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

    • weew@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      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@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        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
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          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.