Countdown to new smallsat launchers

[PM3]

Smallsat launcher schedule / first (successful) flight since thread opening:

2018-01  Electron      US/NZ   Rocket Lab
2019-07  Hyperbola-1   China   iSpace
2019-08  Jielong-1     China   Chinarocket (state-owned)

Planned or expected (NET)

2019-11  LauncherOne   US      Virgin
2019-12  SSLV          India   ISRO (state-owned)
2019     Astra         US      Astra
2019     Simorgh       Iran    (state-owned)
2019     Kuaizhou-11   China   (state-owned)
2019     OS-M1         China   OneSpace

2020-03  Firefly α     US/Ukr  Firefly
2020-07  Blue Whale 1  Korea   Perigee
2020     Ceres-1       China   Galactic Energy
2020     RS1           US      ABL
2020     Jielong-2     China   Chinarocket (state-owned)
2020     Nebula-1      China   Deep Blue
2020?    Super Strypi  US      X-Bow

2021     Terran 1      US      Relativity
2021     Newline-1     China   LinkSpace

All the rest (realistically) 2022+.

Failed: Vector

[2019-10-11: added Super Strypi]
[2019-10-21: added Jielong-2]
[2019-10-23: updated Firefly schedule, added Blue Whale 1]

[Tywin]

Interesting report about the present and future spaceports, for the launchers companies...

https://twitter.com/BryceSpaceTech/status/1179032724570591237

[Comga]

Article in Space News:  Air Force taps services of 8 launch providers

Northrop Grumman, United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Xbow Launch Systems, Firefly Aerospace, Aevum, Rocket Lab and Vox Space have all received contracts under the US Air Force's $986 million Orbital Services Program-4. The launch contracts are for small to medium payloads

XBow Launch Services?   A Huntsville AL company that received a Phase 1 SBIR to do additive manufacturing of solid propellants.
Their web site is only a photo of a rail launched rocket silhouetted against a sunset. 

Someone says Vox Space is the vehicle for Virgin Orbit to sell to the government.

Aevum?  Another Huntsville company

Aevum, Inc. provides comprehensive space logistics service to enable commercial and Government customers to deploy small payloads in low Earth orbit (LEO).

They have a $4.9 M contract from the SMSC 

This will be the first U.S. Air Force mission for Aevum, Inc. and will be launched from Cecil Air and Space Port in Jacksonville, Fla.  The initial launch capability of the ASLON-45 mission is scheduled for the third quarter of 2021.

Edit:  Neither Aveum or Xbow is on PM3's list.
However, the article linked above says Aveum is the successor to Vector, which PM3 listed as failed, and was under contract to SMSC within two weeks of Vector's withdrawal. Whether there is any technical connection is not discussed.

[high road]

No technical connection. Aevum made their first presentation last year. They were planning to start to do test launches this year 

Very high vaporware vibe. How they qualified for the defence contract is beyond me. There's a link to the presentation in the Vector thread. I'd add it myself but that takes some doing on my phone.

[PM3]

XBow Launch Services?   A Huntsville AL company that received a Phase 1 SBIR to do additive manufacturing of solid propellants.
Their web site is only a photo of a rail launched rocket silhouetted against a sunset. 

Als already pointed out here by su27k, the image on the X-Bow website shows the Hawaiian Super Strypi / Spark launcher. Also, X-Bow has been advocating for a launch site in Hawaii and is planning two satellite launches, the first one from Kauai (here on page 8 ). These launches were planned for 2018 and 2019, but obviously did slip.

So Super Strypi seems to be alive.

Aevum so far is not in the launch schedule above because of the strong vaporware smell. But I will add Super Strypi.

[youngmacdonald]

It's been widely reported that there may be as many as 140 small sat launch vehicles in development. The goal is to develop these light launch vehicles to deliver small sats, mostly to LEO.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how this will play out. Right now the players seem to be:

Rocket Lab - the only small sat rockets in the market as of yet.
Virgin Orbit - who may launch early next year.
Firefly - actually faced bankruptcy in 2016, but have a Ukrainian backer now.
Relativity - who just raised $140m in VC.
ABL Systems - not that much known about them.

