Rocket Lab Inaugurates The Era Of Even Cheaper Rocket Launches (bloomberg.com) 57
pacopico writes: Elon Musk and SpaceX kicked off the New Space era with low-cost, reusable rockets. But now there's something just as dramatic brewing with really, really cheap rockets and really, really cheap satellites. Bloomberg has just profiled Peter Beck, a self-taught rocket engineer from New Zealand, who has built a $5 million rocket that will be taking cubesats [miniaturized satellites] from Planet Labs and others to space in the next few weeks. The story talks about a new type of computing shell being built around the Earth and all the players trying to fill it up.
Peeeew (Score:2)
>self-taught rocket engineer
Just wow. Many people say that Musk would've been better off staying with his underhanded website business. What we can say about that guy? Was he running a plumbing company before getting into rocketry?
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You could try actually reading the article, which will tell you all about how he got into rocketry and his various jobs.
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he designed dishwashers ...
Re: Really Cheap Satellites may not be good (Score:2)
First and second stages are either fall to earth right after launch or fall from orbit within months. The bigger issue are the booster blocks as they effectively stay on the same orbit as their payloads
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IIRC, Rocket Lab is also contracted to carry MoonEx's [moonexpress.com] Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP [wikipedia.org]) mission later this year. All the more reason to wish them well on these upcoming flights.
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Seems far-fetched to launch a moon mission with a company whose extraordinarily small rocket has almost (but not quite) managed to get shoebox-sized satellites into low earth orbit. Doesn't a lunar landing require a lot more energy?
Re: Really Cheap Satellites may not be good (Score:2)
A lunar landing not necessarily, you get it into a pathway to the moon and voila. The problem is returning something from the moon (like people) you need two loads of fuel (once to go, once to come back) which increases the amount of fuel you need to start off with significantly.
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That would be the wrong way to do it, if you wanted to do it as anything other than a novelty (ex: Apollo).
It's expensive but relatively straightforward (as in, not THAT complicated, but not easy) to develop a supply chain that would be capable of getting humans to the moon and back on a regular basis, where over time the cost per trip would drop dramatically. Establishing the supply chain is expensive, but once established it would be, comparatively, inexpensive to get people from the Earth to the moon and
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You wrote a lot, but not much I could see that makes sense. The primary cost driver is $/kg, no matter if you send it in one or ten batches. Man-rating a rocket is expensive and so is the safety gear per launch, but the remaining lift capability costs roughly the same. Maybe you could get a discount on launching fuel using a refurbished rocket instead of a new one, but not dramatically cheaper. Other than that, Apollo used an orbiter and a lander so the only thing you've improved is a reusable ship in Earth
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Most everything would be reusable - that's a decent chunk of change, and I disagree that it wouldn't make things dramatically cheaper.
I also think you're underestimating the cost of crew rating everything for an all-in-one launch vs having a dedicated crew-only launch + multiple supply launches (some of those supply launches, because they are redundant, would get to be reused by later missions)
And yes, the initial costs would be higher - this would be establishing a supply chain so that we could do regular
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Realized I left out one part on the reusability:
Once the reusable parts that will stay in orbit get into orbit and are reused, they don't have to be launched again with each and every mission. That, along with not having to build new ones for each mission is where the dramatic savings comes into play.
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One nice thing about Apollo's method is that when you're coming back from the moon, you get to slow down for free (i.e. aerobraking). If most of your craft is going to be left in LEO during the return trip, you have to carry fuel to and back from the moon to use to slow down once you get back to LEO.
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He lives next door to a self-taught brain surgeon.
And our self-taught-politician president is doing just fine.
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Do you have an argument? He's self-taught by any definition I can think of. Doesn't even have a degree, unless the article is lying. Guessing you didn't even read the article.
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And you posted as an Anonymous Coward, I guess no one can be surprised there either.
Of course NZ also beat the USA in the Americas Cup... Hell the "US Team" was basically Australians.
Just accept, a small country at the arse end of the world with only 4 Million people is able to do things extremely well.
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This sort of rich man's racing is lousy with Kiwis and Aussies.
BTW New Zealand's population is 4.5 million, approximately the same as the Republic of Ireland.
Is it legal? (Score:2)
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
If you RTFA : yes, and actually they managed quite a few feat to make it both legal and easier on them.
e.g.:
- the launch site is privately owned (no competition to use it by other branches government)
- the launch site is quite remote (no need to wait and coordinate with air traffic)
etc.
basically they managed to be legit, and they did in creative manner that actually enable them to operate better.
Re: Is it legal? (Score:2)
Oh criminy. (Score:2)
So we've finally developed a rocket that we can use to start cleaning up space and the first order of business is to add more space garbage? It figures.
Sweet (Score:2)
Signed,
Chief Space Nutter
They haven't succeeded yet - first try failed. (Score:2, Informative)
Their first try didn't make orbit. Oh, they are somewhat legit, but I wouldn't celebrate too much until they've proved to have solved the problem and orbited something.
Granted, it took four tries for Mr. Musk to get there and even the Chinese government and all their resources just welped their second Long March 5 launch - space is hard and all that. Still, Rocket Labs still has some ways to go before they are a legit launch provider.
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Plus, how much market is there for shoebox-sized satellites? Universities and "satellite hobby clubs" would be interested, but there's a reason why SpaceX never built any more Falcon 1 rockets...
Change of the technology leads to a socual change (Score:2)
We cannot say what it would be this time. But I am afraid the principle will continue to work.
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look at $/pound not $/launch (Score:1)
if you look at the cost per pound instead of cost per launch, this is a very inefficient rocket (worse than ULA) It's payload is tiny.
now, there are cases where $/launch is the driving factor, but not most of the time.
If the $/pound is low enough (and SpaceX is close to 1/10 these folks), you can piggy-back these cubesats on another launch, even using the spacex second stage to put them into a different orbit than the main payload.
If you don't have a time-critical need, you can wait for a much cheaper seco
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SpaceX just launched 10 Iridium Next satellites. Those satellites weigh roughly a metric ton each. SpaceX charged them roughly $6 million per satellite based on published launch prices.
RocketLab charges a similar price to launch a satellite, but with a fraction as much payload capacity.
Re: look at $/pound not $/launch (Score:2)
Re: look at $/pound not $/launch (Score:2)
It has been rumored SpaceX is doing launches at a loss just to get bigger contracts with governments and destroy any competition.
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They are already destroying the competition without having to take a loss. I've read they only give a 10% discount on a reflown booster.
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For a customer with only 1 small satellite, it's still cheaper to fly RocketLab. You can only share satellites on a Falcon-9 if they're supposed to end up in (almost) the same orbit.
this NZ guy is also sending a rocket to the sun (Score:1)
Not in the same league as SpaceX (Score:2)
Rocket Lab is doing cool stuff, but the comparison to SpaceX is tenuous.
Rocket Lab's Electron rocket is very similar in size to a V2 (world war II) rocket, with loaded mass 10,500 kg. Wikipedia says it delivers 150-225 kg to a 500 km sun synchronous orbit. The initial Falcon 9 had loaded mass 333,400 kg and delivers 10,450 kg to low earth orbit, and the current Falcon 9 can do about twice that in expendable mode.
Rocket Lab aren't threatening SpaceX's business at all. SpaceX is currently not threatening Rock
Trying to fill it up = bad (Score:2)
Tiny flecks of stuff, let alone decent sized cubesats, have the power to cause a lot of damage to the ISS, for example.