16 ms·
New Zealand startup successfully launches rocket
- kirrent 9y agoThe electron is a really cool rocket. It's constructed using carbon composite tanks and uses Rocketlab's Rutherford engine. The engine is constructed using a large amount of 3d printing and uses battery powered electrically driven fuel pumps.
- bmiranda 9y agoIt's worth mentioning that while electric turbopumps are a lot better that pressure-fed designs, for larger engines they aren't as effective as using pre-burners (due to the weight of the batteries). It does make the design much simpler, though.
- inamberclad 9y agoThe weight is an issue here too. It's something like 200kg of battery in the first stage. The second stage is designed to use its batteries one by one, and them drop them as they're expended.
- apcragg 9y agoThat seems... Really bad for the environment? Nobody said launching rockets was environmentally friendly but that sounds particularly egregious.
- rory096 9y ago>The batteries had a low auto-ignition temperature of 150 degrees Celsius, which meant they were highly likely to burn up in the atmosphere before reaching Earth's surface, MfE said. The batteries contained no lead, acid, mercury, cadmium, or other toxic heavy metals. http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/83804825/360kg-motor-assembly-to-be-jettisoned-after-rockets-launched-from-Mahia-Peninsula http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/83804825/360kg-motor-assem...
- Gibbon1 9y agoOne bit I remember from reading about rocket systems design is first stage performance is less critical than second and follow on stages. The cost of lower ISP/Mass ratio on the first stage is linear, you just make the it proportionately bigger. Where with higher stages the cost is exponential. Which makes me wonder if electric pumps might make sense for larger rockets even though their performance is lower. You'd need a larger first stage, question then is how much bigger vs cost savings from a simpler design. I don't have an out of my keister answer for that though.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- syedkarim 9y agoI met Peter Beck (CEO/founder) at SmallSat 2014. Hat-tip for doing what he set out to do. He told me that a Ferrari was not much more than a bunch of carbon fiber, software, and fuel--and only costs $500,000. So there is no reason that a small rocket, which is also carbon fiber, software, and fuel, can't also be $500,000. Now that his launch vehicle is orbital, I'm looking forward to it someday being a half-million-dollar launch vehicle. Minor quibble: The company is over ten years old; I don't think it's quite a startup anymore.
- cptaj 9y agoThey haven't made their first commercial launch yet. They've certainly received money for scheduled launches in the future, but I'd say they're definitely just getting started. Some industries have longer incubation periods =)
- mappu 9y agoI think this launch was commercial - it put three satellites from two private companies (Planet Labs / Spire Global) into orbit.
- cryptoz 9y ago> The company is over ten years old; I don't think it's quite a startup anymore. The age of a company has nothing to do with it being a startup. There's a good description of 'startup' in PG's essay here: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html Startups are businesses that are designed to grow quickly. Rocket Lab is. Just because it's been 10 years doesn't mean it's not a startup. Also, both SpaceX and Tesla are startups. Tesla recently pivoted from being a car company to an energy company, and is only about 1% or so of their way along to their goals. SpaceX has not even begun with their goals of colonizing Mars yet. These are all startups because they are designed to grow quickly and are nowhere near their goals yet.
- marktangotango 9y agoThough the launch was only a test, Rocket Lab managed to launch three satellites into orbit for tracking shipping, weather and imaging. Orbital class rocket, not bad. Also, made it to orbit on the second attempt, beat Spacex by two launches :P The Rutherford engine sea level Isp of 303 on RP1/LOX is damn impressive.
- JshWright 9y agoIsp is awesome, TWR... not so much. The electric turbopumps are a big propellant efficiency win, but aren't without other costs.
- Symmetry 9y agoI'd mostly worry about mass ratio, though they do drop off some of the batteries half way on the second stage.
- tlb 9y agoBatteries are heavy, but the system can make up for it. More precise control of propellant volume means the combustion chamber and nozzle don't have to be engineered for such high peak stresses due to a turbopump surging.
- igni 9y agoI was surprised to hear they were using LION packs, dropped mid second-stage. I'm not sure why but I expected super-capacitors or maybe flywheels arranged gyroscopically within the stages. Batteries are heavy - but must be the best fit for now.
- cryptoz 9y ago> beat Spacex by two launches Cute, yes, but they were also not sued by their competitors and forced at the last minute to relocate to a salty small island that caused epic issues for those launches, as SpaceX was by ULA.
- toomanybeersies 9y agoIt's interesting seeing the difference between the publicity that SpaceX gets, and the publicity of other rocket companies like RocketLab get. It shows how effective the PR machine for SpaceX is. RocketLabs launch is pretty significant, considering it's the first orbital launch of a rocket designed and built in a small nation. This has barely hit the news. I guess part of the reason is that it's not in the USA, and that New Zealand isn't capable of putting nuclear warheads on top of one, unlike North Korea.
- boznz 9y agoI'm sure it will get plenty of coverage here tonight. I think the news channels are over the PM getting pregnant and there are no rugby matches on :-)
- lostlogin 9y agoCareful where you go for that news as talkback radio will be (more) deadly for the next year or two. Overheard at a grey power cuppa yesterday, ‘She was pregnant when negotiating to be Prime Minister did you know? It’s unbelieveable’.
- EdwardDiego 9y agoThis is the go to conspiracy theory - and that the only reason Winston agreed to the coalition was so that he could be gasp acting Prime Minister when she went on maternity leave. For six whole weeks. I'm not entirely sure what they expect Winnie to get up to in six weeks.