It seems to me that if all of these  come into the market (as well as some others still in stealth) there will be something of a rocket bubble.

So, who will win? On what basis? What is it that will separate the winners from the losers?

[Blackjax]

The crowded potential competitive landscape you outlined was already a tough one that would likely have meant many companies would find it difficult to secure enough funding to even finish developing their launcher.  Those few who did field a vehicle would be scrambling to compete with each other and with options on larger launchers for a limited number of payloads making it challenging to develop a solid flight history anytime soon and to ensure they had enough ongoing revenue to survive.  That was before things got truly grim.

Then this happened shortly after this happened.  SpaceX is putting enormous downward price pressure on these small launchers and with things like fairing reuse and continued optimization of their fleet/operations, it seems likely that they will have enough slack in their costs to keep it moving downward in response to market competition.  Will they be able to address and aggressively compete for all of the orbits and launch windows that that these small launchers can?  No.  Will they be able to address enough of the market that it basically sucks the air out of the room?  Seems likely. 

The F9 rideshare program alone, as it stands today, is enough to cause major upheaval.  Now ask yourself what happens to these companies, most of whom are still developing vehicles that will have their first flight in the next 1-3 years, if SpaceX successfully fields the Starship in the next 1-3 years.  Then there is the New Glen...will Blue Origin have a rideshare program too?  They'll have a vehicle with a roomy fairing and extra mass margin vs. the typical payload sizes so it's hard to see why they wouldn't.  It seems to me that it is a great time to be a company like Momentous and a lousy time to be a small launcher.

The companies who *might* survive are the ones who have a strong business plan focus on something other than surviving on revenue from launches.  The examples I am aware of:

Rocket Labs is getting into helping companies develop payloads
Relativity is developing IP and equipment to do large format metal 3d printing beyond simply using it to print their rockets.

If anyone is aware of other companies that have a more nuanced business plan than just simply fielding a launch vehicle, it'd be great if you could post it.

[high road]

To add to that: rocket lab is offering a lot of support for their customers. An integrated service that SpaceX just can't compete in because they would launch a much larger number of smallsats each time.

However, they are very likely to compete on price for several of the individual services RocketLab provides. These can be derivatives of Starlink components, so the volumes will allow lower costs.

I already said last year that the ones not making it to orbit this year would never become successful at all, and that's still my considered opinion. Too little, too late. Whatever niches big launchers leave open, RocketLab and the Chinese companies will fill up. Even VO might be too late.

RocketLab has shown it can launch quickly, yet continues to launch at half their production speed for now. I wonder how that will evolve next year.

Edit: Forgot about SSLV. They'll be able to get at least some customers, even in a worst case scenario.

[ringsider]

It's been widely reported that there may be as many as 140 small sat launch vehicles in development. The goal is to develop these light launch vehicles to deliver small sats, mostly to LEO.

That figure is ridiculously inflated, because forums like his one treat literally anybody who even mentions they want to build some kind of launcher as tech porn, and adds them to the list, with the same weighing as companies with hundreds of millions of dollars like Vrgin Orbit.

At least 90% of that 140 number have no chance of getting beyond the paper/dream stages. Many of them are already nothing more than a memory, but still get quoted in the press as real contenders.

Another 5% might have got to some hardware, but then ran out ability to build a company.

What really matters is who has money, who has experience, who is making real progress on the tech and commercial side, who started early enough to be a player. And that is a very short list, maybe 8 companies globally.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on how this will play out. Right now the players seem to be:

Rocket Lab - the only small sat rockets in the market as of yet.
Virgin Orbit - who may launch early next year.
Firefly - actually faced bankruptcy in 2016, but have a Ukrainian backer now.
Relativity - who just raised $140m in VC.
ABL Systems - not that much known about them.

Rocket Lab is obviously the cream of the crop and the model pupil.

Virgin Orbit is nearly there but has a massively expensive air launched model that is only used by one other launch system ever. As the law suit with OneWeb showed, they probably only got this far because of that insane anchor contract.

The next batch of 2-3 of those are relatively early stage, with very unproven tech, and some don't yet have customers. I expect maybe one of that second tier group to survive long term.

