Where will they launch from?.
Navier is alive 🔥🔥🔥 full video :
This thread should be in the European section no?
I don't think there's a topic for this new French rocket start-up, Venture Orbital Systems. https://www.venture-orbital.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/Their COO has put out an AMA today:https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/status/1405797822746828801?s=20
Name change here is their new webpage link. https://www.latitude.eu/100kg to LEO. 9+1 RP1/LOX engine configuration. Nothing about engine type or thrust.
Latitude announced on 22 January that it had closed a $30 million (€27.5 million) Series B funding round to support the development of its Zephyr launch vehicle.
Over the next years, #Zephyr will elevate its #payload capacity, allowed by the technical, industrial and commercial feedbacks and development we gathered in 2023. To follow-up, we upgraded the design of the #Navier #RocketEngine flight version 🎯🚀 Want to dig into the details? A thread 🧵👇
To increase the #thrust delivered by Naviers ⬇️🔥⬇️ our #propulsion team has decided to review the engine cycle to switch from #MotorPump (MP) using batteries to a #TurboPump (TP) using gaz 💪 So, why did we make that choice?
Theoretically, the best developing tech such as a Lithium (Li) & Sulfur (S) battery mounted on an MP stores less energy than High concentration Hydrogen Peroxide (HTP) used on our TP ⚡ Choosing the later technology allows us to optimize the weight/energy ratio 💪 But why use HTP to power it?
An HTP-based TP allows to increase the #shaft power needed for more powerful Naviers and is an easier to handle technology than MP or staged combustion 🙌 Also, the simplicity of this technology fits within our simple design development philosophy: #TheSimplerTheBetter ✅
Furthermore, we gained more advantages by increasing the thrust delivered by each Navier engine! Indeed, single more powerful engines means less engines are needed to meet the overall #performance offered by Zephyr. We are going down to 7 Navier engines to propell the first stage, instead of 9
Within this configuration, each flight Navier on the first stage will deliver 45 kN of thrust in #vaccum conditions and the second stage single Navier will deliver 35 kN of thrust in vacuum conditions 🔝
As for the #alloy used to print the combustion chamber of these flight Naviers, we will be using #Inconel718 as it met our expectations with the test engine: it offers the right thermomechanical properties ✅ Now, you may wonder how is this going to be developed?
Our TP has been designed by our propulsion departement in partnership with @CNES #manufacturers & #labs for quite some time now 👨💻⚙️ And a series of #TestsCampaigns will take place early 2024 using a test bench we designed and installed on our Titan #ResearchCenter on the @AeroParisVatry
These are exciting times at Latitude! 🎉 Have burning questions or eager to learn more? Drop your #queries below! In the meantime, wishing you a Happy New Year filled with joy, success, and endless possibilities! 🌟✨ May the coming year be your best one yet! 🥳
The idea that would become Latitude began to take shape in 2018, even though I had actually known for several years that this was what I wanted to do. I have been passionate about space and aeronautics, and more generally about future technologies, for a very long time. The only problem: I was not a very good student at school! So I found myself, somewhat out of spite, in a business school where the subjects interested me, but not the courses... until a three-month trip to the United States, not far from Cape Canaveral. I dragged my friends to watch rocket launches at 4 a.m., and when I got home, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. So I founded Latitude - which was not yet called that - with, it must be said, a great deal of carelessness!