- jimjimjim 9y agoyep, it's quite amazing how little reporting of this there has been from US sites. news sites from other countries had much more coverage.
- Denzel 9y agoSeems par for the course don't you think, SpaceX didn't receive much coverage for their grasshopper tests or Falcon 1 flights either? In fact, most of their coverage has just come in the last couple of years after working diligently for ~13 years prior to that. Ironically I was led to watch RocketLabs launch by r/SpaceX.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoAs always, Scott Manley is an excellent source of commentary: https://youtu.be/U5k1mlu6A7I https://youtu.be/U5k1mlu6A7I No transcript, but it's a short video.
- igravious 9y agoThanks for the link. Super informative commentary. That might have to become a goto YouTube channel of mine seeing as how the frequency of rocket launches is ramping up.
- sundvor 9y agoBrilliant video, thanks! Scott Manley's videos are most excellent - this includes but is not limited to his Elite Dangerous and Kerbal Space Program ones.
- bmcusick 9y agoWhat they’ve accomplished is amazing engineering. I’m sort of scratching my head at the economics though. Their cost to orbit is about $15,000/kg. That’s more expensive than the Space Shuttle was. And the CEO has said they’re not working on reusability. Their goal of rapid manufacturing and frequent launches seems laudable in an expendable launch vehicle world. I’m not sure how they plan to survive when SpaceX and Blue Origin achieve rapid reusability though.
- syedkarim 9y agoTheir differentiation is the ticket price: $5M, for now. A SpaceX F9 is $60M. The cost per kg may be an order of magnitude greater, but so is the ticket price.
- jessriedel 9y agoThis is only really useful if you want to put a tiny satellite in an unusual orbit. For frequently trafficked orbits, you can just hitch a ride on a larger launch. Could be a successful business niche, but it doesn’t seem likely to revolutionize anything.
- ekianjo 9y ago> Could be a successful business niche, but it doesn’t seem likely to revolutionize anything. Since SpaceX is late to fulfill orders, having more options for smaller payloads is probably a pretty good idea even if the market is smaller.
- anovikov 9y agoIf you want a rideshare launch you have to wait, usually for years. And these guys can launch quickly, and still usually be cheaper or same price as rideshares. Non quite good for nanosats/cubesats, but fine for microsats.
- jessriedel 9y agoCheaper? Do you have a source on the claim that the per-kg launch cost of a rideshare is really an order of magnitude larger than the primary payload?
- DrScump 9y agoIs there no adverse environmental impact from dumping battery packs into the atmosphere to burn up?
- lostlogin 9y agoIt caused grumbling. Not sure where it all go to though as I can’t find any conclusion as it seems they calculated an amount of waste that exceeds that launched. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11702310 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&o...
- smnrchrds 9y agoPlanet Money recently did a series on the satellite market. Rocket Lab was one of the companies they interviewed. Pretty fascinating stuff. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/12/01/567267573/planet-money-goes-to-space https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/12/01/567267573/plan...
- chrismorgan 9y agoI was surprised at how weird it felt to have AU/NZ accents on the mission control (or whatever you call it) channel in the video at the end of that page. I say this as an Australian.
- bspn 9y agoMy favorite part of the aborted Friday (EST) launch was when the Kiwi controller was asking the American launch director whether he wanted any pre-determined halts in the launch sequence. It took them 3 goes for the American to understand what he was asking :)
- askvictor 9y agoThe trajectory of the first stage seems very vertical compared to other launches; anyone have any explanations?
- Taniwha 9y agoI think they were launching due south, directly away from the camera Also most launches are essentially go straight up to get out of the atmospheric drag asap, then hang a turn into orbit - the optimal parameters for when you make that turn is going to be a trade off of a bunch of things - drag, the orbit you want, air pressure that day, .....
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoIs there any startup currently investigating cheaper alternatives to reuseable fireworks?
- twic 9y agois "fireworks" literal or figurative there?
- sapphire_tomb 9y agoDoes anyone have a decent "Explain like I'm five" explanation for their choice of launch site? My (admittedly layman) understanding of rocket launching was the being near the equator was good, because you pick up a tonne of free velocity that way, and this launch site seems very far south to me. Edit: Punctuation
- arctor_bob 9y agoA)being close to equator helps but not dramatically, logistics are still more important B)few satellites are actually launched to an equatorial orbit, most of the time you want an inclined or a polar one. If you want your orbit to have around 40 degree inclination NZ is perfect.
- sapphire_tomb 9y agoThank you, clearly I need to read up on this a bit more!
- sspiff 9y ago> "Instead of paying hundreds of millions for a very big satellite in geostationary orbit, we now have new constellations of smaller — what we call nano satellites — in low earth orbit at much lower cost," he said. So, what about earth orbit congestion/pollution caused by these "nano satellites"? Tracking a few thousand big objects is easier than tracking a few million small objects, I would suspect. And if the cheaper launchers mean that smaller businesses or wealthy individuals will be able to launch their own nano-fleets, there's an increased risk of operator error or just malevolent operators as well. Won't this just lead to more quickly exhausting the capacity of earth-orbiting space?
- Gravityloss 9y agoYes, it's a real problem. Satellites should either be shot to a low enough orbit so they decay soon (5 years or so for small satellites), or then they should have a deorbit mechanism.
- twtw 9y agoAt least for the planet labs Dove satellites, the orbits are low enough that they decay within a year or two.
- pseudolus 9y agoThey have what has to be one of the most beautiful launch sites I've ever seen. Does anyone know if they offer any onsite tours?
- nyokodo 9y agoNot at the moment unfortunately. I checked recently.