Vector Launch (formerly Vector Space Systems)

[Skyrocket]

Didn't all the Diamants have solid stages too?

Yes - the second and third stages were solid.

[Zingpc]

gas generators were used not to drive turbo pumps, but to pressurize propellant tanks.

The SSME did this in the oxygen preburner to produce gox from lox for various tasks. These are not for propellent into compulsion chambers, which is the problem for Vector if they are telling everybody they can get this scheme to orbit. First show everybody (potential investors) you can do a burn over 100 seconds. Stop doing rocket launches till this is proved.

[QuantumG]

I don't understand your concern (trolling). Are they doing blowdown? If not, why would you think they can't maintain tank pressure? Even with blowdown pressurization, Armadillo did a 192 second flight. It's a non-issue.

[Zingpc]

Have they demonstrated the technology, that's all. As in greater than 10 seconds of a pressure fed long cylindrical rocket.

[QuantumG]

Can someone explain to me how this rocket is supposed to work!  A pressure fed nozzle? . Is there a turbopump into the combustion chamber? It cannot be  a hybrid solid rocket with three Nozzles.

This sounds very different from:

Have they demonstrated the technology, that's all. As in greater than 10 seconds of a pressure fed long cylindrical rocket.

Please, if you want to ask if Vector are a bunch of backyard amateurs who haven't flown anything above a few thousand feet, just do so... there's no need to be shy. They happen to be very sophisticated "backyard amateurs"... perhaps on-par with UP Aerospace and EXOS Aerospace and the others who came before them. We should be wishing them the best of luck and hoping they can find the resources to do bigger and better things.

[Zingpc]

These are simple questions. I don't care if they impinge upon the professionalism of these guys. I think they are worth answering for the sake of those that have put up money. 

[gongora]

These are simple questions. I don't care if they impinge upon the professionalism of these guys. I think they are worth answering for the sake of those that have put up money.

Do you know anyone who has invested in Vector?  I'd think they would have already asked those questions before they wrote the checks.

[Zingpc]

Vector have just published the Vector-R and -H user guides, attached.

You see behind the rocket test stand a group of heavy metal nitrogen tanks that provide the chamber pressure for this rocket to work.  What is going on with this pressure fed system? Where is the same pressure going to come from on the actual rocket?

[savuporo]

In a completely unexpected turn of events, a NewSpace CEO is speaking at an airshow conference and presenting not one but the entire family of yet to be designed orbital launch vehicles

https://twitter.com/vectorspacesys/status/877082386806185985

[Lars-J]

To be fair, those two models are not new but have been announced before.

[ringsider]

These are simple questions. I don't care if they impinge upon the professionalism of these guys. I think they are worth answering for the sake of those that have put up money.

Do you know anyone who has invested in Vector?  I'd think they would have already asked those questions before they wrote the checks.

There are some people on Twitter who said they put money in, e.g. @RobbKunz.

Mostly angels so far, more information on Angellist and Crunchbase.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Vector continue to have no trouble generating press:

SpaceX Vet’s Startup Readies Small Rockets for Takeoff
Vector Space Systems raises $21 million to build smaller, cheaper rockets.
By Ashlee Vance
29 June 2017, 20:00 BST

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-29/spacex-vet-s-startup-readies-small-rockets-for-takeoff

[ringsider]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

[ChrisWilson68]

I doubt Vector will have any problems finding customers once flying. There are a lot Smalsat and cubesat based businesses relying on likes of RL and Vector to deliver their satellites to specific orbits.

And the likes of SpaceX.  Don't forget that there's already a flight on the manifest devoted solely to deploying a large number of smallsats on one launch.

SpaceX is a much more formidable competitor in the smallsat market than Rocket Lab, Vector, or Virgin Galactic.  And the more the smallsat market grows, the more formidable SpaceX will become because the flights dedicates to smallsats will become more common.

[ChrisWilson68]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

And Juicero raised $120 million from Tier 1 VCs, including Kleiner Perkins.  And Theranos raised $400 million.

VC firms venturing outside their area of expertise can make some pretty bad investments.  In recent years, Silicon Valley VCs, faced with a glut of investors, have been looking in other industries for deals.  It doesn't mean they're good at judging companies in other industries.

[savuporo]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

Why is it astonishing ? Fair shot at the hockey stick for all involved

Watch Vector start properly building out a real team soon now. Hope they know what kind of talent you need to bring on at this stage

[ChrisWilson68]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

Why is it astonishing ? Fair shot at the hockey stick for all involved

Watch Vector start properly building out a real team soon now. Hope they know what kind of talent you need to bring on at this stage

I'm with ringsider on this.  Not a very good shot at all at the hockey stick.

