Responsive Launch Vehicle Cost Model

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MIC03-1716
Paper No. RS2-2004-2004
2nd Responsive Space Conference, Los Angeles, CA,
April 19-22, 2004
Responsive Launch Vehicle Cost Model
James R. Wertz
April 20, 2004
Phone [phone] FAX (310)
726-4110 E-mail jwertz_at_smad.com
401 Coral Circle El Segundo, CA 90245-4622 Web
http//www.smad.com
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Topics

• The Reusable vs. Expendable Launch Cost Model
  (RvsELCM)
• The Microcosm Responsive Launch Cost Model (RLCM)
• Inputs Level of Responsiveness
• Results and Sensitivity
• Opportunity Value the Benefits of
  Responsiveness
• Conclusions

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Summary

• Microcosm previously developed a Reusable vs.
  Expendable Launch Cost Model (RvsELCM)
• Designed to compare ELV and RLV costs
• Purely analytic model, such that others can input
  whatever assumptions they like
• Goal of the current work is to extend the RvsELCM
  to explicitly model responsive launch systems in
  order to evaluate the cost of
• Responsiveness
• Surge Capability
• It is often assumed without proof that reusable
  vehicles will save cost by not throwing away the
  launch vehicle every time it is used
• Conclusion of prior work was that ELVs were lower
  cost than RLVs for launch rates up to at least
  100 times the expected rates in the near or
  medium term
• Key question Does this same conclusion apply to
  responsive systems?

Our goal is to provide a quantitative estimate of
the Cost of Responsiveness.
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The Reusable vs. Expendable Launch Cost Model
(RvsELCM)

• Claunch Cdevelopment Cvehicle Cflightops
  Crecovery Crefurb Cinsurance
• where
• Claunch Total cost of launch in FY04 dollars
  (i.e., excluding inflation)
• Cdevelopment Amortization of nonrecurring
  development cost
• Cvehicle Reusable Amortization of vehicle
  production cost     Expendable Recurring
  production cost (Theoretical First Unit cost
  reduced by learning curve)
• Cflightops Total cost of flight operations
  per flight
• Crecovery Recurring cost of recovery
  (reusable only)
• Crefurb Refurbishment cost (reusable only)
• Cinsurance Cost of launch insurance
  (reliability)
• Details of individual terms are explained in the
  prior paper, available on request. (E-mail
  request to jwertz_at_smad.com)

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RvsELCM Estimate of Cost/Launch vs. Launch Rate
for 5,000 kg to LEO

• Conclusions
• Economics, rather than philosophy, should be the
  major driver in how new launch vehicles are
  designed and built.
• A factor of 5 to 10 reduction in near-term launch
  cost appears feasible.
• It is unlikely that RLVs can be as economical as
  ELVs for launch rates less than 100 times the
  current rate.

• These are the baseline results and conclusions
  with which we started

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The Microcosm Responsive Launch Cost Model (RLCM)

• Upgrade of RvsELCM to account explicitly for
  responsiveness and surge capability
• Add new term called cost of inventory
  (Cinventory) defined as
• Cinventory Cvehicle Ninventory Iinventory
  / Lyear
• where
• Cvehicle average production cost per
  vehicle
• Ninventory number of vehicles required to
  be in inventory
• Iinventory annual interest rate for the
  vehicles in inventory
• Lyear number of launches per year
• More vehicles are produced, therefore average
  cost/vehicle goes down
• Pay only interest on the inventory -- i.e., dont
  amortize the cost
• For reusable, determine how many vehicles are
  needed to meet the responsiveness requirement vs.
  number needed to meet total launch requirement
  and use the larger of the two (but pay only
  interest on inventory assets held for
  responsiveness)
• Adjust Operations Cost by adding a Standing Army
  Cost as a number of FTE personnel and cost per
  FTE
• Adjust cost of development, flight operations,
  recovery, and refurbishment to account for
  required additional effort by simply changing
  existing input parameters

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Baseline Inputs -- Level of Responsiveness

• Added cost of responsiveness depends on how
  responsive the system needs to be
• Define Level of Responsiveness (LR) number of
  vehicles to be kept in inventory at any time to
  meet requirement for immediate launch
• Four scenarios defined for comparison
• Baseline (LR 0)
• Traditional, non-responsive scenario based on
  prior baseline adjusted to AF/DARPA FALCON
  parameters of 400 kg (1000 lb) to LEO, amortized
  over 10 years, at nominal use rate of 20 flights
  per year
• Commercial (LR 3)
• Meets need for launch on demand without a surge
  capability some advance notice allows launch to
  be done largely by available crew
• FALCON (LR 16)
• Meets FALCON requirement of 16 launches in 24
  hours some added standing army, but some advance
  notice still allows substantial use of existing
  crew
• Full Responsiveness (LR 32)
• Meets strong responsiveness requirement with
  minimal advance warning and need to launch a 2nd
  surge before inventory can be rebuilt (or after
  an attack on primary launch site)
• Standing Army ranges from 3-6 FTE for Commercial
  expendable scenario to 40-100 for Full
  Responsiveness reusable scenario
• Other input parameters are less critical and are
  listed in the paper

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Estimated Range of Total Launch Cost
Baseline System (LR0) Cost per Launch 1000 lbs to
LEO
FALCON System (LR16) Cost per Launch 1000 lbs to
LEO

• Baseline Scenario (LR 0)
• Similar parameters as prior model, except launch
  is for 400 kg to LEO amortized over 10 years

