SpaceX će za SAD lansirati sondu za Mars i GPS sat

Cudno da su dobili i to od vojske:

"ULA, the Boeing and Lockheed joint venture, charges more than anyone for a space launch. But it doesn’t matter what they charge. ULA doesn’t have to compete with the rest of the world’s launch market—because ULA gets a constant flow of automatic business from the US military. Here’s how it works:
1) The US military needs to launch a lot of things into space, so there’s plenty of business.
2) Because military equipment is tied to national security, the US wants the launches done by an American company.
3) Because space launching, like auto repair, is an opaque process to the public and to politicians, no one knows that ULA’s launch price tag is much higher than it needs to be.
4) ULA works with the government on a “cost plus basis,” meaning their payment for a launch is a percentage of whatever the launch costs them—i.e. they’re incentivized to make it cost more, not less.
5) There’s ample money to go around because of the US’s astronomical military budget.
6) Most infuriatingly, many of the decision-makers in the US Department of Defense are friends with the leadership of ULA, and ULA is a common place for DoD officials to work when they retire from government. So ULA is more likely to get a nod and a wink from the DoD than an audit into how they spend their money.

What that all adds up to is at best, a flawed system that puts zero pressure on lowering costs and at worst, a grand-scale government scandal—all paid for by the US taxpayer.

And do you know what a ULA-DoD circle jerk really doesn’t want around? A company like SpaceX. SpaceX had succeeded in winning much of NASA’s business, but in order to be awarded a military launch contract, a company needs special certification, and curiously, SpaceX had a very hard time becoming certified. Calling bullshit on the process, and knowing that the law requires there to be fair competition for the military’s launching needs, in 2014 Musk brought the issue to Congress, making the case that “SpaceX is not seeking to be awarded contracts for these launches. We are simply seeking the right to compete.”

[...]

Musk vented about the situation: “ULA has decided that they’re afraid even of an unfair competition. They don’t want a fair competition. They don’t even want an unfair competition. They want no competition at all… they’re afraid that we’ll take some of the huge gravy train they have exclusive access to, or that it’s not going to be as big.” " - toliko o slobodnom trzistu u koje se kunu.

Vise ovdje.

Samo naprijed Musk, poremeti im sve zle planove.

Kakav Dragon program? Dragon je ime kapsule koju SpaceX koristi za nošenje tereta na ISS i za godinu dana za astronaute (Dragon 2).

Red Dragon je samo ime dano Dragonu koji ide na Mars. Naravno biti će prilagođen za tu misiju.

I nije čudno da su dobili ugovor od vojske jer su nedavno "razbili" monopol od ULA. Certificirali su svoju raketa za nošenje satelita Air Force-a.

Na ovaj natječaj se ULA nije niti prijavio, tako da je SpaceX bio jedini prijavljeni. Ali da, velika je stvar jer će američki građani (taxpayers) plaćati duplo manje za takve misije.

Monopol je trajao čak od 2006. godine.

Ja sam mislio da je jos uvijek ULA tu glavna. Tako treba, hebemu pa ovi su jos gori od naseg farbanja tunela.

ULA naplaćuje lansiranje Atlasa V, jeftinijeg od dvaju nosača koja imaju, između 140 i 350 milijuna dolara, ovisno o traženim performansama; lansiranje Delte IV je još skuplje. ULA trenutno ima ugovor s vojskom, kojeg su dobili izravnom pogodbom, za 36 jezgri raketa  za 11 milijardi dolara, odnosno oko 305 milijuna dolara po jezgri ("rocket cores"; ukupno 27 lansiranja; 4 lansiranja su Delta IV Heavy, koji koristi 3 jezgre u prvom stupnju - na njima se lansiraju špijunski sateliti za National Reconaissance Office (NRO)). U početku je izravna pogodba uključivala 50 jezgri;  taj je iznos smanjen na 36 lansiranja, a preostalih 14 jezgri nabavlja se na tržištu - trenutno, mogu ih dobiti ULA ili SpaceX; Orbital ATK-ovi nosači nisu certificirani za vojne satelite.

Dodatno, ULA dobiva 800 milijuna dolara godišnje za održavanje "sposobnosti za lansiranje", tj. vojska porezni obveznici plaćaju održavanje ULA-ove infrastrukture, bez obzira lansirali li ijednu raketu za vojsku u određenoj godini. Početkom ove godine, u Senatu je potegnuto pitanje ukidanja tih 800 milijuna, potaknuto SpaceX-ovom primjedbom da ih smatra nepoštenom subvencijom. SpaceX naplaćuje lansiranja vojnih i NASA-inih satelita između 80 i 90 milijuna dolara, bez ikakvog dodatnog plaćanja održavanja "sposobnosti za lansiranje". Falcon 9 Heavy će biti skuplji, pretpostavlja se otprilike dvostruko, jer kao i Delta IV koristi 3 jezgre u prvom stupnju.

Oko natjecanja za lansiranje GPS satelita - odnedavno bivši dužnosnik ULA javno je izjavio da su u vlasti bili nezadovoljni ULA-ovim odustajanjem od natjecanja za lansiranje, budući da su se "vraški potrudili" na nategnu vodu na ULA-ov mlin: "ULA opted to not bid that," he said. "The government was not happy with us not bidding that contract because they felt that they had bent over backwards to lean the fill to our advantage. But... we saw it as a cost shootout between us and SpaceX. So now we're going to have to figure out how to bid these things at a much lower cost. And the government can't just say ULA has a great track record, they've done 105 launches in a row with 100 percent mission success, and we can give it to them on a silver platter even though their costs are two or three times as high.".