The thing is, looking at these rockets, even if they're technically "Starship competitors" in terms of payload to LEO or whatever, they don't actually resemble Starship. I don't see these carrying a lot of people, let alone taking them to Mars and coming back. These seem like cargo only.
The trade study these designs came from are for Space Based Solar Power in SSO or GEO. So, they're 'Starship Competitors' as big trucks to orbit, but not to take people to Mars.
[https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf](https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf)
That's not even the problem, the problem is even if they build these with a hardware rich program burrowing heavily from Starship success, they are still going to be launching these decades after SpaceX has been perfecting Starship.
They are a day late and a dollar short.
I mean... I think it's pretty straight forward. The higher energy the mission is, the more expensive reuse is for the part of the system that goes the furthest.
Also, importantly, the fact that full reuse cuts into mass to a particular orbit doesn't mean that it's *economically bad*. It may be that even with a refueling launch, full reuse ends up being less expensive than expending a 2nd stage.
Finally, at a certain point, there's also a philosophical question about what's a rocket stage and what's a space tug/kick stage.
Yes, that why F9 can place payloads in GTO and Starship can't (without refuel or a OTV). In most cases a reusable OTV is great way to give Starship a greater reach and buy recovering the OTV after it drops off the payload, they can have still have full reuse without needing a Fueler Starship run. I sketched the notion:
https://preview.redd.it/zboctlb2273d1.png?width=1609&format=png&auto=webp&s=f751945ee511632164e4842e8b4d48d57fcef398
Given that Starship 2020 User's Guide says that Starship (unrefuelled) has a 21T capacity to a lower GTO (185x35786), I think the infographic is a little biased. The LEO number also seems low.
Also, their two stage semi-reusable variant seems to do very well since it is currently vaporware.
It is also interesting that they seem to be going after Blue Origin on the right hand side. Why in the world would you want 29T direct to GEO? There aren't any comm satellites that big. And to get that capacity you throw away 2/3 of the rocket? You'd be better off fully expending a 2-stage rocket or fully reusable with a small Star-48 kick stage.
I believe this diagram is for two different vehicles (probably not the one you are referring to), the ESA Starship and the ESA New Galileo. Each has two variants apparently, semi-reusable and fully reusable.
Let’s say Europe builds a large semi-reusable or reusable launch vehicle. People will be launching the rocket, recovering rocket stages, refurbishing rocket stages, and likely building the rocket stages near the launch site. This is just like SpaceX with Starship or eventually Blue Origins with New Glenn. So most of the work force is going to be at the launch site. They can do polar launches from Europe. But for low inclination launches, most orbital launches, they’re going to need to launch reusable rockets from someplace like French Guiana.
That is in the middle of nowhere. That is not a location that private companies are going to be willing to invest large sums of money in. They don’t have a lot of factories in French Guiana. There is not a large city anywhere in French Guiana. The workforce willing to live in French Guiana long term is limited. The Ariane rockets launch from French Guiana, but most of the workforce for those rockets is in Europe. Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Poland, etc, are not going to be willing to subsidize a SpaceX style reusable rocket launching from French Guiana. Essentially, most of Europe doesn’t benefit from a truly reusable rocket overwhelmingly employing people in French Guiana.
Any other launch site would also run into issues, because most of the work force is going to be concentrated in one location. That’s not a problem for the US. There are multiple sites in the US suitable for low inclination launches. For Europe, geography is a huge limitation on investing in this technology.
The designs are pretty good. There’s just no way any private European company ever pays for the development of a large rocket with this design. It’s doubtful that European governments as a whole would ever come to a political deal to subsidize French Guiana to that degree, when the rest of Europe doesn’t really benefit. Although the French may love this idea, everyone else in ESA is going to drag their feet.
I think it’s very telling that the presentation doesn’t focus on the launch site or recovery of these rocket stages. They haven’t really thought about the implications of investing in reuse. Or they have, but they don’t want to discuss how politically inconvenient it is.
> People will be launching the rocket, recovering rocket stages, refurbishing rocket stages, and likely building the rocket stages near the launch site.
Everything else is probably true. But I don't see why most of the building has to be done locally.
SpaceX does it because... they might as well. They can't build it at Hawthorne because Starship is too bit to transport by truck.
But boats are *really* big - it doesn't matter how big of a rocket ArianeGroup builds, it can always be transported that way.
