Dependence on SpaceX has been a concern for the Pentagon, which wants multiple vendors of rides to orbit.

  • JohnDClay
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    10 months ago

    It’s not really able to compete with SpaceX on price. But with customers like the DOD or Kuiper, there’s probably a market for someone who isn’t SpaceX.

    https://youtu.be/wD3MruC-FTc

    • weew@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      they can compete in very specific cases - like heavy load to GTO. Falcon Heavy would require full expenditure of all 3 cores to match, which wouldn’t be much cheaper. Plus the larger fairing size helps with certain kinds of satellites.

      • JohnDClay
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        10 months ago

        Yeah, but gto with fairings bigger then even the extended falcon heavy fairing willing to accept higher costs is a very narrow use case, I doubt it would support the whole vehicle. I’m guessing they will get quite a bit of business from trying to diversity away from SpaceX though.

        • weew@lemmy.ca
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          10 months ago

          the point is that it isn’t higher cost for those missions. Falcon Heavy will have to run at 100% expended mode which is nearly the same cost as Vulcan.

          And some missions and payloads outright exclude falcon Heavy, period. High orbit and/or large satellites.