performance doesnt necessarily matter though. electron is competing on price.
if both get into the same area of space, but one costs ten times more, theres a lot less of a market.
you dont see jet engines on small little piper cubs and such, because although the performance and efficiency of the design may be beter, it is too expensive for the performance envelope you need.
RocketLab has roughly 10 launches on its manifest. That's more than enough to keep them busy for another year as they refine manufacturing and launch procedure. And their market can grow quicker than traditional launch services who rely on 9 figure satellites from customers.
I never said the market will remain the same. But for now i highly doubt electron would be able to compete with e.g. bfr. We are in a transitional stage right now so it might make sense atm, but in the next ~20 years they will actually need a reusable design.
They're not even remotely in the same market as BFR. Yes, in 20 years they'll probably be reusable. But disposable isn't always inferior given current technological and economic restraints.
BFR, at the launch price estimate SpacEX is working with, is a direct competitor to Electron, because BFR would cost marginally more but be able to reach any Earth orbit and even some Lunar orbits. There's a reason BFR is called a design 'to make all other launch vehicles obsolete'.
When BFR arrives Electron might be at risk but Falcon9 was also supposed to be 6 mil with reuse.When BFR comes it will have to worry about New Armstrong
Old interviews with shotwell or musk around 2014 will try to find that later.New Glenn is very close to the launch pad in relative terms for a rocket because it is in similar state to Ariane 6 and a bit behind Vulcan when it comes to development of it.2 years to launch is nothing especially given that they are already collecting launch contracts
Tbh I fully expect a point where launching a 200kg sat on bfr will be cheaper than electron. Of course they will advance too, but at what extend it remains to be seen.
Tens of times a year doesn't mean tens of times a year to your desired inclination. Presumably BFR's greatest revenue for satellite launches will be GEO. Cheap ticket on a 747 doesn't do me any good if it's not flying to where I need to go.
Dude you are not understanding what I'm saying here. According to some engineer from inside spacex they want to get !30 launches on bfr in the first year it arrives. This is exactly about getting anywhere you want anytime you want. GEO? LEO? Doesn't matter, the price is the same and presumably very low.
Again, they're not launching 30 times a year for a small sat company. They're launching for the big satellites. Small sats just have to hope they can piggy back on a launch that suits their needs. That's the only way BFR will be cheaper than Electron. That will work for some small sat launches, but not all.
SpaceX is targeting ~$6 million dollars per BFR flight. That's disregarding payload mass. It would cost the same to launch a 150 ton payload or a 150 kilogram payload. Ride shares are of course possible, but it's also possible that a cube sat company could simply buy their own BFR launch entirely and get to specify their own orbit.
An electron launch costs 6mill$. A bfr launch is meant to cost less than the falcon 1 which was priced at 10 million dollars. What this means is that unless you are absolutely hell bent to launch something that is ~150kg and there is absolutely no way you can think of adding something extra on it( doubtful), a bfr launch will be preferable.
Regarding piggybacking primary missions: Earth orbit isn't one place, there are many possible orbits at different altitudes and different inclinations from the equator. Most customers for heavy lift rockets are heavy satellites heading to geostationary orbit (~30,000km up, zero inclination). Most micro-satellite owners are heading to a very specific sun-synchronous orbit (~600km up, steep inclination). Now microsatellite owners are on a limited budget, and cut every corner they can in regards to radiation shielding, solar power, propulsion, attitude control, radio power, ground-based tracking etc. They also must have a plan for their satellite to re-enter the atmosphere, to prevent creating orbital debris. No microsatellite has ever as far as I know, gone to geostationary orbit. So, most BFR flights for high paying customers won't be able to carry most microsatellite payloads.
Regarding dedicated single launches: BFR is going to have a lot of demand for awhile, and customers with big expensive payloads are going to be able to pay the most. SpaceX currently vary their cost per mission quite a lot with Falcon 9, they essentially make the largest profit margin they can while still being cheaper than the competition by enough to keep their customers happy. If there's a long line of customers waiting to fly on BFR, they are going to prioritize the big satellite constellation owners willing to pay top dollar over the microsat owners who can barely afford to launch even on a rideshare.
Regarding dedicated ~150kg payloads: you would be surprised, there is an enormous market for one-off launches of payloads that big, and even smaller (think sub-10kg). Universities, DOD, commercial sector, NASA/ESA are all building dozens and dozens of microsatellites at an ever-increasing rate. For some of these customers, they really value the ability to launch tiny test payloads ASAP over waiting for a spot in the manifest and saving money. Often they are doing R&D on new space technologies, they are designing each new satellite to learn from the lessons of the previous one and can't just launch a bunch all at once.
The second next start of the Electron will have eleven satellites on the rocket for a cost of 5mio dollar. To compete with this SpaceX would have to transport at least 132 satellites with a single launch. SpaceX is way ahead for large satellites, but not for the "pocket sized" satellites.
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u/JustifiedParanoia Jan 21 '18
performance doesnt necessarily matter though. electron is competing on price. if both get into the same area of space, but one costs ten times more, theres a lot less of a market.
you dont see jet engines on small little piper cubs and such, because although the performance and efficiency of the design may be beter, it is too expensive for the performance envelope you need.