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#120
by
Lars-J
on 03 Mar, 2015 04:56
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Nobody disputes that a smaller launcher - in theory - would be the best option for most smallsat customers.
The issue is that the cost savings for these smaller launchers don't seem to materialize. And that the market seems to be much smaller than hoped for, further driving up the costs.
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#121
by
CameronD
on 03 Mar, 2015 05:55
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RocketLab is advertising $5M for a launch (110kg payload capacity). That would be lowest on the market by a fairly large margin.
I agree. It's not likely that either of these will have the lowest price per kilogram of the industry. But it allows smallsat institutions the ability to select their own designated orbit, rather than piggybacking on other launches.
That depends where you're launching from. Does anyone know for certain whether that will be from NZ or from somewhere in the US?
If 'lowest price per kilogram' means shipping your sat to NZ, that might not work out lowest in the end once logistics is factored in and AFAIK there is no market in this region (not a large one anyway) for smallsat launch.
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#122
by
GalacticIntruder
on 03 Mar, 2015 06:25
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RL has no US infrastructure, so that will take time and money, etc, and higher operating costs. However, the US is the largest small sat player, and has good space infrastructure, VC, talent; so if RL wants to steal small sats away from others, it has to be in the US. (No offense to NZ space.... )
SpaceX rarely mentions small sats/secondaries, except they make no money on them and do it as a favor to the space community. It would be nice to know what they charge, if anything.
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#123
by
MATTBLAK
on 03 Mar, 2015 06:39
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#124
by
The Amazing Catstronaut
on 03 Mar, 2015 08:08
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The market seems to be much smaller than hoped for, further driving up the costs.
This would jar with both Firefly's statements and RocketLab's statements.
Do you believe that they're telling people what they would like to hear themselves? Certainly, they've been big on positive exposition lately. Firefly in particular has made reference to the future internet satcom constellations which may appear later; however, those constellations have much to gain by deploying themselves on a much more sizable LV.
At the same time, the smallsat market has been encountering significant incremental growth. I reckon at least one of these companies will make the cut.
Edit: SATCOM, not sitcom xD gawdarn' it
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#125
by
TrevorMonty
on 03 Mar, 2015 10:20
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RL has no US infrastructure, so that will take time and money, etc, and higher operating costs. However, the US is the largest small sat player, and has good space infrastructure, VC, talent; so if RL wants to steal small sats away from others, it has to be in the US. (No offense to NZ space.... )
SpaceX rarely mentions small sats/secondaries, except they make no money on them and do it as a favor to the space community. It would be nice to know what they charge, if anything.
Besides commercial launches from NZ (I think just south of Christchurch, just rumor) they are also planning to do US launches for DOD and NASA initially, this may include manufacturing in US. See Post 109.
Being so small they maybe able operate a mobile launcher, plus mobile fuel tankers so launch pad infrastructure may not be that expensive.
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#126
by
ChrisWilson68
on 03 Mar, 2015 10:27
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The market seems to be much smaller than hoped for, further driving up the costs.
This would jar with both Firefly's statements and Electron's statements.
Start-ups will always tell everyone their target market is going to be enormous. They're the least likely source to be unbiased about the size of their own market.
Do you believe that they're telling people what they would like to hear themselves? Certainly, they've been big on positive exposition lately. Firefly in particular has made reference to the future internet sitcom constellations which may appear later; however, those constellations have much to gain by deploying themselves on a much more sizable LV.
At the same time, the smallsat market has been encountering significant incremental growth. I reckon at least one of these companies will make the cut.
I think their only hope is to do what SpaceX did -- move up to a larger vehicle as soon as they get their small vehicle working. The small vehicle can be used to learn, build an organization, and prove they have the ability to get something to orbit, which will be very helpful for getting the larger investment they'll need for their larger launch vehicles.
The small payload market will never be more than a small niche because it's easy to launch a dispenser with a large number of small satellites on a large vehicle. The orbit might not be the very best for a particular purpose, but it will be so much cheaper than a $5 million dedicated launch that the dedicated launch will get few takers. And the more small satellites are launched, the more big launch vehicles to more orbits more often will happen. The small satellite market growing won't help the dedicated small payload business, it will hurt it by making shared rides more appealing.
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#127
by
A_M_Swallow
on 04 Mar, 2015 04:46
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Many satellite owners do not like secondary launch payloads that use hot thrusters. They worry that the fuel will explode. So there may be a market for launching small satellites that contain propellant that is flammable or under high pressure.
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#128
by
ChrisWilson68
on 04 Mar, 2015 04:55
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Many satellite owners do not like secondary launch payloads that use hot thrusters. They worry that the fuel will explode. So there may be a market for launching small satellites that contain propellant that is flammable or under high pressure.
Fair enough. But if the market for such hot thruster small sat launches is big enough, someone will launch a dedicated mission on a large launcher that carries a dispenser with lots of those hot thrusters small sats. The market for individual launches of them can only get so big.