In fact, we did not start with rockets, at least not really. Launchers are only a vector, a means of deploying things in orbit. What interests me is not only that: it is what will happen in fifty years.Making rockets to send satellites into orbit certainly responds to our current problems, but we must look further: my vision is to make Latitude the world's leading company for deploying space infrastructures. This may seem like science fiction, but this is where the space adventure is heading. The problem of tomorrow is how will we deploy valuable objects, satellites, but also stations, humans. How will we do space exploration?It is a vast horizon, and the future of humanity.Based on this vision, start with conventional launchers, precisely because launching is the most difficult, whether it is a question of cost, energy and overall complexity, and will remain so for many years to come. Mastering it is therefore necessary to deploy in the space economy of tomorrow. That said, when we arrive, the micro-launcher market is already active: Rocket Lab has already carried out its first launches and, in Europe itself, we were already seeing the emergence of RFA, Isar Aerospace, Hyimpulse, Orbex... However, if we examine this ecosystem in overdrive, we see that there are market segments that are not covered by other start-ups, particularly on small or even very small satellites, i.e. those weighing less than 200 kg, or even less than 100 kg.However, the number of companies that develop and want to operate this type of satellite continues to increase: we have gone from around a hundred when Latitude was created to more than 700 today! Of course, not all of them will reach profitability, but the dynamic is obvious, while at the same time. the market for satellites weighing more than 500 kg is structured around four or five major players, and is more difficult to access. If not already captive. For their part, operators of small satellites cannot be satisfied with the services of "rideshare" offered by the "big" launchers, because these only imperfectly meet their operational needs. Our launcher, Zephyr, meets these needs exactly, with a payload that will eventually reach 200 kg.
Initially, we were in Paris, and it was in 2020 that we decided to leave the capital. This choice was made for several reasons. The first is that at that time in our development, we found that the Parisian ecosystem was not favorable, neither for deeptech companies, nor for space companies. Our contacts did not understand our challenges, our vision, and when they inquired with the CNES, it was not really focused on the New Space economy at the time - it has since changed considerably, and in the right direction. In short, no one was "wired" as they needed to be.The second reason is of course the cost: setting up a factory in Paris is very expensive, and it also means doing it very far from the center of Paris. So you might as well go further: Reims is 40 minutes by High speed train from Pans, better than many destinations served by the commuter rail in Ile-de-France! And it remains close to the Parisian decision-making bodies. This asymmetrical bet is one of the first we made, and it clearly paid off. Reims welcomed us as a real company and not as the fledgling start-up that we were, and that was decisive. Other choices, like Toulouse that you mentioned, would have actually posed the same problems as in Paris: we would have been drowned in the crowd. This is also another reason for our choice: in Paris, we were one among a myriad of companies, drowned in the countless SaaS [Software as a Service - Editor's note] start-ups with a simple business model, easy for investors to understand, and quickly producing a return on investment. In Toulouse, the problem would have been to distinguish ourselves from our peers, and besides, it is not a city of launchers: Nice could maybe have been a more logical choice, although further away.
It was actually down to a few people, three, maybe four, at CNES, who believed in us. We started with a proposal to develop a first small engine, called Mk.1, for which we were funded to the tune of 50,000 euros. This first contract did not cover all the costs, but gave us real credibility. At the same time, we set up in Reims, and the city introduced us to one of the Ul Investissement funds, which allowe us to close a first round of 750,000 euros.
Absolutely. But the question is not so much that of seed funds: these first rounds of financing are not very difficult to do in France and in Europe. Where we are bad, in any case very, very far below what start-ups in the United States are able to obtain, is in financing growth and expansion, to move on to industrial level. This is the case in an absolute way - in terms of financial volume mobilized -, but not only.To return to Latitude, this first start-up allows us to recruit, and there are around fifteen of us at the end of 2020. I will skip over the many adventures we have been through, but we were then entering a phase of learning our profession: were are learning - none of the co-founders, including me, came from the space sector - our teams were learning.At the beginning, we recruited a lot of people fresh out of school - very bright people, by the way - both for budget reasons, but also because we knew almost no one in the sector. It is very different from start-ups whose founders were already established in the ecosystem. However, for the past two years, we have been recruiting more experienced professionals, and very targeted in industries, or for specific skills. Our operations director comes from the automotive industry, an asset for considering the mass production of our launchers. We seek a subtle balance between youth - and the absence of intellectual limits that this allows - and experience to guide and avoid unnecessary mistakes. Today, we are 140 employees and we will continue to grow and develop our teams.
