Countdown to new smallsat launchers

[TrevorMonty]

This article provides some info on UK companies Orbital Access, Obex and Skyrora.

eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/01/british-rocketeers-in-the-new-space-age/#.XEHYBipH4dQ.twitter

Orbital Access are developing reuseable 1st stage Skyplane (23mx12m) that will be launched by carrier plane. Will land at airport after deploying 2nd stage at Mach9. Plan to use a current Russian engine. Long term plan is redesign it for Reaction Sabre engine. Been working with BAE and Reaction on design.

[brussell]

Cream:
...
Stratolauncher (because Paul Allen's dollars)

What has changed? Who is going down in flames, who has risen like a pheonix?

https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle-program/

... ayep

[russianhalo117]

Cream:
...
Stratolauncher (because Paul Allen's dollars)

What has changed? Who is going down in flames, who has risen like a pheonix?

https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle-program/

... ayep

PGA engine programme to continue for now.

[Davidthefat]

Cream:
...
Stratolauncher (because Paul Allen's dollars)

What has changed? Who is going down in flames, who has risen like a pheonix?

https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle-program/

... ayep

PGA engine programme to continue for now.

Source? Also why have an engine without a vehicle?

[TrevorMonty]

Cream:
...
Stratolauncher (because Paul Allen's dollars)

What has changed? Who is going down in flames, who has risen like a pheonix?

https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle-program/

... ayep

PGA engine programme to continue for now.

Source? Also why have an engine without a vehicle?

Wrong thread for this discussion, reply on Stratolaunch one.

[TrevorMonty]

SpaceNews reports that Dr. Fred Kennedy, who is director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), has been tapped to run the Defense Department’s new Space Development Agency.

www.parabolicarc.com/2019/02/24/griffin-taps-darpa-official-head-space-development-agency/

"Like Griffin, Kennedy has criticized the procurement culture in the Defense Department for choosing to pursue costly in-house developments instead of buying technology available in the open market at far less cost. Both have been proponents of deploying smaller, cheaper satellites in large numbers to make U.S. space systems more resilient to disruptions or hostile attacks."


How this relates to this thread, is long term there is likely to be shift from large expensive DoD satellite, to lots of lower cost smallsats. Which can only be good thing for smallsat launch vehicle providers.

[whitelancer64]

ARCA has their test article on the test stand.

"Day and night views of Launch Assist System 25D awaiting first test firing at ARCA's test facility. The engine is expected to produce at the end of the test firing campaign 25 metric tons of thrust. Immediately after these tests the aerospike rocket engine tests will follow."

https://twitter.com/arcaspace/status/1099182486175797248

[Davidthefat]

ARCA has their test article on the test stand.

"Day and night views of Launch Assist System 25D awaiting first test firing at ARCA's test facility. The engine is expected to produce at the end of the test firing campaign 25 metric tons of thrust. Immediately after these tests the aerospike rocket engine tests will follow."

https://twitter.com/arcaspace/status/1099182486175797248

I never understood why they had to have that long tank on the "stand". It makes much more sense to have the tanks on the ground like every other test stand in the world...

I guess it would be asking for a lot to expect a lot of logic from these guys... So it became December -> January for the firing because of snow. January -> March for no apparent reason?

[whitelancer64]

ARCA has their test article on the test stand.

"Day and night views of Launch Assist System 25D awaiting first test firing at ARCA's test facility. The engine is expected to produce at the end of the test firing campaign 25 metric tons of thrust. Immediately after these tests the aerospike rocket engine tests will follow."

*snip*

I never understood why they had to have that long tank on the "stand". It makes much more sense to have the tanks on the ground like every other test stand in the world...

I guess it would be asking for a lot to expect a lot of logic from these guys... So it became December -> January for the firing because of snow. January -> March for no apparent reason?

They had some trouble with their equipment to get the tank in place. The rectangular truss to the sides and above is a lifting rig that they used to manually hoist the tank into position.

