Countdown to new smallsat launchers

[novak]

In staring at the vehicles on this list I've come to see that there isn't one group of competitors, there are actually two.  The vehicles break out into smallsat vehicles (Electron, Prime, LauncherOne) and much larger (3x-5x the size) vehicles for medium to heavy satellites (Firefly Alpha, Terran 1, RS1).

Yes, and of those the (US) smallsat launchers, it's pretty much Rocket Labs (flying) and Astra (trying to fly).  You could also count virgin orbit if you want, though they sit in an awkward spot between the two groups, hoping that their responsive launch gets them the best of both worlds.

Everyone else credible is going 1000kg or bigger.  I think both Firefly and Relativity have talked about going up from that size- not sure about ABL, who have been pretty quiet for a company claiming a launch next year.  It's possible that these slightly larger small launchers are just a better field for a new company to compete, since no one is flying there yet, but I think it's also that launch tends to be a race to the bottom, making it very tempting to make your vehicle just slightly larger (and thus cheaper per kg) than your competitors- until you get too close to the "roof," of current/future F9 prices to justify the cost per kg.  It looked to me like the old triple core firefly beta fell into this class where it was just too pricey for the payload it offered, hence the move from ELV to RLV.

[meberbs]

The strange reason is the one I wrote above: text written by X-Bow in support of the Hawaii launch site states that the X-Bow concept is based on LEONIDAS, which is Spark AKA Super Strypi:-

And I should know that how? The wiki article doesn't mention the LEONIDAS name.

By reading. Because, actually, the LEONIDAS name is in the very first paragraph of the Wiki article:-

I am sorry I replied to your most recent post too quickly. Your post states that LEONIDAS was Spark, but Spark is a rocket and LEONIDAS a DoD program, and I remembered there were no other alternate names for the rocket in the page, and didn't go back to see the connection.

What you are claiming is not the same as what you referenced, and even if you succeeded, adding 3 more to the watch list would not really change much.

Two minutes ago I was the worst villain since Dr No. Now my nefarious plans are irrelevant. A little consistency would be nice.

A little courtesy from you would be nice. You are blatantly exaggerating what I said. I simply described what you are doing and suggested you think about how that sounds. Apparently your conclusion was that you are being nefarious, and are the worst villain since Dr. No, but that is your opinion of yourself, not mine.

There are certainly ones currently on the list that are either too incompetent to ever get anywhere, or possibly outright frauds. It doesn't matter, as there is no rigorous criteria to split them into unarguable categories.

Sure there are. The fact that you don't know how doesn't mean it can't be done.

Really? You have a magic algorithm that can perfectly categorize startups? Please share. Smart people invest in startups that fail all the time, because you simply can't always know. (and vice versa, startups that become hugely successful can have lots of criticism in their early days with accusations that they are crazy, or could never succeed.)

But then again the fact that you say there are "outright frauds" is pretty rigorous. Care to name those groups you suspect of being fraudulent? Not to say is highly unethical if you have information that could protect people from damage.

And again, you change what I said. I did not say that there are any frauds in the group, just that it was possible that there are. With well over a hundred small rocket startups, there is clearly a lot of hype around them, and it seems like a prime market for a fraudulent group to target. I haven't seen statistics on rates of fraudulent startups, but with the opportunity and the number of startups in that segment, it does not seem unlikely that there is one or more fraudulent groups in the list.

Again, if you can do better than the paper, feel free to. If you aren't going to do so, then stop insisting that metrics and viability, and what is worth tracking, should all be determined at your discretion.

I suspect that the irony of that argument, from someone who can't read the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article, escapes you entirely. My sympathies.

Here is my challenge to you: next time you have any complaint about any thing - product or service - don't you dare complain about how they choose to do it unless you have gone out and built a better car, airline, tax system, computer, mobile network, medical insurance network, weather forecasting system, movie production company, book publisher, traffic management system, banking conglomerate, political party - whatever - yourself.

Because by your own standards that would be hypocritical.

You are basing most of your argument of why the article is bad on you doing better. This isn't some mult-million dollar project, it is just a list of company names with status labelled. It is also possible to criticize something without claiming that your way is the only way, or claiming that you would do a better job in their position. You have tried to argue not that the list could be improved, but that the list is worthless. It is the only list I know of with the level of thoroughness it has. Unless you can point to a more thorough one, there contains information not easily available elsewhere.