It's telling that Vector said there was room for 5 providers in this space.  That's always the sales pitch of weaker companies -- there's room for more competitors in the market.  The weaker the company, the more room the company claims there is for providers.  It's what they say when they know they can't make a plausible case that they're the top or one of the top contenders in the space.  The best Vector can claim is that maybe if all goes well they can be in the top 5.

[ringsider]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

Why is it astonishing ? Fair shot at the hockey stick for all involved

Watch Vector start properly building out a real team soon now. Hope they know what kind of talent you need to bring on at this stage

I think given what they have shown so far, this is an enormous amount of money, and you have to assume the valuation is around $50-100m for that level of raise, which is nutbar for what they have.

Seriously this is like giving $20m to an outfit with a track record similar to Copenhagen Suborbitals. I'm just astonished that Sequoia believed the hype. That demo launch was clearly critical to the funding event.

The outcome though is what is more important now. It's great for them, they will be able to spend money on all kinds of things, and make serious progress now, although I am sure it will be paid in progress tranches, rather than one lump, so any setbacks could put them in a tricky spot.

I do know now that the new World HQ is a build and lease back deal, I found that in a public document:

arizona.uli.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2012/03/ELOY-TAP.pdf

[Robotbeat]

I say Vector has a much greater shot of meeting a $100m valuation than RL does of a billion.

And just the fact that Vector doesn't dismiss reuse means they have more of a shot at reaching hundreds of launches than RL does (assuming RL doesn't change their tune on reuse, which is admittedly a big assumption).

[Space Ghost 1962]

That is a bit more than "press" - they just raised $21m from a group led by a Tier 1 VC.

Frankly astonishing.

It doesn't mean they're good at judging companies in other industries.

Depends on their advisers. Which is what you are seeing these past few months.

The advisers to VC who invested in RL told them the same "bad mouth" stuff on this thread about Vector/others.

Caused one VC to try to lockout the others ("you go through me", "only game in town") for this microlaunch sector.

Made a claim/bet that RL would launch first and make it to orbit. So Vector launched first, ahead of RL, then RL launched.

This caused the larger VC's to call the bluff. (They also have better advisers than the rival ones, who were as dumb as some of the ignorant comments one hears here.)

They now want to rub a certain VC's nose in it. By showing that he overvalued RL (which he did) and got poor capital use. And this guy often brags about how good he is at this. We call this "overreach".

The gambit between the two is quite different. As QuantumG correctly opined, you can develop a LV for dramatically less, carrying much less financial structural burden. And, there are extremely significant advantages from use of a mobile launch platform.

Right now things are very asymmetric. RL is being critiqued over very specific details, and Vector just has to move the ball down the field to be a bit better next launch.

Both are quite far from becoming businesses, so manifests and launch contracts are still fantasy land.

The battle mentioned is mostly between two investor egos, has less to do with the companies. Reminds of watching a soap box derby competition between two dads, each trying to out do the other. Both have tons of resources, and one is "King Stork" manically trying to win, the other is "King Log", casually trying place.

The key paragraph, near the bottom of the Bloomberg piece linked above:

The aerospace industry is divided on how successful these small rockets will be. The price per pound on the large rockets from SpaceX and others is still more economical. But it’s the flexibility of requesting a launch, almost like you’d order something on Amazon.com, that could end up being more attractive than pure cost. “The lower end of the market will be more important than most people realize,” said Rob Coneybeer, managing director at Shasta Ventures. “Moore’s Law is allowing you to make more capable things smaller and smaller, and I think the low-end rockets will hit the sweet spot.”

The problem for RL/others with a fixed pad is the cost recovery for the facilities puts the launch rate much higher for break-even. Mobile launcher gets you away from these. Plus, you get massively better capital reuse in adding a tiny amount to a "bootstrap" vehicle, rather than doing "all up" and redoing it a dozen times.

Consider all of the microlaunch rivals as doing variations on the theme of Falcon 1. Now - think of all the reasons why SX walked away from it. Those feature in how the rivals succeed.

Vector could take five years to succeed, and their investors could accept that. RL could succeed next test and Vector investors wouldn't be fazed in the slightest.

The point of the investment thesis is to prevent the perception of a lockup by anyone of microlaunch as a category. Works as designed. To place not win.

I say Vector has a much greater shot of meeting a $100m valuation than RL does of a billion.

And just the fact that Vector doesn't dismiss reuse means they have more of a shot at reaching hundreds of launches than RL does (assuming RL doesn't change their tune on reuse, which is admittedly a big assumption).

My sentiments exactly.