Kiwi rocket company ready to blast off | Hacker News Reader

Kiwi rocket company ready to blast off

stuff.co.nz

63 points69_years_and15 comments

$50,000 per kilogram might sound pricey, especially when compared to what SpaceX works out to, but considering that it's a dedicated launch, versus a rideshare, and they can go up at will--it's the best deal out there. It's a little more expensive than Dneppr, but they only have rideshares once a year. RocketLab's biggest competition, right now, is The Indian PSLV. They don't have set pricing, but I've heard that half of the stated RocketLab price is possible. But again, there is no regularity with PSLV.

There are a few other dedicated smallsat/cubesat launchers on the horizon, but that's also a three year horizon. For the time being, the Kiwis will have a monopoly. Unless, of course, Elon wants to being back the Falcon 1. I believe that rocket had a greater payload, but also was a bit more expensive. Lockheed is bringing back the Athena, but I doubt they will be cost-competitive with RocketLab.

These guys aren't exaggerating: This rocket is a huge deal for the advancement of the new space industry.

I don't understand the "at will" thing. Why can't other rockets launch at will? I'm assuming "at will" means "whenever you want"?

You make a good point. Falcon 9 pretty much launches at will; they go up almost monthly. In that case, it's just a matter of someone coughing up the $80M to schedule a launch. I imagine there is much more lead time necessary to build a Falcon 9 than there is to build an Electron. Dneppr could go up more frequently, since they have a stockpile of about 150 ICBMs to convert into launch vehicles, but for whatever reason, they don't go up more often. Maybe the $30M price tag? PSLV is much more about advancing the Indian space agency's interests than than pure commercialization, so that's why they don't go up more often. But your point still stands, if someone had the cash, they could commission anything to launch--though manufacturing lead time also plays an important part.

> they go up almost monthly

Not even close really. Ten launches in four years, constant delays, ...

You're right. What I meant to say is that their launch schedule for the next two years has a lot more regularity. Whether it actually plays out the way it's posted is a different story.

Yes, PSLV launches are not as prolific as Dnepr or Ariane. With current infra, I think ISRO can pull off 3 launches per year[1]. There were two launches this year, and a next one is planned in October for IRNSS-1D.

PSLV is indeed available for dedicated commercial launches[2] :) I've heard a dedicated launch costs around $15M; so ridesharing much be cheaper.

ISRO has two operational launch pads. One of the pads doubles up as Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), so a rocket that's going to be launched from this pad holds up the pad. The other pad has a separate VAB with rail track to transfer assembled rocket[4]. Another VAB is being planned as of now, so that should improve frequency of launches (parallel assembly of rockets).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Satellite_Launch_Vehicle#...

[2] http://www.antrix.gov.in/pslv.html ; http://www.isro.org/publications/pdf/114%20missions%20Brochu...

Satellites of the size they're proposing to launch (120 kg range) are typically secondary payloads on a launch of a larger satellite; it's the primary payload that gets to select the launch timing and orbit, and the secondary just has to take what's offered.

I saw this talk from Elon Musk a long time ago and he addresses some of the rocket technology being offered by other initiatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Q14cRsMs0

He seemed to give a very balanced perspective - I'd love to hear what his thoughts are on Rocket Lab's Electron, simply because he's in the know and seems to at least try and be objective in his commentary.

He looks pretty grumpy, but Peter Beck is actually a very smart, warm and engaging guy in person.

Are they pushing stuff to geo-synch orbit? Thats where the big business seems to lie. I thought the article was really vague and surprised it did not talk about Space X and other competitors.

They're targeting 500km LEO. Here are some specs from their homepage[0]:

  Paylod: 110kg
  Orbit: 500km, Sun synchronous
  Stages: 3
         1st stage: 9x "Rutherford"[1] RP/LOX engine
         2nd stage: 1x "Rutherford" RP/LOX engine
         3rd stage: Solid engine)
  Cost: $4.9M

[0] http://www.rocketlabusa.com/

[1] http://www.rocketlabusa.com/about-us/propulsion/rutherford/

Unfortunate they provide even less information to calculate the plausibility of claimed payloads and orbits then SpaceX. And we all know that SpaceX changed its specs and claims several times, and that none of those specs provide a plausible rocket, if you recalculate it.

I hope Rocket Lab will do better. I just asked them for the missing specs like empty and loaded mass of each stage, maximum and minimum ISP of each stage, maximum and minimum thrust of each stage, burn time of each stage, inclination of launch site, payload, inclination, apogaeum and perigaeum of or proposed orbits.

They're going for very small launches to LEO; they're probably targeting small scientific (NASA/ESA etc) payloads more than anything else. They're not really competing with Arianespace, SpaceX etc, whose major business involves launching multi-tonne payloads to GTO.

Correct, but both SpaceX and Arianespace have rideshares on their large launch vehicles. The Electron is competing with those rideshare opportunities. The current market rate for getting a 1U cubesat to LEO is about $100,000. They will also be competing with NanoRacks.

My impression is that rideshares can be fairly restrictive in terms of timing, available orbits, and so forth. This seems like it could be useful for small research payloads with odd requirements; not a huge market, but not non-existent. The ESA designed the Vega for smaller-than-Soyuz-2 payloads; this would seem to slot in nicely under the Vega.

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