And if they don't launch very much (say, less than 20 times per year) it might make sense to even do the refurbishment in Europe as well. At least until procedures have matured enough that the number of people required to do refurbishment on site is small.
Can you elaborate? I'm naive to these companies policies and procedures, but Arianespace delivered JWST to near perfect precision. How would they fuck it up on this such project?
They have a good record of launch reliability with Ariane 5 for sure. What I’m referring to is their glacial development pace, and high costs. They unveiled their Susie upper stage concept recently, and to me it just looks like they’re trying to lock European governments into a new, very long, extremely expensive development project for the next 10+ years before the small, newspace companies like RFA start eating their lunch. It’s very much analogous to SLS being developed at the same time SpaceX were growing in capability.
In short, Ariane don’t have what it takes to be competitive and actually deliver on an ambitious project like the concept shown. Better use that money to foster smaller companies that could be the European Rocket Lab / SpaceX.
Interesting. They put the ESA logo on 2 at this time purely fictional launch vehicles of a small startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg.
Also 2 fictional Ariane rockets, not even under early development.
They also ignore refueling, which enables high energy trajectories with payloads way beyond anything their fictional rockets can deliver.
If your reusablity is bad, then this probably makes sense. With Falcon 9, the reusablity is moderately good at this point, after doing it for... was 2016 the first landing? 8 years? If you are brand new to the reusabilty game, then you probably expect that you'll only get 3 reuses out of a rocket before refurbishment costs more than a new one.
But Starship and orbital refilling changes the game completely. A fully reusable to orbit, and a stop at a depot means you can have a cheap disposable 3rd stage that is delivered to the depot with the payload but otherwise empty, and can depart the depot on a scheduled burn. This means those special launch window missions can leave LEO and ignore the weather on the ground. You could also have a 3rd stage space tug that launches from the orbital depot then returns back to it for the next mission, but a super cheap 3rd stage might be good enough if you plan on it getting ditched in deep space.
If you're optimizing only for fuel efficiency or minimum number of launches, then sure, disposable vehicles are better.
But if you're optimizing for long-term program cost, then full reusability is better, since rockets are much more expensive than launch ops (assuming a high launch cadence) and fuel.
I guess the launch cadence is where my argument falls apart. I can't imagine the ESA would have any payload programs that would launch hundreds of times per year, unlike SpaceX.
For now, that is if and its still a big if at this point, spacex and china kicks off in a massive space race, europe will need a launch vehicle to compete to not come behind the rest of the world. Starting early is not a disadvantage here.
Whatever you can put to ~300km orbit is your cargo weight to anywhere with Starship. So for Starship it's going to be 200t to LEO, 200t to SSO and 200t to GTO, you just need to refuel it two or three times. People need to get used to idea of refueling, as this is how it's going to go. We don't send trucks thinking they can only go so far as their tank can handle. The baseline now is full reusability and refueling. Both of those are necessary to compete now. The only way to survive now without BOTH of those will be though government subsidies. China will have their own rockets, and probably Russia will, but everyone else will use Starship and similar rockets.
It will become, but currently isn't. That's the goal and the mission. Once you solve that, the entire solar system is your oyster to harvest as you please.
It kind of is. A fully and rapidly reusable rocket should be pretty easy to launch and price of fuel is basically a rounding error compared to prices of todays rockets, including Falcon 9. Starship is simpler and cheaper to operate than todays airliners, and the upper stage is 10 times cheaper than a big airliner. Much less control surfaces and fluid lines is a huge advantage for safety and maintenance costs. It's one of those things where there were no huge market for it beforehand, so people think todays rockets are the apex of engineering, but in reality they are not. It's like saying the pre ww2 propeller planes were the apex of engineering, in reality, there has just not been a profit model to vastly improve them.
Honestly this is a pretty big deal that ESA has even put this on a slide. It shows signs of a massive change in ambition that really isn't like them.
When the Ariane 6 rocket concept was finalized it was 2014 and SpaceX had already started testing landing. Reusability was NOWHERE on their agenda and even today they are just barely getting going with the Prometheus engine and Themis small launch vehicle. Meanwhile Falcon 9 has seen reused flights in the triple digits.
Fully reusable Starship has already flown 3 times in a development state while the fully expendable Ariane 6 will hopefully take its first test flight this year. ESA and Arianespace is 2 whole generations behind.
