Launch companies in the space start today small to go tomorrow

A small rocket from a little known company took off last week from the east coast of New Zealand, carrying a multitude of small satellites.

This modest event – the first commercial launch of a US-New Zealand company known as the Rocket Lab – could well mark the beginning of a new era for the space sector, where countless small rockets take off from space sports around the world. This miniaturization of rockets and spacecraft places outer space within reach of a larger part of the economy.

The rocket, called Electron, is only a small flush compared to the huge rockets that Elon Musk from SpaceX and Jeffrey Bezos from Blue Origin plan to use to send people into the solar system.

The Electron measures only 56 feet tall and can only carry 500 pounds in space. But Rocket Lab is targeting markets closer to home.

"We are FedEx," said Peter Beck, Founder and General Manager of Rocket Lab, born in New Zealand. "We are a little man who delivers a package to your door."

Behind Rocket Lab, many startups are also trying to provide space transportation for a growing number of small satellites. Payloads include constellations of telecommunications satellites that would provide the world with ubiquitous Internet access.

The payload of this mission, which Rocket Lab falsely nicknamed "It's Business Time", foresaw this future: two spacecraft tracking satellites for Spire Global; a small climate and environmental monitoring satellite for GeoOptics; a small probe built by high school students in Irvine, California, and a demo version of a drag pulling satellites undone from their orbit.

Space Angels, an investment company in the space sector, follows 150 small launch companies.

Chad Anderson, CEO of Space Angel, said that although the vast majority of these companies fail, a small group has the financial and technical means to get started.

Each company on the Anderson list has its own strategy or capability: Vector Launch Inc. targets mass production; Virgin Orbit, part of Richard Branson's commercial empire, will launch its rockets from the bottom of a 747 to 35,000 feet altitude; Relativity Space plans to use a 3D printer to make almost all parts of its rockets; Firefly Aerospace will offer a slightly larger rocket, with a gamble that small satellites will magnify a bit; and Gilmour Space Technologies is a rare Australian aerospace company.

There is also Astra Space Inc., which operates in stealth mode as a start-up Silicon Valley without saying anything about what it does.

Business becomes smaller

Rockets shrink because satellites shrink.

In the past, huge telecommunications satellites floated 22,000 miles above the equator in a geosynchronous orbit, where a satellite remains permanently at the same place on Earth. Because sending a satellite was very expensive, it made sense to pack as much as possible in each of them.

Advances in technology and computer chips have allowed smaller satellites to perform the same tasks as their predecessors. And constellations of hundreds, if not thousands, of small satellites, gravitating around lower altitudes and easier to reach, can only imitate capabilities, when possible, from a fixed geosynchronous position.

"It's really a market change," Beck said. "What used to be the size of a car is now the size of a microwave oven and the same capabilities."

Some companies have already launched satellite swarms to observe the Earth. Next come the promised space Internet systems such as OneWeb and Starlink from SpaceX.

Until now, small spacecraft generally rocketed along a larger satellite. This trip is cheaper but impractical because the schedule is defined by the main customer. If the big satellite is delayed, the smaller ones stay on the ground.

"You just can not do business like that," Beck said.

Beck said that the Electron could have raised more than 60% of spacecraft that would have headed to orbit last year. On the other hand, space analysts are wondering that there is a market for a giant like SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, which had its first spectacular launch in February.

A Falcon Heavy can lift a payload 300 times heavier than a Rocket Lab Electron, but its cost is $ 90 million, against $ 5 million. While SpaceX's standard Falcon 9 rocket does not lack customers, the Heavy has announced only half a dozen customers for years to come.

The US military – the main customer of the big launchers – is also rethinking its spy satellites. Some analysts believe that the system would be more resilient if its capabilities were distributed among many small satellites. Smaller satellites would be easier and faster to replace, and an enemy would have a harder time destroying them all.

Pit stops in the race for space

SpaceX could have cornered this market ten years ago.

His first rocket, the Falcon 1, was designed to lift about 1500 pounds. But after only two successful launches, SpaceX abandoned it, focusing on the much larger Falcon 9, intended to serve the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), which has to carry cargo and possibly astronauts until 'to the International Space Station.

Jim Cantrell, one of the first SpaceX employees, said he had not understood this decision and had left the company. In 2015, he launched Vector Launch Inc., headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. Its goal is to manufacture the model T of rockets, small, cheap and mass produced.

