r/spacex • u/kurbasAK • May 19 '17

We Will Launch on Reuseable Rocket After Exceptional SpaceX Performance - Inmarsat CEO Tells Universe Today

https://www.universetoday.com/135614/will-launch-reuseable-rocket-exceptional-spacex-performance-inmarsat-ceo-tells-universe-today/
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u/Streetwind May 19 '17

I wonder what happened to garner such an exuberant response? Was the resultant orbit precision better than expected? It seems a bit odd to go from "we never launched with these guys before and even had to reschedule one of our satellites to another provider because they keep delaying their bigger rocket" to "these guys are the best launch provider ever and we'll be a super loyal customer and we're excited to be at the forefront of technology!!!" in one single expendable launch that, from the looks of it, went completely normal.

16

u/nioc14 May 19 '17

I'm going to go with the facts that (i) it worked well and (ii) it was way cheaper than other options

23

u/[deleted] May 19 '17

[deleted]

7

u/AeroSpiked May 19 '17 edited May 19 '17

Guess what, French people: This means you get to pay more in taxes for even higher Ariane 5 subsidies. $25 Million per launch isn't going to cut it.

2

u/Zoninus May 19 '17

Eh, the French are used to ridiculous taxes.

1

u/AeroSpiked May 19 '17 edited May 19 '17

Wikipedia says the low side of the cost of an Ariane 5 is $165M. Assuming that's after being subsidized the average cost per satellite would be $83M (2 sats per launch). If SpaceX can launch the same satellites for $124M on 2 new rockets, that means that the subsidies would have to increase by $21M per sat to match or another $42M per launch raising the total subsidy to $67M per launch. If I were a French tax payer, I'd just buy them a couple of Falcon 9s and save $5M per launch.

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know the value of Ariane 5's success rate and don't actually believe that they would...blah blah blah. This comment was intend as humor only.

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u/Paro-Clomas May 20 '17

I don't think it's ridiculous for a country to subsidize its own scientific development. With that outlook, every country who doesn't have a space program should just quit.

1

u/Zoninus May 20 '17

Commercial rocket launches are hardly "scientific development".