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This is great news, congratulations to everyone on the team! We'll cover this in more detail in this week's Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com https://orb

This is great news, congratulations to everyone on the team! We'll cover this in more detail in this week's Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com https://orbitalindex.com), but the gist is that Virgin Orbit now joins SpaceX and Rocket Lab in the elite club of NewSpace startups that have actually made it to orbit. (Also in this club, albeit likely with significant Chinese military tech transfer, are iSpace and Galactic Energy. And we're ignoring "old space" companies like Arianespace, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and ULA.)

tectonic 6y ago
And soon to join will be Astra, who made it very close to orbit recently.
- someperson 6y ago
  Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Astra and SpaceX rideshare are all able to launch 150-500kg into orbit for a few million dollars. It's hard to see how the market can support so many small launch providers. That's a lot of options for what has been relatively small market. Rocket Lab's Peter Beck has said some of these companies are propped up by the favorable fundraising environment and to expect industry consolidation when the money runs out. Rocket Lab is obviously in a great financial position with their high launch cadence and improving re-usability technology. And SpaceX is of course in a league of their own.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    > It's hard to see how the market can support so many small launch providers. The small- and tiny-sat market is expected to grow by a factor of four compared to the previous decade [0]. Big launchers like Falcon 9 and especially Starship cannot easily service this market. Ride share has plenty of issues and projected launch costs of $2M for Starship are on the theoretical side of things right now. SpaceX needs to set aside a considerable amount of their launch capabilities for internal purposes (i.e. Starlink) and with expected double-digit grow rates in the small-sat market, there's plenty of room for competition. [0] https://smallsatnews.com/2020/07/24/an-analysis-of-prospects-for-the-small-satellite-market/ https://smallsatnews.com/2020/07/24/an-analysis-of-prospects...
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      Yeah, basically if you want a custom orbit and firm launch date (eq. no delays due to other payloads having issues on a rideshare) a dedicated small sat launcher makes sense. Still I'm thinking Starship once operational could service that as well, being full RLV. Like, just launch with couple tons of cubesats and as much fuel as possible, then deliver then to orbit as needed using you huge delta-v budget then go home. Rinse and repeat. You could theoretically even do inclination changes using the Starship aerodynamic surfaces if you were crazy enough. ;-) As you are effectively using up just fuel in Starship (+ some wear and tear) it might still be cheaper than dumping a complete small non-reusable rocket.
  - saargrin 6y ago
    if theres a reliable cargo rocket ,it could serve as cheap and fast suborbital intercontinental cargo carrier ,which is what SpaceX and Blue Origin have both been hinting at
someperson 6y ago
It's worth noting I-Space [1] and Galactic Energy [2] both mostly use solid fuel, with Galactic Energy's Ceres-1 continuing tradition with a highly-toxic hydrazine stage. Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies. Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and SpaceX Falcon use keralox (re-usable, with some coking issues), and Blue Origin and SpaceX Raptor uses methalox (cleanly re-usable). All those providers (except Virgin as far as I know) are pursuing re-usability and SpaceX and Rocket Lab are succeeding at recovering the first stage (with SpaceX far ahead at actually re-using them). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Space_(Chinese_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Space_(Chinese_company) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies. Do they even need to? Material cost of solid fuel ICBMs go right into few megabucks each.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    Yes, they do. The lowest cost per kg to orbit launch vehicles are not primarily solid.
    - baybal2 6y ago
      But if they can get missile cost to $1-2m, which I believe is very realistic, would there still be any big economic benefit from recovery when the launch will still cost few megabucks?
      - m4rtink 6y ago
        For one its unlike to scale - especially if you are using similar stages as the military, once you reach a certain maximum payload, making a bigger rocket will be much more expensive as you would no longer share the development and production costs of the new stages with the military.

tectonic 6y ago

And soon to join will be Astra, who made it very close to orbit recently.

someperson 6y ago
Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, Astra and SpaceX rideshare are all able to launch 150-500kg into orbit for a few million dollars. It's hard to see how the market can support so many small launch providers. That's a lot of options for what has been relatively small market. Rocket Lab's Peter Beck has said some of these companies are propped up by the favorable fundraising environment and to expect industry consolidation when the money runs out. Rocket Lab is obviously in a great financial position with their high launch cadence and improving re-usability technology. And SpaceX is of course in a league of their own.
- qayxc 6y ago
  > It's hard to see how the market can support so many small launch providers. The small- and tiny-sat market is expected to grow by a factor of four compared to the previous decade [0]. Big launchers like Falcon 9 and especially Starship cannot easily service this market. Ride share has plenty of issues and projected launch costs of $2M for Starship are on the theoretical side of things right now. SpaceX needs to set aside a considerable amount of their launch capabilities for internal purposes (i.e. Starlink) and with expected double-digit grow rates in the small-sat market, there's plenty of room for competition. [0] https://smallsatnews.com/2020/07/24/an-analysis-of-prospects-for-the-small-satellite-market/ https://smallsatnews.com/2020/07/24/an-analysis-of-prospects...
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    Yeah, basically if you want a custom orbit and firm launch date (eq. no delays due to other payloads having issues on a rideshare) a dedicated small sat launcher makes sense. Still I'm thinking Starship once operational could service that as well, being full RLV. Like, just launch with couple tons of cubesats and as much fuel as possible, then deliver then to orbit as needed using you huge delta-v budget then go home. Rinse and repeat. You could theoretically even do inclination changes using the Starship aerodynamic surfaces if you were crazy enough. ;-) As you are effectively using up just fuel in Starship (+ some wear and tear) it might still be cheaper than dumping a complete small non-reusable rocket.
- saargrin 6y ago
  if theres a reliable cargo rocket ,it could serve as cheap and fast suborbital intercontinental cargo carrier ,which is what SpaceX and Blue Origin have both been hinting at

someperson 6y ago

It's worth noting I-Space [1] and Galactic Energy [2] both mostly use solid fuel, with Galactic Energy's Ceres-1 continuing tradition with a highly-toxic hydrazine stage. Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies. Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and SpaceX Falcon use keralox (re-usable, with some coking issues), and Blue Origin and SpaceX Raptor uses methalox (cleanly re-usable). All those providers (except Virgin as far as I know) are pursuing re-usability and SpaceX and Rocket Lab are succeeding at recovering the first stage (with SpaceX far ahead at actually re-using them). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Space_(Chinese_company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Space_(Chinese_company) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Energy

baybal2 6y ago
> Those "new space" companies will struggle to re-use their vehicles with such technologies. Do they even need to? Material cost of solid fuel ICBMs go right into few megabucks each.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Yes, they do. The lowest cost per kg to orbit launch vehicles are not primarily solid.
  - baybal2 6y ago
    But if they can get missile cost to $1-2m, which I believe is very realistic, would there still be any big economic benefit from recovery when the launch will still cost few megabucks?
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      For one its unlike to scale - especially if you are using similar stages as the military, once you reach a certain maximum payload, making a bigger rocket will be much more expensive as you would no longer share the development and production costs of the new stages with the military.