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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 08 2019, @10:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the to-the-moon-and-back dept.

Soon, three companies will be able to perform resupply missions for the International Space Station, and that may be one too many:

How Sierra Nevada's "Dream Chaser" Could Become a Nightmare for Northrop Grumman

[Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC)] intends to perform its obligations under [Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2)] using its new "Dream Chaser" spaceplane, a privately developed space shuttle (but only one-quarter the size of the Space Shuttle) that will launch into orbit atop a rocket, make its delivery, then land back on Earth under its own power like an airplane.

[...] Dream Chaser is designed to be reusable, with a service life of 15 missions. In this regard, the SNC is similar to SpaceX, which sends cargo to ISS aboard reusable Dragon space capsules launched into orbit by also-reusable Falcon rockets. Utilizing reusable spacecraft, both SNC and SpaceX should be able to save considerably on the cost of their missions, because they will not need to build new spacecraft for each supply run. In contrast, Northrop Grumman performs its ISS resupply missions using disposable Cygnus cargo capsules carried by expendable Antares rockets -- likely a more expensive proposition.

[...] Currently, plans are for SNC to purchase Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance for this purpose. But in 2016, SNC's then-VP of Space Systems John Olson let on that SNC was designing the spaceplane to be "agnostic" as to which launcher it uses to get into orbit. So in theory, at least, SNC could use a SpaceX Falcon rocket to carry Dream Chaser instead. Because SpaceX's Falcons are cheaper than the expendable rockets used by other space launch companies, this would probably result in a lower launch cost for SNC (and the cost could be even cheaper if SNC uses reusable Falcons).

Granted, this would necessitate giving money to a competitor. However, seeing as Sierra Nevada is going to have to buy its launch vehicles from somebody, it might as well buy them from the cheapest provider. And if it does so, this will almost certainly mean that not only SpaceX, but SNC, too, can bid below what Northrop Grumman must charge to perform CRS-2 supply missions for NASA -- giving SNC a leg up in future competitions to resupply ISS.

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:21PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 08 2019, @03:21PM (#783690) Journal

    Maybe the competitor (SpaceX) would not be interested in money from SNC?

    Why should SpaceX launch a competitor's cargo capsule when SpaceX already has its own cargo capsule and can directly compete for the ENTIRE contract for ISS resupply missions?

    The alternative would be that SNC gets the entire contract and then treats SpaceX as a subcontractor for launch services. Why would SpaceX want that when it already has the entire capability to resupply the ISS? And soon will have the capability to send humans?

    Maybe I'm missing something. I cannot see any reason why the SNC Dream Chaser atop Falcon 9 launcher would ever come to pass (at least for ISS resupply missions). Wishful thinking by SNC.

    I would speculate that any scenario for putting a dream chaser atop an F9 / FH / BFR is probably something that SpaceX is already working on using its own payloads / capsules.

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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:39PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 08 2019, @05:39PM (#783762)

    If NASA mandates two spacecraft suppliers, then SpaceX launching both makes a lot of sense for SpaceX, while saving money for SNC, and therefore for NASA on the next bid round.

    That requires two things:
    1) NASA is ok with an almost-exclusive first stage, defeating redundancy if the competitors remove their rarely-used Dream-chaser-compatible launchers.
    2) congresscritters somehow resist bribing by the big guys

    Might happen. Not holding my breath

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:22PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 08 2019, @07:22PM (#783807) Journal

      You make a good point that SpaceX launching both Dragon and Dream Chaser payloads eliminates the 1st stage redundancy -- which is probably a bad thing. It would be good for us as a nation to have more redundancy, not less. But only so much redundancy as can be paid for by the available launch contracts.

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      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.