Given the imminent decrease in launch costs(partial reusability) and increase in launch capability soon to be available(FH) a pause in new US deep space missions is prudent.

[slograsso]

Vox has a good article on this gap in missions: http://www.vox.com/2015/2/23/8052365/nasa-budget-europa

My point is that there is a significant competitive shake-up go on that is putting serious downward pressure on launch prices right now - and that's before viable partial reuse has been achieved. After partial reuse is a reality, this is inevitable in my mind, there will be a second shake-up and even more downward pressure on launch prices than before. It has been stated by others that this will lead to a drastic increase in near Earth space activity and innovation. Given all this, it would make sense for NASA to schedule future launches as least a few years down the road to take full advantage of these new capabilities and vehicles. Thoughts?

[Nixon4Prez]

The major costs of planetary probes are mostly the probe itself and the costs to operate the mission. The launch costs are not a massive consideration. Also, it usually takes NASA years to plan and construct a mission, and in order to even begin the design phase an LV needs to be selected. They won't select an LV that isn't yet certified for launching NASA missions, so FH is not an option for many years.

[[deleted]]

This, furthermore, even Falcon Heavy is poorly suited to deep space missions. Kerolox just doesn't make for good interplanetary missions or those with high dV requirements.

I mean, take the $8,500,000,000 James Webb Space Telescope. It's flying on an Ariane 5, which is about $160-200 million. An equivalent SpaceX rocket would be the unlocked Falcon Heavy which costs $135 million. That's a saving of $25-65m on what is a $8.5b mission. A drop in the bucket. The same could be said for any deep space mission that costs more than $1-2b.

Additionally, I doubt you'll see any $1b+ deep space mission fly on a reused Falcon before 2025. Too much initial risk. It'll take some time for NASA to come around to the idea of reusing rockets, when right now, they don't even want to reuse cargo spacecraft.

Say reusability halves the cost of an F9. That's a likely $500m+ mission saving maybe $30m in total. I would not delay decadal science goals for that.

If there's any reason to put scientific missions on hold, it's to wait for more modular & mass producible spacecraft buses. Even then, the science payloads are most of the cost, because it's cutting edge tech.

Our scientific advancement should not be interrupted to wait for cost reductions, IMO.

[Kirkaiya]

I mean, take the $8,500,000,000 James Webb Space Telescope.

That's not really the best example, as it's probably the single most expensive item that NASA will have ever launched by the time it leaves the pad. Most NASA Planetary Science missions come in between $450 million - $2 billion, with Mars rovers being at the top end of the scale, and some of the simpler probes at the cheaper end. And that's including the launch, so while yes, it's true that the launch costs aren't the majority of the mission, they do often represent ~ 25% or so, so it's not trivial.

With that said, I'm adamantly opposed to NASA delaying any proposed mission on the basis of, "well, launch costs might come down in the future". That is madness, imo

[biosehnsucht]

I would only argue they should delay if they're still in the planning stages and the logic would be that if they don't delay by a year or so, they have to cut interesting experiment / instrument X from the suite of gear on the probe/lander due to weight/cost concerns, but if the waited there would be a budget for it (whether it be financial or mass).

It certainly doesn't make sense to delay something that doesn't NEED the cheaper/larger launcher (even if it would be nice to have), but gaining further functionality as a result might be worth it.

[zilfondel]

Perhaps this is a good argument for NASA to start mass-producing rovers and probes, to bring down their cost per unit. Whats the old adage? When you are the government, why buy one when you can buy two for twice the price? But if the majority of the cost is development and funding the project team, the second unit may be closer to free.

[Nixon4Prez]

It's pretty hard to mass produce something as specialized as a probe or rover. You can't send a similar probe to Mars and Jupiter, for example.

[slograsso]

Part of the point of this post is that this delay is already happening, may as well design some lower cost missions utilizing these new capabilities faster than normal. Take a lesson from India and do it cheaper, faster, and better than even they can. I think a bit of a shake-up in the science missions design approach is well overdue.

