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From: Torbjorn Lindgren <tl@none.invalid>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?Q?Re=3A_=E2=80=9CDid_nobody_stop_to_think_what_might_happen?=
 =?UTF-8?Q?_in_an_emergency_in_space=3F=E2=80=9D?=
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2024 10:20:07 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 8/28/2024 7:29 AM, Torbjorn Lindgren wrote:
>> Cryptoengineer  <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 8/27/2024 1:40 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>> The Soyuz launcher, btw, is one of the most reliable rockets ever
>>> built. There have been over 1700 launches.
>> 
>> It kind of varies depending on variant. Soyuz-FG was pretty good, 70
>> launches with just one failure but Soyuz-U was less so, a whopping 786
>> launches but also 22 failures (that they acknowledge!).
>> 
>> And the record for the current version, Soyuz 2, is worse than U...
>> One source gives: 160 orbital plus 1 suborbital, with 4 full failures
>> and 2 partial.
>> Another say: 178 total launches, with 7 full or partial failures,
>> sources differ.
>> 
>> The corresponding statistics for the current version of Falcon 9,
>> Block 5 is: 311 orbital launches, 1 failure (Starlink 9-3), no partial
>> failures. That's a failure rate more than an order of magnitude lower
>> than Soyuz 2's record! and until very recently it 300+ launches with NO
>> failures.
>> 
>> And if we take the entire programs (all Soyuz vs all Falcon 9 & Falcon
>> Heavy) it's a convincing "win" for SpaceX (by a factor of roughly 2 to
>> 3). But yes, the Soyuz as a whole it probably deserves the "one of"
>> even if the Soyuz 2 doesn't, though mostly through sheer numbers
>> launched during the Soviet era.
>> 
>> Which is why even before Russias invasion of Ukraine the insurance
>> premium for Falcon 9 was noticeably lower than that for Soyuz, whether
>> launched from Russia (lots of recent failures) or by ESA (no faiures
>> but only got up to 9 launches AFAIK).
>
>I am surprised that Musk would insure any of his space rockets.  Now his 
>customers, yes.

This is insurance premium for satellites that the satellite owner
pays, not the rocket. A bit of short-hand for "satellites launched
on".

I doubt ANY of the launch companies have ever insured any of their
launches! I expect that even if they wanted it would be very hard to
find someone that was willing to do so.

Note that the launch provider is (always?) pretty much only on the
hook for a replacement launch or what they were paid if something goes
wrong under standard launch contracts, NOT the value of the satellite.

Arguably SpaceX is a bit more exposed than others since they want the
first stage back so it can be reused, but the reality is that with an
estimated internal first stage cost of $20-25M they'd still make money
even if the didn't reuse anything! The biggest limitation to them from
that would actually be that they couldn't launch nearly as many
(production limit).

But the main point was that insurance cost for a satellite is
basically a percentage of the replacement cost, and THAT percentage is
heavily connected to the launch vehicle reliability since that's where
most of the mishaps happen. And Soyuz percentage was significantly
higher than Falcon 9, though not as high as some other options.

Not ALL of failures happen during launch so it's not 100% correlated
to "estimated chance of launch failure" but it's by far the biggest
component.