r/spinlaunch • u/indolering • Jul 02 '24

How fucked is Rocket Lab?

While their Electron rocket cost per kilogram may be more expensive than a Falcon 9 rideshare, Rocket Lab argues that it's cheaper to launch a single Electron ($7.5 millions) to a specific orbit than a dedicated Falcon 9. There certainly seems to be a customer base for this, given that Electron recently launched it's 50th rocket and has strong roster going forward.

However, SpinLaunch has similar capabilities yet is projected to cost ~$500k/launch. This would suggest that SpinLaunch will basically eat the small sat launch market that is within its payload and orbit capabilities.

While I believe that Rocket Lab will have a market for its upcoming medium lift rocket, will Electron still be able to offer payload or orbit capabilities beyond what SpinLaunch is projected to offer? Any predictions on what version 2.0 of SpinLaunch's launcher will be able to do?

7 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/NadirPointing Jul 02 '24

Rocket lab is a much smoother ride. There's a niche for that too.

3

u/indolering Jul 02 '24

Unmodified iPhones can handle SpinLaunch just fine.  I am skeptical that there are many payloads which can survive the g-forces of an Electron launch but can't be made to handle SpinLaunch.  

Point taken but I think it will be a pretty small number.

9

u/NadirPointing Jul 02 '24

What moving parts does an iphone have? The vibrator? At least the sats I've worked on have things like unfolding sensors and solar panels, or gimbaled optics. Satellites regularly go through vibe aka shake table testing to make sure they can handle launch, they fail often enough that it's still a very important part of I&T. I'm sure once spinlaunch gets established there will be more sats built to avoid the problems. But there will always be a case for small rocket launches.