Firefly has made good progress both technically and commercailly, but is still probably a year or more from launching anything, even with the porn money behind it. Relativity has a long way to go, with radical, unproven tech - they are good at PR but so was Vector. ABL has even further to go. Astra has blown up some suborbital stuff. Vector is defunct. Spinlaunch is by most accounts physically impossible. Numerous others are nothing more than webpages.

You also miss the international players in China and Europe.

China has maybe 2 decent players, who are state backed, but they are restricted to some degree in what they can do internationally e.g. no US payloads can fly on Chinese launchers. iSpace has made orbit, although it didn't make many headlines. OneSpace is not far away. Linkspace is still trying to make a suborbital rocket work.

In Europe you have probably 2 companies, only one of which started early enough to be competitive in my opinion, and is the clear (regional) leader right now, even though still early stage: Orbex in Scotland, which is signing up customers like SSTL. The other who might well get there based on the backing of OHB, but probably quite late, is Rocket Factory Augsburg in Germany. PLD Space (Spain) and Skyrora (Ukraine) are respectively too inexperienced and way too late. Isar Aerospace (Germany) is even more late and even worse is hoping to build an enormous rocket. Zero2Infinity is basically dead.

Then there is the new ISRO SSLV launcher in India. That is serious and will happen.

It seems to me that if all of these  come into the market (as well as some others still in stealth) there will be something of a rocket bubble.

So, who will win? On what basis? What is it that will separate the winners from the losers?

Forget the stealth ones, they have missed the moment.

I expect ~2 companies to survive in each major geographic region. There is room for regional players in this sector. Many of those mentioned on forums like this never got much beyond the PR stages e.g. Zero2Infinity, CubeCab, Orbital Access, Vector, Linn, ARCA, Horizon, Rocketstar, Aphelion, Swiss Space Systems, Xcor, MISHAAL, Space LS, Horizon, dozens of others.

You have to separate the wheat from the chaff by going beyond the fact that a name is on a list. It's easy to put out a press release and some fancy renderings, but have they:

- proper manufacturing / testing facilities
- senior people with serious experience
- a decent chunk of money
- started working on it approx. 4-5 years ago
- real customer contracts - not LOIs, those are utterly worthless
- real technology, like GNC sensor packs, all the avionics, reliable engines, turbopumps
- a local regime that can offer launch licences
- results from testing engines for 2-3 years already
- access to a real launch site
- a non-teenage approach to doing business
- maybe some kind of geographic or technology advantage

Tick all of those boxes today and there is a good chance they will succeed. But if they miss on any of those major items now, I would say they are a long shot.

[TrevorMonty]

Firefly are developing SEP OTV capable of delivering 500kg to GEO and can host payloads.
Similar to RL Curie and Photon but lot more capable.
I think Virgin are also developing OTV for BLEO missions.

With OTV delivering satellite directly to its preferred orbit it on only needs station keep propulsion. Something rideshares can't offer unless satellite uses 3rd party OTV like Momentus.

These OTVs can also double as satellite buses with hosted payloads eg Photon. Customers design payload while the launch provider delivers it to orbit on OTV and manages it for on going fee.  This may end up being bigger market for these small LV providers.

Edit: One other thought on this. For hosted payloads if there is LV failure customer is only out of pocket for lost payload not the satellite bus.

[Steven Pietrobon]

ARCA did their second test of their hot water bottle rocket on 13 October!

[Steven Pietrobon]

ARCA's next test article is the LAS 25RD, using a larger tank. Enhanced photo attached.

https://www.facebook.com/arcaspace/photos/a.10153942638068332/10158862447038332/?type=3&theater

"LAS 25RD, a big aerospike VTOL rocket under construction at ARCA"

[edzieba]

The crowded potential competitive landscape you outlined was already a tough one that would likely have meant many companies would find it difficult to secure enough funding to even finish developing their launcher.  Those few who did field a vehicle would be scrambling to compete with each other and with options on larger launchers for a limited number of payloads making it challenging to develop a solid flight history anytime soon and to ensure they had enough ongoing revenue to survive.  That was before things got truly grim.

