QuoteBut right now they're waiting on an agency that's dealing with a record number of new launch vehicles needing licenses, but that is understaffed because Congress has cut their budget requests most years in recent memory. (facepalm) Meanwhile Congress is funding SLS like crazy. Oh well...
But right now they're waiting on an agency that's dealing with a record number of new launch vehicles needing licenses, but that is understaffed because Congress has cut their budget requests most years in recent memory.
The printers are so slow they are building four of them? Why don’t they 3D print the 3D printers?
A more personal telling of our origins before first launch. Fwiw, I care less about competition, more about cooperation and inspiring dozens to hundreds of other companies to make Mars + 🌎 multiplanetary society happen in our immediate lifetime.
When Terran R has few successful flights then Relativity is serious competition until then they are just another startup but very well funded one.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 02/06/2023 08:48 amWhen Terran R has few successful flights then Relativity is serious competition until then they are just another startup but very well funded one.It is unpopular to write anything negative here about Relativiy; the replies to this post will get lots of likes. But still, just for the records:Relativity has a mind-boggling cashburn. Their current money reserves will be exhausted years before Terran R could actually launch to orbit. And I can't imagine that they will be able to raise the next billion bucks needed to become cashflow positive. Hard economic times ahead.I will refer to this post when Relativity is bankrupt and Terran is history. Don't say noone warned you that something was wrong about this "printed rockets" story. It simply doesn't work.
Quote from: PM3 on 02/06/2023 09:33 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 02/06/2023 08:48 amWhen Terran R has few successful flights then Relativity is serious competition until then they are just another startup but very well funded one.It is unpopular to write anything negative here about Relativiy; the replies to this post will get lots of likes. But still, just for the records:Relativity has a mind-boggling cashburn. Their current money reserves will be exhausted years before Terran R could actually launch to orbit. And I can't imagine that they will be able to raise the next billion bucks needed to become cashflow positive. Hard economic times ahead.I will refer to this post when Relativity is bankrupt and Terran is history. Don't say noone warned you that something was wrong about this "printed rockets" story. It simply doesn't work.It's not so much 'unpopular' but simply that others do not share your opinion. Nor do they imagine 'billions' required for moving from a small launcher to a medium lift launcher using the same manufacturing technology, propellants, and engines (Terran 1 is switching to a single Aeon R for the first stage). And there are certainly parallels with another launch company that transitioned from a single-engine small launch vehicles to a clustered engine medium launch vehicle, for well under 'billions' (and Relativity don't to develop an ISS capable capsule at the same time). They also have a flight vehicle sitting on the pad, and have been selling launch contracts for it in additional to contracts for Terran R. Companies they have built actual vehicles have proven to be pretty resilient despite sentiment to the contrary: Rocketlab continue to operate despite the purported dead-ness of the small launch market, Firefly have weathered 2 total funding failures, and even Astra is continuing to operate despite retiring their only launch vehicle. The graveyard of small launch companies is instead mostly made up of those who never manage to get to the building-a-flight-vehicle stage in the first place (e.g. Vector).
Quote from: edzieba on 02/06/2023 11:25 amQuote from: PM3 on 02/06/2023 09:33 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 02/06/2023 08:48 amWhen Terran R has few successful flights then Relativity is serious competition until then they are just another startup but very well funded one.It is unpopular to write anything negative here about Relativiy; the replies to this post will get lots of likes. But still, just for the records:Relativity has a mind-boggling cashburn. Their current money reserves will be exhausted years before Terran R could actually launch to orbit. And I can't imagine that they will be able to raise the next billion bucks needed to become cashflow positive. Hard economic times ahead.I will refer to this post when Relativity is bankrupt and Terran is history. Don't say noone warned you that something was wrong about this "printed rockets" story. It simply doesn't work.It's not so much 'unpopular' but simply that others do not share your opinion. Nor do they imagine 'billions' required for moving from a small launcher to a medium lift launcher using the same manufacturing technology, propellants, and engines (Terran 1 is switching to a single Aeon R for the first stage). And there are certainly parallels with another launch company that transitioned from a single-engine small launch vehicles to a clustered engine medium launch vehicle, for well under 'billions' (and Relativity don't to develop an ISS capable capsule at the same time). They also have a flight vehicle sitting on the pad, and have been selling launch contracts for it in additional to contracts for Terran R. Companies they have built actual vehicles have proven to be pretty resilient despite sentiment to the contrary: Rocketlab continue to operate despite the purported dead-ness of the small launch market, Firefly have weathered 2 total funding failures, and even Astra is continuing to operate despite retiring their only launch vehicle. The graveyard of small launch companies is instead mostly made up of those who never manage to get to the building-a-flight-vehicle stage in the first place (e.g. Vector).Difference is the proverbial air has been sucked out of the room by the dominant player compared to 2008 when said player first entered the ring.There’s no free lunch to be had against stale, stodgy, slothful incumbents like there was back then.
