Richard M: I will add to today’s “Quick space links.” Thank you.

“We’re putting our new vertical stage 1 engine test stand through its paces out in Moses Lake… pushing liquid nitrogen through, testing the systems, and getting ready to light it up.” {Video attached]

https://x.com/stoke_space/status/1848366310922527129

Can’t wait to see an orbital flight (and recovery) of that rocket.

At least Ares I/Liberty/Omega was to fly depressed trajectory. Falcon can too I believe.

It is, indeed, too bad that SpaceX has no real competition at this point, but that isn’t a consequence of anything SpaceX has done but of unforced errors on the part of would-be competitors.

It really is, isn’t it? Isn’t it remarkable how every single one of the legacy and new entrants into the medium/heavy launch market ran into major development delays? Obviously rocket development timelines sliding right is not an unknown thing, but still…

As I keep saying, though, the real competition in this market is not against SpaceX. No one has any shot at doing *that* save perhaps in the most niche ways…. No, the real competition is to make it as one of the “not-SpaceX launch providers.” Because while Starship will be impossible to beat on price or capacity, there are enough important launch customers — Space Force, NASA, competing LEO constellation operators — who have a vested interest in there being at least one or more “not-SpaceX launch providers.” I suspect there’s just enough such business to sustain two providers, if they’re lean and mean about their operation. But certainly one, at any rate.

My gut says that Blue Origin and Rocket Lab have the inside track on those two slots. (Vulcan will die, Relativity may arrive too late with too little, and Stoke and Firefly have too many unknowns to make out at this point.) And if that is what the launch market looks like in 2030, I figure we’ll be in very good shape.

By the time they get their medium lift rockets up and running, Starship may have swallowed that market as well. Meanwhile the Space Force through Lane 1 is trying to hold out a lifeline to those smaller companies. My fear is that they will never be able to reach it.

At last check (August), Rocket Lab still says they are on track for a mid-2025 launch of Neutron. If that holds – and given their current progress, it might – then Rocket Lab would be a good position to grab some share of the next batch of Lane 1 launches (presumably for 2027 or 2028) to be awarded next year.

The whole point of Lane 1 is to get more providers into the DoD launcher pool. I think the Space Force will go out of their way to sling them *something*. Granted, this assumes they can get a couple successful launches and certification, or a track for certification, in next year. I don’t think they’ll even need to demonstrate recovery or reuse yet.

All of which is to say, I don’t think it will be too late for Rocket Lab if they can keep to any semblance of this schedule.

Now, Relativity on the other hand….

I keep hearing people say this, but it is not the reality of the situation. Both Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit exhibit the reality. The small launchers are launching as fast as they can, but there are far, far more smallsats that want launches than these companies can accommodate. SpaceX’s Transport launches are making up the difference, keeping the smallsat industry in business, otherwise it would be the failure that it had been for the previous four decades. SpaceX is the good guy in this industry, not the devil.

The real situation is that regulators are over regulating, and the small launchers are finding that it is difficult to make money through all that red tape. Virgin Orbit even went from a leading smallsat launch powerhouse to bankrupt due to red tape delays. The rest of the small-launch industry is running scared. They are turning into larger launchers, because the cost of the red tape is the same no matter the size of the launcher, and they can make more money on each large-satellite launch. Robert called this one correctly a couple of years ago.

If all goes well, Starship should be concentrating on huge payloads, not medium or large. The other companies should be able to find efficiencies that surpass the Falcon 9’s efficiencies. SpaceX has left room for improvement, and these companies should be able to walk into that room.
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Dick Eagleson wrote: “The NASA contract that saved SpaceX was hardly granted as an entirely altruistic act of charity.”

More than that, the contract was not a guarantee of SpaceX success. The second company that got that contract failed to achieve the first milestone, but somehow SpaceX did. Kistler went out of business, and its contract went to Orbital Sciences, which was able to complete the contract as the second supplier of Commercial Resupply Services. At the time it got that contract (that became CRS), SpaceX only had one contract for one satellite launch and that was not enough business to keep making payroll. SpaceX needed more customers, and NASA became one of those customers.

