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After a failure to reach orbit last year and several delays, Rocket Lab has successfully launched an Electron rocket into orbit:
Rocket Lab has returned to action with the second launch of its Electron rocket from the Māhia Peninsula from the North Island of New Zealand's eastern coast. Several attempts to launch at the end of last year were scrubbed before regrouping for a new attempt – which was also scrubbed, due to a wayward boat, a technical issue and then the weather – before finally launching at 01:43 UTC on Sunday and appears to have been a success.
Much like Vector Space – which is currently in small-scale suborbital testing with aims to enter the launch market next year – Rocket Lab caters to much the same market, offering small satellite users a dedicated launch system to eliminate ride-sharing requirements on the larger, more established launchers.
According to the company's website, Rocket Lab lists its launch services with Electron as costing $4.9 million (USD) per flight.
Rocket Lab has two more upcoming launches planned for Q1 2018, including a lunar lander for Moon Express. The Electron rocket will deliver the Moon Express payload into low-Earth orbit, where the lander will use its own thrusters to get to the Moon:
Once in low-Earth orbit, the MX-1E will need to complete a translunar injection (TLI) burn, cruise through space, conduct a breaking[sic] burn to enter lunar orbit, and finally complete descent and landing burns—all by itself. It would be an unprecedented accomplishment, a single-stage spacecraft that can make it all the way to the surface of the moon from low-Earth orbit.
How will a cheap disposable rocket fare against reusable rockets?
Also at Wired.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @05:08PM (4 children)
at a price somewhere between $50M and $7M... depending.
RocketLab launched just the other day, and is projecting costs of $5M. With 6-10 more years of development, who knows what this landscape will look like.
Certainly, BFR is making some convincing "own the world" noises, but they're still unproven.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday January 22 2018, @05:17PM (3 children)
How much are university customers paying to get there CubeSats launched alongside larger payloads on Falcon 9 rockets? Answer that and we'll see how viable the $4.9 million price tag is. Remember that Rocket Lab says they want to launch around 50 per year.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @05:46PM (2 children)
I'm guessing that their marketing department has worked out this number as a price point to shoot for, not the true cost of operations. If they manage to get up to 50 launches per year, I'd expect those launches to cost quite a bit less than $4.9M each. And, I'm even more sure that this launch cost far more than $4.9M to-date to accomplish.
They make a big deal about the sun-synchronous orbit as a sort of high-value trajectory, probably attempting to justify the $1.65M/cubesat price point.
I think it's exciting and encouraging that they are able to chart a different technological course and at least potentially succeed in the space market. I hate homogeneous global systems, monoculture crops, and all their like. Even if RocketLabs ultimately fizzles on the business end, hopefully some of the tech they develop can cross-pollinate with other programs to make the whole ecosystem more robust. Even better if the business end works and we can operate several different kinds of launch vehicles, instead of one booster to rule them all (one booster to find them, one booster to bring them all and in the darkness... yeah.)
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(Score: 2) by Alphatool on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:41PM (1 child)
$4.9 million is a significant reduction in current launch costs. Spaceflight Industries operate in the secondary payload market and they publish their prices [spaceflight.com]. Basically, it looks like Rocket Lab will be noticeably but not dramatically cheaper than current services, but the services are different enough to complicate the comparison. Rocket Lab also allows some payloads to switch from secondary status to their own rocket which offers more flexibility and eliminates the compromises that must be made as a secondary payload, so there is an added advantage there too.
I hope that BFR (or any rocket) slashes the cost of orbit so much that $4.9 million is an expensive launch, but until then it looks like Rocket Lab have a very competitive place in the market.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 23 2018, @02:43PM
After all, they do have rocket scientists in engineering, hopefully the marketing and accountants can project their window of opportunity and amoritize the cost of development across the competitive life of the launch vehicle. +/- 50% maybe, marketing isn't as precise as orbital trajectories.
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