RocketLab Discussion Thread

[tater]

3 hours ago, Kerballlistic07 said:

True. I guess I just feel like I have to root for the smaller guys sometimes. Did they say whether they were going to develop a reusable upper stage or not? I can't remember.

Right now they have an expendable stage 2 inside the fairing which comes home with the booster. I'm excited about this vehicle, I'm just wondering if it's enough as @RCgothic says to compete. It certainly beats sticking with small sats, and it might find a happy customer in Space Force since the government likes to have multiple providers for redundancy.

Honestly, it would be cool if they could put a crew vehicle on top. 13t to LEO is pretty much in the sweet spot for crew/cargo to LEO.

[RCgothic]

Falcon 9's internal marginal cost at last given numbers was somewhere between $15m for RTLS or expended at end of life and $30m for an all new vehicle expanded on first flight.

F9's disposable upper stage is bigger than Neutron's, and F9 doesn't have perfect reuse on fairings. It's certainly feasible that Neutron has a path to being cheaper than F9. That's why it's disappointing that it's not.

There's a crowd of competitors all coming out with their own next gen vehicles, and only Relativity seems to be aiming beyond F9. ULA Vulcan will probably do ok due to DoD and "anyone but SpaceX" Kuiper contracts, but in the long run even they will need to go back to the drawing board.

If Neutron had been able to undercut F9 with a similar cost per kg (which is the metric for megaconstellations that Peter Beck explicitly wants in on), then Neutron could have been a genuine contender.

If this sounds like I'm being negative about RL then I'm sorry - I genuinely want someone to get into a serious price war with SpaceX but it doesn't sound like Neutron's going to be well positioned for that anymore.

[tater]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

If this sounds like I'm being negative about RL then I'm sorry - I genuinely want someone to get into a serious price war with SpaceX but it doesn't sound like Neutron's going to be well positioned for that anymore.

Exactly. And all these calculations are sensibly ignoring Starship, since it's still an unknown... but it won't be for long, one way or the other.

[RCgothic]

Also, "unused capacity" is irrelevant, all other things being equal.

It may actually be preferable, because a rocket flying comfortably under its capacity will be able to accomplish its mission after an engine-out, and/or fly a less efficient but more payload friendly trajectory.

A rocket flying right at its limit has no contingency.

[RCgothic]

Astra's Chris Kemp asserts RL won't be competitive with SpaceX at 8t for $50m-$55m.

RL's Peter Beck corrects that actually is 13t disposable.

So the article states materials for Neutron at $20m-$25m. At 50% margin that'd sell for maybe as little as $30m for 13t, or $2.3k/kg.

SpaceX can do 23t for $15m-$30m internally, so maybe selling for as much as $45m with a 50% margin. That's $2.0k/kg.

At the opposite extreme, F9 may be able to manage $1k/kg with a 50% margin whilst Neutron could be at $2.9k/kg.

So it looks like Neutron will probably be between 115% (best case) to 290% (worst case) as expensive as F9 for 3rd party megaconstellations, which will be the main external customers for launches going forward. 

Chris Kemp is entirely correct that RL needs to do better.

[Kerballlistic07]

3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Has to be the best space CEO interaction I've ever seen!

[mikegarrison]

19 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Also, "unused capacity" is irrelevant, all other things being equal.

It makes no sense to fly 50 people 200 miles on an A380, when an RJ would do the same mission for much less.

A "right-sized" flight vehicle has a huge advantage over one that is over-capacity for the required job. The issue, though, is that if you design your vehicle to be perfectly sized for one specific job, you can't handle even a slightly bigger job. So it's all a tradeoff between trying to not over-size the vehicle too much but also sizing it big enough to capture enough market.

[tater]

22 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It makes no sense to fly 50 people 200 miles on an A380, when an RJ would do the same mission for much less.