[Tywin]

SpaceNews reports that Dr. Fred Kennedy, who is director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office (TTO), has been tapped to run the Defense Department’s new Space Development Agency.

www.parabolicarc.com/2019/02/24/griffin-taps-darpa-official-head-space-development-agency/

"Like Griffin, Kennedy has criticized the procurement culture in the Defense Department for choosing to pursue costly in-house developments instead of buying technology available in the open market at far less cost. Both have been proponents of deploying smaller, cheaper satellites in large numbers to make U.S. space systems more resilient to disruptions or hostile attacks."


How this relates to this thread, is long term there is likely to be shift from large expensive DoD satellite, to lots of lower cost smallsats. Which can only be good thing for smallsat launch vehicle providers.

Well in Canada look like they want follow that way too:

https://www.spaceq.ca/dnd-project-grey-jay-will-use-the-sfl-defiant-platform-and-other-new-details/

[PM3]

First orbital flights of new smallsat launchers

Launched:

May 2017 - Electron  (NZ)  -  failure
Jan 2018 - Electron - success
Oct 2018 - Zhuque-1  (China)  -  failure
Mar 2019 - OS-M (China) - failure

Planned for 2019:

May 2019 - LauncherOne  (USA)
Q2 2019 - Jielong-1  (China)
Jul 2019 - SSLV  (India)
Q3 2019 - Hyperbola-1  / SQX-1  (China)
Late 2019 - Vector-R  (USA)
Dec 2019 - Firefly Alpha  (USA)

For the upcoming years, after reviewing ~50 smallsat startups, here a selection of those rockets which IMHO have some chance to make it into orbit within 3-4 years. All with high probability to slip into a later year than announced.

No date announced:
- Astra  (USA)

Planned for 2020:
- NewLine-1  (China)
- Eris-100  (Australia)
Dec 2020 Terran 1  (USA)

Planned for 2021:
- Prime  (UK)
- Eris-400  (Australia)
- Miura 5  (Spain)


Advertised max. payload to 500 km SSO

26 kg - Vector-R
112 kg - OS-M
150 kg - Electron
150 kg - Prime
165 kg - Hyperbola-1 (estimated from 150 kg to 700 km)
165 kg - Jielong-1 (estimated from 150 kg to 700 km)
200 kg - NewLine-1
200 kg - Zhuque 1
300 kg - LauncherOne
300 kg - Miura 5
300 kg - SSLV
630 kg - Firefly Alpha
900 kg - Terran 1

__
2019-02-26 added Jielong-1
2019-02-27 added Hyperbola-1
2019-03-06 Hyperbola-1 slips from June to Q3
2019-03-08 added Astra, Vector-H, Eris-100, Eris-400, Newline-1, Terran 1, Miura 5, Prime
2019-03-10 update LauncherOne
2019-03-27 update OS-M
2019-04-04 update LauncherOne and Vector-R, removed Vector-H
2019-04-05 update Terran 1

[LouScheffer]

Av Week has an article Little Launchers Lining Up (paywall).  Some highlights are:

Now, lured by the prospect of thousands of small satellites needing rides to orbit, companies over the last four years have worked on more than 100 little launchers, with about 40 currently in development or testing.

They have a table of 39 launchers in development worldwide, each with organization, name of rocket, country, and estimated launch date.  44 more are mentioned without dates.  There is also a big table of where the funding is coming from.  Much of this data comes from a watch list kept by Carlos Niederstrasser of Northrop Grumman, so at least some of the big companies are paying attention.

Foremost are are the ones that are working already:  Pegasus, Minotaur, Rocket Lab, plus they say 3 Chinese vehicles are operational.   Of the "upcoming soon" the ones they treat most seriously seem to be Virgin, Vector, Relativity, and Firefly.

Everyone sees a shakeout coming, and a huge first-mover advantage.   The CEO of Firefly says "I’m really glad Rocket Lab has a 150-kg launcher because if they were launching a 1-metric-ton now at the [flight] rate they’re talking about, it would be very difficult to justify these companies.".

