Skyrora will make three test launches over the next 12 months, the first expected to take place over the next few months, as part of its effort to certify its Skyrora XL satellite launch vehicle that will be 10 metres tall and will be able to loft a 100 kilogram payload into low-Earth orbit. The company conducted one of its first tests near Evanton, Scotland, in August 2018 when it launched its SkyLark Nano sounding rocket to an altitude of 6 kilometres, reaching a speed of Mach 1.45.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 18, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NSR’s Smallsat Launch Vehicle Markets, 2nd Edition report, released today, concludes the dedicated commercial small satellite launch market will see a rapid ramp-up period resulting in over $2.2B in revenue over the next 10 years, overcoming supply chain constraints, new technology risks, and solidifying its place in the market as a proven competitor.
Unless I’m missing something that doesn’t look good at all! Just over $200M per year launch revenue for 10 years to reach that number? If it is aggregate, that is super small and not even close to venture backable. If it is $2B/year every single year, that’s better, but still not huge for cubesats.I wonder what split of initial deployment vs resupply they included, or Govt expectations.
Quote from: LouScheffer on 02/28/2019 02:06 pmAv Week has an article Little Launchers Lining Up (paywall). Some highlights are:QuoteNow, 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 AeroespacialLinksapce = Linksapce Aerospace Technology Group
Av Week has an article Little Launchers Lining Up (paywall). Some highlights are:QuoteNow, 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.".
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.
I see the two smallsat launchers due to have their maiden flight this month, are not even mentioned in this list. Any particular reason why that would be?
Quote from: high road on 07/10/2019 06:28 amI see the two smallsat launchers due to have their maiden flight this month, are not even mentioned in this list. Any particular reason why that would be?If you want to help maintain the list, maybe you should actually say what launchers you're talking about.
This particular list was quoted from an article. I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to identify reliable sources of info to improve the list in this thread. The two launchers I'm talking about are Hyperbola-1 and Jielong-1 (Smart Dragon). Both Chinese. So my question was more whether these launchers became public knowledge after this article was published, or whether the Chinese can get a launcher from paper to first launch that fast, or if there's any other reason to omit them from this list.
Quote from: gongora on 07/10/2019 01:37 pmQuote from: high road on 07/10/2019 06:28 amI see the two smallsat launchers due to have their maiden flight this month, are not even mentioned in this list. Any particular reason why that would be?If you want to help maintain the list, maybe you should actually say what launchers you're talking about.This particular list was quoted from an article. I don't consider myself knowledgeable enough to identify reliable sources of info to improve the list in this thread. The two launchers I'm talking about are Hyperbola-1 and Jielong-1 (Smart Dragon). Both Chinese. So my question was more whether these launchersbecame public knowledge after this article was published, or whether the Chinese can get a launcherfrom paper to first launch that fast, or if there's any other reason to omit them from this list.
Since Nanoracks can launch small sats with some reliability at a given price, a customer would have to be incentivized by new launch companies by a significantly better price to switch from Nanoracks - or really need different orbital parameters.
Relativity Space - Terran 1 as well. Launch at end of 2020, and latest articles peg their team at almost 100 people. Also have a launch site at the Cape, and huge development facilities at NASA Stennis Space Center.
Beijing-based startup iSpace is planning up to eight commercial rocket launches next year, after last week becoming China’s first privately funded firm to put a satellite into orbit, its executives told Reuters....The price tag to launch a rocket is 4.5 million euros ($5 million), Yao added.
