Introducing Firefly Space Systems

[TrevorMonty]

Firefly have a reusable booster as along term goal. It may be possible to do it with Alpha by using mid air recovery. Booster would still need to do controlled reentry but parachutes and MAR with helicopter would solve complex landing part. Downrange recovery could use any small ship with helipad. Payload penalty should be less than F9's 15% as there is no legs or fuel required for landing phase.

[billh]

There was a horizontal test stand and I recall seeing pictures of Merlin B (ablative) being tested on it. I can't find it on the SpaceX website any more. No Falcon 1 pictures either.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=11000

EDIT: also, LOL
http://spacenews.com/web-entrepreneur-eyes-small-launcher-market/

That SpaceNews article is priceless. Thanks.

[sdsds]

I was not following SpaceX in 2003, but the history there probably provides a pretty good model for what Firefly is doing now. Does anyone happen to have a copy of the paper presented at the 17th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, hosted by Utah State University Aug. 11-14, 2003?

Technical Session I:
"New Ways to Orbit," by Elon Musk, SpaceX Chairman and CEO, Dr. Hans Koeningsmann, Vice President of Avionics and Systems, and Gwynne Gurevich, Vice President of Business Development.

[mhlas7]

I was not following SpaceX in 2003, but the history there probably provides a pretty good model for what Firefly is doing now. Does anyone happen to have a copy of the paper presented at the 17th Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites, hosted by Utah State University Aug. 11-14, 2003?

Technical Session I:
"New Ways to Orbit," by Elon Musk, SpaceX Chairman and CEO, Dr. Hans Koeningsmann, Vice President of Avionics and Systems, and Gwynne Gurevich, Vice President of Business Development.

It is archived on the Utah State University website: http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2003/All2003/3/

[ChrisWilson68]

Small satellites don't generally all have their own individual houses they need to go to.  There are a small number of orbits that cover the vast majority of places small satellites need to end up.

And the bus/taxi analogy also breaks down when you consider that the cost of either is a small portion of what most people spend each year.  For most small satellite makers $5 million is a huge portion of their budget, if not more than the budget.

The promise of small satellites is that they can cost far less then $1 million each.  That makes no sense if they have to pay $5 million for a launch.

That has been addressed several times in this and other threads. All the current frontrunners in this segment plan dedicated rideshare launches, not one launch per sat.
Which is a strong indication that the market doesnt care so much about custom orbits, but much more about responsive launch. Again, cubesat payloads can be iterated in months, but booking launches for them takes years right now.

Exactly.  Which means that as the market for smallsats grows, those rideshare flights will move from rideshares on small launchers to rideshares on big launchers.  If there's a dedicated rideshare flight on a Falcon 9 every three months, that pretty much kills the small launcher rideshare business.

[sdsds]

So on Aug 11 2003 SpaceX was targeting a Jan 22 2004 launch date (i.e. launch in 164 days). The first lift-off was instead Mar 24 2006, yielding a "time dilation factor" of 5.8.

Suppose Firefly has a time dilation factor half that of the early SpaceX, i.e. 2.9. Then a July 1 2017 target would imply an actual launch in September of 2020.

I take it the general thinking is they will do much better than that?

[Mader Levap]

I take it the general thinking is they will do much better than that?

Better than initial SpaceX time dilation? Yes. Launching on time? Hell no.

[savuporo]

That has been addressed several times in this and other threads. All the current frontrunners in this segment plan dedicated rideshare launches, not one launch per sat.
Which is a strong indication that the market doesnt care so much about custom orbits, but much more about responsive launch. Again, cubesat payloads can be iterated in months, but booking launches for them takes years right now.

Exactly.  Which means that as the market for smallsats grows, those rideshare flights will move from rideshares on small launchers to rideshares on big launchers.  If there's a dedicated rideshare flight on a Falcon 9 every three months, that pretty much kills the small launcher rideshare business.

I dont see how that follows at all. SpaceX manifest is booked for years in advance, and everything keeps constantly slipping to the right. The first ever dedicated smallsat launcher was booked at least two years in advance. The point of responsive launch is that you can fly and re-fly with short notice.

[Katana]

A F9 dedicated for cubesat rideshare, if fully utilized, could carry ~3000 cubesats to orbit, scattering them into glorious nebula moving in evening sky.

One F9 per 3 month, 12,000 cubesats per year?

Too many to fit in VHF/UHF amateur band radio frequencies used for cubesats now. May require develop of Kxxx band transceivers and frequency bidding cost, or laser communication?

At least for recent technology and market of cubesats, dedicated small launchers have unique niche markets free from mainstream large launchers.

[fthomassy]

http://spacenews.com/building-the-model-t-of-rockets/

By 2017, Firefly plans to begin conducting suborbital launches.

Firefly plans to conduct is first orbital flight in March 2018, an ambitious goal for a company established in 2014.