Anyway, you spent more of this post attacking me than addressing any of the points I made.

[PM3]

In staring at the vehicles on this list I've come to see that there isn't one group of competitors, there are actually two.  The vehicles break out into smallsat vehicles (Electron, Prime, LauncherOne) and much larger (3x-5x the size) vehicles for medium to heavy satellites (Firefly Alpha, Terran 1, RS1).

Here is a payload to 500 km SSO comparison for some more launchers, including old rockets:

  50  Blue Whale 1   Perigee
 ~65  Astra          Astra
 100  Zero           Interstellar
 150  Electron       Rocket Lab
 150  Prime          Orbex
 200  Eris-S         Gilmour
~220  Super Stripy   X-Bow
~270  Pegasus        NGIS
 300  LauncherOne    Virgin
 300  SSLV           ISRO
 300  Miura 5        PLD Space
 400  Rocket-1       Launcher Space
 590  Epsilon        JAXA
 650  Firefly Alpha  Firefly
 700  Spectrum       Isar Aerospace
 875  RS1            ABL
 900  Terran 1       Relativity
~900  Minotaur-C     NGIS

I would say we have more than two categories here, though from 300 to 600 there really is a big gap, with just Launcher Space sitting inbetween.

Antrix said they are expecting 60 SSLV launches per year in the medium term. So the 300 kg spot may not be that bad ... (at least if you offer a highly competitive price, which Virgin does not).

[ChrisWilson68]

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers.

They have been getting cheaper -- much cheaper -- and the opportunities for them more numerous.

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's always the claim of the smallsat launchers.  Of course they're going to claim that because it's all they can claim.  It's always what companies that can't compete on price claim -- that they are providing other benefits that more than make up for the difference in price.  Often, it's just wishful thinking.

There are two very powerful factors that argue against this line of reasoning.  The first is that the cost difference is so great.  It's not just 10% or 20% or even 50%.  It's multiple times the cost to go with the smallsat launcher.  The other factor that goes agains the smallsat launchers is that the people developing smallsats tend to be extremely price-sensitive.  The launch is the dominant cost for many developers of smallsats.  They just can't afford to pay so much more for the dedicated launches.

And the larger the market for smallsat launch, the more dedicated rideshare missions there will be on the large launchers.  That means more different orbits served more frequently.  So, the larger the market, the less attractive dedicated smallsat launchers become.  The smallsat launchers can't win -- too small a market and they don't have enough business to survive, and too large a market and it all goes to rideshare.

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).

Logistics are always hardest the first time you do something.

The fact is that SSO-A was a success.  And SpaceX, having seen it first hand, decided to get into the business of repeating dedicated rideshare missions often, and doing rideshare on Starlink launches.  SpaceX should know, and they think the logistical problems are worth it.

[ChrisWilson68]

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.

All of that can be done on rideshare launches, either by the companies providing the launch or by third parties.  Either way, the dedicated smallsat launchers have no advantage because of this, and the rideshare solution is much cheaper.

[high road]

Good information ringsider, thanks.  That kind of argues for the original list I posted as the most likely list of plausibles.

In staring at the vehicles on this list I've come to see that there isn't one group of competitors, there are actually two.  The vehicles break out into smallsat vehicles (Electron, Prime, LauncherOne) and much larger (3x-5x the size) vehicles for medium to heavy satellites (Firefly Alpha, Terran 1, RS1).

The bigger rockets don't actually have to worry about competing against smallsat launchers for a lot of the primary payload range they are capable of launching but could potentially aggregate/rideshare smallsats to steal payloads from the smallsat launchers (and in turn they are all subject to that happening from SpaceX & others on the big vehicles).

I am curious about the actual addressable market size. Does anyone know a good reference for how many payloads of a given weight class generally launch every year?  https://www.nanosats.eu/ seems to have some good info but I haven't seen it broken out in a way that would be useful to figuring out how many payloads these launchers are actually likely to be fighting over.

The BIG question, is after reach 800 cubesats launch, per year, the trend will continue growth, or will stop...?

Where did you find this graph? And when was it last updated? Seems like 2019 is a bad year even for cubesats.

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers.

They have been getting cheaper -- much cheaper -- and the opportunities for them more numerous.

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's always the claim of the smallsat launchers.  Of course they're going to claim that because it's all they can claim.  It's always what companies that can't compete on price claim -- that they are providing other benefits that more than make up for the difference in price.  Often, it's just wishful thinking.