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#129
by
The Amazing Catstronaut
on 04 Mar, 2015 08:24
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The orbit might not be the very best for a particular purpose, but it will be so much cheaper than a $5 million dedicated launch that the dedicated launch will get few takers. And the more small satellites are launched, the more big launch vehicles to more orbits more often will happen. The small satellite market growing won't help the dedicated small payload business, it will hurt it by making shared rides more appealing.
An erudite, wonderfully worded point right there. I've readjusted my viewpoint accordingly.
Going with that perspective, it seems extremely concerning (more so for Firefly than RocketLab, since Firefly has made it fairly clear that they intend to stay small for a while), that they're effectively subscribing to a business plan where the potential for future growth actually drops year on year.
However, we're not yet at the SpaceX-esque flight rate nirvana where big, cheap, ridiculous kg/$ ratio LV's have completely fulfilled every possible demand of the smallsat industry. Not just yet. As to when we will, it's probably a fair bet it won't be decades away, or even necessarily after 2020.
Can they be viable in the interim? I can imagine so. They're just going to have to be very, very smart with where their next generation of LVs take them.
Edit: Perhaps the SpaceX growth system; launch a few, then scale up to the mainstream, is truly the system to emulate.
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#130
by
simonbp
on 04 Mar, 2015 14:22
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SpaceX rarely mentions small sats/secondaries, except they make no money on them and do it as a favor to the space community. It would be nice to know what they charge, if anything.
True, but there is a key difference that SpaceX ride-alongs basically cannot control what orbit they end up in, which makes the system useless for launching constellations, which is exactly what small satellites are most useful for. PlanetLabs has been the most successful so far by launching off of ISS, but I'm sure they would love a way to reach a larger number of orbits (especially an array of Sun-Synchronous orbits, allowing all-day imagining of any particular place in the world).
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#131
by
TrevorMonty
on 04 Mar, 2015 19:21
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#132
by
ChrisWilson68
on 04 Mar, 2015 20:35
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"@pbdes: SpaceX Falcon to carry 90 sats on Spaceflight Inc's Sherpa dispenser late this year, likely a record for # sats on a single launch."
A dedicated ride share. I think this Tweet from today is related to this article.
http://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2014/05/08/spaceflight-inc-s-first-sherpa-flight-almost-fully-booked-with-smallsats/
I think that's the future of small satellite launch. It's like having a huge container ship full of individual containers. The more containers there are being shipped, the more likely there's a container ship going near where you want your container to end up. Small boats carrying a single container aren't going to be able to compete, even if they're cheaper on per-voyage basis because they're so much more expensive on a per-container basis.
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#133
by
QuantumG
on 04 Mar, 2015 22:37
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The real value here is regular reliable launches. Let's hope they can deliver.
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#134
by
meekGee
on 04 Mar, 2015 22:45
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"@pbdes: SpaceX Falcon to carry 90 sats on Spaceflight Inc's Sherpa dispenser late this year, likely a record for # sats on a single launch."
A dedicated ride share. I think this Tweet from today is related to this article.
http://www.satellitetoday.com/launch/2014/05/08/spaceflight-inc-s-first-sherpa-flight-almost-fully-booked-with-smallsats/
I think that's the future of small satellite launch. It's like having a huge container ship full of individual containers. The more containers there are being shipped, the more likely there's a container ship going near where you want your container to end up. Small boats carrying a single container aren't going to be able to compete, even if they're cheaper on per-voyage basis because they're so much more expensive on a per-container basis.
Best analogy in a long time.
All the single-minisat launchers are just ignoring the fact that the whole point of minisats is that they operate in large groups that go (invariably) onto discrete orbital planes.
You can't build a proper business plan based on one-off mini-prototypes for an OOM of $1M.
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#135
by
QuantumG
on 04 Mar, 2015 22:50
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If those big container ships had a habit of never leaving port on time you'd quickly discover a market exists for smaller boats that do.
... also, if you had to wait 3 years to get a slot on one of those big container ships.
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#136
by
ChrisWilson68
on 04 Mar, 2015 23:16
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If those big container ships had a habit of never leaving port on time you'd quickly discover a market exists for smaller boats that do.
... also, if you had to wait 3 years to get a slot on one of those big container ships.
Yes, that's true. But I'm not sure how good a business plan it is to bet that SpaceX can't learn to launch regularly.
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#137
by
QuantumG
on 04 Mar, 2015 23:22
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Yes, that's true. But I'm not sure how good a business plan it is to bet that SpaceX can't learn to launch regularly.
I'm having trouble thinking of a safer bet right now.
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#138
by
Lars-J
on 04 Mar, 2015 23:32
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Yes, that's true. But I'm not sure how good a business plan it is to bet that SpaceX can't learn to launch regularly.
I'm having trouble thinking of a safer bet right now.
After three launches in 60 days?
I think it is a MUCH safer bet that all the business plans of these small-sat launcher startups aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
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#139
by
QuantumG
on 04 Mar, 2015 23:44
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After three launches in 60 days? I think it is a MUCH safer bet that all the business plans of these small-sat launcher startups aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
None of them launched on time.. and it still takes three years to get on the manifest.
I think it is a MUCH safer bet that all the business plans of these small-sat launcher startups aren't worth the paper they are printed on.