“It is, indeed, too bad that SpaceX has no real competition at this point, but that isn’t a consequence of anything SpaceX has done but of unforced errors on the part of would-be competitors.”

Amen.

In the next couple of years, Blue Origin should show that it, too, can compete in the launch business. Rocket Lab is also growing into its own powerhouse, and by the end of the decade should also be launching medium payloads, undoubtedly with aspirations to become a heavy launch company. Arianespace could have been a contender, but it was constrained by the ESA and the EU.

Just as SpaceX is currently concentrating on launching Starlink satellites, Starship will be used heavily to move men and materiel to Mars. Other contracts will help keep SpaceX in business and help new space companies (e.g. commercial space stations) to thrive, but we already know SpaceX’s priorities.

You seem, as usual, to have things pretty well figured out.

PR,

The NASA contract that saved SpaceX was hardly granted as an entirely altruistic act of charity. The Columbia disaster spelled the eventual end of Shuttle and NASA still had a space station to keep operating. Ares 1 was supposed to be the answer, but it was an irretrievably unsuitable vehicle – too expensive and a flying paint shaker that would have pureed any biological science specimens or crew on the way up. So NASA needed SpaceX to haul freight to ISS and – critically – to bring things back at least as badly as SpaceX needed money.

It is, indeed, too bad that SpaceX has no real competition at this point, but that isn’t a consequence of anything SpaceX has done but of unforced errors on the part of would-be competitors. The country needs SpaceX’s capabilities more than it needs SpaceX to have real competition. The latter, in any case, will not magically appear if the government does anything to hobble or slow down SpaceX.

The true competitors to SpaceX aren’t the old dinosaurs you mention, but the small launchers like Rocket Lab and Firefly who are in many ways modeled on SpaceX more aggressive way of developing rockets and space systems. SpaceX aggressive marketing on rideshares has undercut the small launchers and devastated their launch revenue forcing them all to now focus on developing medium launch. By the time they get their medium lift rockets up and running, Starship may have swallowed that market as well. Meanwhile the Space Force through Lane 1 is trying to hold out a lifeline to those smaller companies. My fear is that they will never be able to reach it.

No one should cry tears over ULA or Blue Origin not getting contracts but allowing all the smaller rocket startups to be smothered in lane 1 by SpaceX is a mistake we will all eventually regret. The rules on Lane 1 need to be revised. Awarding the largest rocket company in the world an almost 1 billion dollar contract in a program designed to foster industrial competition (competition with that very same company mind you) is counter-productive to say the least. SpaceX is a great company but it is turning into a voracious teenager eating everything on the table while the smaller children struggle to find enough scraps to keep them alive. One day soon we could wake up and find that all the malnourished little startups have finally died.

(customer satisfaction “guaranteed” or the next launch is for free! We do special deliveries and modifications for your particular needs upon request)

Andi: Thank you. Dropped word added.

The problem is, certification is only the first obstacle to overcome here. Both of these rockets have very large manifests to work down — in Vulcan’s case, that includes a few dozen NSSL Phase 2 launches it hasn’t even started on yet. And just how quickly *can* they get their launch cadence up? Tory keeps saying that ULA can pull off 20 launches next year. I hope he can, but that would be an absolute world record for a new orbital launch vehicle in its first year of operation. How likely is that?

So I think the Space Force AAS team thought about that, and decided that ULA would be too deep in working through its backlog of Phase 2 launches in 2026, and that would put any new Phase 3 launches in schedule jeopardy. SpaceX, meanwhile, will probably be shooting for upwards of 200 launches in 2026.

But there’s still plenty of Lane 1 launches to hand out yet. Hey, if by next summer ULA has gotten certified and squeezed off 3 or 4 more Vulcan launches, maybe AAS will be ready to award them some Lane 1 launches for 2027 or 2028. Of course, it’s also quite possible that Rocket Lab will have gotten Neutron into operation and certified by then, too, and that will add yet one more Lane 1 competitor….