Inevitable death of small satellite launchers?
SpaceX success has influenced many recent investments into small launch vehicles. Arianespace has developed Vega. In the United States, NASA has contracted three smallsat launch companies (Rocket Lab, Firefly and Virgin Galactic) for approximately six million USD per mission. Number of cubesats is booming, representing majority of satellites launched in last three years. Rocketlab claims to have bookings for launches until 2020. Virgin Galactic is investor in OneWeb, as a means to secure launching of spare satellites into the constellation.
Small launch vehicles seem like an ideal companion to booming smallsat/cubesat revolution, providing on demand capability, ridesharing options and dedicated missions for small satellites. Rocket Lab has been valued over one billion USD in the latest investment round. Pretty unbelievable for a company that can target sales of 70 million USD if they launch once per month. Or half a billion if they launch per year as many times as all other rockets together.
But, most of traditional satellite launches now also support rideshare opportunities. Cost of small launchers is order of magnitude more expensive than for larger launchers like Atlas, Ariane and especially Falcon 9. ISS, due to at least six cargo missions each year on US side only, has become very popular cubesat launch platform (limited mostly by limited astronaut time).
What is the cost structure of Falcon 9 launch? Quoted price is 62 million USD. Successful reuse of Falcon 9 booster (quoted as 70% of rocket cost) and probably recovery of fairing (quoted as 10% of rocket cost), must include range and launch campaign costs (estimated at 5 million USD). That gives 2nd stage cost of less than 13 million USD. For smallsat missions, SpaceX will be able to go as low as 30 million USD. If they manage to redesign 2nd stage to also return to land, their costs in the long term would approach between 5-7 million USD per mission. Right at the sweet spot pricing of Venture class launch vehicles like Rocketlab Electron. With at least an order of magnitude more space and mass capability.
But why would SpaceX go that low in pricing? Sane businessman would try to keep their prices just below their major competition in EELV vehicle class, where most of the money is made, in order to maximize profit. But since Elon Musk obviously understands meaning of economy of scale, in a world where rockets are reusable, majority of costs SpaceX is facing are fixed costs of naval armada, launch sites, refurnishment factories, storage facilities and workforce costs. So it will become increasingly important to launch as often as possible. Real marketing genius will be needed to justify much higher prices for traditional satellite operators, NASA and DoD than for smallsat customers.
If SpaceX decides to use ITS SSTO as Falcon family replacement, it will inevitably lead to use of LEO as the staging point. Since Elon Musk obviously likes solar energy, it is highly likely that SpaceX would in this case offer SEP powered space-tugs. In this scenario, space tugs could provide support for even high delta-V missions, such as large changes of inclination from a common drop off orbit (for example, ISS orbit) to common SSO or GEO. In this scenario, ITS or Falcon 9 would launch regularly to drop-off orbit, from where a space tug would dock with the payload, refuel and move the payload through several months to a target orbit and get back to drop-off orbit. All that would simply kill any value proposition that small launchers have. They would cost equally, have much smaller launch rate, have less mass or volume capacity. They cannot really drive its cost down since they will be expendable. Operational costs will not be much lower than for Falcon which launches regularly.
So the only chance small rocket companies like Rocket Lab have is to prey that SpaceX fails in its full reusability quest. Which puts them, oddly, into the same position as ULA, Arianespace and OrbitalATK.
Small launch vehicles seem like an ideal companion to booming smallsat/cubesat revolution, providing on demand capability, ridesharing options and dedicated missions for small satellites. Rocket Lab has been valued over one billion USD in the latest investment round. Pretty unbelievable for a company that can target sales of 70 million USD if they launch once per month. Or half a billion if they launch per year as many times as all other rockets together.
But, most of traditional satellite launches now also support rideshare opportunities. Cost of small launchers is order of magnitude more expensive than for larger launchers like Atlas, Ariane and especially Falcon 9. ISS, due to at least six cargo missions each year on US side only, has become very popular cubesat launch platform (limited mostly by limited astronaut time).
What is the cost structure of Falcon 9 launch? Quoted price is 62 million USD. Successful reuse of Falcon 9 booster (quoted as 70% of rocket cost) and probably recovery of fairing (quoted as 10% of rocket cost), must include range and launch campaign costs (estimated at 5 million USD). That gives 2nd stage cost of less than 13 million USD. For smallsat missions, SpaceX will be able to go as low as 30 million USD. If they manage to redesign 2nd stage to also return to land, their costs in the long term would approach between 5-7 million USD per mission. Right at the sweet spot pricing of Venture class launch vehicles like Rocketlab Electron. With at least an order of magnitude more space and mass capability.
But why would SpaceX go that low in pricing? Sane businessman would try to keep their prices just below their major competition in EELV vehicle class, where most of the money is made, in order to maximize profit. But since Elon Musk obviously understands meaning of economy of scale, in a world where rockets are reusable, majority of costs SpaceX is facing are fixed costs of naval armada, launch sites, refurnishment factories, storage facilities and workforce costs. So it will become increasingly important to launch as often as possible. Real marketing genius will be needed to justify much higher prices for traditional satellite operators, NASA and DoD than for smallsat customers.
If SpaceX decides to use ITS SSTO as Falcon family replacement, it will inevitably lead to use of LEO as the staging point. Since Elon Musk obviously likes solar energy, it is highly likely that SpaceX would in this case offer SEP powered space-tugs. In this scenario, space tugs could provide support for even high delta-V missions, such as large changes of inclination from a common drop off orbit (for example, ISS orbit) to common SSO or GEO. In this scenario, ITS or Falcon 9 would launch regularly to drop-off orbit, from where a space tug would dock with the payload, refuel and move the payload through several months to a target orbit and get back to drop-off orbit. All that would simply kill any value proposition that small launchers have. They would cost equally, have much smaller launch rate, have less mass or volume capacity. They cannot really drive its cost down since they will be expendable. Operational costs will not be much lower than for Falcon which launches regularly.
So the only chance small rocket companies like Rocket Lab have is to prey that SpaceX fails in its full reusability quest. Which puts them, oddly, into the same position as ULA, Arianespace and OrbitalATK.
Comments
Post a Comment