There are two very powerful factors that argue against this line of reasoning.  The first is that the cost difference is so great.  It's not just 10% or 20% or even 50%.  It's multiple times the cost to go with the smallsat launcher.  The other factor that goes agains the smallsat launchers is that the people developing smallsats tend to be extremely price-sensitive.  The launch is the dominant cost for many developers of smallsats.  They just can't afford to pay so much more for the dedicated launches.

And the larger the market for smallsat launch, the more dedicated rideshare missions there will be on the large launchers.  That means more different orbits served more frequently.  So, the larger the market, the less attractive dedicated smallsat launchers become.  The smallsat launchers can't win -- too small a market and they don't have enough business to survive, and too large a market and it all goes to rideshare.

Wishful thinking that already launched 5 times this year on RocketLab rather than waiting for rideshares on SpaceX, and most of the SpaceX smallsat launches being spare capacity on Starlink launches rather entire launches. Meaning different pricing (the main goal is likely to reduce the cost of deploying Starlink), specific target orbits, launch times not dependable (Starlink launches are being postponed).

A bit early to call, and even in a worst case scenario, there definitely seem to be niches where smallsat companies can in fact survive comfortably. Especially if they provide highly flexible satellite design solutions rather than just a launch service.

[Oumuamua]

While we are on the topic of ridesharing, I think the following article is very interesting:

https://spacenews.com/spaceflight-herded-64-cubesats-onto-a-single-falcon-9-it-has-the-scratch-marks-to-prove-it/

It discusses the spacex SSO-A mission in a lot of detail, including the problems with such a large rideshare mission, but also some solutions.
About the quote earlier in this thread:

The fact is that SSO-A was a success.  And SpaceX, having seen it first hand, decided to get into the business of repeating dedicated rideshare missions often, and doing rideshare on Starlink launches.  SpaceX should know, and they think the logistical problems are worth it.

Was it such a resounding success though? Spaceflight seems less than enthousiastic about doing the same thing again:
As for Spaceflight, the company doesn’t have plans for a mission similar in scale to SSO-A for the near future. “Keeping 50-plus customers on one mission is extremely hard,” Roberts said, with the company instead focusing on smaller rideshare missions.

To be fair, they add that they would do another mission if the market demands it, but their response appears to indicate they'd rather go for the smallsat launchers.  Obviously their opinion of SpaceX may have been colored by the initial spacex SHERPA rideshare mission with formosat-5. That mission was delayed to the point where spaceflight cancelled it in frustration.

The new Spacex approach for offering rideshares could work much better than how Spaceflight approached it, or it could not. Spaceflight is not exactly inexperienced in these matters, so their experience counts for something.
We will have to see how it pans out, but my guess is that there will certainly be room for (some) small launch vehicles.
 

[racerx]

No, Carlos Niederstrasser's numbers are not highly misleading.  He has always been very clear on what his criteria is for being included on the list.  From his last publicly available paper, presented at the 2018 Smallsat Conference (https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/smallsat/2018/all2018/306/):

"To be included in this list a launch vehicle under development must meet the following requirements:

-  Have a maximum capability to LEO of 1000 kg (definition of LEO left to the LV provider).
-  The effort must be for the development of an entire space launch vehicle system (with the exception of carrier aircraft for air launched vehicles).
-  Some indication through a web site, social media, traditional media, conference paper, press release, etc. that the effort has been active in the past two years.
-  No specific indication that the effort has been cancelled, closed, or otherwise disbanded.
-  Have a stated goal of completing a fully operational space launch (orbital) vehicle. Funded concept or feasibility studies by government agencies, patents for new launch methods, etc., do not qualify, but have been included in the “Other Potential Players” section.
-  The launch vehicle must be available on the open, commercial market. (With the understanding that some countries are restricted with regards to what vehicles their space systems can launch on)

The philosophy behind the guidelines to be considered “active” is based on the fact many of these efforts require some amount of confidentiality and secretiveness or may go dormant as a result of funding gaps. Therefore we do not consider the absence of new information (in the last two years) to be indicative of the project standing down.

Beyond these criteria the authors have not attempted to validate the technology, business plan, feasibility, or realism of the systems documented herein. We do not make any value judgements on technical or financial credibility or viability."

