It takes thousands of companies to make an industry. Currently there's very few actually operating anything in space. Their argument is that they can help increase that number. Whether they can actually do that or not is the question.
It's important to remember that some of us still think space will be colonized by humanity, not just Elon Musk.
Let's leave the anti-personality cultism and the colonisation stuff out of this. There's tonnes of threads for that already. RocketLab is about small sats, let's stick to that.
You make a lot of good points QuantumG, and I agree with you that not every organisation that coughs up enough quid for a smallsat or two has necessarily enough resources (or the motivation - even a cubesat can perform an incredible amount of science for its mass) to send up a constellation of them, especially when we're talking about science oriented earthsats instead of a telecom project. Firefly recently compared their business model to "a train", which payloads then cash into, and I can see how the metaphor works out for either ff or RocketLab; both are developing small, relatively simple rockets which (should) be easy to tease the bugs out of, and thus fly a frequent, predictable service. Kinda' like a train (in theory. The trains around here suffer more delays than a certain past Orbcomm launch).
It all boils down to them getting those payloads. Along with not blowing up any more times than is necessary, or whatever, but that's a given for any LV, in any stripes, sizes, flags or colours.
Edit: Grammar.
An update from THRO web broadcast episode 8.08 at the 30:30 mark test flights anticipated by end of 2015!
It all boils down to them getting those payloads. Along with not blowing up any more times than is necessary, or whatever, but that's a given for any LV, in any stripes, sizes, flags or colours.
{emphasis mine}
A fair point.. And presumably reliability is going to be key to their success, because, to use the "train analogy", if an entire train derails you've just trashed a whole lot more cargo (and a whole lot more people's dreams) than you would if you lost just the engine and a single carriage.
And a question around that: It's not evident to me from the pics posted above exactly how the 'Electron' is steered. Does anyone know??
It all boils down to them getting those payloads. Along with not blowing up any more times than is necessary, or whatever, but that's a given for any LV, in any stripes, sizes, flags or colours.
{emphasis mine}
A fair point.. And presumably reliability is going to be key to their success, because, to use the "train analogy", if an entire train derails you've just trashed a whole lot more cargo (and a whole lot more people's dreams) than you would if you lost just the engine and a single carriage.
That makes no difference. Whether it's one hundred trains at one customer each or one train with a hundred customers, if the locomotive causes a crash 5% of the time, each customer has a 5% chance of being in a crash. Over time, 5% of your customers will end up being in crashes. Whether it's one out of 20 launches crashing 100 customers or 100 out of 2000 launches crashing 100 customers, it's exactly the same result.
It all boils down to them getting those payloads. Along with not blowing up any more times than is necessary, or whatever, but that's a given for any LV, in any stripes, sizes, flags or colours.
{emphasis mine}
A fair point.. And presumably reliability is going to be key to their success, because, to use the "train analogy", if an entire train derails you've just trashed a whole lot more cargo (and a whole lot more people's dreams) than you would if you lost just the engine and a single carriage.
That makes no difference. Whether it's one hundred trains at one customer each or one train with a hundred customers, if the locomotive causes a crash 5% of the time, each customer has a 5% chance of being in a crash. Over time, 5% of your customers will end up being in crashes. Whether it's one out of 20 launches crashing 100 customers or 100 out of 2000 launches crashing 100 customers, it's exactly the same result.
I'd like to think so, but I'm not so sure.. IIRC, starting out, SpaceX had three strike-outs in a row with Falcon 1. After watching Elon Musk's '60 Minutes' interview following the last one, it seems to me it was only determination to not ever give up that saw SpaceX go on to be where it is today. One more might have been the end of them.
Therefore, ISTM that it's not only the quantity but exactly where those crashes occur in the vehicle development cycle (and how good the company is at PR and retaining funding afterwards) that decides the success (or failure) of the entire venture.
It all boils down to them getting those payloads. Along with not blowing up any more times than is necessary, or whatever, but that's a given for any LV, in any stripes, sizes, flags or colours.
