Vector Launch (formerly Vector Space Systems)

[Lars-J]

Vector may claim to be able to launch from small mobile launchers, but I'm *HIGHLY* skeptical. They aren't even be close to launching ANYTHING, so they can make all kinds of grand claims about being oh so much better and cheaper than RL (or anyone else) without having to back them up. But I won't have any of it. They need to show they can launch something up higher than a percentage point or two of the karman line, and *then* I will find them credible.

What's so absurd about launching from a mobile launcher?

V2 did, and it was over twice the lift-off mass. And V2 also used a cryogenic propellant, so that's no kind of showstopper either.

It's a perfectly valid approach.

Let me rephrase: Is it theoretically possible? Yes. Will Vector be able to pull it off? Doubtful. If they are successful, they won't wheel around a mobile base and launch anywhere - it will be a few spots. Two at most, likely. And then it will be cheaper and more practical to have much of their infrastructure built in place.

If you believe otherwise, more power to you. People seem to project all kinds of wishful aspects to this launcher.

[Space Ghost 1962]

RL is just a miniature SX. There's nothing that allows them to increase cadence beyond a launch 3-6 months. Can't do "charter flights" with that few per annum - the costs don't work. And look how hard its been for SX to gain cadence.

I've got lots of respect for you, Space Ghost, but that is just a dumb statement, and you know it.
Are you going to call me ignorant now as well?

You're not making wild claims and you usually read before posting.

Here's the deal - I can't type hundred page posts, and I won't. "TL-DR" then happens and it doesn't matter.

What is going on here is a very different approach that I can only give in small posts/vignettes.

Absorb it and figure it own on your own, apart from the skepticism of "it working, it being adopted, it winning in the market". They are all different things.

People often misunderstand new things. I have little time/patience for ones that demand Socratic argument with small items when the big items are being willfully ignored. Can stop posting entirely if that is insufficient.

When SX started, they could not advance rapidly cadence. That's because you have to "learn the vehicle", all vehicles face this. When you can scale launches by having the equivalent of 10-20 pads concurrently, the learning could proceed faster. But not if you have one pad.

What's worse, is that if launch prices fall because the nature of the usage of much smaller launches causes higher flight frequency, then larger vehicles that launch the same payloads can't keep up. This is what those remarks are attempting to address.

That for the nature of the market opportunity, increasing cadence is significantly harder than with traditional missions. Because traditional missions preexisted with similar cost structures (it's also part of why Sower's spreadsheet is somewhat naive, but that's another matter). With disruption comes surprises.

In a nutshell, the reason that the prices don't add up is apart from the novelty of the new vehicle launch, the market volume rises at a lower price point. So it's likely that you might have to sell at a loss for too quickly/long before the volume * price - cost product turns the corner, unlike with our "cost as almost no object" traditional payloads currently.

So launches slow down, competition rises, ... and rate is externally capped by payload availability.

Getting this any better?

[Lars-J]

RL is just a miniature SX. There's nothing that allows them to increase cadence beyond a launch 3-6 months. Can't do "charter flights" with that few per annum - the costs don't work. And look how hard its been for SX to gain cadence.

I've got lots of respect for you, Space Ghost, but that is just a dumb statement, and you know it.
Are you going to call me ignorant now as well?

You're not making wild claims and you usually read before posting.

Here's the deal - I can't type hundred page posts, and I won't. "TL-DR" then happens and it doesn't matter.

What is going on here is a very different approach that I can only give in small posts/vignettes.

Absorb it and figure it own on your own, apart from the skepticism of "it working, it being adopted, it winning in the market". They are all different things.

People often misunderstand new things. I have little time/patience for ones that demand Socratic argument with small items when the big items are being willfully ignored. Can stop posting entirely if that is insufficient.

When SX started, they could not advance rapidly cadence. That's because you have to "learn the vehicle", all vehicles face this. When you can scale launches by having the equivalent of 10-20 pads concurrently, the learning could proceed faster. But not if you have one pad.