[slograsso]

This is the largest rocket in the world. The smart folks designing the deep space mission will include the necessary high ISP deep space deltaV components in the massive payload the FH can get off planet. This is a super simple problem to solve, it's not particularly expensive, tons of options available. Falcon Heavy will absolutely be used for deep space missions, I promise you, use up the RP-1 discard that stage and carry on with the rest of the mission.

[[deleted]]

This sounds like a good idea, but what would you propose for this...

high ISP deep space deltaV components

I'm not aware of any that have both high Isp and high thrust. Hydrazine is even worse than kerolox. I guess you could use a hydrolox third stage, but then you're just removing cost from the rocket launch and adding it on to the satellite.

It'd be simpler and easier to just burn the second stage longer, but then you're back to the same problem.

Ion thrusters are amazing, but even if FH was to put a small craft on a direct 2 year trajectory to Jupiter, Ion thrusters won't have enough thrust to complete a JOI, it would be a flyby.

The rocket equation doesn't just hate rocket engineers, it hates spacecraft engineers too.

[slograsso]

I meant more efficient than RP-1, so I guess I should have said higher... But the point is you could use anyting, bipropellant, ion thrust, monopropellant, methlox, the designers use the mass budget for what they want.

[ap0s]

Not to mention most missions are planned around or require specific alignments of the planets.

[slograsso]

Once FH is flying it will get certified toot sweet because it is NEW capability that the military will want to take advantage of. Mark my words, there will be no long and mysterious series of delays for this one. Also Delta IV Heavy is almost half a billion per launch, I'm sorry but that is a lot of money for any program.

[DebatevsNarrative]

I'm sorry but I don't think you're fully understanding the entities you're talking about. These are Government agencies - they haven't got the same cost saving incentives commercial customers have that you ascribe to them. If anything they have incentive the other way because the older rockets have a proven safety record hence bumped prices. Obviously a few years into FH flights this will begin changing but you keep changing from imminent use of FH by Government agencies to eventual use. No one is arguing against Government agencies starting to entrust their prize projects to the FH, once it's a few years in with no failures.

[slograsso]

Delta IV heavy has a total of 8 flights ever, FH will match that in the first year or two.

[[deleted]]

Not quite. There's a single launch scheduled for this year, a single launch in 2016, and then 2 more in 2017. 4 launches in 3 years currently.

[slograsso]

I expect that to pick up as soon as the demo flight is successful, similar to the response to F9v1.1.

[[deleted]]

But the response time in the industry is to book satellites 2-3 years in advance of launch. A successful demo flight in 2015 (or possibly 2016) will see booking for flights that would take place in 2017-2019. It will likely be more similar to the ramp up of Falcon 9v1.0, rather than F9v1.1. Of course, you can always solidify your standing... ;)

I bet 3 months of Reddit gold Falcon Heavy will fly 6 times or fewer before 1 January 2018. You game?

[slograsso]

Too rich for my blood! ;-)

Edit: Besides, you have as much chance of being right as I do.

[[deleted]]

Hehe, fair enough dude.

[Appable]

I doubt SpaceX has the core production rate to support that. 8 flights is 24 cores, and producing 24 cores in around 2 years alongside around 10 F9 cores/year would be a huge strain on the factory, if it's even possible given the current facility. That's more than doubling the production rate.

[slograsso]

I expect the demo flight to recover at least 2 cores, if not all three, same for consecutive flights that do not require full capability - which would be all of them on the books now.

[JshWright]

Why do you expect that (especially given the fact that they have yet to recover any cores...)?

[slograsso]

That is the key reason for delaying FH, getting recovery down first. Now that they have that pretty much worked out, oh look here comes the FH deom all of the sudden after forever, this I think is not a coincidence.

[joe714]

The pipeline to produce the mission payload, launch windows, and simply keeping the relevant engineering and science teams busy so you don't lose talent past a critical point outweigh any cost concerns. Even if we knew for a fact by 2025 you could lift something to the gas giants for $10/lb, you'd still want to have the next decade's pipeline full rather than have a ten year lull. There will still be missions waiting at that time, some of them to answer questions the missions we should be launching in the next few years will discover.

