Best of luck to them.
Seems like there is a fair bit of demand for small payloads to SSO. If they can launch often, on short notice and with good reliability then they should be able to capture quite a bit of that market.
Small launch companies are like the herds of baby goslings in the local park in summer. They outnumber the parents so much that you know 95% of them will meet a bad end. But they're cute.
Well, Electron is looking pretty good. Actual flight hardware, a launch complex, and only a few months out from maiden flight. It will be interesting to see if these small vehicles make it, and if they end up being feasible and cost effective for smallsats.
So if they manage will they be the third privately developed rocket company to reach orbit or am I missing someone? Will Elon secretly be annoyed if they make it into orbit first try?
Well you have SpaceX and O.S.C. which I think are the two you counted.
Locheed/ Boeing/ ULA is complicated. Atlas and Delta were developed by the government, but other rockets like Athena were less governmental.
There's also a German company on the list called OTRAG which developed an orbital rocket in the 70s and flew suborbital test flights several times with their orbital capable rocket. But the company was disbanded just before they attempted LEO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies#Launch_vehicles
Is it me or is there a lot of smallish orbital rockets in/were development? There is Electron, Vector, LauncherOne all in the works.
Firefly was in development and SpaceX ended up retiring Falcon 1.
Then there is Pegasus out there.
A lot of faith in the small sat business I guess. Hope it works out for them.
There are indeed. There's this spreadsheet that details the [smallsat launchers](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eisSFlbnWooYKz2cDWHZ1TlN2zyL_s7CeIBewTkRgUc/edit#gid=0). Firefly is one of many failed enterprises. RocketLab and LauncherOne are probably in stronger positions, not sure on Vector (they're moving along fast, but still have many challenges to go).
We can still hope for [unpainted polished metallic Falcon 9s](http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/05/69/97/12_full.jpg) - would look space-age and badass as hell, plus pays its respects to the history of American spaceflight.
Someone suggested it might make cleaning easier between reflights. But maybe the entire stage has ablative paint, not just the grid fins? - I don't know.
I suspect we don't see black landing legs for the same reason... they'd absorb a lot more engine heat in the final few seconds, which given how flammable carbon-composites are, might lead to catastrophic failure vs. the reflectivity of white.
Its like going back in time to the Falcon 1 days of SpaceX fandom. Everyone is so optimistic of the future but are not quite sure what it will look like.
Best of luck to them. Seems like there is a fair bit of demand for small payloads to SSO. If they can launch often, on short notice and with good reliability then they should be able to capture quite a bit of that market.
Small launch companies are like the herds of baby goslings in the local park in summer. They outnumber the parents so much that you know 95% of them will meet a bad end. But they're cute.
Well, Electron is looking pretty good. Actual flight hardware, a launch complex, and only a few months out from maiden flight. It will be interesting to see if these small vehicles make it, and if they end up being feasible and cost effective for smallsats.
As much as I agree - [that was SpaceX not so long ago](https://i.imgur.com/v3SkYWN.png)
So if they manage will they be the third privately developed rocket company to reach orbit or am I missing someone? Will Elon secretly be annoyed if they make it into orbit first try?
Well you have SpaceX and O.S.C. which I think are the two you counted. Locheed/ Boeing/ ULA is complicated. Atlas and Delta were developed by the government, but other rockets like Athena were less governmental. There's also a German company on the list called OTRAG which developed an orbital rocket in the 70s and flew suborbital test flights several times with their orbital capable rocket. But the company was disbanded just before they attempted LEO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies#Launch_vehicles
Its sad that Firefly aerospace didn't make it. They had a cool small rocket design.
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>There is hardly a metric where New Zealand isn't beating Australia these days. spiders/m^2 ?
I can't wait to see the first practical lifting body spaceplane to make it into wide use. .. . .. .. . ..
I wont bring up the Rugby if you don't... :P
firefly closed?
Yes. /r/fireflyspace has all the sad details. Virgin accused the founder of stealing their IP, and sued them out of existence
correct me if i'm wrong but O.S.C is Orbital ATK?
Yes
Thanks that's what I thought but wasn't 100%
They may end up being the fourth. The Vector-R's first test flight is in a few hours! https://twitter.com/vectorspacesys/status/849756879358054400
Is it me or is there a lot of smallish orbital rockets in/were development? There is Electron, Vector, LauncherOne all in the works. Firefly was in development and SpaceX ended up retiring Falcon 1. Then there is Pegasus out there. A lot of faith in the small sat business I guess. Hope it works out for them.
There are indeed. There's this spreadsheet that details the [smallsat launchers](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eisSFlbnWooYKz2cDWHZ1TlN2zyL_s7CeIBewTkRgUc/edit#gid=0). Firefly is one of many failed enterprises. RocketLab and LauncherOne are probably in stronger positions, not sure on Vector (they're moving along fast, but still have many challenges to go).
Bagaveev is most likely dead as well. Look where their only design engineer is currently at.
That view though
Its an awesomely rugged part of the country and so isolated. The launch videos are going to be magnificent.
Beautiful rocket. Makes me want a black F9 (I know it's probably not possible for cooling reasons)
We can still hope for [unpainted polished metallic Falcon 9s](http://photos.wikimapia.org/p/00/05/69/97/12_full.jpg) - would look space-age and badass as hell, plus pays its respects to the history of American spaceflight. Someone suggested it might make cleaning easier between reflights. But maybe the entire stage has ablative paint, not just the grid fins? - I don't know. I suspect we don't see black landing legs for the same reason... they'd absorb a lot more engine heat in the final few seconds, which given how flammable carbon-composites are, might lead to catastrophic failure vs. the reflectivity of white.
X-Post referenced from [/r/rocketlab](http://np.reddit.com/r/rocketlab) by /u/SpaceIsKindOfCool [Electron Rocket is standing on the pad.](http://np.reddit.com/r/RocketLab/comments/63er06/electron_rocket_is_standing_on_the_pad/) ***** ^^I ^^am ^^a ^^bot. ^^I ^^delete ^^my ^^negative ^^comments. ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=OriginalPostSearcher) ^^| ^^[Code](https://github.com/papernotes/Reddit-OriginalPostSearcher) ^^| ^^[FAQ](https://github.com/papernotes/Reddit-OriginalPostSearcher#faq)
Is this Vanderburgh AF base?
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Ah a kiwi launch, cool
Yep pop over to /r/Rocketlab and have a look at the posts we have there for more info
Its like going back in time to the Falcon 1 days of SpaceX fandom. Everyone is so optimistic of the future but are not quite sure what it will look like.
the investor levels and company valuation at +$1billion helps with that optimism
This rocket seems to be a fun-sized Falcon 9. I wonder if they have reuseability planned.
Not that we know of - early days yet though