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This is on the event of the last Ariane 5 launch, but the first Ariane 5 launch failed due to software.
The inertial reference system (SRI) was derived from Ariane 4. Since 5 was faster, a numeric conversion overflowed, which was not physically possible on 4. Since overflow was ‘impossible’, there was no explicit handling. Since the code was written in a ‘safe’ language (Ada), an ‘unsafe’ undefined result was impossible, so the module panicked. The SRI operation at that point was not actually required on the 5, but they had not wanted to make ‘unnecessary’ changes to disable it. Finally, the flight computer interpreted the SRI crash diagnostic data as flight data, and sent the rocket wildly off course.
https://www.irisa.fr/pampa/EPEE/Ariane5.html
"The truly unacceptable part is the absence of any kind of precise specification associated with a reusable module."
This is fascinating. It reminds me of the infamous MCAS on the Boeing 737 MAX. A system was designed, implemented and rigorously tested to be used in a specific scenario. A decision was then made much later to use it in a very different scenario without any understanding of the consequences.
Another such case is Atari BASIC. Revision A has a bug that causes a crash. Revision B fixed the bug, but the fix was then erroneously applied to similar code elsewhere, causing the same crash much more often than in Revision A!
Also notable as one of the few actual software-related failures in spaceflight. It's usually some other design flaw at fault, as software has relatively small complexity footprint.
Depends exactly how you define software, but most of the N1 failures were caused or exacerbated by bad behaviour by the control system. A few early Proton failures were also caused by control system failure, and then of course there was the Mars Climate Orbiter...
These issues didn't have the software as some kind of cause - MCO failed due to the spec mismatch. Another example of this is Cassini failing to initialize Huygens fully before separation, and many others - these were not software issues as software was compliant with the spec. AFAIR early Proton-Ks failed due to the process issues - impossibly high cadence (typical at the time) and the lack of integration testing with Block D, and N1 3L's issue with KORD was external interference caused by fire.
Edit: I stand corrected - the MCO failure report [1] says that the software behavior was against the spec. So yeah, it's a software failure indeed.
There was a Russian sigint satellite that somehow got programmed to roll 360 degrees and execute its initial burn to reach the desired orbit. Satellites are generally launched upside down. So it basically rolled over and de-orbited itself, fast.
Would you consider that a software failure or not?
What I really "like" about the footage of the launch is how the commentator says "every parameter nominal" literally as the thing is blowing up. This is a great illustration of how fast the system failed.
Commentator's curse in action!
It didn't fail "due to software", it failed because the analysis wasn't redone, that came to the conclusion that range checks, as specified by the Ada programming language, can be disabled to increase performance.
Pedantic and pointless.
Context: Today is the last ever Ariane 5 launch.
I understand there must be some irrefutably valid points, but it seems crazy since it launched the most expensive science experiment in a while just over a year ago, perfectly.
It's not competitive with SpaceX anymore. The Falcon 9 is cheaper and is launched so often its track record is already comparable.
It's not just about market competitiveness. It's also about keeping capabilities in Europe and not being fully dependent on a foreign entity with questionable leadership.
Yes but you don’t need two launchers for that, only the latest one. Countries financing its development will want to use as much as possible to bring the cost per launch down.
As implied by the comment I’m replying to, the only reason to keep Ariane 5 flying would have been its good track record bringing business on the commercial market but that’s not going to happen because Falcon 9 gets all these customers now.
rather ironically, I do not believe there is the possibility of launching the Ariane 5 from Europe.
The French spaceport is, despite being close to the equator in latin america, part of the EU. And a rather good location.
I think the problem is in the event of war how do you manage to securely transport a launch vehicle and its payload to South America?
How did the US supply Great Britain throughout WWII, and how did they manage to ship their equipment and personnel there to actively fight in the European Theater in the later years of the war?
War is full of logistics challenges, and slipping a retrofitted container ship or tanker carrying an Ariane-sized rocket in between other innocent maritime traffic would be one of them.
Though the more common scenario in the last century or so seem to be harsh words, boycotts and proxy wars, not total war and sea blockades.
The US did it in WWII because the Royal Navy and the US Navy were the two biggest most powerful navies in the world, specially in the Atlantic.
If you think the US would go so far as to block Europe from buying launches on US launchers, then the US could also easily blockade South America.
Certainty, blockade is another level to just cutting business ties but its certainty not comparable to WW2.
There are many scenarios other than war where you want independent launch capability.
