waiting on customers a couple of times. So it is kind of clear that they're catching up to their manifest. So there's not a whole lot of need for them to do this 24-hour turnaround, but it is a big statement piece if they are able to pull that off. But with Block 5 comes all these reusability factors. New upgraded legs that are, you know, they don't have to completely detach them to fold them up and use them again.

And, you know, new grid fins that are much more survivable. We've seen those fly before, but now these are the standard thing on Block 5. So there's all these pieces that are much more reusable and SpaceX says is much better for operations. And I've even heard some comments that it actually made some of the production side a lot smoother as well. So there's a lot baked into Block 5 that goes a long way for SpaceX's operational side. And that is going to be a big focus as well, to see how easily they can get these things turned around, to see how quickly they can get these things produced once they get the production line up and running, though, given their statements, that will only matter for a little bit of time.

That will be the big test from Block 5, because really, SpaceX's grand plans hinge on that. That is the thing that makes or breaks a lot of what they're working on. So that's something that we're going to have eyes towards as well. The last chunk of this that is interesting for SpaceX and a little bit more forward-looking probably than the other two is how Block 5 impacts their future economics. And specifically here, I'm talking about launch pricing, both externally, but also internally as well. Elon Musk had this whole press conference about Block 5 before the flight, and was talking a little bit about launch price there. There's also been some comments from customers recently about this. And what it sounds like is a reusable Falcon 9 flight is going to sit around $50 million as a starting value.

Obviously, you always build up from those starting figures, but a reused Falcon 9 will start from $50-some million. And, you know, everyone always says, well, SpaceX is dropping prices, dropping prices. That's as low as they need to go right now because that still puts them well below everyone on the market, a bit below a dual-launched Ariane 5 right now. And even the head of Iridium, Matt Dash, had a quote the other day that he said he's not asking for a lower price than SpaceX is offering

right now because they are still the lowest by far. They still have a great value, the best value in a lot of cases. And that's kind of where SpaceX is right now. I've talked about this before, but it's worth repeating. They do not need to drop their price lower than $50 million until they have any price pressure from anyone else in the industry. And when you look at what's coming down the line here, there's not really going to be any of that until 2020, 2021. The two things that you're looking at are Arian 6. Their cost is coming down a bit. Their dual launch cost will be somewhere around $40 to $50 million if you're one of the passengers on that dual launch. And obviously that itself comes with trade-offs that you have to consider.

Obviously, that itself comes with trade-offs that you have to consider. But if Ariane 6 is able to hit its cost target of $100 million-ish per launch, and that's dual launch, that does start to put some price pressure on SpaceX at that $50 million point. The other big elephant in the room is New Glenn. We don't know what the pricing is for that yet. We don't even know what the pricing is for a new Shepard launch. So it's going to be a while until we know what the pricing is for that yet. We don't even know what the pricing is for a new Shepard launch. So, you know, it's going to be a while until we know what New Glenn is. But I think everybody would be shocked if New Glenn wasn't priced in a way that puts pressure on SpaceX to lower their price. Now, the interesting thing is that SpaceX has given themselves quite a bit of runway before any of those things that I just talked about.

quite a bit of runway before any of those things that I just talked about. So from where we are now in 2018 to 2020, 2021, when these two launch vehicles in particular start launching, that's a solid two or three years of runway that SpaceX has to get Block 5 up and running, operating at the turnaround times that they need, the production times that they need, and the operational costs that they need to make big profits right now, but have a lot of room to drop their price in the future. So if they're at 50 million right now, and they've just started flying Block 5, what happens in two, three years when they've got operations down to a science, when it's very smooth. And given their history and their trajectory, we have every reason to believe that they will get there,

because they've already gotten there from three or four years ago to now. What's another three or four years to their operational side? The other thing is that they are talking up fairing reuse. They're working that out right now, and it seems like they're making pretty good progress on that. So that's another thing that will drop their internal cost to a launch. And Elon Musk keeps talking up upper stage reuse, which at first I kind of was like,

all right, whatever. That seems like a lot of investment for somebody who said they want to get off this platform as quick as possible. But then I started thinking about the way that Falcon 9 first stage reuse even came about. You know, the Falcon 9 was starting to be flown and they didn't really know how they were going to reuse these things or even recover them.