We are aiming for a first launch in the next eighteen months, or towards the end of 2025. We will adjust according to the tests we conduct, but this is the horizon we have set for ourselves, even if we are well aware that it is a tight schedule. Of course, there are some uncertainties, not necessarily our fault - we know how to manage those! - but which can be due to suppliers, subcontractors, etc. This is why we have chosen to internalize the production of our components and subsystems as much as possible, which also allows us to control costs. Apart from that, the key factor is of course the success of the tests we conduct: of the engine, then of the various subsystems of the launcher. Even without a major failure, we may have to slightly shift the schedule if we feel that it is necessary to refine certain things
Once the tests have been passed and the first launch has been carried out, there will be a slight delay before the return to flight: from three months if everything has gone well to a year if we have encountered a major failure that would require us to review the design of a critical element, for example. These are normal delays, "fine-tuning" in short. And of course there is the regulatory dimension of the launcher qualification, which does not depend on Latitude, but on the French authorities. Once these steps have been completed, we will proceed to ramp up towards our objective of 50 launches per year: around six launches initially in 2026, then around twenty the following year, and 50 annual launches in 2028, our cruising speed. Our second launch will already be a commercial launch: it was purchased from us by CNES.
It's true, many companies are emerging. However, for Latitude, the risk of market saturation is counteracted by our positioning on lpayloads of 200 kg or less. Today, 100% of the market under 1 tonne is, by default, covered by a single company, Rocket Lab; but its offer does not exactly meet the needs: it has the customers due to the lack of a competing offer for launches of less than 200 kg, and this situation also acts as a sort of bottleneck for this market, which is struggling to develop, precisely due to the lack of a suitable launch offer. We are going to arrive with a launcher designed for the market for payloads of less than 200 kg and significantly cheaper! In Europe, the only real competitor for Latitude would be Orbex [in the United Kingdom, Editor's note). The other players you mention are all on higher payload capacities, between 500 kg and 1.3 t of payload. However, our customers, on such launchers, are already forced to rideshare, which does not solve their problem of time and place in orbit. With rideshare, they can only hope that the launch will target the right orbit at the right time, but they are not decision-makers. We offer a tailor-made solution, the only one that meets their needs exactly.
Some have failed: Virgin Orbit is the best example. But this failure is not due to the market. Virgin Orbit's order book was 200 million dollars. But the development of their launcher cost them the exorbitant sum of 1 billion dollars, a totally abnormal sum to develop a microlauncher! Astra: same reason, with in addition serious quality control problems. These are industrial failures, not positioning errors. The fundamental problem is that it is difficult to offer rockets with the right performance, on this range of capacities. If the majority of actors are positioning themselves on rockets aiming for a ton of payload, it is because it is ultimately technically simpler than developing a rocket with a 200 kg payload. This is the very principle of the rocket equation: the larger it is, the lower its ratio between dry mass and total mass, and therefore the greater the performance. - The thickness of a tank does not change according to the size of the launcher: in ratio, it therefore weighs more for a small launcher. To give you an example, Ariane 5 was at 12% dry mass, with an orbital launch of approximately 2% of the total mass [777 t at takeoff, 10 to 21 t of payload depending on the orbit - Editor's note]. Zephyr will weigh 23t at takeoff, to put 200 kg into orbit [Translator note: Eventually] - a little less than 1% of the total mass, with a dry mass of approximately 18%. The loss of performance is obvious, but easily explained: for many components, the weight is linked to their function and not to the launcher on which they are integrated. An antenna, or a sensor, weighs almost the same no matter the size, we need to collect the same data at launch and, more broadly, there are the same number of parts on a small launcher as on a large one, but they are smaller. Many companies, faced with this equation that I have just described, have preferred to throw in the towel and increase the capacity of their launcher to facilitate technical development: this is for example the case of PLD, which went from 150 kg to 600 kg of payload.All this explains why it is difficult to develop a small launcher, and why we are ultimately few to risk it...But, consequently, the competition will be lesser. We have made a market choice, technically more complicated, but economically profitable and which will have very high barriers to entry for future competitors.Last point, and not least: Payloads of a ton or less which require a dedicated launch are rare, and small launchers in this category are in direct competition with rideshare offer on heavy launchers.
Exactly! While we will be in a situation of quasi-global monopoly! However, be careful, it is possible to be profitable on the market of ~1t dedicated launch and, in Europe in particular, there is a sufficient market in this segment. But we made another choice.