Additionally, from his abstract at this year's IAC (https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/52324/abstract-pdf/IAC-19,B4,5,1,x52324.brief.pdf?2019-04-05.15:28:21):

"In order to present the most unbiased, and neutral data to the audience, we purposely avoid making any judgements on vehicle maturity or business case realism."

So in other words, he's intentionally bending over backwards to ensure that all companies are included on the list.  Just because you don't agree with his criteria doesn't make his criteria wrong.  But the good thing is he's open to improvements: "Corrections, additions, and comments are welcomed and encouraged!"  So feel free to contact him and propose alternate criteria for future updates.

[Blackjax]

The BIG question, is after reach 800 cubesats launch, per year, the trend will continue growth, or will stop...?

According to the infographic I attached (sourced here: https://spaceflight.com/sso-a/ ) we were seeing a fair number of payloads that were 'university spacecraft', 'art exhibits', and 'high school spacecraft' in addition to the usual suspects.  This was before SpaceX put downward pressure on the pricing in the market with their rideshare program.  What seems like the new pricepoint for launching cubesat class payloads gets solidly into the realm of what can be achieved via high school fundraisers and crowd funding.  Combine this with more COTS hardware being available and more turnkey services being available to handle aspects of the mission that would otherwise make them more difficult and risky, and it seems like the skids are greased to bring a lot of new demand into the market that would not have flown a mission in the past.

Then there are the 'tech demonstrators'.  Presumably at least some of them will result in a followon business which will need still more launches in order to go into operations.

I guess the real question is, why wouldn't the trend continue?  The only thing I can think of might be that many of these could be subsized by government or other programs which might stop funding them.

[TrevorMonty]

While we are on the topic of ridesharing, I think the following article is very interesting:

https://spacenews.com/spaceflight-herded-64-cubesats-onto-a-single-falcon-9-it-has-the-scratch-marks-to-prove-it/

It discusses the spacex SSO-A mission in a lot of detail, including the problems with such a large rideshare mission, but also some solutions.
About the quote earlier in this thread:

The fact is that SSO-A was a success.  And SpaceX, having seen it first hand, decided to get into the business of repeating dedicated rideshare missions often, and doing rideshare on Starlink launches.  SpaceX should know, and they think the logistical problems are worth it.

Was it such a resounding success though? Spaceflight seems less than enthousiastic about doing the same thing again:
As for Spaceflight, the company doesn’t have plans for a mission similar in scale to SSO-A for the near future. “Keeping 50-plus customers on one mission is extremely hard,” Roberts said, with the company instead focusing on smaller rideshare missions.

To be fair, they add that they would do another mission if the market demands it, but their response appears to indicate they'd rather go for the smallsat launchers.  Obviously their opinion of SpaceX may have been colored by the initial spacex SHERPA rideshare mission with formosat-5. That mission was delayed to the point where spaceflight cancelled it in frustration.

The new Spacex approach for offering rideshares could work much better than how Spaceflight approached it, or it could not. Spaceflight is not exactly inexperienced in these matters, so their experience counts for something.
We will have to see how it pans out, but my guess is that there will certainly be room for (some) small launch vehicles.

Likes of Momentus could offer rideshares inside rideshares. They book a smallsat spot for their OTV with SpaceX then sell cubesat spots on OTV to individual customers.

[ChrisWilson68]

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers.

They have been getting cheaper -- much cheaper -- and the opportunities for them more numerous.

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's always the claim of the smallsat launchers.  Of course they're going to claim that because it's all they can claim.  It's always what companies that can't compete on price claim -- that they are providing other benefits that more than make up for the difference in price.  Often, it's just wishful thinking.

There are two very powerful factors that argue against this line of reasoning.  The first is that the cost difference is so great.  It's not just 10% or 20% or even 50%.  It's multiple times the cost to go with the smallsat launcher.  The other factor that goes agains the smallsat launchers is that the people developing smallsats tend to be extremely price-sensitive.  The launch is the dominant cost for many developers of smallsats.  They just can't afford to pay so much more for the dedicated launches.

And the larger the market for smallsat launch, the more dedicated rideshare missions there will be on the large launchers.  That means more different orbits served more frequently.  So, the larger the market, the less attractive dedicated smallsat launchers become.  The smallsat launchers can't win -- too small a market and they don't have enough business to survive, and too large a market and it all goes to rideshare.

Wishful thinking that already launched 5 times this year on RocketLab rather than waiting for rideshares on SpaceX

Nobody said the the smallsat launchers would never get any launches at all.  The question people are debating is how much market share they will get and whether it will be enough to justify the investments in these smallsat launch companies.