What's worse, is that if launch prices fall because the nature of the usage of much smaller launches causes higher flight frequency, then larger vehicles that launch the same payloads can't keep up. This is what those remarks are attempting to address.

That for the nature of the market opportunity, increasing cadence is significantly harder than with traditional missions. Because traditional missions preexisted with similar cost structures (it's also part of why Sower's spreadsheet is somewhat naive, but that's another matter). With disruption comes surprises.

In a nutshell, the reason that the prices don't add up is apart from the novelty of the new vehicle launch, the market volume rises at a lower price point. So it's likely that you might have to sell at a loss for too quickly/long before the volume * price - cost product turns the corner, unlike with our "cost as almost no object" traditional payloads currently.

So launches slow down, competition rises, ... and rate is externally capped by payload availability.

Getting this any better?

I read what you wrote. And nothing in it backs up your "There's nothing that allows them [RL] to increase cadence beyond a launch 3-6 months" statement. THAT is what I am asking you to explain. What insight do you have into RL to make such a statement? Is it too Socratic of me to expect you to explain why RL could never possibly launch more than 4 times per year?

Or was it simply a statement made in the heat of the discussion? That's OK to. Just don't dig deeper.

[Robotbeat]

Is Vectorspace able to execute an orbital rocket, or are they still just kind of a hobby group? I don't know. I'm not trying to answer that question. They haven't PROVEN one way or the other so far.

But that's almost irrelevant to the broad-brush technical viability of their launch approach, something we can judge.

There's nothing intrinsically questionable about a mobile launch platform for a small rocket. You don't see them for large rockets for obvious reasons, but rockets up to 45 tons liftoff mass (9x as big as Vector-R) have been mobile launchable. It possibly could save some costs, but I don't see why it'd cost a lot more.

And then there's the long term plan. They make vague references to reuse. That's better than most.

The opposite is like SLS. These companies are professional and OUGHT to have no problem executing on a new launch vehicle. But even if SLS is successful, it'll never be transformative because even if fully successful it'll still be an expendable rocket that's intrinsically expensive due to the intrinsic costs of aerospace hardware (something that 3D metal printing and carbon fiber don't help).

[savuporo]

Is Vectorspace able to execute an orbital rocket, or are they still just kind of a hobby group? I don't know.

A good runway with funding, and a bunch of engineering intern positions just  became properly full time in last month or so, as soon as the deal closed. I'd say the transition has been made. Hope they will strike a good balance between very junior and seasoned talent ..

[TrevorMonty]

Excellent article on Planet. Will also post Planet thread.

www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-29/the-tiny-satellites-ushering-in-the-new-space-revolution

[Robotbeat]

Is Vectorspace able to execute an orbital rocket, or are they still just kind of a hobby group? I don't know.

A good runway with funding, and a bunch of engineering intern positions just  became properly full time in last month or so, as soon as the deal closed. I'd say the transition has been made. Hope they will strike a good balance between very junior and seasoned talent ..

I meant ability to execute, although having proper full time staff is necessary, too.

Is the engineering lead and management team able to execute? And this must include enough competence to overcome major failures without getting derailed.

It's not a foregone conclusion even with funding. There have been multiple failed alt-space companies before.

[Lars-J]

I read what you wrote. And nothing in it backs up your "There's nothing that allows them [RL] to increase cadence beyond a launch 3-6 months" statement. THAT is what I am asking you to explain. What insight do you have into RL to make such a statement? Is it too Socratic of me to expect you to explain why RL could never possibly launch more than 4 times per year?

Or was it simply a statement made in the heat of the discussion? That's OK to. Just don't dig deeper.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you are genuinely trying to understand what I'm attempting to communicate.

(So now interact with what I have wrote and give me specifically what you don't get.)



These are posts. They are intentionally compact. However not everything fits into one.

So yes, they don't contain everything. Give me the benefit of the doubt, and specifically assert the contradiction. instead of simply repeating what I said.

