Latitude (was Venture Orbital Systems)

[Garrett]

I don't think there's a topic for this new French rocket start-up, Venture Orbital Systems.
https://www.venture-orbital.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/

Their COO has put out an AMA today:
https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/status/1405797822746828801?s=20

[trimeta]

Their Twitter is quite active. They had one of these "Ask Me Anything Days" less than a month ago (on May 28th), during which they claimed to still be on track for a 2024 launch of their orbital-class Zephyr rocket.

https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/status/1398244072905658371

[TrevorMonty]

Where will they launch from?.



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[trimeta]

Where will they launch from?.

This article says "the Guyanese Space Center in Kourou, and a launch site in Northern Europe" (machine translated, apologies for spelling), and the below tweet from today's "Ask Me Anything" affirmed that they're looking at European launch sites in addition to Guiana. My intuition would be that they're thinking Andøya or Esrange, since Sutherland or Shetland require a boat ride (and may not count as "Northern Europe"), but I haven't seen anything to confirm that.

https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/status/1405806572132093952

[trimeta]

And the prize for predicting where Venture Orbital Systems would launch from goes to...anyone but me, since I'd ruled out the Scottish sites. But they've just announced a partnership with SaxaVord (formerly known as the Shetland Space Centre). This makes them the fifth prospective small-launch company to sign with SaxaVord, along with ABL, HyImpulse, C6 Launch, and of course Skyrora.

https://saxavord.com/saxavord-spaceport-agrees-deal-with-french-rocket-developer-vos/

https://www.venture-orbital.com/press-release/venture-orbital-systems-accord-saxavord-space-port

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/latitude_eu/status/1618523452050386945

Navier is alive 🔥🔥🔥 full video :

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Zephyr animation posted 4 months ago

[Tywin]

This thread should be in the European section no?

[trimeta]

This thread should be in the European section no?

I'm of the opinion that companies which merely received some seed funding/awards from the ESA (e.g., Boost! or LPSR 2) shouldn't be counted as "ESA Launchers" and placed into that subforum, let alone companies like Latitude which (to my knowledge) have not received ESA money. Of course, for some reason PLD Space was moved there anyway...

Personally, I'd rather see every single commercial space launch company in the "Commercial Space Flight General" subforum. Yes, that's part of the "Commercial and US Government Launch Vehicles" forum, but "Commercial" is separate from "US Government" in the name. If people still think that only US-based companies should be there, then IMO everyone else should be here in the "Other Launchers (Korean, Brazilian etc.)" subforum -- including all the non-US companies which are already in the "Commercial Space Flight General" subforum.

An alternate idea would be to rename the "ESA Launchers - Ariane, Soyuz at CSG, Vega" subforum to something like "European Launchers - ESA (Ariane, Soyuz at CSG, Vega), Other Commercial". Then it would be appropriate to put all European-based companies there.

Edit: Oh right, the Indian Launchers and Japanese Launchers subforums exist, and commercial companies from those countries are generally located there already. I have no problem with that, and this may point to "rename the ESA subforum to become an everything-European subforum" as the correct solution.

[TrevorMonty]

I don't think there's a topic for this new French rocket start-up, Venture Orbital Systems.
https://www.venture-orbital.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/

Their COO has put out an AMA today:
https://twitter.com/Venture_Orbital/status/1405797822746828801?s=20

Name change here is their new webpage link.
https://www.latitude.eu/

100kg to LEO. 9+1 RP1/LOX engine configuration. Nothing about engine type or thrust.

[trimeta]

Name change here is their new webpage link.
https://www.latitude.eu/

100kg to LEO. 9+1 RP1/LOX engine configuration. Nothing about engine type or thrust.

The company Orbital Machines is in the business of building electric propellant pumps for rocket engines, and they list Venture Orbital Systems' Zephyr as one of their customers. Unless the plan has changed since the company name change (and since the rocket name and specs are unchanged, I doubt it), presumably they're still on the electric pump cycle.

[Danderman]

https://www.latitude.eu/

French small launcher company. Previously operated under another name, but I couldn't find a topic for this company.

Not a lot of info on their website.

[trimeta]

There's already a thread in the International Space Flight > Other Launchers section about them.

[zubenelgenubi: Threads merged.]

[FutureSpaceTourist]

[trimeta]

Latitude is planning on uprating Zephyr from 100kg to 200kg. They still plan to fly the original 100kg version first, but after three years will double its capacity.

Also, this press release says that the 100kg version "is scheduled to be available in 2025," which is a little later than what was said in the following tweet from 2021, which specified launch in Q3 2024. So a bit of unsurprising slippage, but another datapoint if you want to try and see when the dates converge.

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1450778180202213378

[TheKutKu]

https://europeanspaceflight.com/french-launch-startup-latitude-closes-30m-series-b/

Latitude announced on 22 January that it had closed a $30 million (€27.5 million) Series B funding round to support the development of its Zephyr launch vehicle.

[trimeta]

Back in January, Latitude announced some significant changes to their Navier rocket engines (there are many pictures associated with this thread):

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1746818982122844373

Over the next years, #Zephyr will elevate its #payload capacity, allowed by the technical, industrial and commercial feedbacks and development we gathered in 2023. To follow-up, we upgraded the design of the #Navier #RocketEngine flight version 🎯🚀 Want to dig into the details? A thread 🧵👇

To increase the #thrust delivered by Naviers ⬇️🔥⬇️ our #propulsion team has decided to review the engine cycle to switch from #MotorPump (MP) using batteries to a #TurboPump (TP) using gaz 💪 So, why did we make that choice?

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1746818988888191042

Theoretically, the best developing tech such as a Lithium (Li) & Sulfur (S) battery mounted on an MP stores less energy than High concentration Hydrogen Peroxide (HTP) used on our TP ⚡ Choosing the later technology allows us to optimize the weight/energy ratio 💪 But why use HTP to power it?

An HTP-based TP allows to increase the #shaft power needed for more powerful Naviers and is an easier to handle technology than MP or staged combustion 🙌 Also, the simplicity of this technology fits within our simple design development philosophy: #TheSimplerTheBetter ✅

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1746818993581662310

Furthermore, we gained more advantages by increasing the thrust delivered by each Navier engine! Indeed, single more powerful engines means less engines are needed to meet the overall #performance  offered by Zephyr. We are going down to 7 Navier engines to propell the first stage, instead of 9

Within this configuration, each flight Navier on the first stage will deliver 45 kN of thrust in #vaccum conditions and the second stage single Navier will deliver 35 kN of thrust in vacuum conditions 🔝

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1746819000410009870

As for the #alloy used to print the combustion chamber of these flight Naviers, we will be using #Inconel718 as it met our expectations with the test engine: it offers the right thermomechanical properties ✅ Now, you may wonder how is this going to be developed?

Our TP has been designed by our propulsion departement in partnership with @CNES #manufacturers & #labs for quite some time now 👨‍💻⚙️ And a series of #TestsCampaigns will take place early 2024 using a test bench we designed and installed on our Titan #ResearchCenter on the @AeroParisVatry

https://twitter.com/Latitude_eu/status/1746819006114197583

These are exciting times at Latitude! 🎉 Have burning questions or eager to learn more? Drop your #queries below! In the meantime, wishing you a Happy New Year filled with joy, success, and endless possibilities! 🌟✨ May the coming year be your best one yet! 🥳