So far, RocketLab's launches aren't enough to justify the investment made to develop Electron.  SpaceX only just recently announced their rideshare program.  Most of the smallsat launchers haven't yet launched anything.  It's too early to declare victory for any side in this debate.

, and most of the SpaceX smallsat launches being spare capacity on Starlink launches rather entire launches. Meaning different pricing (the main goal is likely to reduce the cost of deploying Starlink), specific target orbits, launch times not dependable (Starlink launches are being postponed).

If anything, rideshare on Starlinnk launches could be cheaper because the flights are going no matter what.  Cheaper rideshare just makes my case better.

Starlink launches are just starting, so any delays at the start of the program don't make it likely there will be ongoing delays once they get the kinks worked out and they're in a regular cadence.

A bit early to call, and even in a worst case scenario, there definitely seem to be niches where smallsat companies can in fact survive comfortably.

That's not the worst case.  The worst case is that there aren't enough niches where dedicated smallsat launchers can survive.

Especially if they provide highly flexible satellite design solutions rather than just a launch service.

If the smallsat launchers aren't economically competitive, any satellite design solution that is tied to them will be at a disadvantage compared to satellite design solutions that aren't tied to the albatross of an expensive launch provider.

The smallsat business will be big enough to support multiple design services.  Those that are independent of a more expensive launch provider will out-compete those that are.  Some launch providers might pivot to being only satellite design houses if their satellite design business is good but their launch business is not economical.

[Blackjax]

In staring at the vehicles on this list I've come to see that there isn't one group of competitors, there are actually two.  The vehicles break out into smallsat vehicles (Electron, Prime, LauncherOne) and much larger (3x-5x the size) vehicles for medium to heavy satellites (Firefly Alpha, Terran 1, RS1).

Here is a payload to 500 km SSO comparison for some more launchers, including old rockets:

  50  Blue Whale 1   Perigee
 ~65  Astra          Astra
 100  Zero           Interstellar
 150  Electron       Rocket Lab
 150  Prime          Orbex
 200  Eris-S         Gilmour
~220  Super Stripy   X-Bow
~270  Pegasus        NGIS
 300  LauncherOne    Virgin
 300  SSLV           ISRO
 300  Miura 5        PLD Space
 400  Rocket-1       Launcher Space
 590  Epsilon        JAXA
 650  Firefly Alpha  Firefly
 700  Spectrum       Isar Aerospace
 875  RS1            ABL
 900  Terran 1       Relativity
~900  Minotaur-C     NGIS

I would say we have more than two categories here, though from 300 to 600 there really is a big gap, with just Launcher Space sitting inbetween.

Antrix said they are expecting 60 SSLV launches per year in the medium term. So the 300 kg spot may not be that bad ... (at least if you offer a highly competitive price, which Virgin does not).

I was noticing the groupings I mentioned from the list of companies that were plausibly expected to be flying a commercially competitive vehicle in the 2020-2021 timeframe.  I was thinking of this specifically to help frame the actual competitive landscape in the near term, not as a more theoretical exercise.  I didn't really focus on 2022 and beyond because frankly I think we are headed into a launch industry singularity  around that time as a result of all the new launchers coming online between now and then.

I looked into the new companies you added to the list and here are my (admittedly uneducated) impressions.

Astra Astra: Discussed recently upthread.  Seems like a toss up, you could argue this one either way. 

Interstellar Zero: They don't seem to talk much about working on this vehicle or show real signs of progress I could find.

Gilmour Eris-S: They are stating 2021 as their best case scenario, given some of the struggles they seem to be having and the historical norm for slippage in the industry, 2022 seems significantly more probable

X-Bow Super Stripy: Covered recently upthread, does not seem to have the staff to field or operate a commercial orbital vehicle in this timeframe

NGIS Pegasus & Minotaur: My understanding is that these haven't been commercially competitive due to very high prices

ISRO SSLV & JAXA Epsilon: I deliberately left out government sponsored launchers on the assumption they wouldn't compete effectively commercially but if they do then I think it is legit to include them

PLD Space Miura 5:  They are estimating a late 2022 launch and I'd make the same observation about timeline slippage in this industry as I did for Gilmour so they are more likely to fly in 2023 or beyond.