A "right-sized" flight vehicle has a huge advantage over one that is over-capacity for the required job. The issue, though, is that if you design your vehicle to be perfectly sized for one specific job, you can't handle even a slightly bigger job. So it's all a tradeoff between trying to not over-size the vehicle too much but also sizing it big enough to capture enough market.

While true, for a consumer, what matters is cost.

So if I could pay $150 to fly 200 miles in an A380, or $165 to fly in the RJ, I would take the A380—ignoring the fact I'd prefer the empty A380 even if it cost more

Bottom line for the commercial launch market is that the customers want reliability, and low cost. They are likely willing to take some reliability hit for sufficiently low cost, or they might pay more for increased reliability if the cost per sat is otherwise the same. "Unused capacity" doesn't figure here in the least.

 

New players offering services to LEO need to be grossly cheaper than SpaceX until they prove reliability. (they've had what, 185 flights in a row now, and Block 5 has had zero failures even as they push reflights).

Edited March 27, 2023 by tater

[RCgothic]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

It makes no sense to fly 50 people 200 miles on an A380, when an RJ would do the same mission for much less.

A "right-sized" flight vehicle has a huge advantage over one that is over-capacity for the required job. The issue, though, is that if you design your vehicle to be perfectly sized for one specific job, you can't handle even a slightly bigger job. So it's all a tradeoff between trying to not over-size the vehicle too much but also sizing it big enough to capture enough market.

All else being equal, if the enormous aircraft is cheaper why not? You're loading the question by using an example where obviously the A380 is more expensive for sole use than a regional jet. But that's really not an equivalent situation.

The Falcon family has the best safety record. The highest availability. More margin than it's competitors. Enough orbital insertion accuracy for all purposes. And a much lower price per kg.

There are a few prizes for second place. The DoD's mandatory 2nd supplier, or competitors looking for an "anyone but SpaceX" option. But the rewards are nowhere near as much as for being a genuine contender.

Absent any of those reasons, the only way to secure a launch contact is to be cheaper per individual launch for sats that can't multi-manifest.

But not only is Falcon 9 looking like a similar marginal material cost to Neutron expendably, SpaceX are more financially secure and well placed placed to undercut by applying a lower price margin.

And again - F9 has a lot more capability. Is Neutron really going to undercut F9 flying expendably on missions F9 can RTLS or ASDS for? I'm guessing not. Ironically, Electron can. On total cost at least, if not per kg. But the smallsat individual launch market doesn't have a future with the rise of ride-sharing, which is why RL are going for a bigger launcher with Neutron.

And on top of all that, Starship is coming.

Like @tater says, a SpaceX competitor needs to be *grossly* under-selling SpaceX to capture their market. Because they won't be overtaking F9 on safety record or availability for quite some time.

And yeah, that's really hard. Not every SpaceX competitor is going to make it.

Edited March 27, 2023 by RCgothic

[mikegarrison]

45 minutes ago, tater said:

So if I could pay $150 to fly 200 miles in an A380, or $165 to fly in the RJ, I would take the A380—ignoring the fact I'd prefer the empty A380 even if it cost more

But you can't. Not unless the flight was something like an equipment repositioning flight (ie. a "redeye" flight).

[mikegarrison]

1 minute ago, RCgothic said:

The Falcon family has the best safety record. The highest availability. More margin than it's competitors. Enough orbital insertion accuracy for all purposes. And a much lower price per kg.

$/launch for their payload is the key number for the customer. (Along with reliability, availability, etc.)

If I have a 100 kg payload and SpaceX can launch it on a Starship for less money than Rocketlab can launch it on a Neutron, then great! But obviously SpaceX's launch cost is probably going to be higher, so if they can't fill up their rocket with other payloads on the same launch, they aren't going to be able to give me that price that is better than Neutron.

If it costs less to launch a Falcon than a Neutron, then Rocketlab is just screwed. But if Neutron costs less per launch, even if it doesn't cost less per kg, then they have an opportunity. If my payload is the only one going up and it can fit on either rocket, then I don't care what the $/kg cost is. I care what the $/launch cost is.