One more time - yes they can make it work. Yes you can gradually improve flight rate. Yes you alternatively could improve the vehicle.

Ask yourself this question - "what is the market for small payload launches?"  You'll find it isn't large. And it isn't expected to grow much if at all.

Now - Sequoia Capital says there's a market that justified a 100M valuation. They don't just pull that out of their a$$. Quite real.

How do you get from "almost nothing" to "something big"? Turns out you do so ... by timing the market. The right thing at the right time.

So what I'm attempting to communicate is that to keep filling the manifest while you increase cadence ... hits a dead zone, where you have to wait for payloads/growth. But the price point for the growth you have to reach ... needs to afford the vehicle/launch. "Chicken and egg" dependence.

Until RL gets by that (which they might), they won't fly as frequently as they would like, or with as much return as they will need (same thing happened to SX, just less of a problem).

So technically you can march things faster, it is the business pace that needs to step in time that becomes the issue.

Which is one of the reasons SX didn't continue with Falcon 1. It was too much trouble for what it was worth.

Why would you think that any of the other small LV's wouldn't have the same, exact trouble.

Thanks, I do appreciate your reply. As for the limited market - yes I have been a long time skeptic about the size of the smallsat launch market, so I'm not bullish on this at all. As for the numbers, I don't agree... I think you are pulling some number out of very thin air.

To counteract the $100 million figure, RL recently raised $75 million and apparently RL is now valued (by some) at $1 billion. ( https://www.spaceintelreport.com/arianespace-valuation-500-million-rocket-lab-1-billion-new-space-thinking/ ) Excessive? Heck yes.    But they (and their investors) are clearly working from different market assumptions than the $100m valuation you cited.

Technically there is no reason that RL (or Vector) could launch very frequently, even if only using one pad. Will the market support hundreds, dozens, or zero launches per year? We are hopefully about to find out.

But if I was a gambling man (and had money to gamble) , assuming RL gets their launch vehicle operating at advertised price, I think it is very likely they can find customers for much more than 4 payloads per year. If more operators enter the market, then things could get dicey.

[Robotbeat]

The problem is that at 4 payloads per year, they may cost a lot more than $5m per launch. Then you get into the Pegasus death spiral, where you really end up with even less than that and so have to charge like $20m per launch...

[ringsider]

Sure, so don't invest much in reuse before you get expendable launches working. That's a perfectly fine approach, and it's the one SpaceX took although it's not the only option.

And yeah, if you're only launching a few times per year, reuse doesn't make sense. But these microlaunch companies are claiming HUNDREDS of launches per year.

If you really believe hundreds of launches per year, then you owe it to yourself and investors not to dismiss reuse out of hand as it'd drastically reduce labor.

The subtle point here is that they are claiming they will do hundreds of launches not because they know how to do it, or because the market will support it, but because they NEED high volume launches to make money. This is the key problem with very small, cheap rockets like Vector.

Vector says they will employ 200 people.    That's an overhead of $20m. Plus the general expenses, say $30m total. Each vehicle is priced at $1.5m, and probably has direct variable costs of around $1m, including components, licences, fuel, transport, tracking costs, etc. So you have 500k per launch to feed the overhead -> 30m / 500k = 60 launches to break even. That's a very rough calculation, but it illustrates the core issue for Vector.

So what happens if they cannot get to 60+ launches p.a.? And let's recall that is launches, not payloads - each launch will contain 5-10 payloads, which means finding 300-600 sats p.a. What if they can't find payloads or they can't fly them at a rate of once a week? Can you imagine be the logistics of that setup?

Rocket Lab is smarter -  their model is different and less sensitive.

[HMXHMX]

Sure, so don't invest much in reuse before you get expendable launches working. That's a perfectly fine approach, and it's the one SpaceX took although it's not the only option.

And yeah, if you're only launching a few times per year, reuse doesn't make sense. But these microlaunch companies are claiming HUNDREDS of launches per year.