Vector claims to be able to send its rockets into orbit from virtually anywhere it can install its mobile launch platform, which is essentially a heavily modified trailer. This trailer was inspired by Cantrell's hobbies, racing, and many of the company's employees also come from the racing world.

The company is still looking to achieve its goal of orbiting the first of its Vector-R rockets this year, but Cantrell admitted that the schedule could slip in early 2019. The flight termination system – the hardware component which turns off the rocket if all that goes wrong – is late.

"There are a lot of little things," Cantrell said. "It drives you crazy."

A prototype was planned for the suborbital launch of Mojave in California in September, but there was a problem and the test was canceled. The crew placed the rocket in a racing car trailer and drove it to Vector's test site at Pinal Airpark, a small airport located half an hour from Tucson and surrounded by 350 acres of desert. shrub.

Vector test stands are designed for individual engine shots, as well as completed rocket phases. During a recent journalist visit to the site, engineers solved the problems of launching the rocket prototype and the development version of its upper-stage engine.

The team will soon be visiting Pacific Spaceport Complex on Kodiak Island, Alaska, for the first orbital launch. Next year, said Cantrell, the company hopes to place a dozen rockets in space.

In a few years, he added, the launch could take place 100 times a year, not only from Kodiak, but also from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Wallops Island, Virginia, where Rocket Lab decided in October to build his second launch complex. Vector is also looking for additional launch sites, including one at the Cortez Seafront in Mexico.

Rocket resuscitated

Tom Markusic, another early veteran of SpaceX, also sees an opportunity to bring smaller satellites into space.

"I did not think there was a launch company of the appropriate size to respond to this market," he said.

Markusic said that the need for more powerful antennas and cameras would ultimately encourage the construction of smaller, slightly larger satellites and that it would be advantageous to be able to launch several at a time. He launched Firefly in 2014 to build a rocket, Alpha, capable of lifting a 300-kilogram (900-pound) payload into orbit.

The company now has 150 employees and wins a contract with NASA. But amid the uncertainty surrounding Britain's exit from the European Union, a European investor pulled out.

A US investor has also become nervous, said Markusic, after the explosion of a SpaceX rocket on the launch pad in 2016. Firefly has shut down and the employees have lost their jobs.

At an auction, Ukrainian entrepreneur Max Polyakov, one of Firefly's investors, revived the company. Markusic took the opportunity to rethink the rocket Alpha, which is now capable of launching more than 2,000 books.

"Alpha is basically Falcon 1 with better technology," he said.

Markusic said that its competitors were not the smallest Rocket Lab rockets, Vector or Virgin Orbit, but foreign competitors such as a government-subsidized Indian rocket and commercial enterprises in China. But he complimented Rocket Lab.

"They are ahead of everyone else," he said. "I think they deserve a lot of credit."

Firefly plans to launch its first Alpha rocket in December 2019.

Ride the bus into orbit

Not everyone is convinced that the small satellite market will be as robust as expected.

"This equation has weaknesses at every stage," said Carissa Christensen, Founder and General Manager of Bryce Space and Technology, an aerospace consulting firm.

Three-quarters of venture-backed businesses fail, she said, and the same is likely to be true for companies that want to install small satellites. She is also skeptical about the possibility for the internet-based space to prevail against ground-based alternatives.

"There is no convincing business plan publicly," she said.

This means that the small rocket market could implode for lack of resources. She said that one of the keys to survival would be tapping into the needs of the US government, especially the military. Virgin Orbit, Vector and Rocket Lab are currently leading the rankings, she said.

Small rocket companies also have to compete with Spaceflight Industries, a Seattle-based company that resells empty space on larger rockets and is not used by the main payload. In addition, Spaceflight plans to purchase whole rockets from other companies, including Rocket Lab, and to sell space for a series of companies heading to a similar orbit.

The first flight of this type, using a SpaceX Falcon 9, is to be launched this month from Vandenberg Air Base, carrying 70 satellites. What the company is comparing to a bus ride in orbit.

Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight, said both approaches can work. Buses are cheaper, but less convenient, and sometimes the quick ride by taxi is worth the extra cost.

Space Angels' Anderson was also optimistic. "The difference today lies in the robustness of the sector," he said. "The industry today can handle the failures."

While the industry is starting, Rocket Lab does not intend to waste more time: it hopes to be able to quickly follow "It's Business Time" with a second commercial launch next month, then a third the following month .

"We are very focused on the next 100 rockets, not the next," said Beck. "It's one thing to go into orbit. Going into orbit regularly is a different matter. "