Vector signs deal with Georgia spaceport

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March 29, 2017 8:46 am Robert Zimmerman

Vector Space Systems has signed a deal with a Georgia spaceport to conduct one suborbital test flight there of its Vector-R rocket.

The agreement covers only one flight, but considering that Vector is also planning to launch from Kennedy, I think they are doing this to test their rocket’s ability to easily launch from multiple launch sites. It is a small mobile rocket, and they are probably designing its launch systems to be very mobile as well.

2 comments

wayne

March 29, 2017 at 9:26 am

Off thread but not entirely tangential–
Article in the WSJ today- Tencent Holding’s (Chinese) has taken a substantial stake in Tesla stock. (5%, over a $1 billion.)
Front page, (Midwest print edition) below the fold.
Dick Eagleson

March 29, 2017 at 1:33 pm

Vector has made known its intentions to do 100 or so launches per year a few years down the road. Kodiak, with which Vector already has an agreement, would, I’m sure, like to get as many of those as it can; the cancellation of Athena leaves Kodiak, for now, with no other launch clients. So Kodiak can be counted upon to do anything it can to maximize Vector’s launch tempo there.

But Kodiak is only good for polar and high-inclination orbits such as sun-sync. Those azimuths are likely to constitute a majority of Vector’s missions. But Vector needs somewhere else to do equatorial and low-inclination launches.

Vector’s recent deal for use of LC-46 at Canaveral should accommodate it as it moves into testing and then on to operational launches. But USAF only recently broached plans to support up to 48 launches per year from Canaveral by ca. 2020. SpaceX, ULA and Blue Origin will likely be using up most of those launch opportunities in 2020 and might even have shut any other launch operators out by then unless USAF continues to push its capacity to support launches well beyond the 48/year level in the next decade.

Vector needs at least one other Atlantic Coast launch site. Thus it’s interest in the nascent Camden, Georgia spaceport. Wallops already exists, but is crowded, further north of the Equator than either Canaveral or Camden and has NIMBY-ish neighbors close by.

And this Camden deal may well not be Vector’s last.

Vector signs deal with Georgia spaceport

2 comments

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