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

  • weew@lemmy.ca
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    6 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
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      6 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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        6 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.