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posted by takyon on Monday November 12 2018, @04:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the pocket-rocket dept.

Rocket Lab's Modest Launch Is Giant Leap for Small Rocket Business:

The company's Electron rocket carried a batch of small commercial satellites from a launchpad in New Zealand, a harbinger of a major transformation to the space business.

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.

So, there's SpaceX, Blue Origin, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) in the US as well as Russia, India, and China working on heavy-lift rockets. There are companies that will even buy an entire launch and parcel out space for smaller payloads such as Spaceflight Industries out of Seattle, WA.

Is there enough of a market for all these kinds of rockets? Will smaller companies get bought out and assimilated by the heavy hitters, or will the big guys also develop smaller rockets to fill the need at that end of the market?

If you are interested in what rocket launches are scheduled, the best site I've found so far is: https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/.

Whatever may happen, if you have a payload to launch, things sure are looking... up!

See also: Rocket Launch in New Zealand Brings Quick, Cheap Space Access


Original Submission

Related Stories

Rocket Lab Will Build Satellites for Launch Customers 3 comments

Rocket Lab, known for its Electron smallsat launcher, will also build satellites it launches for customers:

Rocket Lab, one of the biggest startups in the NewSpace category of companies providing launch and satellite services, has added satellite manufacturing to the array of services it offers to customers.

The company, which already had developed launch capabilities and has begun sending payloads into space, can now deliver fully built satellites to its customers, according to a statement.

The "Photon" satellite platform was developed so that customers would not have to build their own satellite hardware.

"Small satellite operators want to focus on providing data or services from space, but building satellite hardware is a significant barrier to achieving this," said Rocket Lab founder and chief executive Peter Beck, in a statement. "The time, resources and expertise required to build hardware can draw small satellite operators away from their core purpose, delaying their path to orbit and revenue. As the turn-key solution for complete small satellite missions, Rocket Lab brings space within easy reach. We enable our customers to focus on their payload and mission – we look after the rest."

Also at Space News and The Verge.

See also: Rocket Lab building spacecraft to pair with its rockets, likely saving start-ups millions of dollars

Previously: Rocket Lab's Modest Launch is Giant Leap for Small Rocket Business
Rocket Lab Mission for NASA Successfully Launches 13 CubeSats
Rocket Lab Successfully Launches R3D2 Mission for DARPA


Original Submission

Rocket Lab Plans to Go Public, Announces Much Larger "Neutron" Rocket 4 comments

Rocket Lab plans to merge with a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC), become a publicly traded company, and develop a medium-lift partially reusable rocket. "Neutron" would be competitive with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and capable of launching cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

The funding from the SPAC merger will enable another new initiative. Rocket Lab said it is working on a medium-class launch vehicle called Neutron, capable of placing up to 8,000 kilograms into low Earth orbit, more than 20 times the capacity of Electron. The company disclosed few technical details about Neutron, but said that it intends to make the first stage reusable through propulsive landing on an ocean platform, similar to SpaceX's recovery of Falcon 9 first stages.

The new vehicle is intended to support the growing interest in satellite megaconstellations. "Neutron's eight-ton lift capacity will make it ideally sized to deploy satellites in batches to specific orbital planes, creating a more targeted and streamlined approach to building out megaconstellations," Beck said in the statement.

Rocket Lab had previously resisted building a larger vehicle. "There's no market for it," Beck said during a side session of the Smallsat Conference in August 2020. "If you build a larger rocket, you relegate yourself to being purely rideshare, and rideshare is really well-served."

The first Neutron launch is scheduled for 2024 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. The vehicle will leverage the infrastructure the company built at Launch Complex 2 there for the Electron rocket, which will make its debut from that pad later this year. Rocket Lab said it's "assessing locations across America" for a factory that would handle large-scale production of Neutron.

Press release.

Also at The Verge and CNBC.

Previously (company history as seen on SN):


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12 2018, @05:58AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 12 2018, @05:58AM (#760818)

    Don't these smaller players need permission from the US government to put things in space? Else space will be full of junk.

    • (Score: 2) by EventH0rizon on Monday November 12 2018, @06:30AM (5 children)

      by EventH0rizon (936) on Monday November 12 2018, @06:30AM (#760821) Journal

      I recently heard (or misheard) a comment on a Planetary Society podcast that seemed to imply that, indeed, foreign players needed to get US permission to launch.

      Surely that can't be right? I can't imagine that the Chinese slot their launches into a NASA approved launch window. But I'd like to know more.

      And if I can be parochial for a minute, as an Aussie I am rather annoyed that the clever Kiwis across the ditch have outdone us so comprehensively. We have a new Space Agency here, but as far as I am aware, we have no active launch capability, which seems an astonishing omission.