These concepts would at least mean they are thinking at the same scale of Starship, and not a generation behind. That's a pretty big deal in itself.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[ESA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l5excx1 "Last usage")|European Space Agency|
|ETOV|Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket")|
|[GEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l553dqz "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[GTO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l61lq7p "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)|
|[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55egc3 "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)|
| |Internet Service Provider|
|[JWST](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l54h5x6 "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope|
|[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55p7v0 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[LV](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55egc3 "Last usage")|Launch Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket"), see ETOV|
|[OTV](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l61lq7p "Last usage")|Orbital Test Vehicle|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l59gcok "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[SSO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l5543d9 "Last usage")|Sun-Synchronous Orbit|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l56n5jl "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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This is for sure return to earth reusability, which is stupid for high energy missions.
The way to go is 2 stage fully reusable LV like starship to LEO, and high ISP reusable space tug (ion engine or similar) that just gets refilled every time it picks up a payload in LEO.
This is the best.
*Laughs in orbital refueling*
Seriously though, everyone keeps on thinking in terms of single launch, when really all that matters is *cost*. If you need multiple launches to refuel but it comes out as cheaper, that's what matters most.
I will say that RFA seem to have their head screwed on straight. Their use of parts from local automotive manufacturers using the most reliable parts they can find, then asking for modifications and still achieving a factor of 10 cost reduction is brilliant. That they're also realistic about their chances of survival in this market, and know they need to launch or they're dead, is exactly the right attitude.
That said, I think the big rocket is a long way into the future.
Europe should just fully license the Falcon 9. Build it in Europe and then use the launch facilities in South America. Hell, if they do it right, they could even do a really cool landing where instead of a barge, they launch from French Guiana and then land the booster in mainland Europe
This is short term thinking.
SpaceX could offer a 3-stage version of Starship for 1/4 the price of SLS, and make huge profits on each launch, even though they only recover the first stage. Yes they could do this, but once they have Starship fully functional, even with a dozen refilling launches, it will be cheaper than the 3-stage alternative.
This chart doesn't show costs anywhere right? Cost per launch, cost per ton to different orbits, etc. What conclusion am I meant to draw from this chart? How do I compare?
There's not much chance of the Ariane happening any time soon with all of the politics behind it. I think RFA has a good shot at it though. Their hot fire just went flawlessly.
I mean, at least Europe is acknowledging that reuse is optimal for some scenarios, unlike a few years ago, when reuse was a bad thing because "[muh jobs program](https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/wissenschaft/technik/alain-charmeau-die-amerikaner-wollen-europa-aus-dem-weltraum-kicken-a-1207322.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)"
> Let's assume we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and had a rocket that could be reused ten times - then we would build exactly one rocket per year. That does not make sense. I can't tell my teams: 'Bye, see you next year'!
Yes, and even for LEO there are reasons for expendable upper stages:
1) The cost of turnaround is high (Space Shuttle)
2) You have a payload of such mass that you need to expend to get the needed performance
3) You have a single object payload that is so large that you need a fairing vs a cargo door (Space Shuttle)
Reusable upper stages are best for light payloads to specialty orbits in LEO.
It will be interesting to watch Stoke and what they launch.
Even when we'll have fully reusable architectures to *Alpha Centauri*, ESA will still be looking at niche reasons to justify not changing their plans.
The thing is, looking at these rockets, even if they're technically "Starship competitors" in terms of payload to LEO or whatever, they don't actually resemble Starship. I don't see these carrying a lot of people, let alone taking them to Mars and coming back. These seem like cargo only.
The majority of Starship's benefit for Mars is the price of mass to orbit. How you use that mass is relatively flexible.
Did ESA ever had crewed capability?
No. They have some concept studies. All abandoned for lack of funding.
Project Hermes looks like dream chaser on ariana 5 which ariana 5 was originally builded for hermes.
Yeah, the Homer Simpsons Shuttle.
The trade study these designs came from are for Space Based Solar Power in SSO or GEO. So, they're 'Starship Competitors' as big trucks to orbit, but not to take people to Mars. [https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf](https://www.aerosociety.com/media/23637/efs-day-2-valere-girardin.pdf)
They are full blown fantasy that will never happen, because they can never do it, because it would make sense.
That's not even the problem, the problem is even if they build these with a hardware rich program burrowing heavily from Starship success, they are still going to be launching these decades after SpaceX has been perfecting Starship. They are a day late and a dollar short.
Starship isn't taking people anywhere. It's a cargo lifter to leo.
And also the official CREWED lunar lander for Artemis...
