I’m not sure what to make of this article on their switch to small-sat launches. I don’t think they want to give the impression that they’re backing off on the tourism goal. I will say I found this comment of George’s a little ironic:
This service compares to Pegasus, Virgin Galactic’s rival in the satellite launch market. “Nasa is the only real customer for Pegasus,” claims Whitesides. “It typically buys a Pegasus once every two years at a price of around $50m for a payload in the order of magnitude of 250kg. We offer the same payload at a fifth of the cost.”
Other start-ups entering the industry make similar claims. New Zealand-based Rocket Lab’s flagship engine, Electron, is designed to send payloads of 100kg into space for just $4.9m, while Texan outfit Firefly Space Systems claims that it will offer “the lowest launch cost in its class”.
Whitesides pooh-poohs the idea that these new outfits will undercut his rates: “It’s easy to say that you’ll charge a price for a product before a product is built. We have assembled a group of people that have built rockets in the recent past and what we will offer will be unprecedented in terms of cost and access.”
Emphasis added.
And this is a weird statement:
Unlike SpaceShipTwo, which has been designed in partnership with Scaled Composites, LauncherOne belongs exclusively to Virgin Galactic and could prove an intellectual property goldmine.
I don’t think IP is an issue here. Either they’ll have a launcher that the market finds useful at the price, or they won’t.
My take on the VG statements is it’s puffing; emphasizing value (IP in this case) for the investors. That’s pretty much standard in many businesses (I rarely see a prospectus without it) but one has to beware of overdoing it.
The article made me roll my eyes regarding Spaceport America. That boondoggle is a disaster for the taxpayers who funded it, so of course, they’re using this failure as a model to emulate in the UK. How very clever of them.
We have assembled a group of people that have built rockets in the recent past
Like hell you have. For people that actually have built real rockets, look here http://www.fireflyspace.com/about/the-team
Wonder why Markusic, the VP of propulsion at Virgin departed, went to Blue Origin, then SpaceX and then founded his own company ?
In any case, can we now finally declare the ‘space tourism’ hype over ?
Reader,
You have the order of Tom’s employment backwards. He was at SpaceX for ~4-5yrs, Blue Origin for only two months, then was VP of propulsion at VG for ~2-3yrs before leaving to start his own company. I don’t know Tom and can’t speak to his skills or Firefly’s competence, but VG has a large number of other rocket engineers, some of whom I know personally, who are rather sharp, and have practical experience.
But really, the proof in the pudding is going to be in the launching. So far none of them (Firefly, VG, Rocketlabs, etc) have demonstrated even a single orbital launch, let alone the pricing they’re claiming. VG and RocketLabs at least have enough money to have a shot at it (Firefly might as well–they’re the only smallsat launch company I don’t know very well), but who will end up making it to market is IMO, TBD.
~Jon
I would note for the record that the first announced price for Pegasus flights, and the price of their first mission for DARPA was $6 million. When the flight rate never got to where their business plan required it to for that price, the price rapidly climbed.
The problem here is that unless they have a big captive customer like Weiler’s internet satellites, they are unlikely to maintain that number for price to orbit….
I would bet quite a lot that Weiler is tied to the VG launcher by more than just a good deal.
Addendum
By the way, the lack of customers to keep the production line operating at optimal efficiency was the reason that Elon shut down the production of the Falcon 1.
Rocketlabs claims to be aiming at one launch a week. Thats the only way to keep the prices reasonable. They do have experience with flying sounding rockets pretty often too.
Of course, i remember an earlier system being designed for a launch a week .. the space shuttle.
Your definition of “pretty often” is not most peoples’ definition.
I totally agree with you Dennis… this is the only way they’re likely to succeed.
Unfortunately, VG senior managers don’t seem to understand the underlying technology and markets. For example, how can they be so confident of their business case when they’re still not sure if LauncherOne will use a 747 instead of WhiteknightTwo?