Responsive Launch Vehicle Cost Model

1. 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: (310) 726-4100 FAX: (310) 726-4110 E-mail: jwertz@smad.com 401 Coral Circle El Segundo, CA 90245-4622 Web: http://www.smad.com

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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@smad.com)

5. 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

6. 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., don’t 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

7. 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

8. Estimated Range of Total Launch Cost • Baseline Scenario (LR = 0) • Similar parameters as prior model, except launch is for 400 kg to LEO amortized over 10 years Baseline System (LR0) Cost per Launch 1000 lbs to LEO FALCON System (LR16) Cost per Launch 1000 lbs to LEO • FALCON Scenario (LR = 16) • Numerical results given in the paper • Differences from Baseline are modest

9. Total Cost of Launch for Low Cost Expendable • This is generally the lowest cost within each of the 4 scenarios • Others curves have similar behavior Total Cost of Launch vs. Launch Rate for Low-Cost Expendable Model

10. 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

11. Comparison of Recurring Costs • 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 R&D • 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 Baseline System (LR0) Recurring Cost per Launch FALCON System (LR16) Recurring Cost per Launch

12. “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

13. Examples of Opportunity Value in Specific Mission Areas • Military missions — rapid and continuous battlefield intelligence that’s “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 tomorrow’s experiment based on today’s 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

14. 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

15. 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 isn’t 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.