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday November 12 2018, @09:20AM (4 children)

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday November 12 2018, @09:20AM (#760849) Homepage Journal

        International Telecommunications Union.

        That it's an international body rather than the US and the Soviets is due I expect to a tacit agreement between the two countries at the dawn of the space age, that space should be developed for peaceful purposes:

        https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/17606/what-is-the-process-for-allocating-geo-slots-to-commercial-satellites [stackexchange.com]

        It happens that the International Geophysical Year - actually a year and a half - took place shortly before Sputnik orbited. Its purpose was to accurately measure the shape of the Earth.

        To know the exact shape of the Earth is just what we would have needed to land a nuke into the wastebasket next to Kruschev's desk, yet it was a cooperative effort between the US, the USSR and many other countries.

        I really don't know but speculate that every country's scientists knew that ICBMs were just around the corner, and so arranged for the Geophysical Year to happen so that no one country measured that shape before any of the others did.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday November 12 2018, @09:25AM

          by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday November 12 2018, @09:25AM (#760851) Homepage Journal

          Rather, it regulates signal interference between satellites. Apparently it is up to each satellite company to figure out a slot that won't do that.

          In the US, the FAA regulates space launches so as to ensure the health and safety of the American people, but doesn't cover actual satellites.

          A while back, it is thought that a polar satellite collided with an equatorial one, this because they both disappeared at the same time in the same general vicinity. That would have been quite cool to watch, but quite hazardous to actually do so.

          --
          Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 12 2018, @01:43PM (2 children)

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 12 2018, @01:43PM (#760902) Homepage Journal

          Why the ITU? Because satellites are usually used for telecommunications. And even if they aren't communications devices, they are pretty useless if they don't communicate.

          And as for measuring the earth? For years both the US and the USSR had measured there own territory very accurately by traditional surveying means, each using their own coordinate systems.

          Information about how these coordinate systems related to one another was a closely guarded military for a very long time, even after satellite measurements were accurate. (Why let on to the enemy how accurate your satellites are, after all)

          In the 70's I visited Warsaw. I could get a street map of the city, but it was only topologically correct. You couldn't get accurate distance measurements, because anything like that might help an enemy target their missiles.

          -- hendrik

          • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday November 12 2018, @09:46PM (1 child)

            by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday November 12 2018, @09:46PM (#761054) Homepage Journal

            - to repel an invasion through puget sound.

            They are all NE 42nd or SW 97th or the like, but look at a map and they all run north and south or east and west

            But in Vancouver, North means north of Mill Plain, an arterial. East is I think east of Main Street

            --
            Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
            • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:00PM

              by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Saturday November 17 2018, @06:00PM (#763160) Homepage Journal

              In Montreal the streets are named East, West, and people navigate using directions north, south, east, and west. The theory seems to be that the St. Lawrence river runs from west to east. But it doesn't. Directions are all off by about 45 degrees (the exact amount varies). I live on deMaisonneuve West. When I driving on it Google tells me I'm going southwest. Only it's really very slightly more south than west.

              Go figure.

              -- hendrik

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday November 12 2018, @09:11AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday November 12 2018, @09:11AM (#760847) Homepage Journal

    Consider the weight of the payloads that the Saturn I could orbit, and that the Saturn V could send to the Moon, then back into orbit, then out of the moon's orbit back to Earth.

    The ratio between the weight of its payload and the entire system at launch is quite small.

    Now consider that the computer that IBM built for the Saturns - I expect it was mostly a real-time SCADA system: Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition, SCADAs are common in industrial control systems - was built into a ring seventeen feet across and three feet thick. That's 5.1816 by 0.9144 metres for those who aren't Proud Americans.

    Now consider that that much computing power can _now_ be built into a System-on-Chip the size of your pinky's fingernail.

    There is also nanotechnology so I expect the mechanical components of rockets and their payloads can often be much smaller.

    But I'm quite certain that the greatest savings in commercial space travel as opposed to the Apollo Program is the result of all the research having been done at taxpayer expense, as well as the patents from private inventions having expired.

    It happens that I disagree with Richard quite strongly about patents: that patents must always document how to build the claimed invention leads to many such inventions falling into the public domain rather than being held for centuries - even millennia - as trade secrets.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday November 12 2018, @09:14AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday November 12 2018, @09:14AM (#760848) Homepage Journal

    A couple friends of mine from Caltech own a company that sells components for Quantum Computers.

    When one of them first told me about their company, I figured it was a big company with lots of employees.

    No, it's just my two friends. There isn't that much opportunity in Quantum Computers yet, however they are well-positioned to make out like bandits when some of the problems are solved.

    I'll post their link in a reply, I don't remember just now what their company is called.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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