Two out of four ain't bad: It's been a weekend of mixed emotions for rocket fanciers

An impressive sequence of launches at the end of August was marred first by ULA's Delta IV Heavy preferring life on the ground just three seconds before lift-off and then SpaceX deciding the weekend weather looked a bit iffy for its next batch of Starlink satellites. The Delta IV Heavy, carrying a spacecraft for the US …

[Potemkine!]

The booster performed the never-less-than-impressive landing trick at the company's Florida Landing Zone 1.

I read contradictory things on this: does that really make the rocket less expensive?

[Filippo]

That's supposed to be the whole point. Where did you read that it doesn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

not the whole point, rapid reuse also enables more launches so increased cashflow, but yes it's most of the point

[Potemkine!]

SpaceX’s last Falcon 9 upgrade could finally make reusable rockets cost-effective : It implies it is not.

Israel said European assessments of reusability have concluded that, to reap the full cost benefits, a partially reusable rocket would need to launch 35-40 times per year to maintain a sizable production facility while introducing reused hardware into the manifest. But it comes from competitors, so they may be not totally objective

[Filippo]

Thanks for providing links! The first one is 2-years old, when SpaceX had never reused a rocket more than once yet. That was not the final objective, and it is not the current state of things. It was like an investment that hadn't paid dividends yet; it doesn't mean it's not a good investment.

The second link, on top of being from competitors, is from 2016, back when the whole reusing rockets thing was not even something that had happened yet.

Overall, I still feel I have no reason to believe SpaceX reusing rockets isn't economically sound.

[Steve Todd]

Um, yes. Throwing away 9 rocket engines after only one use is kind of expensive. The Falcon 9 has been tweaked to require the minimum amount of refurb work as well as to land after launch.

The old space shuttle required a huge amount of work between launches and so much was replaced that it wasn’t a practical proposition. The F9 can be turned around in (from memory) 6 weeks and at a low enough cost that SpaceX offer a discount for using a previously flown model. It’s also cheap enough for SpaceX to loft 10 batches of Starlink satellites themselves (so far), while providing cheap ride shares to their partners at the same time.

[Graham Cunningham]

Also gets around any single-use plastics/metals regulations...

[teknopaul]

single use plastic/metal

that'll be my wacom tablet, two crap mp3 players and about 10 free mice.

single use electronics seems to be a thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland

'While planning approval has already been given, consent is needed since the facility will be on grazing land, meaning crofters with livestock would need to move their animals during the periods around launches.'

Think Cape Canaveral with cattle grids.

[lglethal]

Re: Scotland

"Think Cape Canaveral with cattle grids."

So more Cape Carne-veral then...

I'll get my coat... No need to push...

[ForthIsNotDead]

Re: Scotland

Ha! ^^^^^ ------>