MOSCOW, 26 APR – RIA Novosti. The main reason for the low price of rockets, the Falcon 9 SpaceX Elon musk is a cheap engine and in-house production of components, told RIA Novosti correspondent member of Russian Academy of cosmonautics named after Tsiolkovsky Andrew Jonas.
Earlier, the Russian company “glavkosmos launch services” (included in the scope of “Roscosmos”), which directly competes with SpaceX for launch services market, said that the American company Ilona Mask cheap reusable rocket, as their real full price originally paid by NASA or DoD. Before dumping on the part of SpaceX, said the General Director of the Russian space Agency, Dmitry Rogozin. In his opinion, the market price of the launch of the rocket Falcon-9 is about $ 60 million, but NASA and the Pentagon it costs 1.5-4 times more expensive.
Jonas explained that the cost of engines is 50-60 percent of the cost of the rocket. On the return of the first stage of the Falcon 9 are the nine Merlin engines and one second stage. The cost of each approximately $ 1.5 million. “Musk doesn’t use as we are “the King engine” RD-171, which, though “king”, but very expensive. Instead, it uses a cheap “farmer-engine”. With our engine to compare technical solutions impossible, but it performs its work”, – said the expert.
So, said Jonas, the cost of missiles at the Mask leaves 30-35 million dollars. And launch services on the commercial market, it sells for $ 60 million.
“there is also the question: do we need reusability? It is not so clear. The output load for the Falcon 9 is reduced by 30 percent,” said Jonas.
to reusability paid off, need a big tempo runs than Musk has provided the company, displacing competitors from the market and started to create satellite groups Starlink, said the expert.