Isar Aerospace Spectrum: I couldn't find much detail on them, but they do seem funded and serious.  Without any info on their progress it is tough to say if they could hit a 2021 timeframe.  If anyone knows anything, post to their thread.       

[john smith 19]

By reading. Because, actually, the LEONIDAS name is in the very first paragraph of the Wiki article:-

"SPARK, or Spaceborne Payload Assist Rocket - Kauai, also known as Super Strypi, is an American expendable launch systemdeveloped by the University of Hawaii, Sandiaand Aerojet Rocketdyne.Designed to place miniaturized satellites into low Earth and sun-synchronous orbits, it is a derivative of the Strypi rocket which was developed in the 1960s in support of nuclear weapons testing. SPARK is being developed under the Low Earth Orbiting Nanosatellite Integrated Defense Autonomous System (LEONIDAS) program, funded by the Operationally Responsive Space Office of the United States Department of Defense."

I don't mind if you have another opinion but  I won't stand for laziness.

I think laziness is a bit harsh.

He could just have a short attention span.

[PM3]

ISRO SSLV & JAXA Epsilon: I deliberately left out government sponsored launchers on the assumption they wouldn't compete effectively commercially but if they do then I think it is legit to include them

I think that SSLV will become the commercially most successful non-reusable smallsat laucher. It is low-cost in production and operation, launches sold for ~ 3,5 M$, and it is highly responsive.

Epsilon is the opposite, I included it only for reference.

My second favorite is ABL with RS1, which is also optimized for low cost and high responsiveness.

[Asteroza]

A SSO-A related bit here, but if Spaceflight Industries wants to really push the needle on SSO customers, they can take their corncob approach to the next level.

Their next rideshare should be a Archinaut/Spiderfab based rideshare mission, where the majority of customers are standardized interface payloads (think MagTag attached). The rideshare bus builds out it's own truss to be a space corral aggregate satellite, while building individual sats with customer payloads and common cubesat buses for customers unsatisfied with the main bus orbit (which means either building up customer sats with propulsion integrated buses, or sats+rideshare OTV). Think taking the A-train SSO observation cluster concept to the next level. Then you are left with the envious choice of delivering the next rideshare bus to an existing populated one to expand it, or shift the next bus to a different SSO position and building another aggregate/build base.

Expanding an SSO observation cluster (operating as a space corral aggregate satellite) means you have a regular destination for smallsat launchers as well as larger rideshare buses.

[Blackjax]

I think that SSLV will become the commercially most successful non-reusable smallsat laucher. It is low-cost in production and operation, launches sold for ~ 3,5 M$, and it is highly responsive.

Do you have an authoritative source for the $3.5M?  I'm am seeing estimates all over the map, everything from a price of $2.11M to a manufacturing cost on wikipedia of $4.3M

[Blackjax]

A SSO-A related bit here, but if Spaceflight Industries wants to really push the needle on SSO customers, they can take their corncob approach to the next level.

Their next rideshare should be a Archinaut/Spiderfab based rideshare mission, where the majority of customers are standardized interface payloads (think MagTag attached). The rideshare bus builds out it's own truss to be a space corral aggregate satellite, while building individual sats with customer payloads and common cubesat buses for customers unsatisfied with the main bus orbit (which means either building up customer sats with propulsion integrated buses, or sats+rideshare OTV). Think taking the A-train SSO observation cluster concept to the next level. Then you are left with the envious choice of delivering the next rideshare bus to an existing populated one to expand it, or shift the next bus to a different SSO position and building another aggregate/build base.

Expanding an SSO observation cluster (operating as a space corral aggregate satellite) means you have a regular destination for smallsat launchers as well as larger rideshare buses.

So you're basically saying that instead of having them all freeflying, smallsats (which don't need to be in some specific different orbit) could be clumped together, thereby simplifying the mission by eliminating the difficulties of identifying and tracking each one?

[novak]

I would say we have more than two categories here, though from 300 to 600 there really is a big gap, with just Launcher Space sitting inbetween.

Antrix said they are expecting 60 SSLV launches per year in the medium term. So the 300 kg spot may not be that bad ... (at least if you offer a highly competitive price, which Virgin does not).

I'll bite.  This is a little bit my opinion, subject to interpretation, so don't read too much into it, and feel free to dispute if you think you have a point.  Of course it's something of a continuum, but if you look at cost competitive (something that's even close- eg ditch the NGIS $30M+ options) US small launchers that should be flying in the reasonably near term before most of the investment goes (NET date 2021, realistic date 2022), it splits much harder.  Especially with Firefly claiming a block 2 upgrade for alpha puts it at 800 kg to SSO.