[ringsider]

The CEO of Firefly says "I’m really glad Rocket Lab has a 150-kg launcher because if they were launching a 1-metric-ton now at the [flight] rate they’re talking about, it would be very difficult to justify these companies.".

The irony of the same guy who ran his first company into numerous lawsuits, then the ground, before being rescued by a Ukrainian "entrepreneur" teaching the likes of Rocket Lab... He is mighty opinionated for a guy who has flown less hardware than Vector...

[TrevorMonty]

Podecast from Interplanetary with Orbex CEO. Episode 120.

https://www.interplanetary.org.uk/episodes

He say there is lot support for their LV in europe, enough to make it viable. Has more realistic launch rate of 10 -12 a year. They do have deal with Clyde aerospace who make lot smallsats.

Expected launch 2021.

[TrevorMonty]

Ben Brockert (@wikkit) tweeted at 8:21 AM on Sun, Mar 10, 2019:
Really interesting summary of a customer's experience on a recent satellite rideshare. https://t.co/q8idnjzVxr (I'm glad I didn't mute an otherwise silly thread.)
(https://twitter.com/wikkit/status/1104462349182726144?s=03)

This customer's bad experience is more poor service by rideshare provider not necessarily reflection of LV or its operator. Luckily there is more than one company offering rideshare services.

Slipped launch dates is just part of business regardless of LV size,  for small rideshare customers its a case of take it or leave it. If you leave it don't expect another launch any time soon.

While lot of focus is on LV, its final deployment by kickstage or ESPA ring that is critical and part of this customers criticisms.

Rocket Labs Curie kick stage is important selling point for them and I can see why now. Its not just deployment but also notifying customer of exact deployment location (orbit and direction of deployment). Being able to raise and lower the orbit between deployments is another big bonus.

[john smith 19]

Av Week has an article Little Launchers Lining Up (paywall).  Some highlights are:

They have a table of 39 launchers in development worldwide, each with organization, name of rocket, country, and estimated launch date.  44 more are mentioned without dates.  There is also a big table of where the funding is coming from.  Much of this data comes from a watch list kept by Carlos Niederstrasser of Northrop Grumman, so at least some of the big companies are paying attention.

Foremost are are the ones that are working already:  Pegasus, Minotaur, Rocket Lab, plus they say 3 Chinese vehicles are operational.   Of the "upcoming soon" the ones they treat most seriously seem to be Virgin, Vector, Relativity, and Firefly.

Everyone sees a shakeout coming, and a huge first-mover advantage.   The CEO of Firefly says "I’m really glad Rocket Lab has a 150-kg launcher because if they were launching a 1-metric-ton now at the [flight] rate they’re talking about, it would be very difficult to justify these companies.".

I can see a huge shakeout coming. With expendables (and AFAIK they are all expendables, with some lip service to recovery "At a later date") it's all about the track record. Showing you can launch to orbit without blowing up.

Let's keep in mind SX had payloads for several of its F1 launches and only the last two achieved orbit before they retired it entirely.

No ELV is going to lower $/Kg to orbit by any substantial amount. You're just launching a smaller mass to begin with.

NG's Pegasus has been around since the early 90's and has bags of track record and has the highest $/Kg cost of any launcher.
Can new ones do better? Almost certainly.
How much better? Who knows.

I will definitely say that anyone who builds their LV design around a 3rd party engine which is a sole source component and they cannot replace with a competitor system should know their supplier has them by the groin. Their prices will rise by the price that supplier charges them.

BTW the obvious advantage the small sat LV mfg have is (in principle) agility. They should be able to accommodate relatively fast changes in manifest and launch needs in a way that ride shares cannot. IOW their edge is better customer service. Treating small sat operators like primes (which given the size of the vehicle, they are).

