Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


A new company enters the smallsat business

The competition heats up: Firefly Space Systems, a new company aimed at the small satellite market, successfully test fired its first rocket engine today.

This company is aiming for the same market that Virgin Galactic is going for with its LauncherOne rocket. It will be interesting to see if either can make money selling launch services to these small satellites.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • maurice

    I doubt whether there is enough pipeline of smallsats available to warrant a separate launch platform. Creating a better secondary payload system would be a much better solution. Looking at the various platforms i think the indian one would be cheaperst/lbs

  • Patrick Ritchie

    These folks are just down the street from me.

    Pretty impressive that they’ve gone from zero to first engine firing in ~15 months.

  • D.K. Williams

    We should start a new rocket company–Z-Space. Named, of course, for our desert leader. Financed by crowd-funding? We could paint our rockets black.

  • Edward

    Maurice,

    There may be more of a pipeline than you think. OneWeb, for instance, wants to put 700 small satellites into orbit, and another constellation proposal — by Elon Musk — is to put up a constellation of 4,000 small satellites.

    It will be interesting to see if these constellations come to fruition, but there is also a growing market for cubesat launches. There is a growing market for small satellites, whether in constellations or on their own; they are less expensive, and the technology is maturing for smaller, lighter satellite components.

    Overall, there are more potential small satellites than can be reasonably launched as secondary payloads, and many of them will want to be in specific orbits, not the arbitrary orbits that many secondary payloads have to be satisfied with.

    You could be right, Maurice, that there may already be too many proposed small-sat launchers for all of them to survive, but that just means that the more innovative and resourceful companies are the ones more likely to survive. Competition is a good thing — for the customers, not for the losing competitors.

    Another way to look at it is that these companies may lose money on each launch, but they will make up for it in launch volume. ;-)

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *