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#300
by
catdlr
on 05 Aug, 2015 21:41
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article on the Los Angeles Times:
L.A.-based Rocket Lab to build a satellite launch site in New Zealandhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rocketlab-satellites-20150805-story.htmlRocket Lab estimates each launch will cost nearly $5 million — a fraction of the average price that aerospace firms pay today to blast a satellite to orbit.
Founded in 2007, Rocket Lab began as a start-up investment led by Chief Executive Peter Beck and other entrepreneurs. The company now has 60 employees between its New Zealand and Los Angeles locations and hopes to expand.
Rocket Lab says it can keep launch costs low by targeting small satellites weighing less than 220 pounds. Normally, these smaller satellites have to coordinate their launches, hitchhiking on a rocket with larger satellites, but Rocket Lab believes it has found a niche in the satellite market.
Picture Credit: Founded in 2007, Rocket Lab began as a start-up led by CEO Peter Beck, above. The company now has 60 employees in New Zealand and L.A. (Phil Walter / Getty Images)
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#301
by
TrevorMonty
on 06 Aug, 2015 10:26
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article on the Los Angeles Times:
L.A.-based Rocket Lab to build a satellite launch site in New Zealand
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-rocketlab-satellites-20150805-story.html
Rocket Lab estimates each launch will cost nearly $5 million — a fraction of the average price that aerospace firms pay today to blast a satellite to orbit.
Founded in 2007, Rocket Lab began as a start-up investment led by Chief Executive Peter Beck and other entrepreneurs. The company now has 60 employees between its New Zealand and Los Angeles locations and hopes to expand.
Rocket Lab says it can keep launch costs low by targeting small satellites weighing less than 220 pounds. Normally, these smaller satellites have to coordinate their launches, hitchhiking on a rocket with larger satellites, but Rocket Lab believes it has found a niche in the satellite market.
Picture Credit: Founded in 2007, Rocket Lab began as a start-up led by CEO Peter Beck, above. The company now has 60 employees in New Zealand and L.A. (Phil Walter / Getty Images)
"We are also always looking for new ways to make our products more affordable and dependable," Kramer added. "Rocket Lab's Electron rocket could allow for low-cost flight testing of our technologies."
Having LM as partner can only help if Rocketlab decide to follow up the Electron with a RLV. Unfortunately these small hitech companies have a habit of being swallowed up by larger companies after their technology and customer base. I've already experienced this once with a local hitech company, the US buyers cherry picked the technology they were after and sold off the rest of business.
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#302
by
Kryten
on 10 Aug, 2015 16:34
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Rocketlab have added a
section to their website for booking cubesat slots, which also gives some general info on future flight plans.
-As of today there are 28 flights listed, with the first in Q3 2016 and leading up to Q2 2019
-All flights listed are to a 500km sun sync orbit or a 45 degree LEO; none of the low-inclination flights that would require US facilities
-All or most flights include a standard cubesat deployment system with 24 3U pods and 8 1U pods
-Despite the large number of deployers, all current flights are at 15%, 65%, 71%, or 100% booked with no other values; repeated block buys?
-Prices are given as $70-80,000 for a 1U pod, and $200-250,000 for a 3U pod, depending on orbit and date of launch
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#303
by
TrevorMonty
on 11 Aug, 2015 00:56
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#304
by
Lars-J
on 14 Aug, 2015 07:22
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#305
by
CameronD
on 14 Aug, 2015 08:03
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If they haven't firmly settled on a launch site yet, nor started construction - then yeah, it ain't happening this year.
Hmm.. I wouldn't be so sure. This isn't LC-39 we're talking about here - it's more "slightly larger than a kiddie toy".
From the preliminary renders around, all they're looking at is a concrete pad with a semi-portable launch tower and a site shed or two nearby. Given their first flight is a one-off test, fuel loading is most likely straight off the back of a truck. That's not rocket science..
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#306
by
Beittil
on 14 Aug, 2015 08:33
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And an LC-39C type pad could be built fairly quickly as well. Of course NASA had existing structure to pipe from when they built theirs, but it was still built quite fast!
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#307
by
TrevorMonty
on 14 Aug, 2015 10:22
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A lot of the infrastructure can be built off site and dropped into place. The build's shell shouldn't take to long to assemble.
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#308
by
TrevorMonty
on 20 Aug, 2015 00:18
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#309
by
TrevorMonty
on 20 Aug, 2015 00:21
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#310
by
Steven Pietrobon
on 20 Aug, 2015 06:45
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#311
by
CameronD
on 20 Aug, 2015 07:41
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#312
by
Skyrocket
on 20 Aug, 2015 08:30
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#313
by
NZ1
on 22 Aug, 2015 04:14
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#314
by
savuporo
on 22 Aug, 2015 16:52
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#315
by
TrevorMonty
on 22 Aug, 2015 21:50
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One slide had 400kg to LEO and 100kg to SSO. This is the first LEO payload spec I've seen. At $12,500/kg to LEO it is comparable to ULA and is not bad for small dedicated LV.
Once Virgin and Firefly start flying I would expect Rocket lab to reduce their prices.
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#316
by
ArbitraryConstant
on 23 Aug, 2015 00:55
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One slide had 400kg to LEO and 100kg to SSO. This is the first LEO payload spec I've seen. At $12,500/kg to LEO it is comparable to ULA and is not bad for small dedicated LV.
Once Virgin and Firefly start flying I would expect Rocket lab to reduce their prices.
Think it was mentioned in another article but iirc the article mentioned Firefly as well and 99% of space reporting can't be trusted with fiddly details so I didn't trust it.
Interesting, their web page now says 150 kg to 500 km SSO.
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#317
by
TrevorMonty
on 21 Sep, 2015 00:38
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#318
by
CameronD
on 21 Sep, 2015 01:06
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Interesting article..
Of interest to me was the statements "at least 100 launches per year" and "the first 30 rocket payloads being fully booked" - which would imply that (a) they already have several rockets under construction and (b) plans to ramp up to around 2 launches per week! Isn't that a lot to promise for a vehicle that has not yet flown?!?
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#319
by
savuporo
on 21 Sep, 2015 16:14
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Using high performance Lithium Polymer batteries to drive its turbo-pumps..
This has always looked somewhat puzzling. Why would they use LiPO when primary lithium batteries could deliver better specific energy and power ?
Could be just easy availability of off the shelf power electronics