Source: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/10/18/1932085/0/en/Aerojet-Rocketdyne-and-Firefly-Aerospace-to-Provide-Flexible-Access-to-Space.html

Left in the quote about virgin not being very cost competitive, because I think it hits the nail on the head- small vehicles that are considered more credible are often advertised for a higher price- kind of a red flag for the whole "opening space to everyone" thing.

Don't totally disagree about SSLV.  Everyone claims to be saving the future of smallsats, but we all know that if cost didn't matter they'd buy their own F9.  To me, the part that really makes a difference is the promise of launch, which lets the satellites- often much better funded- get more investment because they can promise to be operational by a given date.   

I suspect rough days ahead for the really small launchers, if the larger ones make orbit.  I'd suspect that rocket labs does too, going RLV.  It's a tactic to try to lower the price, and gives them a real edge on price.

Your table, modified for only US launchers expected to fly by 2021:

 ~65  Astra          Astra
 150  Electron       Rocket Lab
 300  LauncherOne    Virgin
 800  Alpha Block 2  Firefly
 875  RS1            ABL
 900  Terran 1       Relativity

[Asteroza]

A SSO-A related bit here, but if Spaceflight Industries wants to really push the needle on SSO customers, they can take their corncob approach to the next level.

Their next rideshare should be a Archinaut/Spiderfab based rideshare mission, where the majority of customers are standardized interface payloads (think MagTag attached). The rideshare bus builds out it's own truss to be a space corral aggregate satellite, while building individual sats with customer payloads and common cubesat buses for customers unsatisfied with the main bus orbit (which means either building up customer sats with propulsion integrated buses, or sats+rideshare OTV). Think taking the A-train SSO observation cluster concept to the next level. Then you are left with the envious choice of delivering the next rideshare bus to an existing populated one to expand it, or shift the next bus to a different SSO position and building another aggregate/build base.

Expanding an SSO observation cluster (operating as a space corral aggregate satellite) means you have a regular destination for smallsat launchers as well as larger rideshare buses.

So you're basically saying that instead of having them all freeflying, smallsats (which don't need to be in some specific different orbit) could be clumped together, thereby simplifying the mission by eliminating the difficulties of identifying and tracking each one?

Well, your basic SSO payload categories (which may overlap) are

1. earth observation
2. high latitude relay
3. demos

Remote sensing customers usually have a desire to fly over a specific spot at local noon (thus selecting SSO), but don't care how, and may not even be that specific if their sensor payload can slew. The relay type customer may not be that specific in position (constellation spread dependent but the complete set may be shiftable) but need SSO for high latitude coverage. The demos fall into sensor types (which may need high power) or propulsion types (definitely need power). Being a demo, the sensor types may be more tolerant of not being able to specify SSO position as long as they have power. The propulsion demos are a bit tougher though. Do you really want to mount them on the aggregate coral sat directly (more power, but potentially disturb other customers), or branch off to swapping propulsion demos on an OTV (reusable freeflyer effectively) that is based at the aggregate coral sat, after the OTV is done moving built sats to their own SSO positions?

A rough guess is 3 or 4 SSO aggregate coral sats could provide the minimum baseline for "socketed" payloads to hang off of and still have good global coverage of spots near local noon (assuming some slew is acceptable). Since you are building an aggregate coral sat, you only need to deliver payloads, solar array parts, cabling, truss structure materials, and the initial builder, along with any standard buses and their parts for socketed payloads that will be free flying later. The builder doubles as a berthing mechanism system for capturing deliveries.

The archinaut demo flight using a Photon base platform could be the seed for an aggregate coral if you wanted the build base up and running before the big rideshare bus arrives. Sensor payload benefit by avoiding deployable structures, leaving that to the builder, plus checkout of everything that isn't the payload by the aggregate coral sat operator during the build. If the sensor payload itself needs deployable parts (antennas, optics, etc), the builder can make it (and probably fix it if they screwed up). This allows sensor payload makers to focus on their core value addition. As for the propulsion demos, if mounted on the aggregate, there is a higher amount of power available than a typical cubesat chassis, plus the ability to do a propulsion checkout, perhaps before attaching to some other bus+tankage. Even if a sensor payload is destined to go off platform as a free flyer, you can check out the core components (payload, propulsion, host bus ACS/comms/power) before release.