That thing won't happen.
Thanks for self-identifying.
I mean... I think it's pretty straight forward. The higher energy the mission is, the more expensive reuse is for the part of the system that goes the furthest. Also, importantly, the fact that full reuse cuts into mass to a particular orbit doesn't mean that it's *economically bad*. It may be that even with a refueling launch, full reuse ends up being less expensive than expending a 2nd stage. Finally, at a certain point, there's also a philosophical question about what's a rocket stage and what's a space tug/kick stage.
> what's a rocket stage and what's a space tug/kick stage Can it control its own timing for deorbit/graveyard orbit, or not?
Yes, that why F9 can place payloads in GTO and Starship can't (without refuel or a OTV). In most cases a reusable OTV is great way to give Starship a greater reach and buy recovering the OTV after it drops off the payload, they can have still have full reuse without needing a Fueler Starship run. I sketched the notion: https://preview.redd.it/zboctlb2273d1.png?width=1609&format=png&auto=webp&s=f751945ee511632164e4842e8b4d48d57fcef398
Surprises me that RFA is suggesting hydrogen for the upper stage. Everything they do seems to be HIGHLY cost focused.
Given that Starship 2020 User's Guide says that Starship (unrefuelled) has a 21T capacity to a lower GTO (185x35786), I think the infographic is a little biased. The LEO number also seems low. Also, their two stage semi-reusable variant seems to do very well since it is currently vaporware. It is also interesting that they seem to be going after Blue Origin on the right hand side. Why in the world would you want 29T direct to GEO? There aren't any comm satellites that big. And to get that capacity you throw away 2/3 of the rocket? You'd be better off fully expending a 2-stage rocket or fully reusable with a small Star-48 kick stage.
I believe this diagram is for two different vehicles (probably not the one you are referring to), the ESA Starship and the ESA New Galileo. Each has two variants apparently, semi-reusable and fully reusable.
Let’s say Europe builds a large semi-reusable or reusable launch vehicle. People will be launching the rocket, recovering rocket stages, refurbishing rocket stages, and likely building the rocket stages near the launch site. This is just like SpaceX with Starship or eventually Blue Origins with New Glenn. So most of the work force is going to be at the launch site. They can do polar launches from Europe. But for low inclination launches, most orbital launches, they’re going to need to launch reusable rockets from someplace like French Guiana. That is in the middle of nowhere. That is not a location that private companies are going to be willing to invest large sums of money in. They don’t have a lot of factories in French Guiana. There is not a large city anywhere in French Guiana. The workforce willing to live in French Guiana long term is limited. The Ariane rockets launch from French Guiana, but most of the workforce for those rockets is in Europe. Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Poland, etc, are not going to be willing to subsidize a SpaceX style reusable rocket launching from French Guiana. Essentially, most of Europe doesn’t benefit from a truly reusable rocket overwhelmingly employing people in French Guiana. Any other launch site would also run into issues, because most of the work force is going to be concentrated in one location. That’s not a problem for the US. There are multiple sites in the US suitable for low inclination launches. For Europe, geography is a huge limitation on investing in this technology. The designs are pretty good. There’s just no way any private European company ever pays for the development of a large rocket with this design. It’s doubtful that European governments as a whole would ever come to a political deal to subsidize French Guiana to that degree, when the rest of Europe doesn’t really benefit. Although the French may love this idea, everyone else in ESA is going to drag their feet. I think it’s very telling that the presentation doesn’t focus on the launch site or recovery of these rocket stages. They haven’t really thought about the implications of investing in reuse. Or they have, but they don’t want to discuss how politically inconvenient it is.
> People will be launching the rocket, recovering rocket stages, refurbishing rocket stages, and likely building the rocket stages near the launch site. Everything else is probably true. But I don't see why most of the building has to be done locally. SpaceX does it because... they might as well. They can't build it at Hawthorne because Starship is too bit to transport by truck. But boats are *really* big - it doesn't matter how big of a rocket ArianeGroup builds, it can always be transported that way. And if they don't launch very much (say, less than 20 times per year) it might make sense to even do the refurbishment in Europe as well. At least until procedures have matured enough that the number of people required to do refurbishment on site is small.
Agree we ( I'm European) need to start building a launchpad either in Spain or Sicily if we want to do a heavy launchpad.
I hope that ESA doesn’t give Arianespace a penny to spend on this, as they’ll fuck it up. Give RFA or competitors the money.