The lack of scale investors is obvious. There are structural problems, for example the absence of major pension funds, which in the United States represent an enormous financial resource that can be mobilized. The redistribution of wealth, in France in particular, therefore mainly happens through the State. The latter does its job: the BPI [French state investment bank] is today the leading European investor. But this remains unbalanced. Another obvious problem on the financial level: companies, particularly large companies, whatever they may be, invest very little outside their own circle. The very wealthy too. This is not to criticize, but perhaps we should think about developing mechanisms that lead them to invest in something other than art pieces! In my opinion,progress is at least as important to support as art! In any case, the State cannot sustainably subsidize everyone, other sources are needed. And the order of magnitude is notout of reach: we are talking about 3 to 4 billion euros per year, which is both a lot and a little. I would add that this is not a problem specific to the space sector, it is much broader and in fact affects the entire deeptech sector [the notion of "deeptech" refers to the entire sector of highly technological products or services - Editor's note]. We are not structurally condemned to underinvesting compared to the United States: these 3 or 4 billion exist in our economy; it is simply that today, we are not putting them where they should be. Beyond the question of investment, the second element is cultural: for twenty or thirty years, industry and, more broadly, technology have been poorly viewed and misunderstood. We are, however, a country of research, a country of science, but all of this is largely relegated outside of public debate... I cannot pinpoint the exact origin of this problem, but the fact remains that there is a trigger that continues not to happen to invest in innovative industrial sectors. And the preference for less risky products continues to prevail. There are undoubtedly relays to be found on the state side to encourage large groups to invest more in SMEs so that they grow and constitute this "French-style mittlestand" that has become a red herring in economic debates. However, does France really want its start-ups to become ETIs [Intermediary size companies], not to say large groups? What is the last "start-up" to have succeeded in this here? Dassault, no doubt! It is clear that we are faced with the defense, by a sort of caste, of a status quo; a situation that goes beyond France and affects Europe more widely.
Yes, 100%! Consolidation can help show that it is possible to create leaders, but with a different approach than in the past. Airbus, a model of this type of European leader, was formed on a public-private basis that created certain structural constraints that should not be replicated. Consolidation must instead be driven by the private sector. In space in particular, horizontal integration and a single governance are needed for it to work. The model is therefore neither Airbus nor Ariane, but a SpaceX established in various countries.
Why not? We are not opposed to it.
No doubt, but we must at most take the opportunity of it to rely on a national base and reimagine on this basis a European model that works. The States are not stupid: they know that neither France, nor Germany, nor the United Kingdom or Italy are capable, alone, of fully financing a program like Ariane 6. But tomorrow, it will probably be better to have a few large launchers at 500 million euros than a single one at 4 billion! And this will require reinventing the model: tomorrow, a large launcher will have to be developed by co-financing instead of being developed as it is now, by the States alone, which also buy the launches... SpaceX developed its launcher alone, obviously co-financed it, and won contracts: and they succeeded because they were the best, not because they were subsidized. The USA did not retake the leadership in the launcher market with less competition, but with more! Another American example, the setbacks of Boeing's Starliner capsule: SpaceX, which will finally bring back the astronauts stuck on the ISS, received half as much money as Boeing for this capsule contract, and has been launching astronauts with Crew Dragon for more than four years now.
There is a deep dynamism, hundreds of start-ups, with a purely commercial market in strong development, which offers significant opportunities, and allows us to consider 100% private development, without depending on public orders from our States. It is even an exceptional opportunity: by supporting the development of the sector on commercial logic, we will be forced to become the best in the world, and the most competitive! And commercial companies from all over the world, even American ones, will come and buy launch services in Europe if it is cheaper.So no, we will never have the American military budget as a development relay, but there is more than enough commercial market in Europe to do without it. Not to mention the explosion of the international market, particularly in Asia. And in maybe 10 years, we will have space infrastructures, an orbital economy: it is a huge market that will open up, especially in orbital manufacturing. To conquer it, we will be forced to be the best, or die trying: that is not lacking in panache!