Hi Daniel, John, Bill, Lars, Andrew, Henry S, Henry V, David, Jonathan,
Randall, Craig, Norman, Ben, Great to meet you all and thank you for
taking the time to respond and debate. Thank you also to everyone who
contacted me off-list to share some insight. And thanks to Ray for
providing this incredible resource. Over time, I hope to make Bill a
supporter!
To avoid spamming the list, I wanted to answer some re-occurring questions
and add some value by making a list small launcher companies for our
reference.
** Too crowded market
I found 32 companies with stated ambitions of a small launch vehicle.
See the full list with links in this Google spreadsheet (please comment in
the document any error or missing companies)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Dw2BB2u_8EUTW2JM7RjabilSKxUNDB4bgA4bAx22wjw/edit?usp=sharing
Upon reviewing the online information for all of them, I find that
RocketLab, Firefly and Virgin Galactic are the only 3 which are (a) fully
funded for their ambition, (b) fully teamed up (100+) (c) have demonstrated
hardware in line with their timeline and product. All pre-flight.
With only 3 globally in that advanced development stage and given that it
likely takes 10 years to get to stable/volume/reliable commercial
operation, It seems to me to be a wildly a under-invested industry segment.
See the market demand assumption response below.
** Market Demand Assumption
I come at it from the other side, the SpaceWorks report says there were
about 120 1-10Kg sat launches in 2015 (Not sure how accurate but let’s
assume it’s the correct order of magnitude). Average price of about $50,000
per kg. If one believes that big constellations of 3U CubeSat type form
factor can provide breakthrough business and consumer services in imaging,
research and communication - then why so few? If tech entrepreneurs and
their investors could rely on let's say 1,000 3U CubeSat launches a year at
$30,000/Kg – I believe that the market will buy every slots. It would
neither be a race to the bottom price for the launch providers, nor will
vehicle be grounded empty - at that price innovators will seize the
opportunity and build companies and services. As Peter Beck@RocketLab says
it, right now “space is closed for business, it first needs to be open and
an industry of innovators will build service on this platform and absorb
all capacity as it comes.
Based on the above, I don’t see it as a race.
Steady, surely and reliably is a better approach to this opportunity in my
opinion.
A key business threat would be the large launchers sending an all CubeSat
payload a few times a year - but it seems that the risk of carrying so many
small sats and the lack of flexible schedule/orbit/integration services
makes this a low probability threat. Another threat could be sat launch
limitations or new high fees by governmental and international bodies like
the ITU - concerns of space junk etc.. I have not yet researched this
threat yet. Interested in anyone's thought here on the topic.
In summary, let’s say in 2026, only private 10 companies around the world
can do affordable orbital launches for Nano/Microsatellites. That’s kind of
a boring future. We need more.
** Choice of technology (liquid vs solid), analyzing before building
Companies are communities of teams, customers and fans – products come and
go.
You have to have a general technology choice direction to build the team,
but usually a lot changes in the first year since more time and brain power
is invested on the problem at hand. Some of the assumptions in my original
email will need to be revised – I agree.
Having said that – I believe that the right approach is one of reliability
and cadence, given the market view above, I don’t believe that a
technological edge (a patent, a new design never attempted) is the winning
approach. Using proven stacks chosen by other smart teams working right now
on the same problem/product with 10 year head start is probably a good idea
in most cases. Of course using the latest method such as additive
manufacturing, carbon composites, electric/battery pumps, etc … should be
considered. I’m sure many innovations will come along the way, but they
will be in the sub-systems and each time risk-reward measured, not the
macro architecture.
** Outsourcing an engine
Interesting, gut says your team is everything and we are building a fully
integrated system when outsourcing the key component might not make sense
for such a small startup. But what Ursa appears to have done seems very
interesting given their Blue Origin background/capabilities. I will be in
touch with David.
** What do you mean by ‘qualified for flight’
The 3 year goal is to test the full flight time and performance for the
stage 1 cluster vehicle design. ie the key components such as the nozzle,
chamber and maybe turbo-pump and mounting have to be flight ready for the
high level vehicle architecture. As opposed to trying to get to an
un-flyable block of metal/development engine in 3 years.
** LOE vs LEO - typo.
** mm - means thousand x thousand or million - a British abbreviation from
my time there (I’m from Belgium, lived in NYC 12 years and about two weeks
away from taking my US Citizenship Oath of Allegiance to proudly become a
citizen – an important pre-requisite for this project)
Thanks
Max
On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 10:57 PM, Ben Brockert <wikkit@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Randall Clague <rclague@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
If Armadillo never made money, it was never supposed to.
Armadillo was in the black for an extended period and probably still
could be running in that mode. But John has repeatedly stated that he
didn't want Armadillo to be just another aerospace contractor, so they
made the decision to pull back from doing work like Morpheus.
As Masten has demonstrated, there's plenty of work out there for small
innovative companies with VTVL experience and hardware available for
rent. But we got closer to the original goal of suborbital (space)
reusable at Armadillo than we did at Masten, and only got passed years
later by a couple companies who spent roughly one billion dollars
more.
Ben
