Abstract The paradigm change in space launch vehicle design and operation - from performance optimization to minimum cost strategy - has greatly increased the importance of cost engineering. This is even more important for the future generation of reusable launch vehicles (RLVs) due to the relatively high development costs. The paper presents several examples of applied cost engineering — the selection of the cost-optimum vehicle concept, the reduction of development costs to some 60 % of previous business-as-usual costs, or even down to about 30 % by pure commercial-industrial project implementation; it also considers the conditions for achieving minimum space transportation costs with reusable launch vehicles. Finally, the role of cost engineering for the selection of technologies is described: it is important to verify the fact that the new technology will contribute to cost reduction - and not lead to increased costs and complexity.
Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) and Cost Engineering Principles
2000-01-01
10 pages
Article/Chapter (Book)
Electronic Resource
English
Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) and Cost Engineering Principles
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