ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehearsal

Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by hef19898 on Friday November 24, 2023 @01:28AM (#38401146)

I really, really shoupd have kept that study offline somewhere...

Back the day, before SpaceX came along a serious launch provider, ESA conducted a study on the financial viability of reuseable rockets. The conclusion was, that they are viabke, technically feasible but only financially interestung with a number of launches per year for which there was no demand.

SpaceX for sure is launching a lot of their own Starlink satellites...

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by jve on Friday November 24, 2023 @03:14AM (#38401661)

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/syal5p/about_...

> Breakeven in 2 to 3 flights

But then, 7 days ago he posted on https://www.reddit.com/r/ula/comments/17wos9u/tory_bruno_ceo...

> As I have said before, propulsive fly-back generally requires an average reuse of 10x per booster, which has been achieved.

So maybe it is difference between SMART (catch by helicopter) re-use and propulsive landing

But he does acknowledge in comments that reuse can improve launch cadence.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by hef19898 on Friday November 24, 2023 @04:10AM (#38401937)

Which mirrors what I remember from said ESA study (which for love of the universe cannot find online anymore, and I didn't download it back the day). The big question I took from that study was, which was also the point of it, was whether or not if there is enough demand to get over that threshold (whatever the ESA number was) to justify the development of a reusable booster. The answer back then was, back when Starlink wasn't a thing yet and the Russians were still in the market, was no, there isn't enough demand.

Today, it seems, a lot of the launch volume comes from Starlink, which is basically SpaceX in-house demand for something we have no clue about its financial viability or profitability. Hence, I am quite sceptic about a lot of the space launch stuff. We have quite reliable numbers for SpaceX competitors (launch costs, development...) while SpaceX is somewhat of a black box. That alone makes comparing claims from SpaceX (which might well be true, but we cannot tell either way) to verifiable numbers from others dubious at best.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by jve on Friday November 24, 2023 @05:36AM (#38402491)

> SpaceX in-house demand for something we have no clue about its financial viability or profitability

Starlink achieved cash-flow breakeven it seems: https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musk-says-starlink-h...

But the journalism... that statement is only in the title.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by hef19898 on Friday November 24, 2023 @07:33AM (#38403324)

"Elon Musk (or any other person for that matter) says..." and "last quarters results show that" are not even in the same universe so.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by inemesitaffia on Friday November 24, 2023 @09:59AM (#38404616)

Cash flow positive is simple. In a given time period your income is more than your expenses. It doesn't cover what you've spent in the past

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by hef19898 on Friday November 24, 2023 @10:00AM (#38404629)

I know. It isn't called break-even so, that is profits. And cash-flow and profits live on different axis.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by inemesitaffia on Friday November 24, 2023 @10:07AM (#38404708)

True, but profits are limited to financial years. The real question is when they'll have made more than they've spent lifetime. For Tesla it's happened, same for Falcon 9 and Dragon.

What's questionable is starlink, starship and Falcon Heavy

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by di4na on Friday November 24, 2023 @05:38AM (#38402519)

Yeah a problem we were talking about a lot a few years back, before Starlink, was that SpaceX could not find enough market for the amount of launch they needed.

Starlink has been their solution to that but it is still an open question how well that makes money and for how long...

And we have not really seen a space market exploding behind it.

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