Seems to confirm previous news.  Seems to have fresh quotes from CEO and VP-BD.  I'm not spotting anything except 61 employees now and 150 when in production.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Firefly’s initial launch vehicle, Firefly Alpha, an all-composite rocket with a pressure-fed aerospike engine, is designed to send 400 kilogram payloads into low Earth orbit or 200 kilograms into sun-synchronous orbit for $8 million.

That's $20K/kg for LEO and $40K/kg for SS. That's pretty expensive.

[Robotbeat]

Pretty inexpensive compared to the likes of Pegasus, around $100,000/kg.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Pegasus also started out cheap, at $5M to $10M for the same payload capability as Firefly Alpha. That was in 1988, so about twice that amount now. If Pegasus is $100K/kg now, that's about the same price as Scout G1 was in 1988 (adjusted for inflation)! Maybe NASA should have just stuck with Scout. :-)

[MP99]

A F9 dedicated for cubesat rideshare, if fully utilized, could carry ~3000 cubesats to orbit, scattering them into glorious nebula moving in evening sky.

One F9 per 3 month, 12,000 cubesats per year?

Too many to fit in VHF/UHF amateur band radio frequencies used for cubesats now. May require develop of Kxxx band transceivers and frequency bidding cost, or laser communication?

At least for recent technology and market of cubesats, dedicated small launchers have unique niche markets free from mainstream large launchers.

The only way that would make sense if SpaceX developed recovery of the upper stage, which would only make sense if their order book had a lot more LEO missions. Perhaps for delivery of their CommSat constellation?

That would leave Firefly with time to get flying.

Cheers, Martin

[savuporo]

SpaceNews podcast with FireFly's co-founder PJ King

http://spacenews.com/spacegeeks-the-biggest-little-rocket-house-in-texas/

[TrevorMonty]

Not surprising that Virgin are gunning for Markusic after he left them and setup a Firefly in direct competition to LauncherOne. This has only gone public after King (from Firefly) filed this action.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/16/firefly-board-member-sues-stop-virgin-galactic-fishing-expedition/


A member of Firefly Space Systems board of directors has filed suit in Los Angeles to overturn an arbitrator’s judgment that he turn documents over to rival Virgin Galactic in a dispute between Virgin and its former vice president of propulsion.

Patrick Joseph (P.J.) King filed the action on Tuesday in a case involving Tom Markusic, who left Virgin Galactic to form Firely with King in early 2014.


“After Dr. Markusic left Galactic, [Richard] Branson sued his ex-employee the the Arbitration, falsely accusing of Dr. Markusic of breaking his former employment agreement by ‘stealing’ what apparently is nothing more than standard open-source technical information which is available in the academic literature, that Galactic claims are someone ‘trade secrets'”, the suit reads. - See more at: http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/16/firefly-board-member-sues-stop-virgin-galactic-fishing-expedition/#sthash.coiMYICj.dpuf

[parabolicarc]

Here's a full description of the information Virgin Galactic has gotten the arbitrator to subpoena from Firefly.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/17/heres-information-virgin-galactic-sought-firefly/

[notsorandom]

Here's a full description of the information Virgin Galactic has gotten the arbitrator to subpoena from Firefly.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/17/heres-information-virgin-galactic-sought-firefly/

Wow what did they not ask for? It is pretty clear that getting this amount and level of information from a competitor puts them at a severe competitive disadvantage. I wonder what effect this will have on the industry as a whole. A fair number of people move from one company to another. Virgin Galactic apparently has a pretty all encompassing NDA and the will to use it as a punitive device. If you are another rocket company would you hire someone who at one point worked at VG and risk VG coming after all your proprietary information? If you are a rocket engineer would you take a job at VG and risk not being able to find a job should you leave? Perhaps SpaceX should take a look at VG and see if Markusic used any proprietary technology in their Newton engines.

[Prober]

Here's a full description of the information Virgin Galactic has gotten the arbitrator to subpoena from Firefly.

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2015/12/17/heres-information-virgin-galactic-sought-firefly/

Wow what did they not ask for? It is pretty clear that getting this amount and level of information from a competitor puts them at a severe competitive disadvantage. I wonder what effect this will have on the industry as a whole. A fair number of people move from one company to another. Virgin Galactic apparently has a pretty all encompassing NDA and the will to use it as a punitive device. If you are another rocket company would you hire someone who at one point worked at VG and risk VG coming after all your proprietary information? If you are a rocket engineer would you take a job at VG and risk not being able to find a job should you leave? Perhaps SpaceX should take a look at VG and see if Markusic used any proprietary technology in their Newton engines.

way past any kind of employment contract or NDA.

[NovaSilisko]

Ah yes, photo.JPG, a title full of mystery and intrigue, and thumbs.db the most important and secretive file any company can hold...