If you really believe hundreds of launches per year, then you owe it to yourself and investors not to dismiss reuse out of hand as it'd drastically reduce labor.

The subtle point here is that they are claiming they will do hundreds of launches not because they know how to do it, or because the market will support it, but because they NEED high volume launches to make money. This is the key problem with very small, cheap rockets like Vector.

Vector says they will employ 200 people.    That's an overhead of $20m. Plus the general expenses, say $30m total. Each vehicle is priced at $1.5m, and probably has direct variable costs of around $1m, including components, licences, fuel, transport, tracking costs, etc. So you have 500k per launch to feed the overhead -> 30m / 500k = 60 launches to break even. That's a very rough calculation, but it illustrates the core issue for Vector.

So what happens if they cannot get to 60+ launches p.a.? And let's recall that is launches, not payloads - each launch will contain 5-10 payloads, which means finding 300-600 sats p.a. What if they can't find payloads or they can't fly them at a rate of once a week? Can you imagine be the logistics of that setup?

Rocket Lab is smarter -  their model is different and less sensitive.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

A $100K labor man-year is optimistically low; while I expect they could do better than an "OldSpace" man-year (~$250K) I expect their average to be at least $150K/year/person.  But that just increases the overhead problem and supports your analysis.

[ringsider]

Sure, so don't invest much in reuse before you get expendable launches working. That's a perfectly fine approach, and it's the one SpaceX took although it's not the only option.

And yeah, if you're only launching a few times per year, reuse doesn't make sense. But these microlaunch companies are claiming HUNDREDS of launches per year.

If you really believe hundreds of launches per year, then you owe it to yourself and investors not to dismiss reuse out of hand as it'd drastically reduce labor.

The subtle point here is that they are claiming they will do hundreds of launches not because they know how to do it, or because the market will support it, but because they NEED high volume launches to make money. This is the key problem with very small, cheap rockets like Vector.

Vector says they will employ 200 people.    That's an overhead of $20m. Plus the general expenses, say $30m total. Each vehicle is priced at $1.5m, and probably has direct variable costs of around $1m, including components, licences, fuel, transport, tracking costs, etc. So you have 500k per launch to feed the overhead -> 30m / 500k = 60 launches to break even. That's a very rough calculation, but it illustrates the core issue for Vector.

So what happens if they cannot get to 60+ launches p.a.? And let's recall that is launches, not payloads - each launch will contain 5-10 payloads, which means finding 300-600 sats p.a. What if they can't find payloads or they can't fly them at a rate of once a week? Can you imagine be the logistics of that setup?

Rocket Lab is smarter -  their model is different and less sensitive.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

A $100K labor man-year is optimistically low; while I expect they could do better than an "OldSpace" man-year (~$250K) I expect their average to be at least $150K/year/person.  But that just increases the overhead problem and supports your analysis.

Yes. And even EXTREME volume doesn't create a wildly successful business. If we take your 150k figure, they now need 80 launches to break even, and 100 to *gross* $10m in profit.

That is a deeply unattractive business model that is terribly exposed to demand - they basically need to win the entire global smallsat demand to make money, and they have to feed that dragon twice a week... the sales force will be bigger than the engineering team.

This is why bigger rockets are better business - you make more money per launch to feed the overhead, as you can access higher value payloads, and the cost model changes for the better as well: even a single 1U payload needs contracts, logistics, integration, campaign teams - the same effort you would expend for a single 100kg payload, but now x 10 per launch, while each is paying 1/10th (assuming no middleman taking his 30% cut) - which drives increased costs and process overhead for a very small launcher. Scale that to TWICE A WEEK? Come on.

This also ignores the government. So far Vector has gone under the radar, with in effect amateur launch waivers. But now they will need FAA orbital licences. If you could get the FAA to issue an orbital licences twice a *month* you would be dramatically changing the industry... They just don't move fast, and for very good reasons.

The economics and logistics of volume in the low end business are crippling. This is why I think anyone talking about high volumes is crazy.

