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A New Wave Of Satellites In Orbit: Cheap And Tiny, With Short Lifespans

posted by mrpg on Friday August 10 2018, @07:30AM   
from the space-drones dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

It's one of the most recognizable images in aerospace: Highly specialized workers clad in gowns, hair nets and shoe coverings crawl over a one-of-a-kind satellite the size of a school bus. The months-long process is so delicate that even workers' metal rings must be covered with a translucent tape to prevent static transfer.

Contrast that with how things are done at Planet Labs Inc. in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. Satellites no bigger than a loaf of bread are propped on work benches, tended by technicians wearing simple rubber gloves and light lab coats. Largely using commercially available tech components, they can crank out and test 25 of these pint-sized satellites in a week.

Befitting its location, the Earth-imaging company's approach is more akin to that of a tech start-up than a traditional aerospace firm. Giant satellites might cost north of $1 billion and last for a decade or more. Planet churns out satellites that cost a tiny fraction of that—how much, it won't say—with a lifespan of just two to three years.

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Original Submission

• Re:Launch costs Re:Launch costs (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Friday August 10 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday August 10 2018, @03:39PM (#719943) Journal

  BFR is going to drop launch costs dramatically. But before BFR flies (as well as after), ridesharing can already make space accessible [theverge.com] for cheap, small payloads:

  Later this year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch more than 70 satellites into orbit — the largest batch of satellites sent into space at one time from one of the company’s vehicles or of any other US rocket company. Dubbed the SSO-A mission, the flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force in California in late 2018, though an exact date has yet to be determined.

  The epic satellite rideshare was coordinated and brokered by Spaceflight Industries — a company dedicated to finding launch “real estate” for small satellites that need to get into space. Spaceflight has become a go-to resource for many small satellite manufacturers, as they have limited options for getting their hardware into orbit. Huge rockets like the Falcon 9 or Atlas V are typically far too big and expensive to send a handful of tiny satellites into space. For the last decade, these companies have only really had just two options: launch their satellites as cargo to the International Space Station, where they are later deployed, or hitch a ride on the flight of a larger satellite.

  Spaceflight will work with manufacturers to find extra room on rockets that are already scheduled to launch bigger payloads into orbit. The company will then figure out a way to help integrate those small satellites into the mission, so that multiple payloads can go up at once. So far, Spaceflight has found rides for more than 140 different satellites on multiple launch vehicles. The company even helped to book room for 20 satellites on one of the most massive rocket rideshare yet, when an Indian PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket launched 104 satellites into orbit in February 2017 [theverge.com].

  We could be witnessing a bubble in the small sat industry, but not on the satellite side. There are a bunch of small launch services that want to offer dedicated rides for small payloads (e.g. Rocket Lab, Vector Space Systems, Firefly Aerospace, Rocket Crafters, Ventions, LLC, Mishaal Aerospace, Relativity Space, Space Services Inc., and probably more) (SpinLaunch [soylentnews.org] is at least trying something different and potentially very cheap). They are typically in the range of $1 million to $10 million per launch, with a huge $/kg disadvantage when compared to SpaceX or other big launchers. The small launch vehicles are typically not reusable due to the fact that they can't carry enough fuel to both lift a payload and land booster(s).

  So if SpaceX can reuse Falcon 9 rockets in as little as a week or so, it can have aggressive scheduling of launches that eat away at the "dedicated" advantage that small launch providers offer. Later BFR can roll onto the scene, with a much more voluminous and often empty payload fairing since it will eventually be replacing all Falcon 9 and Heavy launches on cost grounds. Lots of room for ridesharing, greater payload mass to orbit. The future looks bright for small satellites.

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• Re:Launch costs (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 10 2018, @04:02PM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday August 10 2018, @04:02PM (#719956) Journal

  https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/rocket-report-tons-of-new-boosters-spacex-soars-new-glenn-may-be-late/ [arstechnica.com]

  New report quantifies surge in small rockets. In an updated report [usu.edu] on the state of the small-satellite launch industry, Carlos Niederstrasser quantifies the increase in potential small launch vehicle contenders, defined as rockets capable of carrying up to 1,000kg to low-Earth orbit. The growth has been remarkable. "The total number of efforts we are tracking... has increased from a mere 31 in 2015 to over 101 in 2018," he writes.

  Boom times ... "It is clear that the market will not be able to support most of this [sic] new entrants, but it is equally clear that both the founders and the capital markets think that there will be room for multiple players," the report states. There is so much activity that grappling with all of it is almost impossible. But certainly this newsletter will try.

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