Parachute was the first thing they went to and they eventually got to the reuse that we see today. Upper stage could happen the same way where they don't really know how they're going to recover it yet. They don't know how the reuse is going to work out. But if you look at how long it took them to work out that first stage reuse, they did that in less than 50 launches, you know, 30 some 40 some launches until they were really, you know, they really had the thing figured out. In the grand scheme of things, in the long lifetime that Falcon 9 is projected to have, and Elon Musk is talking up 300 flights or something like that over its remaining lifetime, if it takes them, let's say double the time, 60, 70, 80, even 100 launches to get upper stage reuse

figured out, that's still 200 launches left of a fully reusable Falcon 9. So once I put it in that context in my mind, it started to make more sense that this might be something that we see from SpaceX. They work in a very interesting way that they do it the way they did first stage, it could actually work out. So all that said, you know, they have two, three years here to, you know, fine tune block five operations to work out some of these last bits of reusability and really drop their internal cost for a launch quite a bit and factor in there if they have these block five boosters flying multiple times, Their per launch production cost comes way down. And that gives them a lot of cushion in their launch price, their external facing launch price, to lower it quite a bit

and respond to any of those price pressures from Ariane 6 or New Glenn or anything like that. So they have three years to make sure that once there's price pressure on that $50 million, they can drop it to $40, $30 million, whatever it may be that they need. Because if this all goes as it is seeming to lead, they will have that cushion in their price to drop it and still be the best priced option with the best value. And at that point, hopefully be one of the more reliable choices as well if they aren't already. So I think that really gives us the roadmap for things to watch for Falcon 9 specifically in the next three, four, five years. And that's kind of the framework that I think you should pass any of your thoughts about Falcon 9 through over that next period of

time. It's going to be really interesting to see how this plays out. This first Block 5 booster that they're going to tear apart is going to be very telling. It seems to have come back in great shape. It seems like it's in really good shape when you compare it side by side to a Block 4 booster that has come back from some, you know, high energy GTO launches like that. But overall, a really, really powerful launch from SpaceX. A big statement that they've got this under their belt and that this is a thing that's going to be hitting the market now. I'm really excited to see how this goes forward. But again, seven flights for crew, load and go, reuse and operations, and that future economic launch pricing, giving themselves that

cushion. Profits now, but cushion for the future. Those are the big three things for Block 5. Now, as I said, I want to dive into the RL10 news on Centaur 5. But before I do that, I have to say a very, very big thank you to 197 of you out there supporting Main Engine Cutoff over at patreon.com slash Miko. This episode of Main Engine Cutoff was produced by 33 executive producers. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Barbara, Stan, Mike, and six anonymous executive producers. I'm gonna have to figure something out because this list is getting quite lengthy. Thank you so much for all your support thank you for making this episode of the show possible don't forget patreon.com slash miko

if you are a three dollar a month or more patron you get the headline show every single friday in your feed five dollars or more a month you get access to the off nominal discord which is always one of my favorite places to hang out on the internet. Thank you all so much for your support. Thanks for putting up with me the last couple of weeks and my travel and all that. But we are back on our schedule. And as I said, we've got a permanent studio coming up soon with some exciting ideas that I've got in mind

on where to push Main Engine Cutoff in the future. And I could not do it without any of your support. So thank you so much for all of that. All right, RL10 on Vulcan Centaur. This was an announcement made by Erigit Rocketdyne and ULA. I think most people probably reacted as if this was not big news. This was kind of down between RL10 and the BE-3U. So a very similar announcement as we heard a week or two ago, I guess a month ago at this point, on Orbital ATK's Omega launch vehicle. They are also using RL-10 for the upper stage there in what was previously a launch vehicle that was expected to use the BE-3U,

because they had already paid some money towards Blue Origin to develop a nozzle for that. Overall, this is not surprising to me because this is less surprising to me than the Omega decision because Centaur V, which was a recent change from sticking with regular Centaur and then moving to Aces in the future on Vulcan, they introduced this Centaur V concept, which brought forward some of the ACES tech in an iterative way. And I've got a whole podcast about that. Whenever that announcement is made, I'll put a link in the show notes if you haven't heard that one. So this isn't really surprising to me because of that. Centaur V is an iterative project. They're going to iterate their way there, make small changes to get them from common sense R to ACES over time.

