Countdown to new smallsat launchers

[DanClemmensen]

On the other hand, SpaceX's rideshare program gives a toe in the door for smallsat companies. F9 is a known quantity to investors. That creates permission for smallsats to be developed. That creates a certain volume for the smallsat industry overall. Which dedicated smallsat launchers can then upsell.

It's going to weed out the uncompetitive all-expendable smallsat launchers, but there's room for reusable ones, like Stoke, who should easily be able to beat the F9 rideshare price.

But they will not be competing against F9 rideshare. They will compete against Starship rideshare. SpaceX can substitute a rideshare dispenser for a single one of the 27 pairs of Starlink V2.0 in the Pez dispenser. That's more than 3 tonnes, so call it 2 tonnes of smallsats and one tonne of dispenser.

Yeah, but Starship won't be smooth and operational right away. May take a few years to get to F9 level of reliability, etc. I say about 5 years. So overall, I agree, but there's still room for a fully reusable medium/smallsat launcher like Stoke to compete with Starship rideshare.

You imply that Stoke (and others) will become "smooth and operational" before Starship does. Is this likely?

[Robotbeat]

On the other hand, SpaceX's rideshare program gives a toe in the door for smallsat companies. F9 is a known quantity to investors. That creates permission for smallsats to be developed. That creates a certain volume for the smallsat industry overall. Which dedicated smallsat launchers can then upsell.

It's going to weed out the uncompetitive all-expendable smallsat launchers, but there's room for reusable ones, like Stoke, who should easily be able to beat the F9 rideshare price.

But they will not be competing against F9 rideshare. They will compete against Starship rideshare. SpaceX can substitute a rideshare dispenser for a single one of the 27 pairs of Starlink V2.0 in the Pez dispenser. That's more than 3 tonnes, so call it 2 tonnes of smallsats and one tonne of dispenser.

Yeah, but Starship won't be smooth and operational right away. May take a few years to get to F9 level of reliability, etc. I say about 5 years. So overall, I agree, but there's still room for a fully reusable medium/smallsat launcher like Stoke to compete with Starship rideshare.

You imply that Stoke (and others) will become "smooth and operational" before Starship does. Is this likely?

Not really what I meant.

I think RocketLab might get smooth operation of their reusable Electron before Starship does.

But to compete against Starship, you'll need full reuse, like Stoke. A fully reusable smallsat launcher could still compete with Starship smallsat rideshare.

[imprezive]

On the other hand, SpaceX's rideshare program gives a toe in the door for smallsat companies. F9 is a known quantity to investors. That creates permission for smallsats to be developed. That creates a certain volume for the smallsat industry overall. Which dedicated smallsat launchers can then upsell.

It's going to weed out the uncompetitive all-expendable smallsat launchers, but there's room for reusable ones, like Stoke, who should easily be able to beat the F9 rideshare price.

But they will not be competing against F9 rideshare. They will compete against Starship rideshare. SpaceX can substitute a rideshare dispenser for a single one of the 27 pairs of Starlink V2.0 in the Pez dispenser. That's more than 3 tonnes, so call it 2 tonnes of smallsats and one tonne of dispenser.

Yeah, but Starship won't be smooth and operational right away. May take a few years to get to F9 level of reliability, etc. I say about 5 years. So overall, I agree, but there's still room for a fully reusable medium/smallsat launcher like Stoke to compete with Starship rideshare.

You imply that Stoke (and others) will become "smooth and operational" before Starship does. Is this likely?

Not really what I meant.

I think RocketLab might get smooth operation of their reusable Electron before Starship does.

But to compete against Starship, you'll need full reuse, like Stoke. A fully reusable smallsat launcher could still compete with Starship smallsat rideshare.

Electron hasn’t even re-used a booster yet we are at least a decade away from a full re-use small launcher if one ever even exists. Small launchers don’t make sense and the lack of success of Electron in the market is proof of that. Even if they drop their cost of the rocket itself, RL is currently losing money on every launch so they would need to hold their price and try to break even. And that’s a proven reliable vehicle that the US government uses so it’s even worse for their competitors.