[RCgothic]

Historically yes, total cost per launch has been king. And it is still possible to win some launches that way (for now). But that's not where launch growth is and danger that way lurks.

If Rocket A can launch 20 sats at once for $45m, Rocket B can launch 9 sats at once for $30m, and you have 360 sats to launch, all else being equal you pick Rocket A because you'd only pay $810m for 18 launches instead of $1.2B. And also Rocket A just won 18 launches together instead of negotiating them individually.

Megaconstellations are where the growth is. If Neutron can't get into that market, then it will have failed.

If Rocket B does some work and gets it's cost down to $20m, then congrats - the cost per kg (or per sat) is now competitive. Otherwise the fact it's cheaper per launch will only win it a fraction of the launches Rocket A gets in future.

 

Now imagine Rocket A can launch for $38m for the same profit margin Rocket B makes at $34m, and Rocket B really can't easily go below $30m and still repay it's creditors. Except Company A is more financially secure than Company B and not beholden to shareholders. It can happily operate at $28m per launch for a while while it puts Company B out of business.

This is the situation Rocketlab are in danger of finding themselves in - unable to compete on price per kg or per total launch.

 

Finally, Rocket A2 is on the horizon. Rocket A2 recovers all hardware, only needs maintenance every few flights, is reusable over dozens of flights, and its only major BOM cost is fuel. It can launch 100 sats at once and gets charged out to customers at $25m per flight which is a profit margin of about 1000%. Rocket A2 is the Dreadnaught of rockets, and it makes all other rockets obsolete.

Companies B, C, D and so on through Z are all screwed if they're pinning their hopes on their newest offerings *maybe* being competitive with the original Rocket A.

Edited March 27, 2023 by RCgothic

[tater]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

But you can't. Not unless the flight was something like an equipment repositioning flight (ie. a "redeye" flight).

Yes, because the operating costs are so much higher for the A380.

If the operating cost for Neutron only allows a retail launch price of ~$50M, and SpaceX can afford to fly for a retail of $49M, then the fact that half the capacity is wasted doesn't matter.

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

If it costs less to launch a Falcon than a Neutron, then Rocketlab is just screwed. But if Neutron costs less per launch, even if it doesn't cost less per kg, then they have an opportunity. If my payload is the only one going up and it can fit on either rocket, then I don't care what the $/kg cost is. I care what the $/launch cost is.

True, once they establish reliability (customer wants their spacecraft in LEO, not in the ocean ).

[tater]

1 hour ago, RCgothic said:

And yeah, that's really hard. Not every SpaceX competitor is going to make it.

Rocket Lab is doing good work with their upper stage. I think that given the small overall launch market, stuff that is useful in space might be a decent hedge.

As an aside, I think massive constellations are a phase people will go through, and hopefully grow out of. Regardless, how much constellation demand will truly exist, and how many total launches (yeah, they all need constant service/replacement)? Even at current retail it's maybe billions, but not a lot of billions of dollars per year. Multiple competitive launch providers merely reduces the total revenue stream of launch available. We're in an odd situation where there is effectively a fixed demand from a commercial standpoint.

IMO the only way to change that is to create an entirely new market.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

 

[sevenperforce]

On 4/4/2023 at 2:09 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

 

Spicy!

I would really like to see informed comparisons of the re-entry profiles of Electron, Falcon 9, Superheavy, and New Glenn to get a better idea of why Falcon 9 needs an entry burn but the rest do not.

[tater]

 

[sevenperforce]

51 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Ahead of ULA.

[tater]

50 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Ahead of ULA.

OT for this thread, but how many years away could SMART be? 10?

[sevenperforce]

31 minutes ago, tater said:

OT for this thread, but how many years away could SMART be? 10?

I'd bet sooner.

But of course SMART requires engines.

[tater]

 

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

Tomorrow night.

[tater]