[high road]

Cheap rideshares are somewhat of a red herring: rideshares have always been cheaper than proposed dedicated smallsat launchers.

They have been getting cheaper -- much cheaper -- and the opportunities for them more numerous.

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's always the claim of the smallsat launchers.  Of course they're going to claim that because it's all they can claim.  It's always what companies that can't compete on price claim -- that they are providing other benefits that more than make up for the difference in price.  Often, it's just wishful thinking.

There are two very powerful factors that argue against this line of reasoning.  The first is that the cost difference is so great.  It's not just 10% or 20% or even 50%.  It's multiple times the cost to go with the smallsat launcher.  The other factor that goes agains the smallsat launchers is that the people developing smallsats tend to be extremely price-sensitive.  The launch is the dominant cost for many developers of smallsats.  They just can't afford to pay so much more for the dedicated launches.

And the larger the market for smallsat launch, the more dedicated rideshare missions there will be on the large launchers.  That means more different orbits served more frequently.  So, the larger the market, the less attractive dedicated smallsat launchers become.  The smallsat launchers can't win -- too small a market and they don't have enough business to survive, and too large a market and it all goes to rideshare.

Wishful thinking that already launched 5 times this year on RocketLab rather than waiting for rideshares on SpaceX

Nobody said the the smallsat launchers would never get any launches at all.  The question people are debating is how much market share they will get and whether it will be enough to justify the investments in these smallsat launch companies.

So far, RocketLab's launches aren't enough to justify the investment made to develop Electron.  SpaceX only just recently announced their rideshare program.  Most of the smallsat launchers haven't yet launched anything.  It's too early to declare victory for any side in this debate.

We agree on this point.

, and most of the SpaceX smallsat launches being spare capacity on Starlink launches rather entire launches. Meaning different pricing (the main goal is likely to reduce the cost of deploying Starlink), specific target orbits, launch times not dependable (Starlink launches are being postponed).

If anything, rideshare on Starlinnk launches could be cheaper because the flights are going no matter what.  Cheaper rideshare just makes my case better.

That's what I'm saying. Spare capacity on Starlink missions is quite likely cheaper than the same payload mass on a dedicated (non-Starlink) smallsat launch. Spare capacity on Starlink could basically be sold somewhere above the cost of the extra fuel, and still make Starlink launches less expensive to SpaceX. Whereas payload mass on a dedicated mission would likely be sold at a price point that factors in the whole launch cost, where the total payload mass of all the smallsats on board is estimated beforehand.

While dedicated launches can indeed push the smallsat launchers out of business if they fly regularly, there is a limited set of Starlink missions. Plenty in the coming years, once they get around to launching regularly. But once the main constellation is up, the number of launches will be reduced. If smallsat companies only had the number of payloads in mind that can be launched on spare Starlink missions, they wouldn't even be viable without SpaceX competition.

Starlink launches are just starting, so any delays at the start of the program don't make it likely there will be ongoing delays once they get the kinks worked out and they're in a regular cadence.

[/quote]

Far too early to call that. It could go either way.

Especially if they provide highly flexible satellite design solutions rather than just a launch service.

If the smallsat launchers aren't economically competitive, any satellite design solution that is tied to them will be at a disadvantage compared to satellite design solutions that aren't tied to the albatross of an expensive launch provider.

The smallsat business will be big enough to support multiple design services.  Those that are independent of a more expensive launch provider will out-compete those that are.  Some launch providers might pivot to being only satellite design houses if their satellite design business is good but their launch business is not economical.

Oh, quite right. At some point, smallsat launchers could just become a billboard for companies that design, launch and operate satellites, with their specific launcher only as an option rather than the default launcher. Considering this market segment is focused towards people who don't know their way around the existing smallsat businesses, or have much knowledge about designing or operating a satellite, such an eye catching billboard would be quite valuable. And the extra cost of using said launcher could be insignificant in comparison to the cost of designing and operating the satellite in the first place.

As more and more economic activities in space become viable, existing companies can branch out far more easily than new companies can become operational. And as existing markets, like smallsats, mature, companies catered to them might benefit more easily than other companies (or new ones) can shift their activities accordingly. This means companies are unlikely to stay firmly within the economic activity that they started out with. So eventually, this highly entertaining discussion is going to be moot indeed, as the industry will quite likely become entirely unlike what we expect today.