Looks like there's a space port in Sweden now, too. Doesn't look like they're launching Arianes there yet tho.
https://sscspace.com/the-world-watched-the-inauguration-of-s...
You could launch north from say Spain, UK, Norway or their near neighbors if they grant overflight permission.
To a polar orbit. To geostationary it's not great (don't know would it even be possible).
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Never said anything to the the contrary, no need to be so confrontational.
Well, it's being replaced with the Ariane 6. The 4 was also fairly successful, but was replaced with the 5.
It was actually meant to be retired a few years back.
The motivation for Ariane 6 is to halve launch costs and increase launch cadence.
As some have noted though it will still be an order of magnitude slower cadence than SpaceX is achieving and still not re-usable at all.
Solids really make rapid reuse impossible. You need to recast them.
I love how all the acronyms in the glossary are basically inverted English ones.
- BAF - Final Assembly Building - Bâtiment d’Assemblage Final
I knew about NATO/OTAN and such, but didn't know it's so universal.
They also had fun with some of them:
- PLANET - Payload Local Area Network
- SHOGUN - SHOck Generation UNit
> I love how all the acronyms in the glossary are basically inverted English ones
It's very common because the order of adjectives and nouns is most of the time reversed between English and French (and Romance languages in general; it's the same with Spanish and Portuguese for example), but English retains so much French and latin roots that the initials are often the same. Other examples include
- IMF/FMI (international monetary fund/fonds monétaire international)
- EU/UE (European Union/union européenne)
- and before it EEC/CEE (European economic community/communauté économique européenne)
- SARS/SRAS (severe acute respiratory syndrome/syndrome respiratoire aigu sévère)
- HIV/VIH (human immunodeficiency virus/virus de l'immunodéficience humaine)
And many others I am sure, that's just what I could think off the top of my head.
Another fun one is UTC. In English it's Coordinated Universal Time, in French Temps Universel Coordonné. To get one name for all languages a compromise was chosen: UTC, which doesn't match either. At least it's a nod to UTC being a version of TAI that's kept in sync with UT2 (UT0, 1 and 2 is time as measured by earth's rotation, with increasing numbers of corrections for wobbling applied).
It's not in this manual, but I definitely remember the Ariane to have an "Anti Pogo Device" which kind of sounds anti-fun, in a funny way.
Pogo oscillations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_oscillation) are actually quite dangerous and can lead to damage or destruction of the rocket, so yeah.
I'm just imagining a pogo stick with a critically damped spring.
I wouldn't say inverted, just everything translated into french, because for whatever reason, the french feel like everything should be in french.
Everyone else on the planet can use english based acronyms just fine in the local language, except the french :)
Who uses English acronyms in their own language?
United Nations: FN (Danish), VN (German), ONU (Spanish), VN (Dutch)
European Economic Area: EØS, EWR, EEE, EER
And English does it too. The Deutsche Demokratische Republik — DDR — was the GDR in English. Содружество Независимых Государств (СНГ = CNG) is the CIS.
I would have expected that the manual has way more pages and a bigger scope. I'm surprised it has "only" 270 pages.
The guide is just an overview to help potential customers ("users") decide if the Ariane 5 would work for their payload and mission. Nothing to do with Arianespace operating the rocket.
I'd expect a detailed manual to fall under the Missile Technology Control Regime, MTCR, which is kind of the sister of ITAR for the EU.
They wouldn't make a more detailed manual for customers that they couldn't show to those customers. They do provide more detailed interface and system documentation, but they don't share the restricted implementation details. Even for internal use, they'd want to confine the controlled information to a smaller subset of documents because otherwise it's difficult to circulate information.
Very true. What I was saying was they probably couldn't provide what MrGilbert was maybe thinking this would because it would constitute restricted arms information. As neat as it would be to get some juicy details about the rocket even as it's being retired that info is very tightly regulated in most countries.
Gotcha. Most of the system-level information is under less restrictive control than ITAR or MTCR, but the effect is the same.
Honestly though, the information isn't all that juicy. What most people would find interesting has been out there for a long time. The hardware in any rocket looks basically the same since Saturn V, and the only remarkable thing about the software is that it's organized.
Is there anything you'd like me to point you to?
Comment was deleted :(
being peripherally involved with aerospace, I can say that this is, for reasons unknown to me, not the full comprehensive manual.
A much, much (2 orders of magnitude) simpler system I'm familiar with has a set of manuals that is far over 20,000 pages and it's really not that good or comprehensive. It's really terrible actually. So this is off by about 4 orders of magnitude.