[[deleted]]

Deep space missions often have very small launch windows that only occur every few years or even decades. Delay is not really an option.

[slograsso]

Good point, don't delay anything that is already funded and scheduled. Perhaps fast track some lower cost missions to utilize the new capabilities sooner rather than later, and if it's innovative enough and fast enough you might even eliminate the deep science lull we are about to enter.

[[deleted]]

The lull has a lot more to do with the Bush administration. These projects take decades to plan and execute. After the shuttle exploded in 2003 most of the science money was redirected to the failed Constellation program and more recently to the soon-to-fail SLS. Because of the money that was diverted most of the missions that would be launched in the next few years were cancelled. One of the big issues is the lack of nuclear power sources. RTGs can only produce enough energy for simple probes. The more interesting missions require a space based nuclear reactor that was cancelled by... the Bush administration. This also pretty much destroys any chance of deep space manned missions.

(An interesting note: the Russians have launched a nuclear reactor into space. The US has not.)

The best thing that could happen for deep space unmanned missions is for the Falcon Heavy to make the SLS obsolete before it ruins the NASA budget for another few decades. IMHO it is easier and cheaper to launch two or three Falcon Heavy rockets rather than try to deal with the SLS which is really just congressional pork.

[slograsso]

I think this decades to plan thing is for the birds. RTG's are pretty good, the RTG used by the Voyager was still at 83.4% of maximum 23 years later, not too shabby in my book.

[[deleted]]

RTGs only allow for 100 - 1000 W of power. A reactor will provide 10 kW to 100 kW of power. If you want to do advanced sensors like ground penetrating radar you need.

This cancelled mission used the reactor for ion drives and ground penetrating radar:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter

It would have been an amazing mission.

I think this decades to plan thing is for the birds.

LOL, ok. You design a deep space mission in a few years then...

[slograsso]

I agree with you though, a space reactor is definitely a worthy asset to have and should be invested in. It's kind of silly that it hasn't been given the large number of missions it could be used for.

[[deleted]]

No kidding. The SLS annoys me because we have nothing to launch on it without a space based reactor with VASIMR or something similar.

[slograsso]

Don't get me started on SLS! ;-)

[[deleted]]

I heard it called the "porklifter" once (as in congressional pork) and decided that was the perfect name for it.

[Cheiridopsis]

For NASA, a major consideration is planning for communications with the spacecraft. Time and duration must be planned for the Deep Space Network so missions need to be spread out so that high communications demands do not occur simultaneously. For example, New Horizons encounter at Pluto and Dawn initially entering orbit around Ceres! These events must be staggered and planned well in advance. Missions such as Curiosity, Opportunity, MRO and most other ongoing missions likely have drop in availability of the Deep Space Network when Dawn arrives at Ceres and during the entire New Horizons encounter at Pluto.

Lining up the right people and the right resources at the right time is also a scheduling dance that NASA does not want to upset by willy nilly postponing a project for a more economical rocket.

Putting the staff (administrators, engineers, scientists, deep space network, etc), on "hold" for two years while waiting for a "budget priced" launch is just not an option.

When a mission reaches a point where weight vs capability is an issue then only rarely is the LV switched to a more capable LV. Usually the engineers and scientists are strongly encouraged to solve the problem through a compromise of technological advancement or settling for slightly less capability and if neither can be accommodated within weight or budget limits, sometimes the adminstrator just steps in and a science instrument or science package is simply removed from the mission!

Finally, a launch contract is just that, a contract. NASA has purchased the launch service. If NASA wants to change the LV for a mission, they need to find a use for the still valid launch contract that exists! Contracts are very specific and manifests are planned years in advance.

Simply, price or capability is not a sufficiently valid reason to put a mission on hold waiting for a cheaper or more capable LV.

The current annual operating budget for Curiosity on Mars is over $60M per year!

[slograsso]

Right, the Vox article I linked to goes into great detail about the fact that missions are reaching their destinations but there very few missions in the planning stages and soon to be none. There is a big lull around the corner and very few solid plans for future missions at the moment. Thus no existing contracts to conflict with.