[M.E.T.]

So, is…

Blue Origin
Virgin Orbit
Rocketlab
Astra
Firefly
Relativity
Stoke…the latest posterboy for an imminent SpaceX competitor then? Based on…a brief video of a sci-fi looking ring of small thrusters firing while suspended on a test frame?

Looks like lessons are just not being learned.

[Robotbeat]

So, is…

Blue Origin
Virgin Orbit
Rocketlab
Astra
Firefly
Relativity
Stoke…the latest posterboy for an imminent SpaceX competitor then? Based on…a brief video of a sci-fi looking ring of small thrusters firing while suspended on a test frame?...

No. Just arguing it's possible to carve out a niche and survive is not saying someone's gonna dethrone SpaceX. Come on.

[Robotbeat]

On the other hand, SpaceX's rideshare program gives a toe in the door for smallsat companies. F9 is a known quantity to investors. That creates permission for smallsats to be developed. That creates a certain volume for the smallsat industry overall. Which dedicated smallsat launchers can then upsell.

It's going to weed out the uncompetitive all-expendable smallsat launchers, but there's room for reusable ones, like Stoke, who should easily be able to beat the F9 rideshare price.

But they will not be competing against F9 rideshare. They will compete against Starship rideshare. SpaceX can substitute a rideshare dispenser for a single one of the 27 pairs of Starlink V2.0 in the Pez dispenser. That's more than 3 tonnes, so call it 2 tonnes of smallsats and one tonne of dispenser.

Yeah, but Starship won't be smooth and operational right away. May take a few years to get to F9 level of reliability, etc. I say about 5 years. So overall, I agree, but there's still room for a fully reusable medium/smallsat launcher like Stoke to compete with Starship rideshare.

You imply that Stoke (and others) will become "smooth and operational" before Starship does. Is this likely?

Not really what I meant.

I think RocketLab might get smooth operation of their reusable Electron before Starship does.

But to compete against Starship, you'll need full reuse, like Stoke. A fully reusable smallsat launcher could still compete with Starship smallsat rideshare.

Electron hasn’t even re-used a booster yet we are at least a decade away from a full re-use small launcher if one ever even exists. Small launchers don’t make sense and the lack of success of Electron in the market is proof of that. Even if they drop their cost of the rocket itself, RL is currently losing money on every launch so they would need to hold their price and try to break even. And that’s a proven reliable vehicle that the US government uses so it’s even worse for their competitors.

Reusing Electron would put Electron in a better position to compete with Falcon 9, which they already do even while expendable (by offering dedicated service).

And I don't see why we need be a decade away from a fully reusable smallsat launcher. In fact, they arguably make MORE sense to fully reuse than larger vehicles since they could in principle fly thousands of payloads per year.

[M.E.T.]

So, is…

Blue Origin
Virgin Orbit
Rocketlab
Astra
Firefly
Relativity
Stoke…the latest posterboy for an imminent SpaceX competitor then? Based on…a brief video of a sci-fi looking ring of small thrusters firing while suspended on a test frame?...

No. Just arguing it's possible to carve out a niche and survive is not saying someone's gonna dethrone SpaceX. Come on.

I was just surprised at the enthusiasm for Stoke, who seem years behind every one of the above companies, yet have wildly more ambitious goals.

I read Eric’s interview with the Stoke founders. Basically, two ex-BO engineers who went through all the other space company options, listing why each was not a good fit for them, and when it came to SpaceX their sole criticism was that SpaceX work their people too hard.

Yep, well, good luck developing a fully reusable rocket in competition with SpaceX by recruiting the people who couldn’t keep up the pace at SpaceX. That seems a…less than optimal strategy.