• FALCON Scenario (LR 16)
• Numerical results given in the paper
• Differences from Baseline are modest

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Total Cost of Launch for Low Cost Expendable
Total Cost of Launch vs. Launch Rate for Low-Cost
Expendable Model

• This is generally the lowest cost within each of
  the 4 scenarios
• Others curves have similar behavior

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The Cost of Responsiveness
Cost of Responsiveness for FALCON Baseline (LR16)
Cost of Responsiveness forCommercial Responsive
Launch (LR3)
Cost of Responsiveness for Fully Responsive
System (LR32)

• Results relative to non-responsive baseline
  scenario
• Commercial Scenario (LR 3) total cost increases
  by 1 to 5
• FALCON Scenario (LR 16) total cost increases by
  3 to 30
• Full Responsiveness Scenario (LR 32) total cost
  increases by 25 to 80
• In all scenarios, effect of required
  responsiveness is strongest with low launch rate

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Comparison of Recurring Costs
Baseline System (LR0) Recurring Cost per Launch
FALCON System (LR16) Recurring Cost per Launch

• For comparing launch vehicle economics, total
  cost is a more fair comparison than recurring
  cost because total cost includes the effect off
  non-recurring development cost
• Recurring cost is a better way to compare with
  existing systems, because existing vehicle
  non-recurring costs were typically covered by
  government RD
• Example Adding just interest on development
  cost would add 1billion to 2 billion to the
  cost of each Shuttle launch
• See paper for tabular comparisons

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Opportunity Value the Benefits of
Responsiveness

• To decide if responsiveness is worthwhile,
  economic cost must be balanced against the
  benefits
• Cost can be estimated, but benefits are harder to
  quantify
• Ordinarily benefits are quantified by mission
  utility analysis -- but usually not in economic
  terms
• Opportunity Cost economic or utility
  consequences of something not being available
• Example launch failure resulting in failure to
  provide adequate communications during wartime
• We define Opportunity Value benefit gained by
  being able to respond immediately, having assets
  available in a short time, or being able to
  conduct immediate, short term missions or
  experiments
• Examples of Opportunity Value
• Assets safely deployed in CONUS can reach any
  location in the world in 45 minutes from launch
• Assets can be assigned to operational commands
  for tactical applications
• Ability to monitor inherently hazardous
  environments
• Ability to overfly hostile territory
• Without warning
• Without being a hostile act
• With little or no chance of being shot down

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Examples of Opportunity Value in Specific
Mission Areas

• Military missions rapid and continuous
  battlefield intelligence thats responsive and
  flexible (quote from Gen. Tommy Franks
  assessment of the strategy for the Iraq war
  March 22, 2003)
• Without responsiveness, space will be less
  relevant to future military users
• Commercial missions ground-based (rather than
  space-based) sparing, 0-g manufacturing based on
  needs defined today
• For space to remain relevant, the next major set
  of commercial systems must succeed
• Science observations of transient phenomena
• Responsive science with tomorrows experiment
  based on todays results
• Education experiments launched while the
  student is still a student, or at least still in
  astronautics
• Civil missions monitoring of natural disasters
  or search and rescue
• Crewed missions can we make them safer by
  having responsive launch available?
• Consumables brought up as needed to extend
  on-orbit life
• Inspection missions launched when needed to
  evaluate potential problems
• Spare parts brought up to mitigate any launch
  or on-orbit failures

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Representative Missions Enabled by Responsive
Space

• Global Strike
• In-Space Inspection
• Launched in response to foreign launch of unknown
  assets
• Shadow at a distance, then close
• Can typically launch at first or second pass over
  the launch site
• Provides rapid examination, and potentially
  mitigation, of unknown space assets
• Responsive Communications
• Single satellite or constellation launched to
  fill an immediate need
• Coordinated Missions
• Example coordinated attack on a target area
  with both visual observations and wind
  measurements prior to the attack, RF
  communications during the attack, and damage
  assessment afterward
• Search and Rescue
• Very low cost RF system searching large areas for
  distress signals
• Surveillance system can search very wide ocean
  areas
• Use prograde orbit with inclination just above
  central search latitude
• Monitoring natural disasters
• Volcanoes, floods, major storms, or fires
• Materials processing in space
• Launch chemical or biological processing labs
  on demand and return products as soon as the
  processing is complete

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Conclusions

• Making space missions responsive increases launch
  cost between 2 and 80 of the total cost,
  depending on the level of responsiveness
• Commercial responsive (i.e., launch-on-demand
  with no surge capability) has a very low cost,
  estimated at 2 to 5 of the total cost
• Surge capability requires that more vehicles be
  maintained in inventory and more people be
  available to launch them
• Can increase costs by 5 to 80, depending on the
  surge level required
• It is difficult to quantify the Opportunity Value
  of responsiveness, but it appears clear that the
  potential value far outweighs the cost
• Substantial value for nearly all types of
  missions -- military, civil, scientific,
  educational, commercial, and human spaceflight
• For military missions, responsiveness and a
  corresponding surge capability enable new
  missions and provide a level of responsiveness to
  the warfighter that isnt currently possible
• Provides a new source of intelligence and new
  military and non-military options that can
  potentially prevent or shorten military conflicts
  and shorten the time from terrorist activity to
  consequences for those who orchestrated them

Responsive, low-cost missions can begin the
process of changing the way we dobusiness in
space. That change is critical to making space
relevant to the 21st century.