NASA budget proposal targets SLS (Space Launch System)
The White House's fiscal year 2020 budget request for NASA proposes to delay work on an upgraded version of the Space Launch System and would transfer some of that vehicle's payloads to other rockets.
The proposal, released by the Office of Management and Budget March 11, offers a total of $21 billion for the space agency, a decrease of $500 million over what Congress appropriated in the final fiscal year 2019 spending bill signed into law Feb. 15.
A major element of the proposal is to defer work on the Block 1B version of the SLS, which would increase the rocket's performance by replacing its existing Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage with the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage. The budget "instead focuses the program on the completion of the initial version of the SLS and supporting a reliable SLS and Orion annual flight cadence," the OMB budget stated. The first SLS/Orion mission, without a crew, is now planned for the "early 2020s," according to the budget, an apparent slip from the planned 2020 launch of Exploration Mission 1.
NASA had previously planned to use the Block 1B version of SLS to launch elements of its lunar Gateway, using a "co-manifesting" capability enabled by the rocket's greater performance. Instead, according to the budget document, those components will be launched on "competitively procured vehicles, complementing crew transport flights on the SLS and Orion."
[...] The budget proposal would also remove one non-exploration payload from the SLS manifest. The proposal offers $600 million for the Europa Clipper mission, enabling a launch in 2023. However, NASA would instead seek to launch the mission on a commercial launch vehicle rather than SLS, a move it claims "would save over $700 million, allowing multiple new activities to be funded across the Agency." The fiscal year 2019 budget request also proposed a commercial launch of Europa Clipper, but Congress placed into law in the final funding bill the requirement to use SLS for that mission.
Are we nearing a good timeline?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @06:57PM (4 children)
With heavy reuse over time that's not a significant cost of launch. The real problem is propellant usage. That provides the floor to just how cheap one can make the launch.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 14 2019, @08:35PM (3 children)
Oh, absolutely. In fact they aim to bring the per-launch cost down below the F9 in relatively short order.
But that's not what the tweets takyon linked to are about - they seem to be specifically about bringing the *construction cost* of a BFR down below that of an F9:
This will sound implausible, but I think there’s a path to build Starship / Super Heavy for less than Falcon 9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2019
At least 10X cheaper
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2019
That would be a real game changer, but I'm not holding my breath.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:05PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
Exactly.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:21PM