[imprezive]

On the other hand, SpaceX's rideshare program gives a toe in the door for smallsat companies. F9 is a known quantity to investors. That creates permission for smallsats to be developed. That creates a certain volume for the smallsat industry overall. Which dedicated smallsat launchers can then upsell.

It's going to weed out the uncompetitive all-expendable smallsat launchers, but there's room for reusable ones, like Stoke, who should easily be able to beat the F9 rideshare price.

But they will not be competing against F9 rideshare. They will compete against Starship rideshare. SpaceX can substitute a rideshare dispenser for a single one of the 27 pairs of Starlink V2.0 in the Pez dispenser. That's more than 3 tonnes, so call it 2 tonnes of smallsats and one tonne of dispenser.

Yeah, but Starship won't be smooth and operational right away. May take a few years to get to F9 level of reliability, etc. I say about 5 years. So overall, I agree, but there's still room for a fully reusable medium/smallsat launcher like Stoke to compete with Starship rideshare.

You imply that Stoke (and others) will become "smooth and operational" before Starship does. Is this likely?

Not really what I meant.

I think RocketLab might get smooth operation of their reusable Electron before Starship does.

But to compete against Starship, you'll need full reuse, like Stoke. A fully reusable smallsat launcher could still compete with Starship smallsat rideshare.

Electron hasn’t even re-used a booster yet we are at least a decade away from a full re-use small launcher if one ever even exists. Small launchers don’t make sense and the lack of success of Electron in the market is proof of that. Even if they drop their cost of the rocket itself, RL is currently losing money on every launch so they would need to hold their price and try to break even. And that’s a proven reliable vehicle that the US government uses so it’s even worse for their competitors.

Reusing Electron would put Electron in a better position to compete with Falcon 9, which they already do even while expendable (by offering dedicated service).

And I don't see why we need be a decade away from a fully reusable smallsat launcher. In fact, they arguably make MORE sense to fully reuse than larger vehicles since they could in principle fly thousands of payloads per year.

Electron does not compete with F9, they launch what doesn’t fit well with SpaceX rideshare. There is a market there but it’s small and they don’t make any money on it. Re-usability for Electron isn’t likely to change their price at all just buy them some margin back.

It’s not even clear it’s possible to make a fully re-usable small launcher. Those vehicles tend to have very tight margins so giving it up for re-usability forces you to grow. There is a reason Terran R is so much larger than Terran 1.

[Steven Pietrobon]

I think the small launch vehicles being developed is just good practice for developing a large launch vehicle, just like what SpaceX did from Falcon 1 to Falcon 9. Rocketlab is going the same direction, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them drop Electron once Neutron is operational.

[Kryten]

 Even with the competition only against Falcon rideshare and other similar services - do any of the small launch companies actually make money outside of repeated VC funding rounds? I'm not aware of any so far.

[imprezive]

Even with the competition only against Falcon rideshare and other similar services - do any of the small launch companies actually make money outside of repeated VC funding rounds? I'm not aware of any so far.

Definitively they do not since the ones who have launched paying customers are public. Save maybe the Chinese companies but they don’t launch very frequently either.

[PM3]

https://spacenews.com/space-companies-face-difficult-investment-environment/

Jared Issacman repeats what we have been discussing here for years: Only a few of those rocket startups will survive. Or maybe none, as Gwynne Shotwell predicted.

[Robotbeat]

Even with the competition only against Falcon rideshare and other similar services - do any of the small launch companies actually make money outside of repeated VC funding rounds? I'm not aware of any so far.

Almost certainly none make enough money off the launch. Launch rates too low, and launch in general is very low-margin anyway, which is why the more successful of these companies have started to branch out into satellites and services, which are both higher margin. Like how SoaceX branched out to Dragon and Starlink.

I actually don’t know if anything smaller than 1 tonne makes sense, even if fully reusable. And definitely not expendable. (Except as munitions.)

I have no idea if Stoke will be successful or not; I think their technology approach is too focused on novelty. But a fully reusable launch vehicle just over 1 tonne has a possibility of succeeding, whereas a 200kg payload expendable rocket has no real, non-military future IMHO.