[imprezive]

I read what you wrote. And nothing in it backs up your "There's nothing that allows them [RL] to increase cadence beyond a launch 3-6 months" statement. THAT is what I am asking you to explain. What insight do you have into RL to make such a statement? Is it too Socratic of me to expect you to explain why RL could never possibly launch more than 4 times per year?

Or was it simply a statement made in the heat of the discussion? That's OK to. Just don't dig deeper.

I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, that you are genuinely trying to understand what I'm attempting to communicate.

(So now interact with what I have wrote and give me specifically what you don't get.)



These are posts. They are intentionally compact. However not everything fits into one.

So yes, they don't contain everything. Give me the benefit of the doubt, and specifically assert the contradiction. instead of simply repeating what I said.

One more time - yes they can make it work. Yes you can gradually improve flight rate. Yes you alternatively could improve the vehicle.

Ask yourself this question - "what is the market for small payload launches?"  You'll find it isn't large. And it isn't expected to grow much if at all.

Now - Sequoia Capital says there's a market that justified a 100M valuation. They don't just pull that out of their a$$. Quite real.

How do you get from "almost nothing" to "something big"? Turns out you do so ... by timing the market. The right thing at the right time.

So what I'm attempting to communicate is that to keep filling the manifest while you increase cadence ... hits a dead zone, where you have to wait for payloads/growth. But the price point for the growth you have to reach ... needs to afford the vehicle/launch. "Chicken and egg" dependence.

Until RL gets by that (which they might), they won't fly as frequently as they would like, or with as much return as they will need (same thing happened to SX, just less of a problem).

So technically you can march things faster, it is the business pace that needs to step in time that becomes the issue.

Which is one of the reasons SX didn't continue with Falcon 1. It was too much trouble for what it was worth.

Why would you think that any of the other small LV's wouldn't have the same, exact trouble.

Thanks, I do appreciate your reply. As for the limited market - yes I have been a long time skeptic about the size of the smallsat launch market, so I'm not bullish on this at all. As for the numbers, I don't agree... I think you are pulling some number out of very thin air.

To counteract the $100 million figure, RL recently raised $75 million and apparently RL is now valued (by some) at $1 billion. ( https://www.spaceintelreport.com/arianespace-valuation-500-million-rocket-lab-1-billion-new-space-thinking/ ) Excessive? Heck yes.    But they (and their investors) are clearly working from different market assumptions than the $100m valuation you cited.

Technically there is no reason that RL (or Vector) could launch very frequently, even if only using one pad. Will the market support hundreds, dozens, or zero launches per year? We are hopefully about to find out.

But if I was a gambling man (and had money to gamble) , assuming RL gets their launch vehicle operating at advertised price, I think it is very likely they can find customers for much more than 4 payloads per year. If more operators enter the market, then things could get dicey.

The problem is that Vector is at best 3rd to the party behind RL and VO. I'll be amazed if they are in commercial service within 2 years, they are probably 3-4 years out if things go well. That's a big gap to make up and doesn't even count potential foreign competitors. I'm not sure what would compel a company to book on an unproven rocket instead of one in service if RL and VO get there a couple years ahead.

[Robotbeat]

$5m vs $1.5m may be part of the reason.

$5m is high enough cost that RL is potentially able to be beat by SpaceX or Blue Origin in a dedicated, fully reusable launch.

$1.5m is far lower, probably too low for either SpaceX or Blue Origin to do a dedicated launch even if fully reusable (unless Blue makes New Shepard into a smallsat launcher).

$1.5m is almost low enough to find entirely with SBIR paper-study money.

[imprezive]

$5m vs $1.5m may be part of the reason.

$5m is high enough cost that RL is potentially able to be beat by SpaceX or Blue Origin in a dedicated, fully reusable launch.

$1.5m is far lower, probably too low for either SpaceX or Blue Origin to do a dedicated launch even if fully reusable (unless Blue makes New Shepard into a smallsat launcher).

