What they’ve accomplished is amazing engineering. I’m sort of scratching my head at the economics though. Their cost to orbit is about $15,000/kg. That’s more expensive than the Space Shuttle was. And the CEO has said they’re not working on reusability.
Their goal of rapid manufacturing and frequent launches seems laudable in an expendable launch vehicle world. I’m not sure how they plan to survive when SpaceX and Blue Origin achieve rapid reusability though.
Their differentiation is the ticket price: $5M, for now. A SpaceX F9 is $60M. The cost per kg may be an order of magnitude greater, but so is the ticket price.
Much faster time to launch is the value proposition. It can take years waiting to piggyback on a larger launch, especially given how often the large launches are delayed.
How long are our careers, really? Random years-long delays are a real problem. It's easier to make a satellite really light than to wait for the cheapest price per kg.
This is only really useful if you want to put a tiny satellite in an unusual orbit. For frequently trafficked orbits, you can just hitch a ride on a larger launch.
Could be a successful business niche, but it doesn’t seem likely to revolutionize anything.
SpaceX simply doesn’t have the launch cadence to be anywhere near as useful to certain markets as Rocketlabs will be.
Specifically, RL is ideal for a series of small satellites launched at a regular cadence to perform e.g. atmospheric studies. For this niche, booking ride shares requires booking a seat years in advance through a launch broker and then accepting whatever delays eventuate for the entire payload.
If a company or government wants to get a small satellite into space quickly or with tighter constraints on launch windows, RL will be the launcher of preference since their aim is to reduce the time from launch booking to orbital deployment. Being the only payload and customer means using the same payload adaptor each launch, which means lower integration costs. Reducing time from booking to orbit means satellites aren’t sitting in a clean room for years waiting for launch.
Launch costs measured in terms of $/kg are only part of the feasibility of a particular launch platform. It is a (very roughly) similar scenario to commuters using private vehicles rather than public transport.
The timescale point is fine, but it doesn't support the suggestion that RL will go beyond niche (which private road vehicles obviously do). The reason is that the overwhelming limiting factor on launching more satellites is cost, not slow pace.
Do you know of projections for RL future market share? I conjecture less than 5% of total satellite launch market.
I am speculating that RL will carve out a niche which is launches for satellites that need a regular cadence at a pace faster than SpaceX can afford.
So for example rather than spending $50M launching 1 x $150M satellite to slowly gather outer atmospheric studies over a period of decades, launch 50 x $3M satellites with $1M launch costs to gather more data over a shorter period of time.
If you want a rideshare launch you have to wait, usually for years. And these guys can launch quickly, and still usually be cheaper or same price as rideshares. Non quite good for nanosats/cubesats, but fine for microsats.
Once Blue Origin and SpaceX have rapid-turnaround, their rockets will be able to fly, land, refuel, and fly again within a day or two. It's not just a cost thing. Rapid reusability also increases the launch cadence.
Their goal of rapid manufacturing and frequent launches seems laudable in an expendable launch vehicle world. I’m not sure how they plan to survive when SpaceX and Blue Origin achieve rapid reusability though.