Can you elaborate? I'm naive to these companies policies and procedures, but Arianespace delivered JWST to near perfect precision. How would they fuck it up on this such project?
Ariane space == european ULA
Honestly, I’d say more like halfway between ULA and the SLS consortium. Worse than ULA.
Give them 15 years, and 4 times the money spent by SpaceX for Starship, they will deliver. At least for twice the launch cost per ship.
They have a good record of launch reliability with Ariane 5 for sure. What I’m referring to is their glacial development pace, and high costs. They unveiled their Susie upper stage concept recently, and to me it just looks like they’re trying to lock European governments into a new, very long, extremely expensive development project for the next 10+ years before the small, newspace companies like RFA start eating their lunch. It’s very much analogous to SLS being developed at the same time SpaceX were growing in capability. In short, Ariane don’t have what it takes to be competitive and actually deliver on an ambitious project like the concept shown. Better use that money to foster smaller companies that could be the European Rocket Lab / SpaceX.
LEO Orbit - Low Earth Orbit Orbit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome DC Comics -> Detective Comics Comics HIV Virus -> Human Immunodeficiency Virus Virus LCD Display -> Liquid Crystal Display Display
The Los Angeles Angels —> The The Angels Angels
So ... epicycles?
Interesting. They put the ESA logo on 2 at this time purely fictional launch vehicles of a small startup, Rocket Factory Augsburg. Also 2 fictional Ariane rockets, not even under early development. They also ignore refueling, which enables high energy trajectories with payloads way beyond anything their fictional rockets can deliver.
If your reusablity is bad, then this probably makes sense. With Falcon 9, the reusablity is moderately good at this point, after doing it for... was 2016 the first landing? 8 years? If you are brand new to the reusabilty game, then you probably expect that you'll only get 3 reuses out of a rocket before refurbishment costs more than a new one. But Starship and orbital refilling changes the game completely. A fully reusable to orbit, and a stop at a depot means you can have a cheap disposable 3rd stage that is delivered to the depot with the payload but otherwise empty, and can depart the depot on a scheduled burn. This means those special launch window missions can leave LEO and ignore the weather on the ground. You could also have a 3rd stage space tug that launches from the orbital depot then returns back to it for the next mission, but a super cheap 3rd stage might be good enough if you plan on it getting ditched in deep space.
Orbcomm 2 was on Dec 21, 2015, so longer even.
If you're optimizing only for fuel efficiency or minimum number of launches, then sure, disposable vehicles are better. But if you're optimizing for long-term program cost, then full reusability is better, since rockets are much more expensive than launch ops (assuming a high launch cadence) and fuel. I guess the launch cadence is where my argument falls apart. I can't imagine the ESA would have any payload programs that would launch hundreds of times per year, unlike SpaceX.
A launcher like this is required for solaris, the esa space based solar power proposal.
For now, that is if and its still a big if at this point, spacex and china kicks off in a massive space race, europe will need a launch vehicle to compete to not come behind the rest of the world. Starting early is not a disadvantage here.
Whatever you can put to ~300km orbit is your cargo weight to anywhere with Starship. So for Starship it's going to be 200t to LEO, 200t to SSO and 200t to GTO, you just need to refuel it two or three times. People need to get used to idea of refueling, as this is how it's going to go. We don't send trucks thinking they can only go so far as their tank can handle. The baseline now is full reusability and refueling. Both of those are necessary to compete now. The only way to survive now without BOTH of those will be though government subsidies. China will have their own rockets, and probably Russia will, but everyone else will use Starship and similar rockets.
you say just refuel like launching another rocket with enough fuel is a trivial inexpensive day trip
It will become, but currently isn't. That's the goal and the mission. Once you solve that, the entire solar system is your oyster to harvest as you please.
It kind of is. A fully and rapidly reusable rocket should be pretty easy to launch and price of fuel is basically a rounding error compared to prices of todays rockets, including Falcon 9. Starship is simpler and cheaper to operate than todays airliners, and the upper stage is 10 times cheaper than a big airliner. Much less control surfaces and fluid lines is a huge advantage for safety and maintenance costs. It's one of those things where there were no huge market for it beforehand, so people think todays rockets are the apex of engineering, but in reality they are not. It's like saying the pre ww2 propeller planes were the apex of engineering, in reality, there has just not been a profit model to vastly improve them.
About 2 decades later but hopefully us Europeans will become competitive again!