Then this happened shortly after this happened.  SpaceX is putting enormous downward price pressure on these small launchers and with things like fairing reuse and continued optimization of their fleet/operations, it seems likely that they will have enough slack in their costs to keep it moving downward in response to market competition.  Will they be able to address and aggressively compete for all of the orbits and launch windows that that these small launchers can?  No.  Will they be able to address enough of the market that it basically sucks the air out of the room?  Seems likely. 

The F9 rideshare program alone, as it stands today, is enough to cause major upheaval.  Now ask yourself what happens to these companies, most of whom are still developing vehicles that will have their first flight in the next 1-3 years, if SpaceX successfully fields the Starship in the next 1-3 years.  Then there is the New Glen...will Blue Origin have a rideshare program too?  They'll have a vehicle with a roomy fairing and extra mass margin vs. the typical payload sizes so it's hard to see why they wouldn't.  It seems to me that it is a great time to be a company like Momentous and a lousy time to be a small launcher.

The companies who *might* survive are the ones who have a strong business plan focus on something other than surviving on revenue from launches.  The examples I am aware of:

Rocket Labs is getting into helping companies develop payloads
Relativity is developing IP and equipment to do large format metal 3d printing beyond simply using it to print their rockets.

If anyone is aware of other companies that have a more nuanced business plan than just simply fielding a launch vehicle, it'd be great if you could post it.

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers. Smallsat launchers are attractive even with the increased cost because of their other properties: the ability to launch to an orbit of your choice, at a time of your choice. That has quite a lot of value in and of itself, even before you get into the logistical headaches of actually assembling a rideshare (go ask anyone involved in SSO-A). If you goal is just to get a thing into an orbit, any orbit, eventually; then rideshares are great. If you need your satellites to go into a specific orbit, you either need to wait for a launch that happens to be going close enough to the orbit you need for your on-board propulsion (you do have some, right?) to get you there, or build a dedicated kickstage that both fits in the deployment mechanism and doesn't end up costing as much as the satellite itself. Maybe you want to phase your launch to insert your satellite into an existing constellation? Sorry, your schedule is set by someone else.
::EDIT:: Of course, if a dedicated reusable 'bigsat' launcher carrying just your smallsat ends up being cheaper than a dedicated smallsat launch anyway...

[high road]

The crowded potential competitive landscape you outlined was already a tough one that would likely have meant many companies would find it difficult to secure enough funding to even finish developing their launcher.  Those few who did field a vehicle would be scrambling to compete with each other and with options on larger launchers for a limited number of payloads making it challenging to develop a solid flight history anytime soon and to ensure they had enough ongoing revenue to survive.  That was before things got truly grim.

Then this happened shortly after this happened.  SpaceX is putting enormous downward price pressure on these small launchers and with things like fairing reuse and continued optimization of their fleet/operations, it seems likely that they will have enough slack in their costs to keep it moving downward in response to market competition.  Will they be able to address and aggressively compete for all of the orbits and launch windows that that these small launchers can?  No.  Will they be able to address enough of the market that it basically sucks the air out of the room?  Seems likely. 

The F9 rideshare program alone, as it stands today, is enough to cause major upheaval.  Now ask yourself what happens to these companies, most of whom are still developing vehicles that will have their first flight in the next 1-3 years, if SpaceX successfully fields the Starship in the next 1-3 years.  Then there is the New Glen...will Blue Origin have a rideshare program too?  They'll have a vehicle with a roomy fairing and extra mass margin vs. the typical payload sizes so it's hard to see why they wouldn't.  It seems to me that it is a great time to be a company like Momentous and a lousy time to be a small launcher.

The companies who *might* survive are the ones who have a strong business plan focus on something other than surviving on revenue from launches.  The examples I am aware of:

Rocket Labs is getting into helping companies develop payloads
Relativity is developing IP and equipment to do large format metal 3d printing beyond simply using it to print their rockets.

If anyone is aware of other companies that have a more nuanced business plan than just simply fielding a launch vehicle, it'd be great if you could post it.