And it also optimizes for flying better hardware sooner. So for all those reasons, it does make sense to stick with what ULA is already used to flying, to stick with what they've already got going, to stick with what is the most reliable or maybe the second most reliable rocket engine that has ever been developed. It is incredibly reliable. It's going to be flying for over, you know, half a century at this point, once some of these Vulcan Centaur flights are underway. So it is an incredible engine that went through a period of stasis and has only recently picked up the development, stasis and has only recently picked up the development because of the changes in the industry. But overall, Aerojet Rocket Diamond has been saying that they've been making big strides to cut the cost of RL-10. It was previously in the old days something that was very much

produced by hand and very labor intensive. They've talked up how they're using additive manufacturing and a couple other things to cut the price very dramatically. And that has to be the case at this point. We've seen Orbital ATK go with Aerojet Rocketdyne, and now we've seen ULA announce that they're probably going to be using, what, four of these on a Centaur V? So the price has to have come down to at least an appropriate level, something that is comparable to the BE-3U overall for ULA to consider this. Either that or, I don't know what else is going on behind the scenes, but maybe ULA is getting a crazy good price, Aeroget Rocketdyne is having some monetary struggles and they're taking anything they can get. I don't know, but, uh, I

would be, it would be an incredible day if we could ever find out what ULA pays for a single RL10, especially something like this, uh, you know, the RL10CX, they're calling this variant. The other thing here is that this may indicate that BE4 from Blue Origin is the pick for the Vulcan first stage engine because I don't think it would be in a good position for ULA to be in if they had, you know, a BE-3U on the upper stage and a BE-4 on the lower stage and they were flying two engines from a direct competitor on their full stack and the same two engines that said direct

competitor is using for their own launch vehicle doesn't seem like a great position but you know furthermore i don't know if anything's a great position for ula right now they really are in a tough spot uh but this does seem to say that be4 is the pick uh because having the two different suppliers for your engines is a good thing. You can kind of negotiate between two different people and use it as leverage to say, well, if we don't really like your price, we're going to head over to the person that does our other engine that we already trust. And, you know, they're going to give us a better one over there. Does give you a little bit of leverage in that way. And it does protect you a little bit against, you know, a single company folding and being completely, you know, out of luck with your

engine supplier. Jeff Bezos could change his mind tomorrow on how he wants to fund Blue Origin, and that would drastically impact Vulcan Centaur. Or Aerojet Rocketdyne could come on some hard times and close up shop tomorrow, and however unlikely that is, and Vulcan Centaur would be in a tough time if they went AR1 and RL10. So, you know, having two suppliers does kind of protect you a little bit, though it does open you up to some increased risk that there's now two companies you have to worry about. So overall, ULA is just in a really tough spot. I used to be very optimistic that they could come out of this in an interesting way, but I'm getting increasingly pessimistic as I see, you know, just time lapse. They don't have time to waste, and I don't know why they haven't said

what the first stage engine is yet. They've announced this RL10 decision for Centaur V. Why haven't they said anything about the first stage? It's very weird at this point, and it's only getting weirder, so I hope we hear about that soon. But overall, you know, a not surprising but a very telling decision here from ULA to go with RL10. And I think it will be interesting to see how Vulcan plays out. Um, if, if they kind of see the writing on the wall that all they've got is to pitch themselves as the reliable partner, I think going with our RL-10, RL-10 is a good decision that way because it is nothing if not reliable, uh, and, and the old trustee, uh, choice to make, you know, and nobody ever got fired for choosing RL-10, I guess you could say, in the space industry. So if that is the writing on the wall that they see, then this is a good decision.

But if they maybe got a great price from Aerojet Rocketdyne, could be a good decision there as well, though I'm doubtful on that front. So we'll see what this has in the cards for Vulcan once we know the full stack here. But Aerojet Rocketdyne, I really don't know where they're seeing their future in the rocketry world anyway. They lost out on the solid rocket boosters for Vulcan to Orbital ATK, but at least they got this upper

stage engine. We'll see how everything plays out. That's about all I got today. If you've got any thoughts on either of these topics, anthonyatmanagingcutoff.com is the email, or on Twitter, at wehavemiko. Once again, thank you all for supporting the show over at patreon.com slash miko, and I will talk to you next week. Thank you.