Too many smallsat rockets to count
Capitalism in space: According to a report by a Northrop Grumman engineer who has been trying to list these things, the number of companies trying to develop small rockets for the burgeoning smallsat market has grown so large that it is now difficult to track.
Of the 148 small launch vehicles on a popular industry watch list, about 40 efforts “are likely dead but the watch list continues to grow,” Carlos Niederstrasser, a Northrop Grumman master systems engineer, said at the 2019 International Astronautical Congress here.
The problem for Niederstrasser and anyone trying to keep up with the market is that the list continues to grow. “Every time I kill off one [launch vehicle], two more show up,” he said.
…U.S. companies are responsible for 21 of the vehicles Niederstrasser considers active development programs. Seven are from China, four from Spain and three from the United Kingdom. Germany, India and Japan each have two small rocket development programs. Many other countries have a single effort underway.
We should see the shake-out in this new market take place during the next five years. By then at least four rockets should be operational, and the smallsat technology more mature and capable of many things now done by larger satellites.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Capitalism in space: According to a report by a Northrop Grumman engineer who has been trying to list these things, the number of companies trying to develop small rockets for the burgeoning smallsat market has grown so large that it is now difficult to track.
Of the 148 small launch vehicles on a popular industry watch list, about 40 efforts “are likely dead but the watch list continues to grow,” Carlos Niederstrasser, a Northrop Grumman master systems engineer, said at the 2019 International Astronautical Congress here.
The problem for Niederstrasser and anyone trying to keep up with the market is that the list continues to grow. “Every time I kill off one [launch vehicle], two more show up,” he said.
…U.S. companies are responsible for 21 of the vehicles Niederstrasser considers active development programs. Seven are from China, four from Spain and three from the United Kingdom. Germany, India and Japan each have two small rocket development programs. Many other countries have a single effort underway.
We should see the shake-out in this new market take place during the next five years. By then at least four rockets should be operational, and the smallsat technology more mature and capable of many things now done by larger satellites.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I suspect many of these alleged smallsat launcher efforts, even in industrialized countries, are about as real as nearly all the original Ansari X-Prize “teams” proved to be.
With Vector seemingly defunct, there are only four such U.S.-based efforts I now expect to see reach first flight – Firefly, Relativity, ABL and Aevum. The date of notional first launch and the probability of each managing to get to first launch will, I think, occur and diminish, respectively, in the same order.
“Of the 148 small launch vehicles on a popular industry watch list . . ”
Jimmy Durante was right.
Robert wrote: “By then at least four rockets should be operational, and the smallsat technology more mature and capable of many things now done by larger satellites.”
I hope that these are the first four of several companies that survive the shakeout. The launchers that are least expensive are likely to do well, but I also expect some companies to specialize in certain orbits. For example, Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit seem well suited for launch into the popular sun-synchronous orbits.
Now that NASA and the Chinese have used CubeSats at Mars and the Moon, we should see smallsats used for lunar and planetary missions, and the smallsat Launch companies seem to be adapting to this emerging market:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/virgin-orbit-to-add-3rd-stage-to-launcherone-for-planetary-missions/
and:
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/rocket-lab-announces-new-upper-stage-for-taking-satellites-beyond-earth-orbit/
It is easy to get excited about the potential for manned space, now that two commercial companies are poised to take the place of NASA to send people to low Earth orbit to the ISS, but small satellites are already changing the way companies see space and its uses. Several companies are actively working on smallsat constellations for communications, especially internet access for remote locations and for the Internet of Things. A byproduct of these constellations may be additional data for weather forecasting.
Most people don’t care about how water gets to their tap or electricity gets to their outlet, although this may be changing in California, but smallsats are becoming yet another infrastructure that makes living easier, and I find that exciting, too.
@ Edward,
I can only agree…. The smallsat revolution is a pretty unexpected explosion in the space race
Within our lifetime I can forsee swarms of cubesats exploring the moon and Mars… And hopefully beyond
Bring it on!!!