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers. Smallsat launchers are attractive even with the increased cost because of their other properties: the ability to launch to an orbit of your choice, at a time of your choice. That has quite a lot of value in and of itself, even before you get into the logistical headaches of actually assembling a rideshare (go ask anyone involved in SSO-A). If you goal is just to get a thing into an orbit, any orbit, eventually; then rideshares are great. If you need your satellites to go into a specific orbit, you either need to wait for a launch that happens to be going close enough to the orbit you need for your on-board propulsion (you do have some, right?) to get you there, or build a dedicated kickstage that both fits in the deployment mechanism and doesn't end up costing as much as the satellite itself. Maybe you want to phase your launch to insert your satellite into an existing constellation? Sorry, your schedule is set by someone else.
::EDIT:: Of course, if a dedicated reusable 'bigsat' launcher carrying just your smallsat ends up being cheaper than a dedicated smallsat launch anyway...

Or your big launcher big enough to carry a kick stage for every one of those smallsats, and a wholly owned subsidiary potentially bearing the brunt of the overhead cost of a kick stage/space tug production line. Let alone the regular service that makes smallsat companies more independent.

[TrevorMonty]

The crowded potential competitive landscape you outlined was already a tough one that would likely have meant many companies would find it difficult to secure enough funding to even finish developing their launcher.  Those few who did field a vehicle would be scrambling to compete with each other and with options on larger launchers for a limited number of payloads making it challenging to develop a solid flight history anytime soon and to ensure they had enough ongoing revenue to survive.  That was before things got truly grim.

Then <a href="https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=48741.msg1985695#msg1985695">this happened</a> shortly after <a href="https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=48741.msg1982739#msg1982739">this happened</a>.  SpaceX is putting enormous downward price pressure on these small launchers and with things like fairing reuse and continued optimization of their fleet/operations, it seems likely that they will have enough slack in their costs to keep it moving downward in response to market competition.  Will they be able to address and aggressively compete for all of the orbits and launch windows that that these small launchers can?  No.  Will they be able to address enough of the market that it basically sucks the air out of the room?  Seems likely. 

The F9 rideshare program alone, as it stands today, is enough to cause major upheaval.  Now ask yourself what happens to these companies, most of whom are still developing vehicles that will have their first flight in the next 1-3 years, if SpaceX successfully fields the Starship in the next 1-3 years.  Then there is the New Glen...will Blue Origin have a rideshare program too?  They'll have a vehicle with a roomy fairing and extra mass margin vs. the typical payload sizes so it's hard to see why they wouldn't.  It seems to me that it is a great time to be a company like Momentous and a lousy time to be a small launcher.

The companies who *might* survive are the ones who have a strong business plan focus on something other than surviving on revenue from launches.  The examples I am aware of:

Rocket Labs is getting into <a href="https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47848.msg1933576#msg1933576">helping companies develop payloads</a>
Relativity is developing IP and equipment to do large format metal 3d printing beyond simply using it to print their rockets.

If anyone is aware of other companies that have a more nuanced business plan than just simply fielding a launch vehicle, it'd be great if you could post it.

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers. Smallsat launchers are attractive even with the increased cost because of their other properties: the ability to launch to an orbit of your choice, at a time of your choice. That has quite a lot of value in and of itself, even before you get into the logistical headaches of actually assembling a rideshare (go ask anyone involved in SSO-A). If you goal is just to get a thing into an orbit, any orbit, eventually; then rideshares are great. If you need your satellites to go into a specific orbit, you either need to wait for a launch that happens to be going close enough to the orbit you need for your on-board propulsion (you do have some, right?) to get you there, or build a dedicated kickstage that both fits in the deployment mechanism and doesn't end up costing as much as the satellite itself. Maybe you want to phase your launch to insert your satellite into an existing constellation? Sorry, your schedule is set by someone else.
::EDIT:: Of course, if a dedicated reusable 'bigsat' launcher carrying just your smallsat ends up being cheaper than a dedicated smallsat launch anyway...

Or your big launcher big enough to carry a kick stage for every one of those smallsats, and a wholly owned subsidiary potentially bearing the brunt of the overhead cost of a kick stage/space tug production line. Let alone the regular service that makes smallsat companies more independent.