For a concrete example: one tech manual for a 2 1/2 truck is 1200 pages long (http://www.jatonkam35s.com/DeuceTechnicalManuals/TM9-2320-36...). But there are about 50 other manuals in the set (http://www.jatonkam35s.com/jatonkaM35sTMdownloadpage.htm). This is for a TRUCK, not a rocket.
I don't know what this thing is, but it's not the manual.
Well, actually, the basic manual inputs of an orbital rocket are "go up" and "explode". The rest is automated.
(Has anyone trained a neural networks to play Kerbal Space Program?)
The user is the party who is concerned with payload integration: dimensions, center of gravity, electrical, thermal, vibration, orbits etc.
Fascinating, although especially the communications section shows the (2011) vintage: V24 circuits, pagers, and other miscellanea from a bygone era...
Probably something that works for them now and a change might degrade reliability.
Why was Ariane 5 retired? Did ESA replace it with something else?
Ariane 6, which suffers from some delays. Vega and Vega-C are also supposed to fill the lower segment gap, but they are grounded after a series of mishaps. Tough spot for ESA launchers, but we'll get through this!
AFAIU only Vega-C is grounded, Vega is still in operations with SSMS 16 scheduled for September?
But yeah, Vega-C has been very unlucky with the nozzle throat insert on the second stage eroding away and failing, plus the general trouble with certain parts being made in Ukraine now during the war.
True! Vega did experience quite some trouble in the past too.
They wanted to replace Ariane 5 in time with Ariane 6, but it got delayed a lot. Ariane 6 will be ready next year at the earliest.
And Ariane 6 isn't competitive against SpaceX either. They've really screwed up.
Only in the sense that everyone isn’t competitive against SpaceX. They absolutely could have done better, but the role isn’t to produce the most price competitive launch, the role was securing Europe’s launch capability. If both could be done at the same time then that’s a win but it’s not the primary goal.
Last time, arguably that was years ago and hard numbers are really hard to come by, for the heavy lifting, as in no re-use of rockets and higher orbits, Ariane Space and SpaceX were not that far apart. Back of the envelope calculations so, so a lot of assumptions. That being said, the advertized prices are not what customers pay for specific missions.
Agree on the launch capability, that is something strategic. I just hope those European initiatives continue. And Ariane still got paying customers, so their prices cannot be that outrageous, can they?
The only missions where Ariane 5 had even a shot at competing was if you have the perfect set of costumers want to launch 1 big and 1 'small' GEO sat. But even in that case, dedicated launching was cheaper.
This dual launching was also a huge cost on Arianespace and its costumers. Waiting for both sats to be ready was a huge problem.
And increasing as SpaceX came up, finding that set of costumers got harder and harder. So it wasn't a defend-able niche.
> And Ariane still got paying customers, so their prices cannot be that outrageous, can they?
Ariane has always launched more Sozus then Ariane 5. Vega is mostly used for non-commercial stuff.
Ariane 6 has received large commercial contract from Amazon. The reason for this is that Amazon needs basically every single available heavy launch vehicle in the next 5 years to be legally complaint for their sat internet.
Before that Ariane 6 did have lots of issue, already complaining that their manifast was not allowing them to set up the necessary production.
In a purely commercial competition, an Ariane 6 is like 50% more expensive compared to SpaceX Falcon 9. And likely more in many cases. That isn't 'outrageous' but it isn't good either. The Ariane 5 was 2-3x as expensive.
I also believe that on those prices Ariane Group isn't making much money, while SpaceX just set such as high price because they can.
You may be able to find specific missions for which Ariane 5 could compete, but for the usual, bread and butter missions, like launching satellites to geostationary orbit (Ariane 5 typically launched these in pairs), SpaceX just grabbed that market. Ariane 5 could not compete there. And without volume, Ariane 5 could not be kept operating, the fixed costs would be too high.
Agree, hence Ariane 6. That being said, until SpaceX's Falcon 9(?) showed up, Ariane 5 was the go to standard. Not to bad for a rocket initially designed to launch a European space shuttle, and not conventional payload.
Competion is a good thing, it drives innovation.
Ariane 5 was to go to standard for expensive geo missions that required high reliability. Arianespace always launched more Soyuz then Ariane 5s.
In the early 2000s the Proton rocket was far cheaper, but increasingly became unreliable meaning that many costumers got away from it. The Proton insurance cost was getting way to big. The Proton program was just all around mismanaged.
