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Space Businesses

Rocket Lab's Modest Launch Is Giant Leap For Small Rocket Business (nytimes.com) 36

Posted by msmash from the you-hear-that-mr-anderson dept.
Reader Iwastheone shares a report: A small rocket from a little-known company lifted off Sunday from the east coast of New Zealand, carrying a clutch of tiny satellites. That modest event -- the first commercial launch by a U.S.-New Zealand company known as Rocket Lab -- could mark the beginning of a new era in the space business, where countless small rockets pop off from spaceports around the world. This miniaturization of rockets and spacecraft places outer space within reach of a broader swath of the economy.

The rocket, called the Electron, is a mere sliver compared to the giant rockets that Elon Musk, of SpaceX, and Jeffrey P. Bezos, of Blue Origin, envisage using to send people into the solar system. It is just 56 feet tall and can carry only 500 pounds into space. But Rocket Lab is aiming for markets closer to home. "We're FedEx," said Peter Beck, the New Zealand-born founder and chief executive of Rocket Lab. "We're a little man that delivers a parcel to your door." Behind Rocket Lab, a host of start-up companies are also jockeying to provide transportation to space for a growing number of small satellites. The payloads include constellations of telecommunications satellites that would provide the world with ubiquitous internet access.

The payload of this mission, which Rocket Lab whimsically named "It's Business Time," offered a glimpse of this future: two ship-tracking satellites for Spire Global; a small climate- and environment-monitoring satellite for GeoOptics; a small probe built by high school students in Irvine, Calif., and a demonstration version of a drag sail that would pull defunct satellites out of orbit.
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Rocket Lab's Modest Launch Is Giant Leap For Small Rocket Business More

Rocket Lab's Modest Launch Is Giant Leap For Small Rocket Business

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  • Since when is FedEx the "little guy"?

  • Unless their rockets are going to take us to Mars and get us off this rock stuck in a gravity well, they are useless.
    • I wouldn't say useless, but overhyped. They're currently doing the same as a half-century-old Black Brant, which has a, well, half-century track record already in place.

  • Hilarious :) no doubt named after the kiwi song - https://flightoftheconchords.b... [bandcamp.com]

  • Tiny cheap satellites (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Because we don't have enough spacejunk already.

    • Actually, their 3rd stage is specifically engineered to de-orbit itself to prevent exactly this problem.

  • "This miniaturization of rockets and spacecraft places outer space within reach of a broader swath of the economy. "

    Now the drug cartels can use their own satellites to spy on the border in real-time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      "This miniaturization of rockets and spacecraft places outer space within reach of a broader swath of the economy. "

      Now the drug cartels can use their own satellites to spy on the border in real-time.

      There is a book about it. Ignore the cover art.

      https://www.amazon.com/Kings-H... [amazon.com]

  • The FedEx analogy is apt (Score:5, Insightful)

    by edi_guy ( 2225738 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @01:58PM (#57631660)
    Rocket Lab is charging $10k per pound to orbit while SpaceX is at $2.5 lb. But as they said in TFA in today's world if you have a small satellite, you have to wait to hitch a ride on a bigger rocket. And depending on the orbit you need, the size of your payload, the type of the primary payload, you could be in for a long wait.

    Rocket Lab is offering the "Overnight" equivalent option where you can get your payload in orbit much faster, but at greater cost. Will be interesting if there is indeed a economically market for this. Are we going to see school PTA's pulling $50k fundraisers to get the science class' cubesat in orbit?

    • Are we going to see school PTA's pulling $50k fundraisers to get the science class' cubesat in orbit?

      Probably not - because $50k won't buy a launch. (A launch costs $5 million.) Just as with small payloads today, they'll have to wait to hitch a ride on someone else's launch.

  • Coolest part - electric turbopumps (Score:5, Interesting)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @02:07PM (#57631722) Journal
    The thing that I find coolest about the Electron rocket is that the turbopumps, which feed fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber, are powered by electric motors, rather than burning some of that fuel/oxygen mix in a staged combustion cycle [wikipedia.org].

    On the plus side: you avoid a huge amount of complexity by ditching the preburner (and its part count, weight, fuel-oxidizer separation issues, temperature extremes). You also have very precise and immediate throttle control. On the downside, you have to carry a sizable battery pack, which has much lower energy density.

    I don't know if their approach will scale up particularly well, but at this scale it certainly seems like a win. And, if nothing else, it is encouraging to see companies trying new approaches.

    • Re:Coolest part - electric turbopumps (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12, 2018 @06:31PM (#57633420)

      Not just the turbopumps, the entire rocket is made out of carbon fiber composite. Being a company from New Zealand, RocketLab does have access to some pretty interesting research.

      (The engine is also 3D printed, but I don't think that's anything new as SpX also does the same for the Merlin IIRC)

      Unfortunately, while the rocket is light and the turbopumps can throttle faster, the Electron is still thrown away. I really hope they can plan some recovery plans, but it looks like it isn't on the roadmap for now.

    • On the downside, you have to carry a sizable battery pack, which has much lower energy density.

      The Electron gets around this (to an extent), by jettisoning part of the battery pack during ascent. (But if jettisoning fails, the mission fails...)

  • Just what we need (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Monday November 12, 2018 @02:21PM (#57631820)

    Oh great! An easier way to put more things into orbit. There are a couple of companies planning to put thousands and thousands of satellites into orbit for Internet access. Now all of these companies are starting up to let just about anyone to put their own satellite into orbit. Sure, they will fall out of orbit eventually but low Earth orbit is going to get very crowded in the near future.

  • There are many companies hoping to compete in this market. Starting from this wikipedia page [wikipedia.org], I find

    (rocket, company, country, first or planned first launch date, payload to low Earth orbit)
    Operational:
    Kuaizhou 1A [wikipedia.org], ExPace, China, 2017, 300kg
    Electron [wikipedia.org], Rocket Lab, New Zealand and USA, 2018, 225kg
    Zhuque-1 [wikipedia.org], Landspace Technology, China, 2018, 300kg

    In development:
    OS-M2 [wikipedia.org], OneSpace, China, 2018, 205kg
    Vector-R [wikipedia.org], Vector Launch, USA, 2018, 60kg
    Vector-H [wikipedia.org], Vector Launch, USA, 2019, 160kg
    SSLV [wikipedia.org], ISRO, India, 2019, 500kg
    Bloost [wikipedia.org]

  • As Khrushchev said

  • This is named after the Flight of the Conchords song [youtube.com].

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