Countdown to new smallsat launchers

[TrevorMonty]

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

Self generated demand, without starlink F9 would sitting around a dozen a year.

[DanClemmensen]

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

Self generated demand, without starlink F9 would sitting around a dozen a year.

Quite possibly, but so far this year they have seventeen non-Starlink launches. If that rate continues to the end of the year, they will have about 21 non-Starlink launches. in 2022.

[trimeta]

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

Self generated demand, without starlink F9 would sitting around a dozen a year.

Quite possibly, but so far this year they have seventeen non-Starlink launches. If that rate continues to the end of the year, they will have about 21 non-Starlink launches. in 2022.

True, but of the 17 non-Starlink launches, three were Transporter missions, three were Crew Dragon missions, and one was a Cargo Dragon mission. Arguably those fall under "self-generated demand" as well. The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

[DanClemmensen]

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

Self generated demand, without starlink F9 would sitting around a dozen a year.

Quite possibly, but so far this year they have seventeen non-Starlink launches. If that rate continues to the end of the year, they will have about 21 non-Starlink launches. in 2022.

True, but of the 17 non-Starlink launches, three were Transporter missions, three were Crew Dragon missions, and one was a Cargo Dragon mission. Arguably those fall under "self-generated demand" as well. The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

Are you arguing that no new launch company can be successful unless it will have self-generated demand?

[trimeta]

True, but of the 17 non-Starlink launches, three were Transporter missions, three were Crew Dragon missions, and one was a Cargo Dragon mission. Arguably those fall under "self-generated demand" as well. The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

Are you arguing that no new launch company can be successful unless it will have self-generated demand?

If "success" means "at least 15 launches per year," then yes. Although I'm a little loose about "self-generated": counting the Transporter launches is already slightly cheating, and I'd also count building satellites (or satellite components) in-house so potential customers have an easier (and hopefully cheaper) path to begin space operations. Basically, demand isn't going to grow just because launch capacity did: what else are you doing to drag customers kicking and screaming onto your launch vehicles?

[TrevorMonty]

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

Self generated demand, without starlink F9 would sitting around a dozen a year.

Quite possibly, but so far this year they have seventeen non-Starlink launches. If that rate continues to the end of the year, they will have about 21 non-Starlink launches. in 2022.

True, but of the 17 non-Starlink launches, three were Transporter missions, three were Crew Dragon missions, and one was a Cargo Dragon mission. Arguably those fall under "self-generated demand" as well. The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

Dragon (crew & cargo) and rideshares are funded by customers. Starlink missions with rideshares are partially funded by customers.

[M.E.T.]

True, but of the 17 non-Starlink launches, three were Transporter missions, three were Crew Dragon missions, and one was a Cargo Dragon mission. Arguably those fall under "self-generated demand" as well. The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

Are you arguing that no new launch company can be successful unless it will have self-generated demand?

If "success" means "at least 15 launches per year," then yes. Although I'm a little loose about "self-generated": counting the Transporter launches is already slightly cheating, and I'd also count building satellites (or satellite components) in-house so potential customers have an easier (and hopefully cheaper) path to begin space operations. Basically, demand isn't going to grow just because launch capacity did: what else are you doing to drag customers kicking and screaming onto your launch vehicles?

You’re just reinforcing the point made by Eric.

[trimeta]

Dragon (crew & cargo) and rideshares are funded by customers. Starlink missions with rideshares are partially funded by customers.

Like I said, I'm being loose about what "self-generated" means: it's not limited to "100% self-funded." It's simply acknowledging that "if you build [launch capacity], they will come" doesn't work, because Space is Hard applies to building spacecraft as well. So unless you're substantially moving the needle on the payload side too, removing one bottleneck isn't going to unleash anything.

You’re just reinforcing the point made by Eric.