There is room for at least one other reusable launch provider. Blue Origin is the obvious contender but they’re effectively OldSpace in pace, so the others still have a chance.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 02/06/2023 04:49 pmThere is room for at least one other reusable launch provider. Blue Origin is the obvious contender but they’re effectively OldSpace in pace, so the others still have a chance.Yes. A 2nd competitive, reusable launcher that arrives today will likely get sufficient business to be sustainable.However, F1 reached orbit in 2008 and SpaceX only managed to reuse a booster in 2017. Operational cadence with reusable boosters really only started in 2018. That’s a decade to get from first flight to operational reuse.Terran 1 is Relativity’s Falcon 1. Even if they cut the time from first flight to hypothetical, reusable Terran R in half, that’s 5 years to achieving competitive (and hopefully sustainable) operations.5 years of expensive development and scaling that need to be funded. And that’s assuming everything goes really, really well between now and then.
Quote from: M.E.T. on 02/07/2023 01:05 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 02/06/2023 04:49 pmThere is room for at least one other reusable launch provider. Blue Origin is the obvious contender but they’re effectively OldSpace in pace, so the others still have a chance.Yes. A 2nd competitive, reusable launcher that arrives today will likely get sufficient business to be sustainable.However, F1 reached orbit in 2008 and SpaceX only managed to reuse a booster in 2017. Operational cadence with reusable boosters really only started in 2018. That’s a decade to get from first flight to operational reuse.Terran 1 is Relativity’s Falcon 1. Even if they cut the time from first flight to hypothetical, reusable Terran R in half, that’s 5 years to achieving competitive (and hopefully sustainable) operations.5 years of expensive development and scaling that need to be funded. And that’s assuming everything goes really, really well between now and then.The difference is SpaceX were facing the uphill battle of no booster ever having been recovered or reused, and exploring the problem space from scratch and identifying a lot of unknown unknowns. Today, booster reuse is not a "maybe it might be possible" research project but a known quantity with multiple demonstrated working solutions. Likewise, SpaceX were doing a lot of internal training to get the staff needed to work on re-use, whereas Relativity (among others) have a large pool of experienced talent to draw from. e.g. the situation has gone from "so, how do we make a grid-fin that can survive re-entry?" to "hire one of the people who have worked on designing and operating re-enterable grid-fins".
Quote from: edzieba on 02/07/2023 10:35 amQuote from: M.E.T. on 02/07/2023 01:05 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 02/06/2023 04:49 pmThere is room for at least one other reusable launch provider. Blue Origin is the obvious contender but they’re effectively OldSpace in pace, so the others still have a chance.Yes. A 2nd competitive, reusable launcher that arrives today will likely get sufficient business to be sustainable.However, F1 reached orbit in 2008 and SpaceX only managed to reuse a booster in 2017. Operational cadence with reusable boosters really only started in 2018. That’s a decade to get from first flight to operational reuse.Terran 1 is Relativity’s Falcon 1. Even if they cut the time from first flight to hypothetical, reusable Terran R in half, that’s 5 years to achieving competitive (and hopefully sustainable) operations.5 years of expensive development and scaling that need to be funded. And that’s assuming everything goes really, really well between now and then.The difference is SpaceX were facing the uphill battle of no booster ever having been recovered or reused, and exploring the problem space from scratch and identifying a lot of unknown unknowns. Today, booster reuse is not a "maybe it might be possible" research project but a known quantity with multiple demonstrated working solutions. Likewise, SpaceX were doing a lot of internal training to get the staff needed to work on re-use, whereas Relativity (among others) have a large pool of experienced talent to draw from. e.g. the situation has gone from "so, how do we make a grid-fin that can survive re-entry?" to "hire one of the people who have worked on designing and operating re-enterable grid-fins". Yeah. In 2008, SpaceX was still thinking of using parachutes for recovering Falcon 9 first stage. They didn't even switch to powered landing as their plan until mid-2010. They had to pioneer the field, with nobody in industry having experience. Ten years later, there are tons of ex-SpaceX, ex-Masten, and/or ex-Blue Origin folks with experience with VTVL powered landing. Acting like that doesn't make a difference in how fast a second-mover can get there is just silly. That said, Relativity does still need to prove that it has what it takes to successfully build and fly a rocket. But if they can, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they couldn't duplicate at least first stage reuse faster than SpaceX did the first time around.~Jon
All that said, as a customer-focused launch services company, we aren’t truly in charge of defining success for this launch. Our customers will really be our deciding jury. They may view this launch as a success once we prove the vehicle’s structural integrity at Max-Q, but they may also be looking to later stages of flight, like stage separation, and then 2nd stage engine ignition. The goal is to provide our customers with confidence in us and our abilities, especially with $1.65 billion in customer launch contracts already signed overwhelmingly for our larger reusable rocket Terran R, and billions more in our pipeline. Medium-heavy lift is clearly where the biggest market opportunity is for the remaining decade, with a massive launch shortage in this payload class underway.
If on our inaugural Terran 1 launch we encounter issues that are more commonplace with rocket launches – rocket science problems and not additive-related problems – we’ll ask those customers for input. Do they want us to continue down the path of producing more Terran 1’s to solve for those issues on this vehicle? Or, would like us to solve the remaining rocket science problems on the vehicle they are actually most interested in, Terran R?
They also have a flight vehicle sitting on the pad, and have been selling launch contracts for it in additional to contracts for Terran R. Companies they have built actual vehicles have proven to be pretty resilient despite sentiment to the contrary: Rocketlab continue to operate despite the purported dead-ness of the small launch market, Firefly have weathered 2 total funding failures, and even Astra is continuing to operate despite retiring their only launch vehicle.