Momentus are offering an OTV, which will take yours and other sats to their target orbit, its not free so need factor in the overall price.

[Blackjax]

The crowded potential competitive landscape you outlined was already a tough one that would likely have meant many companies would find it difficult to secure enough funding to even finish developing their launcher.  Those few who did field a vehicle would be scrambling to compete with each other and with options on larger launchers for a limited number of payloads making it challenging to develop a solid flight history anytime soon and to ensure they had enough ongoing revenue to survive.  That was before things got truly grim.

Then this happened shortly after this happened.  SpaceX is putting enormous downward price pressure on these small launchers and with things like fairing reuse and continued optimization of their fleet/operations, it seems likely that they will have enough slack in their costs to keep it moving downward in response to market competition.  Will they be able to address and aggressively compete for all of the orbits and launch windows that that these small launchers can?  No.  Will they be able to address enough of the market that it basically sucks the air out of the room?  Seems likely. 

The F9 rideshare program alone, as it stands today, is enough to cause major upheaval.  Now ask yourself what happens to these companies, most of whom are still developing vehicles that will have their first flight in the next 1-3 years, if SpaceX successfully fields the Starship in the next 1-3 years.  Then there is the New Glen...will Blue Origin have a rideshare program too?  They'll have a vehicle with a roomy fairing and extra mass margin vs. the typical payload sizes so it's hard to see why they wouldn't.  It seems to me that it is a great time to be a company like Momentous and a lousy time to be a small launcher.

The companies who *might* survive are the ones who have a strong business plan focus on something other than surviving on revenue from launches.  The examples I am aware of:

Rocket Labs is getting into helping companies develop payloads
Relativity is developing IP and equipment to do large format metal 3d printing beyond simply using it to print their rockets.

If anyone is aware of other companies that have a more nuanced business plan than just simply fielding a launch vehicle, it'd be great if you could post it.

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers. Smallsat launchers are attractive even with the increased cost because of their other properties: the ability to launch to an orbit of your choice, at a time of your choice. That has quite a lot of value in and of itself, even before you get into the logistical headaches of actually assembling a rideshare (go ask anyone involved in SSO-A). If you goal is just to get a thing into an orbit, any orbit, eventually; then rideshares are great. If you need your satellites to go into a specific orbit, you either need to wait for a launch that happens to be going close enough to the orbit you need for your on-board propulsion (you do have some, right?) to get you there, or build a dedicated kickstage that both fits in the deployment mechanism and doesn't end up costing as much as the satellite itself. Maybe you want to phase your launch to insert your satellite into an existing constellation? Sorry, your schedule is set by someone else.
::EDIT:: Of course, if a dedicated reusable 'bigsat' launcher carrying just your smallsat ends up being cheaper than a dedicated smallsat launch anyway...

Or your big launcher big enough to carry a kick stage for every one of those smallsats, and a wholly owned subsidiary potentially bearing the brunt of the overhead cost of a kick stage/space tug production line. Let alone the regular service that makes smallsat companies more independent.

These two replies are why I combined the mention of SpaceX with the mention of Momentous in my original post.  I see the combination of the two, which together are still cheaper than the known regular pricing of the smallsat launcher competition, as being the significant point.  Either alone, or if the combination would not be cheaper, would have not had the signficance.

Also, you don't need a kick stage for 'every one of those smallsats', you just need them for whichever payloads need an orbit they cannot get to from on their own from the main launcher.   

To the point about dedicated launches being able to compete based on being able to launch 'at a time of your choice', SpaceX seems to be trying to test how much the market cares about that or if they just need to be able to launch on a short time horizon and be able to trust that they will launch as scheduled..  The way rideshares have typically worked in the past may have just been a little too uncertain for the market and giving them more predictability may be all that is needed to capture a lot of what would have historically resorted to a dedicated launch.  We'll see.

SpaceX doesn't need to capture 100% of the launches (and I don't think they will even come close) to disrupt the small launcher industry, they just need to capture a lot of it and make everyone else have to compete strongly on pricing.  If they do that it'll kill off young cash starved companies due to lack of critical mass.

