Thoughts on launch economics from Lux Ascent (that’s a pseudonym — I know who it is, but don’t know if that person wants to remain pseudonymous).
Thoughts on launch economics from Lux Ascent (that’s a pseudonym — I know who it is, but don’t know if that person wants to remain pseudonymous).
This is why launch and payload companies are all diversifying.
Starship’s capabilities will make a lot of things possible but also creates a lot of risk. Planet Labs could have a competitor with a larger constellation overnight or SpaceX could spin one off from the inspection satellites they are using to check Starship’s heatshield.
A decent overview as far as it goes, but its discussion of Starship omits the likely quite limited availability of this vehicle to 2nd-party customers for at least the next several years. Starlink, Starlink Mobile and Starmind deployments will dominate up-to-LEO-and-come-right-back single-launch missions for satellite deployment. The only significant 2nd-party carve-out there for some time will likely be for War Department launches of Golden Dome components.
Lunar missions that require multiple launches, mostly for propellant logistics, will gobble up most of the rest of Starship’s achievable cadence until at least the mid-2030s. I think 9-engined Starship V4 tankers capable of boosting payloads of 300 tonnes or more will be in service before the end of the current decade, but it will still take four or five of these to refill every Moon-bound manned or cargo mission and, later, Mars-bound missions. Even if SpaceX completes its rumored purchase of most of Pecan Island, LA and builds, say, another dozen or more launch facilities there, plus another Starfactory and Gigabay or two or three, the launch demand required to seriously industrialize the Moon and Mars will still require that most of SpaceX’s launch capacity be dedicated to in-house projects with the War Department and NASA taking nearly all of what is left.
Given that both Blue Origin and Rocket Lab will also be pursuing internal constellation projects and, in the case of Blue Origin, lunar ambitions of its own, the rest of the 2nd-party launch market, largely shut out from use of “Big Three” vehicles, will have little choice but to patronize the still-newer players, most of whom should debut their vehicles during the coming 18 months.
Perhaps the significant sums the capital markets have directed toward newbie launch companies recently reflect a wisdom-of-the-crowd conclusion that the big boys will be too busy with their own projects for some time to have much capacity to offer most of the market for 2nd-party launch services.
Yep, sounds like there’s more room for more reusable rockets. And small rockets. Let the cream rise. Also read there is concern that there’s no budget for Artemis 4 or 5 cores. Let the turds sink. Anybody have a firework we can put on an SRB for the next 4th.