Since with the launch monopoly in the US, the US was basically not in the market at all. There simply wasn't another option. If Soyuz was to small, then the Ariane 5 was the only game in town.
Basically the Russian and the US committed suicide by stupidity and the Europeans were the only game in town. China isn't really an option geopolitically. And India and Japan large vehicle have way to low production rates, only being used for domestic stuff.
Falcon 9 was already cheap but it took a while for Falcon 9 to get cadence up. And Falcon 9 was hopelessly overbooked with launches for many years ahead in most of the 2010s. So some costumers picked Ariane 5 as those were actually available.
> but the role isn’t to produce the most price competitive launch
Except that is of course what they promised when the Ariane 6 was authorized. The 'we need to be competitive with the Falcon 9 so we can use the international launch market to subsidize our space program' was very much a huge part why the Ariane 6 was picked over the Ariane 5 ME.
So in effect Ariane Group is getting 5 billion $ to slighly evolve the Ariane 5 (with mostly things that we planned for the Ariane 5 ME).
In effect, not having to relay on Sozus as much is actually closer to what Ariane 6 achieves. Having both the 62 and 64 variant will make it more flexible then Ariane 5.
You're just explaining the process by which they screwed up.
But it's a screw up most space launch providers are sharing, and it's one most of them will survive in the medium term for the same reason: their respective governments see more value in them than revenue and will prop them up.
The more interesting question is what will happen after Ariane 6. SpaceX's lead continues to grow, and catching up would require changes to the development process not everyone seems comfortable with.
Ariane Next’s design goals seem to be mostly “be Falcon 9”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next
No-one’s trying to build a Starship at this point apart from SpaceX (leaving aside a couple of less credible Chinese attempts).
Ariane Next is not a real thing yet. Its just some concepts that some of the European space agencies are playing around with.
To actually build a next generation Ariane rocket they will need a huge amount of political buy-in from the ESA memeber states. And they will not get that anytime soon. The barley got the Ariane 6 over the finish line.
It will be many, many years before they even seriously start an actual design process for Ariane Next.
New Glenn has a potential path to compete with Starship eventually, with BO's work on making a reusable version of its second stage. It's years away at best, but it's arguably more than anyone else is doing.
On paper New Glenn looks interesting. But Blue Origin is one year older than SpaceX but with slightly fewer success stories to talk about. So far they managed 30 suborbital launches (counting all test flights); in the same time SpaceX did 240 orbital launches.
New Glenn has lots of potential, but it's also really hard to get excited about.
Entirely fair. The main reason I bring up them as even having realistic potential is that they've built a few BE-4 engines that're ready to go on Vulcan, and I think they've been spotted building hardware for New Glenn's first stage. They've definitely got a lot of work to do, though.
The Chinese Long March 9 plans, which are close to Starship, seem quite credible to me.
> The Chinese Long March 9 plans, which are close to Starship, seem quite credible to me.
The plans for the Long March 9 change every year or so. The last time they published a design, it was a Saturn V semi-clone (with many more 1st stage engines).
I'll take the Long March 9 seriously when they start showing off actual hardware.
And of all the designs, it is the one with the least price transparency.
No, the others gave up on that can of worms in the 60s.
I remember a NASA-connected SF author explaining at a Worldcon in Chicago that Falcon 9 wasn't going to be reliable because it had too many first stage engines.
Oops.
Which would be quite foolish. Controlling a large number of engines was made a lot easier by about 60 years of improvements in microcontroller and sensor technology.
>>> And Ariane 6 isn't competitive against SpaceX either. They've really screwed up.
>> Only in the sense that everyone isn’t competitive against SpaceX. They absolutely could have done better, but the role isn’t to produce the most price competitive launch, the role was securing Europe’s launch capability. If both could be done at the same time then that’s a win but it’s not the primary goal.
> You're just explaining the process by which they screwed up.
No, the problem is that you're acting like you define their success criteria, when you don't. You're a rando on the internet, quarterbacking from your armchair.
LOL. I think competing in markets is an objective criterion for success. Governments defining for themselves what success is? That's what's called a "self-licking ice cream cone". Of course one can be a success if one gets to define what success is, but stating it as baldly as that shows how ludicrous that is.
Europe has totally dropped the ball here. I think they'd be well advised to just give up. They don't look like they have the attitude or desire to actually deliver a world class competitive result.
> LOL. I think competing in markets is an objective criterion for success.
"LOL." That kind of thinking is myopic and dated. Pretty much every year from 2020 onwards had yielded high-profile new lessons about its flaws. The market doesn't optimize for some pretty important things.