I don't think I'm disagreeing with Eric, honestly: at the very least, I was always extremely skeptical of Astra's claims that they would be launching weekly if not daily within a year or two (and that the economics of their fully-expendable launcher only made sense at those sorts of scales). And not to belabor the obvious, but although I keep alluding to Rocket Lab's strategy with becoming an end-to-end provider, nonetheless I think their goal of launching every other week by the end of 2024 (and that doesn't mean throughout 2024, but rather reaching that cadence in Q4 2024 and sustaining it throughout 2025) is still rather optimistic.

[su27k]

The concept of "if you build launch capacity, demand will rise to meet it" has been pretty thoroughly debunked. You need to operate on both sides of the equation, growing the demand yourself.

And Elon Musk probably realized this back in 2014, before many of the smallsat launch companies even existed...

[imprezive]

If you want to hit a high cadence at least for the near future you really need a large constellation on your manifest. There are only a couple of those to around unfortunately and it’s why I think people are much too quick to dismiss Ariane/ULA as competitors to these new launchers.

[DanClemmensen]

If you want to hit a high cadence at least for the near future you really need a large constellation on your manifest. There are only a couple of those to around unfortunately and it’s why I think people are much too quick to dismiss Ariane/ULA as competitors to these new launchers.

Now I'm even more confused. You need a constellation for a high launch cadence, but constellation launches are well-served by larger launch vehicles, not smallsat launchers, because multiple satellites in a constellation tend to go into orbits that are compatible with a single launch. In addition, launches for a constellation tend to be scheduled to match the output of the satellite factory, so launch-on-demand is not useful for the bulk of the constellation. I conclude that a constellation is not a high-volume steady customer for a smallsat launcher.

A smallsat launcher cpuild be used for launch-on-demand replacement of failed constellation satellites, but it's more cost-effective to use in-space spares, and the volume is low in any event.

[imprezive]

If you want to hit a high cadence at least for the near future you really need a large constellation on your manifest. There are only a couple of those to around unfortunately and it’s why I think people are much too quick to dismiss Ariane/ULA as competitors to these new launchers.

Now I'm even more confused. You need a constellation for a high launch cadence, but constellation launches are well-served by larger launch vehicles, not smallsat launchers, because multiple satellites in a constellation tend to go into orbits that are compatible with a single launch. In addition, launches for a constellation tend to be scheduled to match the output of the satellite factory, so launch-on-demand is not useful for the bulk of the constellation. I conclude that a constellation is not a high-volume steady customer for a smallsat launcher.

A smallsat launcher cpuild be used for launch-on-demand replacement of failed constellation satellites, but it's more cost-effective to use in-space spares, and the volume is low in any event.

I think I wasn’t clear, I agree with you. The only way to have a high cadence is a large constellation customer. Those customers want medium lift or bigger. Therefore the small launchers will continue to struggle.

[AmigaClone]

If you want to hit a high cadence at least for the near future you really need a large constellation on your manifest. There are only a couple of those to around unfortunately and it’s why I think people are much too quick to dismiss Ariane/ULA as competitors to these new launchers.

Now I'm even more confused. You need a constellation for a high launch cadence, but constellation launches are well-served by larger launch vehicles, not smallsat launchers, because multiple satellites in a constellation tend to go into orbits that are compatible with a single launch. In addition, launches for a constellation tend to be scheduled to match the output of the satellite factory, so launch-on-demand is not useful for the bulk of the constellation. I conclude that a constellation is not a high-volume steady customer for a smallsat launcher.

A smallsat launcher cpuild be used for launch-on-demand replacement of failed constellation satellites, but it's more cost-effective to use in-space spares, and the volume is low in any event.

I think I wasn’t clear, I agree with you. The only way to have a high cadence is a large constellation customer. Those customers want medium lift or bigger. Therefore the small launchers will continue to struggle.

The only satellites I see being launched using smallsat launchers to large constellations would be a few launches a year to replace the occasional satellite that had a much shorter lifetime than expected (as opposed to those that might not survive the launch, or are just test beds.)

Even so, companies that design, build and run constellations that are either owned or otherwise associated with a launch provider that includes medium or heavy lift vehicles likely would prefer to use their own resources as opposed to contracting another party.