[john smith 19]

Ben Brockert (@wikkit) tweeted at 8:21 AM on Sun, Mar 10, 2019:
Really interesting summary of a customer's experience on a recent satellite rideshare. https://t.co/q8idnjzVxr (I'm glad I didn't mute an otherwise silly thread.)
(https://twitter.com/wikkit/status/1104462349182726144?s=03)

This customer's bad experience is more poor service by rideshare provider not necessarily reflection of LV or its operator. Luckily there is more than one company offering rideshare services.

Slipped launch dates is just part of business regardless of LV size,  for small rideshare customers its a case of take it or leave it. If you leave it don't expect another launch any time soon.

While lot of focus is on LV, its final deployment by kickstage or ESPA ring that is critical and part of this customers criticisms.

Rocket Labs Curie kick stage is important selling point for them and I can see why now. Its not just deployment but also notifying customer of exact deployment location (orbit and direction of deployment). Being able to raise and lower the orbit between deployments is another big bonus.

I've read this and it sounds bad but they are claiming there were 40 cubesats and that suggests keeping a lot of customers up to date. I could quite easily see the launch environment changing and different customers being told different things (which were true at the time they were told them).

It's interesting but it seems the little things are  what annoyed him most. Co-ordinating cubesat ejection  to minimize potential collisions. Finding out if there's a preferred best time of day or orbit that most payloads would like to launch (can't guarantee you'd get it on a rideshare, but if you were the sole payload?)

Basic, obvious human stuff, when you think about it. 

I think one thing small sat LV's should do better is regular, consistent launch schedules. 
Get preferences, then set No Earlier Than and Not After dates.  On any given launch date something will launch, either one that's been on the books for years, or a standby payload that accepts minimal special handling.
Maybe it's the first test of a cubesat to Mars, maybe it's someone's ashes.
Regardless, something is going up.

I agree a restartable US is useful. Given Ariane 5 really needed dual launch to be cost effective I was very surprised to find their standard US did only one burn. Being able to drop off comm sats at substantially different parts of GEO sounded a pretty good idea, along with the general increase in flexibility for space probes to other planets.

An LV that cannot set a regular launch schedule is not a service, it's still in development.

[heiterefahne]

They have a table of 39 launchers in development worldwide, each with organization, name of rocket, country, and estimated launch date.  44 more are mentioned without dates.  There is also a big table of where the funding is coming from.  Much of this data comes from a watch list kept by Carlos Niederstrasser of Northrop Grumman, so at least some of the big companies are paying attention.

Foremost are are the ones that are working already:  Pegasus, Minotaur, Rocket Lab, plus they say 3 Chinese vehicles are operational.   Of the "upcoming soon" the ones they treat most seriously seem to be Virgin, Vector, Relativity, and Firefly.

Where is PLD Space on that list?

[TrevorMonty]

Ben Brockert (@wikkit) tweeted at 8:21 AM on Sun, Mar 10, 2019:
Really interesting summary of a customer's experience on a recent satellite rideshare. https://t.co/q8idnjzVxr (I'm glad I didn't mute an otherwise silly thread.)
(https://twitter.com/wikkit/status/1104462349182726144?s=03)

This customer's bad experience is more poor service by rideshare provider not necessarily reflection of LV or its operator. Luckily there is more than one company offering rideshare services.

Slipped launch dates is just part of business regardless of LV size,  for small rideshare customers its a case of take it or leave it. If you leave it don't expect another launch any time soon.

While lot of focus is on LV, its final deployment by kickstage or ESPA ring that is critical and part of this customers criticisms.

Rocket Labs Curie kick stage is important selling point for them and I can see why now. Its not just deployment but also notifying customer of exact deployment location (orbit and direction of deployment). Being able to raise and lower the orbit between deployments is another big bonus.

I've read this and it sounds bad but they are claiming there were 40 cubesats and that suggests keeping a lot of customers up to date. I could quite easily see the launch environment changing and different customers being told different things (which were true at the time they were told them).


An LV that cannot set a regular launch schedule is not a service, it's still in development.

Scheduling will get better but there is always something that will screw it up. The latest Electron DARPA launch has been delayed by what seems to be issues with payload.