You sound like the kind of person who believes there is no downside to (say) the US outsourcing all manufacturing and design of everything to China because it's cheaper.
How did you get that howling non sequitur?
The goal is not launches at the same price SpaceX charges.
The goal is reliable independent launch capabilities. SpaceX is the furthest from what can be described as reliable.
> The goal is not launches at the same price SpaceX charges.
That's a rationalization.
When the Ariane 5 was ruling the roost, ArianeSpace absolutely wanted to maintain their market position.
It's only after they've given up on that goal that the talking points have changed to "independent access to space".
> SpaceX is the furthest from what can be described as reliable.
Lol. The Falcon 9 has the longest streak of successful launches of any rocket in history.
> Lol. The Falcon 9 has the longest streak of successful launches of any rocket in history.
Launch reliability is one aspect. For Europe, the possibility of SpaceX or the US itself cutting them off from access to space is one to consider in the calculus.
Same reason the US is likely to still fund non-SpaceX launches/ventures, even if more expensive.
You're missing the fact that if the NRO or similar US government needs launch capacity, the president will bump foreign commercial and government launches. Europe can't be entirely reliant on the US for launch capability.
The same justification was used in the US after the Spanish American war to justify a massive expansion of US shipyard capabilities that was subsidized by contracts for US warships. It worked out well enough, by the end of WWII the US had the most capable navy in the world.
SpaceX launches every 3 to 4 days. There has been no shortage of F9 for a long time. Also, the majority of SpaceX’s launches are for Starlink, not US’s government. SpaceX would gladly bump those launches for paying customers. The Euclid mission that occurred last week was only booked in December 2022, extremely short lead time for a commercial launch.
Independent space launch capability isn’t an issue. Clinging to obsolete technologies is. Ariane 6 was still on the drawing board when F9 landed for the 1st time. Since then F9 has landed consecutively - yes landing - more times than consecutive launches of any other rockets. Almost twice the number for Ariane 5. All occurred in the last 7 years, compare to 30 years for Ariane 5. Yet Europe refuse to revise the design. Now they are looking at a design that wouldn’t be competitive with F9, a decade later.
> You're missing the fact that if the NRO or similar US government needs launch capacity, the president will bump foreign commercial and government launches.
Given the reality of SpaceX's launch schedule, probably not. Unless someone in Europe wanted 40 extra launches a year or something. SpaceX has shown a willingness to sacrifice Starlink launches for paying customers.
But from a more philosophical standpoint, I do think that Europe is correct to maintain an independent launch capability.
SpaceX has redefined what it means to "have a launch capability." They will redefine it even more if Starship succeeds. If the US ends up putting tens of thousands of tonnes into space yearly, build large structures there, will Europe consider the ability to launch a few satellites enough?
Indeed. If maintaining independent access to space were the goal, they could have just kept building Ariane 5. So obviously that wasn't the goal driving the decision to build Ariane 6.
They may have the longest streak of successful launches, but among their cavalier attitude to safety, as seen with the latest starship launch and the chief twat playing it fast and loose with his security clearance, they can't be described in any way as reliable. The FAA can halt launches for any reason. His allegiance to China and Russia certainly won't help.
> among their cavalier attitude to safety, as seen with the latest starship launch and the chief twat playing it fast and loose with his security clearance
You do understand that Starship is still in development, right? SpaceX is well known for their "hardware rich" development process. That doesn't seem to affect their operational reliability.
Not sure what you mean by "fast and loose with his security clearance". He says wacky stuff on Twitter. I'm not defending what Musk writes there, but it doesn't really have an effect on SpaceX's reliability.
> The FAA can halt launches for any reason.
Not sure how this is relevant.
> His allegiance to China and Russia certainly won't help.
I don't think I've seen anyone establish any links between him and Russia. He had that one Ukraine peace plan, which was never going to work, but that isn't really a tie to Russia.
Tesla does have a plant in China. But Boeing sells tons of planes in China; I don't ever hear people asking about ULA's ties to China. Same thing with Airbus and ArianeGroup.
Boeing defense is not the same as Boeing selling airliners.
The dude smokes weed on a podcast with Joe Rogan. However silly, that is grounds for revocation of his security clearance. So is his friendly attitude towards enemies of the US. His peace plan for Ukraine came straight from the propaganda department of the Kremlin. Most likely, they'll settle for him being forced to divest his part of SpaceX.
