Quote from: Exastro on 03/05/2025 03:46 amQuote from: deltaV on 03/04/2025 11:48 pmQuote from: lightleviathan on 03/04/2025 07:52 pmNot sure when this happened, but Ursa is making satellite propulsion now. It's hydrazine monoprop.Ursa Major's rocket engine business doesn't seem to be getting many customers and the customers Ursa does have are closer to bankruptcy than they are to being industry leaders. The competitors they're losing the most business to aren't other rocket engine companies such as Rocketdyne but launch vehicle companies that build their own engines in house. It may be impossible for Ursa to compete with in-house engines so it's sensible for them to pursue other businesses such as satellite propulsion.That's my impression, too. It makes me think there's something fundamentally wrong with Ursa's business model. I'm not sure what else would explain the lack of sales when they've got what seem (to my inexpert eye) like some very nice hardware on offer. Maybe they're just expensive because they need to support a bunch of development with no guarantee that any given product will sell?I think if I were designing a launcher they'd be on the short-list of folks to talk to.I think their main problem is consistently being behind where the most competitive launch companies needed them to be, so their only possible customers are the less competitive launch companies -- those "closer to bankruptcy than...being industry leaders." Consider their Arroway engine: I'm sure Rocket Lab would have loved to buy that and use it on Neutron, but it's coming online too late, so they needed to build Archimedes in-house. Firefly also built Miranda in-house (although they had more pertinent engine design experience than Rocket Lab, so their buy-or-make calculus was different). So who is Arroway for?
Quote from: deltaV on 03/04/2025 11:48 pmQuote from: lightleviathan on 03/04/2025 07:52 pmNot sure when this happened, but Ursa is making satellite propulsion now. It's hydrazine monoprop.Ursa Major's rocket engine business doesn't seem to be getting many customers and the customers Ursa does have are closer to bankruptcy than they are to being industry leaders. The competitors they're losing the most business to aren't other rocket engine companies such as Rocketdyne but launch vehicle companies that build their own engines in house. It may be impossible for Ursa to compete with in-house engines so it's sensible for them to pursue other businesses such as satellite propulsion.That's my impression, too. It makes me think there's something fundamentally wrong with Ursa's business model. I'm not sure what else would explain the lack of sales when they've got what seem (to my inexpert eye) like some very nice hardware on offer. Maybe they're just expensive because they need to support a bunch of development with no guarantee that any given product will sell?I think if I were designing a launcher they'd be on the short-list of folks to talk to.
Quote from: lightleviathan on 03/04/2025 07:52 pmNot sure when this happened, but Ursa is making satellite propulsion now. It's hydrazine monoprop.Ursa Major's rocket engine business doesn't seem to be getting many customers and the customers Ursa does have are closer to bankruptcy than they are to being industry leaders. The competitors they're losing the most business to aren't other rocket engine companies such as Rocketdyne but launch vehicle companies that build their own engines in house. It may be impossible for Ursa to compete with in-house engines so it's sensible for them to pursue other businesses such as satellite propulsion.
Not sure when this happened, but Ursa is making satellite propulsion now. It's hydrazine monoprop.
For the second time, Ursa Major has successfully fired our 10 solid rocket motor with highly loaded grain showing repeatable results with rapid iteration, as seen in the motor start up.
Ursa Major@ursamajortechIn preparation for the first flight test, Ursa Major has successfully static fired the Affordable Rapid Missile Demonstrator (ARMD), powered by the Draper liquid rocket engine, as part of the @AFResearchLab (AFRL) initiative to rapidly demonstrate affordable hypersonic munition concepts. In this recent ground test, Ursa Major static fired ARMD for the full-duration mission cycle and demonstrated bipropellant operations. This static fire comes just over six months after AFRL contract award.