[Comga]

Av Week has an article Little Launchers Lining Up (paywall).  Some highlights are:

Now, lured by the prospect of thousands of small satellites needing rides to orbit, companies over the last four years have worked on more than 100 little launchers, with about 40 currently in development or testing.

They have a table of 39 launchers in development worldwide, each with organization, name of rocket, country, and estimated launch date.  44 more are mentioned without dates.  There is also a big table of where the funding is coming from.  Much of this data comes from a watch list kept by Carlos Niederstrasser of Northrop Grumman, so at least some of the big companies are paying attention.

Foremost are are the ones that are working already:  Pegasus, Minotaur, Rocket Lab, plus they say 3 Chinese vehicles are operational.   Of the "upcoming soon" the ones they treat most seriously seem to be Virgin, Vector, Relativity, and Firefly.

Everyone sees a shakeout coming, and a huge first-mover advantage.   The CEO of Firefly says "I’m really glad Rocket Lab has a 150-kg launcher because if they were launching a 1-metric-ton now at the [flight] rate they’re talking about, it would be very difficult to justify these companies.".

The same Carlos Niederstrasser gave a paper at the 32nd Annual AIAA/USU Conference on Small Satellites which has this list, albeit the one below is sorted by launch date.  Beyond the six demonstrated system, several are past their "Latest Launch Date" only a few, like Launcher One, showing likelihood of making their dates.

Organization       Vehicle Name       Country       Latest Launch Date             Launched                               Northrop Grumman       Pegasus XL       USA       5-Apr-1990       Northrop Grumman       Minotaur I       USA       27-Jan-2000       CAST       Chang Zheng 11       China       25-Sep-2015       ExPace       Kuaizhou-1A       China       9-Jan-2017       CAST       Kaituozhe-2       China       3-Mar-2017       Rocket Lab       Electron       USA/New Zealand       21-Jan-2018       Not yet launched    Celestia Aerospace       Sagitarius Space Arrow CM       Spain       2016       SpaceLS       Prometheus-1       United Kingdom       Q4 2017       zero2infinity       Bloostar       Spain       2017       Virgin Orbit       LauncherOne       USA       H1 2018       LandSpace       LandSpace-1       China       H2 2018       Vector Space Systems       Vector-R       USA       H2  2018       LEO Launcher       Chariot       USA       Q4  2018       bspace       Volant       USA       2018       OneSpace Technology       OS-M1       China       2018       RocketStar       Star-Lord       USA       2018       ISRO       PSLV Light       India       Q1 2019       Rocketcrafters       Intrepid-1       USA       Q1 2019       Firefly Aerospace       Firefly       USA       Q3 2019       Bagaveev Corporation       Bagaveev       USA       2019       DCTS       VLM-1       Brazil       2019       Space Ops       Rocky 1       Australia       2019       Stofiel Aerospace       Boreas-Hermes       USA       2019       ABL Space Systems       RS1       USA       Q3 2020       Gilmour Space Technologies       Eris       Australia/Singapore       Q4 2020       CONAE       Tronador II       Argentina       2020       CubeCab       Cab-3A       USA       2020       ESA       Space Rider       Europe       2020       Linkspace     NewLine-1       China       2020       Orbital Access       Orbital 500R       United Kingdom       2020       PLD Space       Arion 2       Spain       3Q 2021       Aphelion Orbitals       Helios       USA       2021       Launcher       Rocket-1       USA       2025       Cloud IX       Unknown       USA                   Interorbital Systems       NEPTUNE N1       USA                   Orbex       Orbex       United Kingdom                   Skyrora       Skyrora XL       UK/Ukraine                   SpinLaunch       Unknown       USA                   Stratolaunch       Pegasus (Strato)       USA                   VALT Enterprises       VALT       USA                CAST = China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation DCTA = Departamento de Ciencia e Tecnologia Aeroespacial Linksapce = Linksapce Aerospace Technology Group