I'm sure that's not a surprise, but with the fleet leaders at 18 missions, the expectations are to push beyond 20 missions next year with a long range goal to extend that to 30 missions, more likely in 2025.
That's an unexpected inclusion in a news article from Santa Barbara county news site Noozhawk, on SpaceX dramatically increasing the number of launches from Vandenberg in the coming year. The main point of the article is that they will be ramping up launch rates to levels that are completely unheard of in the "old space" or "space 1.0" environment.
Nate Janzen, a SpaceX manager for Vandenberg operations was in the area for a talk on economic matters at the Santa Maria Country Club. There are years when the entire calendar of Vandenberg launches has been single digits. Then SpaceX started launching from the base.
“We’re really ramping up Vandenberg to rates that we’ve never seen before and the area hasn’t seen before,” Janzen said, prompting applause from the audience.
From one launch four years ago to three the next year and 12 the following year, SpaceX expects about 30 liftoffs by the end of this year.
For 2024, the rate could jump to 50, then rocket to 100 in 2025.
Which is pretty much one per week in '24 doubling in '25 after going from 30 to 50 between '23 and '24. Earlier this year, SpaceX announced it had leased Vandenberg's Space Launch Complex-6 to give them two launch facilities on the West Coast as well as on the East Coast. One of the things SpaceX is working toward on both coasts is to be capable of launching all of their platforms on more than one pad. At the Cape Canaveral side, LC39A has been used for Falcon Heavy missions along with Crew and Cargo Dragon missions on the Falcon 9, while LC 40 was used for Falcon 9 missions that didn't require the extra infrastructure that 39A has. They're in the final stages of adding a tower to LC-40 that will enable it to handle Crew and Cargo dragons, at a minimum. The crew access arm was added about a month ago, and it's getting close to operational status.
The same flexibility appears to be a goal for Vandenberg.
SpaceX rendering of a Falcon Heavy on Vandenberg SFB, LC-6. Image credit to
SpaceX
It appears that LC-6 will begin construction work soon with a first launch NET the summer.
Closer to home, Thursday morning's (12:07 AM EST) Starlink mission from SLC-40 was SpaceX's 90th launch of the year, out of a stated goal of 100. If everything listed as NET December on the NextSpaceflight.com SpaceX manifest launches in December (excepting Starship IFT3), that would be 101 launches in the year.
It would be grand to see something sizeable launch from SLC6. Originally built for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory then modified for the Shuttle, to my memory nothing larger than a Scout rocket has launched from this SLC. EdC
ReplyDeleteThe article at Noozhawk says Delta IVs used to fly from there:
Delete"With the final Vandenberg Delta IV launch from SLC-6 last year, ULA prepared to move out of the site and SpaceX decided to move in — allowing the Falcon Heavy missions to take place in the future from there."
Good. Vandenberg was, after the golden age of Minuteman testing, redesigned to launch heavy lift vehicles, until the Shuttle launch facility was built so incorrectly that NASA couldn't fix it and then threw it all away.
ReplyDeleteGood for the Left Coast. Might actually wake some idiots up. And Vandenberg gives different launch profiles for everything from satellites to crewed launches.
Be interesting to see if SpaceX is considering a Starship pad out there, too.
FWIW, I haven't heard of them considering a pad there, but if they ever get the kind of tempo they're talking about, they may need one.
Delete30 seconds after posting my comment about Delta IVs flying from Vandenberg, it popped into my head that SpaceX might have landed more rockets back at Vandy than ULA has launched with their 46 launches up to this year.
While doing a MMIII footshot back in '76, my mates and I piled in to the (Gubmint) truck and tooled on out to SLC-3 to see where the Shuttle was going to launch from. At the time, all was quiet.
DeleteThe Enviroweenies actually put the kibosh on Vandyland becoming a shuttle launch point. California Scheming, y'know...
About 2 years ago I interviewed remotely for a contract position with Space X, doing design work and checking other peoples' work. One of the managers mentioned that the long range goal with the boosters was to be able to get each one to at least 100 uses by around 2030. They were hoping to be able to do this, but metal fatigue will be an increasing concern as the number of uses goes up.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I'm wrong, but doesn't metal fatigue have the tendency to fail with no warnings (not even a postcard)? Fill the tanks 30 times, say, everything seems normal, and on the 31st it just pops?
DeletePerhaps there are signs you could see if you could measure or see everywhere in a tank but that's a level of inspection that's not likely.
Apologies for not being clear in my comment; here's an article on metal fatigue that explains it better than I can:
Deletehttps://www.metalsupermarkets.com/what-is-metal-fatigue/#:~:text=Metal%20fatigue%20occurs%20when%20metal,during%20the%20metal%20fatigue%20process.
Metal Supermarket was an approved vendor on a few of my assignments, though the engineer(s) that I worked for would run the analysis and determine the actual alloy.
Thanks, but I understand in broad strokes what fatigue is. My thought was more along the lines of how could one inspect a tank that has been used a bunch of times and decide whether or not it's actually safe to re-use?
DeleteIs visual inspection adequate? Inspecting every square inch of both tanks is going to be difficult. How about X-rays? Same basic problems but exaggerated by needing to have a moving X-ray sensor and emitter directly opposite each other on that tank. Maybe that's "low-tech, everyday" stuff now.
Visual inspection is a good starting point, but I'm thinking dye penetrant inspections, for one. Heck, the fast food equipment maker I worked for used at least 3 inspection methods on their fast food cooking oil units, besides visual inspection. Leaky cooking oil reservoirs are a big NO-NO in the fast food industry, especially with the teens operating the equipment.
DeleteRobotics(under human guidance) have been used for at least the last few decades, and I suspect(but I don't know for certain, being reluctantly retired) that AI controlled inspection will become the standard before the end of this decade.
Note the recent furor over aircraft parts missing their documentation, as chronicled in publications such as Aviation Week. Much of that documentation concerns use cycles and material properties. Missing/falsified documentation is a nightmare for the QC staff, and I think only the tip of the iceberg is showing at this point.
There is always the chance of something unexpected happening. I've been a believer in Murphy's Laws since I was a teenager during the last days of the Roman Empire, or so it seems. And I've seen the results of metal fatigue on both firearms and plane crashes(among other causes of failures).
The MTBF ratings regarding the boosters is going to be interesting, if at all possible. You usually use MTBF on components, and the weakest link determines the usefulness of the SWAG for reliability/safety/lifecycle. Lotsa high-stress parts in the Boosters, y'know.
ReplyDeleteFor all the work, mostly PR but also creation of special economic zone, politicians from CA who had been in Congress put into converting VAFB to commercial launch facility beginning in the late 1990s and going silent in about mid-00s, I think Space X has singlehandedly realized that goal.
ReplyDeleteIOW, if not for X, that goal would still be unrealized. And this is only the beginning.
(Awkward sentence but makes the point.)