[harrystranger]

Some good info on smallsat launchers such as Rocketlab, Firefly, Virgin Orbit etc 

[meberbs]

Space News has an article on Carlos Niederstrasser's paper on the current state of smallsat launch vehicle development as presented at IAC.

https://spacenews.com/carlos-launch-vehicle-update-iac/

I still haven't found a public source for this year's paper, but this article has good detail and leads with the main tracking figure. The "total" is up to 148, but that includes 41 "unknown or defunct." The actual development list, is just 41. Every category grew since last year, but the development list only grew by 3. I expect next year the development list might shrink as a couple more having initial launches will really increase the pressure to either show something or drop out.

[ringsider]

Space News has an article on Carlos Niederstrasser's paper on the current state of smallsat launch vehicle development as presented at IAC.

https://spacenews.com/carlos-launch-vehicle-update-iac/

I still haven't found a public source for this year's paper, but this article has good detail and leads with the main tracking figure. The "total" is up to 148, but that includes 41 "unknown or defunct." The actual development list, is just 41. Every category grew since last year, but the development list only grew by 3. I expect next year the development list might shrink as a couple more having initial launches will really increase the pressure to either show something or drop out.

Niederstrasser's numbers are highly misleading.

Even in the shorter "under development" category he still includes several types of groups as if they were serious contenders:

- dead efforts except for zombie websites e.g. Rocketstar, Orbital Access, Cubecab, Zero2Infinity, Celestia, Bagaveev(?)

- groups who started one year ago but are listed as launching in 2020 or 2021 e.g. Isar Aerospace, X-Bow, Space One, ESI

- groups who are short of resources / crowdfunding e.g. Phoenix (ex-Aphelion), ARCA, LEO Aerospace, bluShift, b2space

- groups who are struggling to deliver / technically inexperienced e.g. PLD Space, Astra, Gilmour, Interstellar

- groups who seem to be creating lifestyle businesses e.g. Interorbital

- zombie projects that will not die e.g Tronador 2

If you take those out you get down to a more sensible list of approx. 10-15.

And even there you have to filter between the likes of Virgin Orbit, who have hundreds of millions of dollars, launch pad deals, a long line of customers, government support, hugely experienced staff, massive facilities - and companies like Aevum.

It's unfortunate his study get so much attention. I genuinely think this forum could do better than that paper.

[Asteroza]

Space News has an article on Carlos Niederstrasser's paper on the current state of smallsat launch vehicle development as presented at IAC.

https://spacenews.com/carlos-launch-vehicle-update-iac/

I still haven't found a public source for this year's paper, but this article has good detail and leads with the main tracking figure. The "total" is up to 148, but that includes 41 "unknown or defunct." The actual development list, is just 41. Every category grew since last year, but the development list only grew by 3. I expect next year the development list might shrink as a couple more having initial launches will really increase the pressure to either show something or drop out.

Niederstrasser's numbers are highly misleading.

Even in the shorter "under development" category he still includes several types of groups as if they were serious contenders:

- dead efforts except for zombie websites e.g. Rocketstar, Orbital Access, Cubecab, Zero2Infinity, Celestia, Bagaveev(?)

- groups who started one year ago but are listed as launching in 2020 or 2021 e.g. Isar Aerospace, X-Bow, Space One, ESI

- groups who are short of resources / crowdfunding e.g. Phoenix (ex-Aphelion), ARCA, LEO Aerospace, bluShift, b2space

- groups who are struggling to deliver / technically inexperienced e.g. PLD Space, Astra, Gilmour, Interstellar

- groups who seem to be creating lifestyle businesses e.g. Interorbital

- zombie projects that will not die e.g Tronador 2

If you take those out you get down to a more sensible list of approx. 10-15.

And even there you have to filter between the likes of Virgin Orbit, who have hundreds of millions of dollars, launch pad deals, a long line of customers, government support, hugely experienced staff, massive facilities - and companies like Aevum.

It's unfortunate his study get so much attention. I genuinely think this forum could do better than that paper.

Space One was technically directly under Canon Electronics before becoming a subsidiary, so they've been running longer than a year. But, they're bottlenecked by pad construction and other issues, so it's a wash whether to count them as contenders in the 2021 timeframe.