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posted by mrpg on Friday June 22 2018, @03:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the nobody-think-of-the-airplanes dept.

SpaceX just sold the US Air Force the cheapest enormous rocket it's ever bought

SpaceX has won its first contract to launch a classified military satellite on its Falcon Heavy rocket, beating out rival United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The launch contract will cost the US Air Force $130 million, far less than the $350 million average cost of United Launch Alliance's Delta IV, previously the heaviest lifter in the US arsenal. SpaceX's disruptive business model has proven itself in the national security arena, where it has won five previous contracts since its rockets were certified to fly military missions.

The US Air Force decision signals confidence in the engineering behind the new rocket, which consists of three modified Falcon 9 cores strapped together and flew for the first time in February 2018 after seven years of development and testing.

Also at Ars Technica and Space News.


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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @08:04PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 22 2018, @08:04PM (#696923)

    I take it you haven't watched any of Musk's SpaceX talks this year. He's explicitly stated multiple times that the big problem with the BFR was funding it, and the latest design solves that problem by scaling it down so it can cost-effectively take over launches currently handled by the F9, eliminating the need to keep two production lines in operation. The plan is to continue building a backlog of F9s until the BFR is ready for production, and then redirect all resources to the BFR, using the backlogged reusable F9s to handle interim and sensitive launches until the BFR is established as reliable enough to handle everything.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 22 2018, @08:18PM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 22 2018, @08:18PM (#696932) Journal

    He's explicitly stated multiple times that the big problem with the BFR was funding it, and the latest design solves that problem by scaling it down so it can cost-effectively take over launches currently handled by the F9

    To clarify, BFR is a scaled-down version of the even more ambitious Interplanetary Transport System [wikipedia.org] (ITS) that would have been able to lift 300 tons to LEO reusable instead of ~150.

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    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @08:44PM (2 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 22 2018, @08:44PM (#696952)

      The BFR currently being prototyped is also a scaled down version of the originally proposed BFR. The most obvious difference in renderings is the two vacuum engines in the second stage where there used to be 3 (4?), but there was a considerable size reduction as well. It seems they just kept dialing back their ambition until they realized "hey, if we dialed it back just a *little* more, then it could cost-effectively replace the F9, and we would have enough existing market to actually build the thing"

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 22 2018, @08:47PM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 22 2018, @08:47PM (#696953) Journal

        There are multiple configurations, such as the fuel tanker. Maybe they will optimize one for LEO only.

        Also I say ~150 tons because the rumor mill thinks the vehicle height and payload capacity will be boosted a little bit.

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        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @08:58PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Friday June 22 2018, @08:58PM (#696959)

          Yes there are, but they are seemingly all build on basically the same "rocket" base (fuel tank size notwithstanding)

          Hmm, Wikipedia says the BFR was unveiled in September 2017 - I could have sworn the name had been tossed around for much longer than that, but if not then the ITS/BFR transition may indeed be what I was thinking of - it was late last year when the major down-scaling was announced.