$1.5m is almost low enough to find entirely with SBIR paper-study money.

$1.5M for 28kg to 500km SSO. That's a really small satellite. Any company with something that small isn't likely to have money to tie up booking a rocket that will launch in 3-4 years.

[QuantumG]

Cheap. Fast. Reliable.

Choose two.

[meekGee]

Are these booked launches with a significant non-refundable deposit, or are these just the same payloads that everyone in the industry is also "booking" via a memorandum of understanding?

For a VC to accept it as a launch, yes, a significant non-refundable deposit. So, you don't ask the company about manifest, you ask the investor and believe what they say.

I have significant experience with VCs and I don't share your "believe what they say" attitude.

I've seen it happen all the time that VCs invest in companies claiming customers when those claimed customers have made no firm commitments at all, in spite of misleading press releases to the contrary.

Exactly so.  The VC decision making process is influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the expected ROI, ego being just one of them.

[Robotbeat]

$5m vs $1.5m may be part of the reason.

$5m is high enough cost that RL is potentially able to be beat by SpaceX or Blue Origin in a dedicated, fully reusable launch.

$1.5m is far lower, probably too low for either SpaceX or Blue Origin to do a dedicated launch even if fully reusable (unless Blue makes New Shepard into a smallsat launcher).

$1.5m is almost low enough to find entirely with SBIR paper-study money.

$1.5M for 28kg to 500km SSO. That's a really small satellite. Any company with something that small isn't likely to have money to tie up booking a rocket that will launch in 3-4 years.

That's how I feel about the entire smallsat market. But I just am taking the argument and taking it to its conclusion.

[Chalmer]

Are these booked launches with a significant non-refundable deposit, or are these just the same payloads that everyone in the industry is also "booking" via a memorandum of understanding?

For a VC to accept it as a launch, yes, a significant non-refundable deposit. So, you don't ask the company about manifest, you ask the investor and believe what they say.

I have significant experience with VCs and I don't share your "believe what they say" attitude.

I've seen it happen all the time that VCs invest in companies claiming customers when those claimed customers have made no firm commitments at all, in spite of misleading press releases to the contrary.

Exactly so.  The VC decision making process is influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the expected ROI, ego being just one of them.

Expecting a VC investment to be something even close to a guarantee of success would be very foolhardy.

I remember in uni, one VC fond guy saying that they only made money on something like 10 percent of their investments. If not less. The point was that when they bet right, the payout was massive compared, to what they lost on the rest.

In other words they make a lot of long shot investments that are high risk, high return.

Lets say there is even a few percents chance that Vector will be a new SpaceX. Then the probability adjusted return of 20M investment will be something like times 10-15 times that.

[meekGee]

Are these booked launches with a significant non-refundable deposit, or are these just the same payloads that everyone in the industry is also "booking" via a memorandum of understanding?

For a VC to accept it as a launch, yes, a significant non-refundable deposit. So, you don't ask the company about manifest, you ask the investor and believe what they say.

I have significant experience with VCs and I don't share your "believe what they say" attitude.

I've seen it happen all the time that VCs invest in companies claiming customers when those claimed customers have made no firm commitments at all, in spite of misleading press releases to the contrary.

Exactly so.  The VC decision making process is influenced by factors that have nothing to do with the expected ROI, ego being just one of them.

Expecting a VC investment to be something even close to a guarantee of success would be very foolhardy.

I remember in uni, one VC fond guy saying that they only made money on something like 10 percent of their investments. If not less. The point was that when they bet right, the payout was massive compared, to what they lost on the rest.

In other words they make a lot of long shot investments that are high risk, high return.

Lets say there is even a few percents chance that Vector will be a new SpaceX. Then the probability adjusted return of 20M investment will be something like times 10-15 times that.

Not every foolish investment is "high risk"....  And where is the "high return"?

I'm thinking of Austin Powers holding on 5 at BlackJack and proclaiming that he, too, "likes to live dangerously"...