This is just nonsense. SpaceX has a far better saftey culture then Arianespace who regularly hid failures and deny journalist access who ask to many questions.
> his security clearance
One time a Boeing sponsored senator launched a fake investigation because Elon took a single (fake) hit from a joint in California. He has not played 'fast and loose' with security clearance.
> they can't be described in any way as reliable
Seems that the all the launch costumers, the military, NASA and the insurance industry disagree.
> The FAA can halt launches for any reason.
SpaceX has a really good relationship with the FAA. Thanks to SpaceX FAA is getting lots of money to expand and is reforming its internal organization.
> His allegiance to China and Russia certainly won't help.
Ah the fake allegiance you made up, sure.
So you moved from 'having some valid points' to 'I hate Musk so I have to shit on everything related' mode.
Dumping boatloads of money on the MIC isn't a screwup if it's the primary intended outcome with a functioning rocket merely as a nice bonus.
"Waiter, this soup tastes like shit."
"Sir, it's the intended outcome that it tastes like shit."
"Oh, I guess that must be ok then."
More like:
"Waiter, this soup tastes like shit."
"Sir, that is not your soup. It is a nutrient broth to satisfy another customer who has different priorities than you do."
"Oh, I guess that must be ok then."
The point I was making that a bureaucracy choosing a goal doesn't mean that goal is a good one, or that achieving it is a positive thing.
Fair enough:
"Waiter, this soup tastes like shit."
"Sir, that is not your soup. It is a nutrient broth to satisfy another customer who has different priorities than you do."
"Then their priorities are wrong, they should want a good tasting soup!"
"Sir, I must ask you to leave."
It could not compete with newer launchers, particularly those from SpaceX.
So, the alternative is what? Start lobbying to force Euorpean, an other, governments to exclusively use SpaceX because they are so cool?
And I don't know, maybe we should wait until Ariane 6 had its first launches, while also cutting them the same slack for failed early launches SpaceX gets?
> So, the alternative is what?
Glad you asked.
First you have to ask, for what does Europe need independent access. Then you have to ask, how likely is that this capability is actually needed. And then, what can we do to achieve this goal with the effective use of resources.
For Europe to build a huge Ariane 6 while also having Vega, Vega C and also working on small launchers makes no sense.
One Sozuy sized rocket and some basic refueling tech could do everything Europe needs.
So if it really was about independent access, then making a plan that focuses on that would make mare sense.
Actually, the coercion would have to be forcing the European governments to use the expensive European launcher, when they could save a great deal of money just launching on SpaceX.
SpaceX has definitively shown that there's a disconnect between delivering a great product and acting as a distribution mechanism for aerospace entitlement.
> SpaceX has definitively shown that there's a disconnect between delivering a great product and acting as a distribution mechanism for aerospace entitlement.
Did spaceX not receive significant "aerospace entitlement" funding through public contracts?
> Did spaceX not receive significant "aerospace entitlement" funding through public contracts?
They did not. All SpaceX contracts with NASA are fixed price, not cost plus, paid when they can deliver. What is entitlement about them? Did you know that Boeing lost a substantial amount of money for Starliner with a similar contract? Despite being paid much more?
Is SpaceX profit margin on these contracts similar to that of their private contracts? Did SpaceX secure these contracts before having an actual product ready? Were these contracts available for any actor, or just American actors? Did NASA offer these contracts to the best offer, or to multiple companies?
The answer is, pretty obviously, that NASA's contracts aim in part to secure a well-fed American space companies, and that they alone are enough to pay for SpaceX development costs, as they would for Ariane. I do think NASA funding is a good thing, but pretending SpaceX doesn't tap that manna is disingenuous.
Because it was becoming old tech and primarily it costs too much. It's fine for a few big ticket once-in-a-decade launch missions but things are evolving.
I’ve been looking for something like this, thanks.
I wonder if theres a similar manual (similar in that a non spcialist can follow and make some kind of sense from it) for SpaceX as well.
There's also this guide for their rideshare (Transporter) missions, if you don't want to buy a whole rocket: https://storage.googleapis.com/rideshare-static/Rideshare_Pa...
It's surprisingly affordable, starts at $330k USD for a 50 kg microsat (although unless you want to build and qualify your own separation system, it'll really be almost double that because you'll have to buy a separation system from SpaceX).
"accessories not included" :))
Given that a dedicated rocket is gone run you 8 million or more, seems like a good deal.
Excellent
Well, _this_ at least, is rocket science.
Crafted by Rajat
Source Code