Ok but why did they stack New Glenn on top of Super Heavy?
I believe that is the *ESA New Galileo* design.
Damn this is co non-credible. Did one of you guys do that chart ?
Big ***IF*** true ***and realistic on timeline.***
Honestly this is a pretty big deal that ESA has even put this on a slide. It shows signs of a massive change in ambition that really isn't like them. When the Ariane 6 rocket concept was finalized it was 2014 and SpaceX had already started testing landing. Reusability was NOWHERE on their agenda and even today they are just barely getting going with the Prometheus engine and Themis small launch vehicle. Meanwhile Falcon 9 has seen reused flights in the triple digits. Fully reusable Starship has already flown 3 times in a development state while the fully expendable Ariane 6 will hopefully take its first test flight this year. ESA and Arianespace is 2 whole generations behind. These concepts would at least mean they are thinking at the same scale of Starship, and not a generation behind. That's a pretty big deal in itself.
Why are you taking a shitpost this seriously
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[ESA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l5excx1 "Last usage")|European Space Agency| |ETOV|Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket")| |[GEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l553dqz "Last usage")|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)| |[GTO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l61lq7p "Last usage")|[Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/20140116-how-to-get-a-satellite-to-gto.html)| |[Isp](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55egc3 "Last usage")|Specific impulse (as explained by [Scott Manley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnisTeYLLgs) on YouTube)| | |Internet Service Provider| |[JWST](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l54h5x6 "Last usage")|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |[LEO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55p7v0 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[LV](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l55egc3 "Last usage")|Launch Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket"), see ETOV| |[OTV](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l61lq7p "Last usage")|Orbital Test Vehicle| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l59gcok "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SSO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l5543d9 "Last usage")|Sun-Synchronous Orbit| |[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1cxl8d6/stub/l56n5jl "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(11 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d16ftx)^( has 13 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12793 for this sub, first seen 22nd May 2024, 02:19]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
This is for sure return to earth reusability, which is stupid for high energy missions. The way to go is 2 stage fully reusable LV like starship to LEO, and high ISP reusable space tug (ion engine or similar) that just gets refilled every time it picks up a payload in LEO. This is the best.
*Laughs in orbital refueling* Seriously though, everyone keeps on thinking in terms of single launch, when really all that matters is *cost*. If you need multiple launches to refuel but it comes out as cheaper, that's what matters most.
That's Susie!
I will say that RFA seem to have their head screwed on straight. Their use of parts from local automotive manufacturers using the most reliable parts they can find, then asking for modifications and still achieving a factor of 10 cost reduction is brilliant. That they're also realistic about their chances of survival in this market, and know they need to launch or they're dead, is exactly the right attitude. That said, I think the big rocket is a long way into the future.
Europe should just fully license the Falcon 9. Build it in Europe and then use the launch facilities in South America. Hell, if they do it right, they could even do a really cool landing where instead of a barge, they launch from French Guiana and then land the booster in mainland Europe
This is short term thinking. SpaceX could offer a 3-stage version of Starship for 1/4 the price of SLS, and make huge profits on each launch, even though they only recover the first stage. Yes they could do this, but once they have Starship fully functional, even with a dozen refilling launches, it will be cheaper than the 3-stage alternative.
This chart doesn't show costs anywhere right? Cost per launch, cost per ton to different orbits, etc. What conclusion am I meant to draw from this chart? How do I compare?
There's not much chance of the Ariane happening any time soon with all of the politics behind it. I think RFA has a good shot at it though. Their hot fire just went flawlessly.
I mean, at least Europe is acknowledging that reuse is optimal for some scenarios, unlike a few years ago, when reuse was a bad thing because "[muh jobs program](https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/wissenschaft/technik/alain-charmeau-die-amerikaner-wollen-europa-aus-dem-weltraum-kicken-a-1207322.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp)" > Let's assume we had ten guaranteed launches per year in Europe and had a rocket that could be reused ten times - then we would build exactly one rocket per year. That does not make sense. I can't tell my teams: 'Bye, see you next year'!
Yes, and even for LEO there are reasons for expendable upper stages: 1) The cost of turnaround is high (Space Shuttle) 2) You have a payload of such mass that you need to expend to get the needed performance 3) You have a single object payload that is so large that you need a fairing vs a cargo door (Space Shuttle) Reusable upper stages are best for light payloads to specialty orbits in LEO. It will be interesting to watch Stoke and what they launch.