[butters]

And I don't see why we need be a decade away from a fully reusable smallsat launcher. In fact, they arguably make MORE sense to fully reuse than larger vehicles since they could in principle fly thousands of payloads per year.

I see this as the ultimate reason why small launchers can't compete with larger systems in the commercial mass market (constellations and rideshares). You can certainly argue that 60 launches per year of a small system could be very competitive with a medium system launching 6 times a year. But what kind of terrestrial launch site is going to allow 600 launches a year of small system in order to compete with medium system that launches 60 times a year?

We've now seen what a 60-per-year launch cadence looks like. Can we conceive of a launch rate an order of magnitude higher, with multiple launches pretty much every day? Can we imagine what kind of launch operations team and infrastructure that would involve, if they could secure the licensing to launch that frequently?

Now compare the challenge of scaling out to the routine execution of multiple daily launches to the challenge of scaling up from a small launch vehicle to a medium launch vehicle. Which is harder: cadence or performance? Scaling out via launch cadence seemed like a good idea when a dozen launches a year was an aspirational goal for medium launch systems. Ramping cadence could be easier for a smaller system. But that droneship has sailed. Medium lift has ramped cadence faster than any of the small launchers could. With an order of magnitude less performance per launch, the cadence challenge has become impractical.

[trimeta]

https://spacenews.com/space-companies-face-difficult-investment-environment/

Jared Issacman repeats what we have been discussing here for years: Only a few of those rocket startups will survive. Or maybe none, as Gwynne Shotwell predicted.

Of course, Issacman's description of what a potentially-successful space company might look like lines up with someone in particular...

I think there’s a couple really good space companies that have been smart on their capital allocation, they bought other businesses, they diversified their revenue streams, they’re more vertically integrated. I think they’ll succeed.

As I alluded to earlier, I think a break-even small launch service could have value to such a company even if it's not making meaningful money, if this lets them test their solar panels, star trackers, reaction wheels, software-defined radios, separation systems, flight software, and integrated satellite bus "for free" (since the actual payload customer paid for the launch itself). Of course, the ability of one company to find value in such at-cost launches makes it harder for other companies to profit from such launches.

[Zed_Noir]

<snip>
I see this as the ultimate reason why small launchers can't compete with larger systems in the commercial mass market (constellations and rideshares). You can certainly argue that 60 launches per year of a small system could be very competitive with a medium system launching 6 times a year. But what kind of terrestrial launch site is going to allow 600 launches a year of small system in order to compete with medium system that launches 60 times a year?
<snip>

In theory something like a converted oil tanker with about 100 launch silos and a large helopad in the pacific near the Island of Hawaii. The helopad is for receiving encapsulated payloads. With a small launcher the ship could remain manned during launch, it isn't that different from a large missile launching from an Aegis warship. Of course finding enough payloads might be a problem with the current dominate launch provider around.

Shamelessly rip off the concept from the arsenal ship concept. 

[imprezive]

It’s not just the launch site it’s the integration support and initial conops for the satellites. There is also no customer need. If you are putting a lot of satellites up they are almost always going to a handful of places and it’s easiest to launch them in planes.

[M.E.T.]

https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1583136827803697157?s=21&t=ZJa2XDL5dM8BD20wNvE2lw

[Zed_Noir]

It’s not just the launch site it’s the integration support and initial conops for the satellites. There is also no customer need. If you are putting a lot of satellites up they are almost always going to a handful of places and it’s easiest to launch them in planes.

Do you meant different orbital inclinations and altitudes?

[imprezive]

It’s not just the launch site it’s the integration support and initial conops for the satellites. There is also no customer need. If you are putting a lot of satellites up they are almost always going to a handful of places and it’s easiest to launch them in planes.

Do you meant different orbital inclinations and altitudes?

Yes. Most constellations with go to at most 2-3 different inclinations.