{emphasis mine}
A fair point.. And presumably reliability is going to be key to their success, because, to use the "train analogy", if an entire train derails you've just trashed a whole lot more cargo (and a whole lot more people's dreams) than you would if you lost just the engine and a single carriage.
That makes no difference. Whether it's one hundred trains at one customer each or one train with a hundred customers, if the locomotive causes a crash 5% of the time, each customer has a 5% chance of being in a crash. Over time, 5% of your customers will end up being in crashes. Whether it's one out of 20 launches crashing 100 customers or 100 out of 2000 launches crashing 100 customers, it's exactly the same result.
I'd like to think so, but I'm not so sure.. IIRC, starting out, SpaceX had three strike-outs in a row with Falcon 1. After watching Elon Musk's '60 Minutes' interview following the last one, it seems to me it was only determination to not ever give up that saw SpaceX go on to be where it is today. One more might have been the end of them.
Therefore, ISTM that it's not only the quantity but exactly where those crashes occur in the vehicle development cycle (and how good the company is at PR and retaining funding afterwards) that decides the success (or failure) of the entire venture.
Sure, that's a fair point. I was addressing the stead-state case. Finding the initial design flaws is another issue.
But if we're talking about whether a customer would rather fly with a dedicated small launcher or as one of many on a Falcon 9 flight -- well, Falcon 9 has already gone through the learning curve.
'Unlike traditional propulsion cycles based on complex and expensive gas generators, the 4,600 lbf Rutherford adopts an entirely new electric propulsion cycle, making use of high-performance brushless DC electric motors and lithium-polymer batteries to drive its turbopumps.'
wonder what mass fraction this affords compared to pressure and pump fed systems.
High performance LiPos can do up to 10-20kW/kg. Large gas generators are better but likely don't scale down very well.
'Unlike traditional propulsion cycles based on complex and expensive gas generators, the 4,600 lbf Rutherford adopts an entirely new electric propulsion cycle, making use of high-performance brushless DC electric motors and lithium-polymer batteries to drive its turbopumps.'
Interesting technology but getting rid of the turbine makes "electric
turbopump" an oxymoron.
Wondering what specs high discharge rate batteries have today. First stage requires 20C-30C batteries which won't pack highest specific energies.
More informative article from Forbes.
110kg to 500km SSO
400kg to LEO
50hp from electric motor size of soda can. (Just what I need for the bike.)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2015/04/14/rocket-lab-unveils-a-3d-printed-battery-powered-rocket-engine/
http://www.rocketlabusa.com/about-us/propulsion/rutherford/4600 lbf thrust,
327s ISP
I assume this is the first stage version because 4600*9 is similar to the total thrust claimed for the vehicle, which means even though there's a mass penalty for the batteries, not having to divert any of the propellant flow means it gets expander/staged combustion-like ISP. This beats Merlin 1D by 16 seconds, so the vac version may get 350+ ISP.
Thoughts:
-battery contributes to dry mass but I bet it's better than doing the same job with COPV helium in a pressure fed engine, which also has dry mass penalty
-dry mass penalty compared to expander, but comparable ISP, simpler and cheaper to develop and build, and can work with prop combinations like kerolox that don't work with expander
This seems workable for a smallish first stage but it occurs to me this would probably work well for a high energy kick stage on a larger launcher. It could use non-toxic storables like N2O+Propane and outperform a solid kick stage, or it could use cryo propellants like kerolox/methalox and probably get into 350+/360+ territory.
Interesting technology but getting rid of the turbine makes "electric turbopump" an oxymoron.
Still applicable as the pump is likely a centrifugal turbopump even if it's driven by electricity.
Interesting technology but getting rid of the turbine makes "electric turbopump" an oxymoron.
Still applicable as the pump is likely a centrifugal turbopump even if it's driven by electricity.
The definition of
tumbopump is that it has a turbine powering it.