To use three examples of large constellations and the likelihood of them using smallsat launchers to launch occasional replacements on demand.

Starlink - The first 4408 Starlink constellation is about 2/3s deployed. Once complete I suspect there will be on-orbit spare satellites that would be refreshed periodically initially with Falcon 9 launches, later using Starship. Likely the same story for the other planned constellation(s).

Kuiper Project - Even with all the launch vehicle orders, it has yet to launch a single Kuiper satellite. That might cause some issues with the FCC if they are unable to launch at least half it's 3276 satellite constellation by the July 2026 deadline. Per the same document with the FCC, they have until July 2029 to launch the rest. The test satellites will be launched on RS1 which is a smallsat launcher - that has yet to fly.

OneWeb - Is the most likely of the three to use smallsat launches on a consistent basis to replace the odd failed satellite. Granted, if more than a certain number replacing at the same time, I suspect they would use a larger launch vehicle (Ariane 6, one of the Indian launch vehicles, or SpaceX.

[trimeta]

Kuiper Project - Even with all the launch vehicle orders, it has yet to launch a single Kuiper satellite. That might cause some issues with the FCC if they are unable to launch at least half it's 3276 satellite constellation by the July 2026 deadline. Per the same document with the FCC, they have until July 2029 to launch the rest. The test satellites will be launched on RS1 which is a smallsat launcher - that has yet to fly.

Actually, the test satellites were moved to the debut launch of Vulcan:

https://twitter.com/Free_Space/status/1580226794430627841

[PM3]

Three new small launchers will try to reach orbit in December:

- ABL RS1, launch window from Dec. 7 to 14. Third try, after two launch attempts in November were aborted after engine ignition. => launch thread

- Chinese Jielong-3, a solid-fuel rocket, first attempt on Dec. 9 to 15. => launch thread

- Chinese Kuaizhou-11, also a solid rocket, in late December. Second try, after first launch failed in June 2020. => launch thread

There is also a chance for another Zoljanah (suborbital?) test launch in Iran.

Relativity was claiming to launch their Terran 1 rocket before year end, but I think that's way too optimistic. My guess is Q2 2023, presuming that there are no engine issues. => launch thread

See New small launcher history and schedule for a list of past and upcoming small launcher maiden flights.

[PM3]

Since this thread was started, nine new privately developed small launchers tried to go orbital; two more are just standing on the pad for first flight:

Electron - successful in service
Zhuque-1 - one failed orbital launch, canceled
OS-M - one failed orbital launch, canceled
Hyperbola-1 - 3 of 4 orbital launches failed
Ceres-1 - successful in service
LauncherOne - 4 of 6 launches succeeded, but economic failure
Rocket 3 - 6 of 8 orbital launches failed, canceled
Alpha - tbd, one failed and one partially successful demo launch
RS1 - tbd, one failed demo launch
Terran 1 - demo launch in progress, may be canceled thereafter
Tianlong-2 - tbd, first launch imminent

This is a rather sobering intermediate result, and I think it will go on this way.

So far these are six American rockets (with support from New Zealand and Ukraine), and five Chinese (with some technology transfer from state companies). The first non-US and non-Chinese private small launches are expected NET 2024. See New small launcher history and schedule for a list of past and upcoming small launcher maiden flights.

[Solarsail]

Though Zhuque-2, unlike Zhuque-1 has not been cancelled

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Though Zhuque-2, unlike Zhuque-1 has not been cancelled

I think it's not listed here because ZQ-2 is too big.

[Vahe231991]

The Hyperbola-1's recent launch last month reached orbit, and the Tianlong-2's first launch on April 2, 2023 was successful, while the Terran 1 did not reach orbit on its first launch.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/brycespacetech/status/1679908649404370944

60% of the 5,966 smallsats launched between 2018 –2022 were carried on Starlink & OneWeb launch vehicles.

Download the full report: https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/Bryce_Smallsats_2023.pdf

#Smallsats #Launch #Data