I thought at first the fact that reuseablity is not mentioned as one of their goals was a big problem with their business plan. If the Falcon 9 Block 5 really becomes highly reusable, according to Elon Musk's criteria, SpaceX will be able to scale up launch rates and scale down prices that, by the time this rocket is available (2021 stated, delays likely), it won't be able to compete on price. I was thinking, "The more people working on different rockets the better. Hope it works out for them in that niche."
But going to their website[1] this launch market does not seem to be the company's main focus. They want to develop the technology to build currently very complicated objects with two orders of magnitude lower parts count. This is desired so that the products can be more easily built on Mars. I can see that as a long term profitable outcome with applications on Earth along the way.
From their mission statement[2]:
In the early days of settlement, there will be few people living on Mars. Intelligent automation and lightweight, compact 3D printing are fundamental technologies needed to quickly build a new society with scarce resources - and the most scalable means to get back home.
An ambitious goal (with an incongruous phrase tacked on the end??).
With relatively cheap transport to Mars (due to reusable launch), I don't see why building rockets there would make more sense than bringing them from Earth, i.e. returning them to Earth.
Furthermore, to develop rockets on Mars you'd also need a substantial supporting industry (metallurgy, testing, etc.).
From a purely pedestrian point of view the hype video[0] on their site got me really excited. Challenges aside it blows my mind that humanity is doing research and prototypes like this today. I'm excited about the future again.
Complete printing of our rocket, Terran 1, reduces
vehicle part count from nearly 100,000 to under 1,000
components - and is the first step toward an entirely
autonomous factory
They also mention a turnaround of _days_ for a full rocket, and being able to manufacture in Mars.
AFAIK one can't get something that competes with high strength carbon fiber tanks made in a 3D printer. You need continuous long fiber placement, the opposite of "a little material here and there" 3D printing.
Now, printing might work for some other materials than carbon with similar or even higher strength to weight ratio. But AFAIK unproven so far. Would be a whole separate science project with lots of other applications than rockets.
Also, looks like the engine had some machining work done, maybe after the laser sintering aka 3D printing part, since the surface was smooth and shiny.
Interesting news. All this newspace startup competition in the rocket launch industry is huge.
One concern:
> The Terran booster will hit what the company believes is a sweet spot between smaller rockets under development by Rocket Lab (and others) and the much larger Falcon 9 built by SpaceX.
The market is moving very quickly right now. I'm not sure the Falcon 9 will even be flying by the time this launches. Maybe that will mean more opportunity for them, it is hard to say. But it seems to me that all these small-rocket companies are banking on one specific idea: that the convenience or dedicated customer service they provide will exceed the pros of going with a more established low-cost provider like SpaceX. With BFR flying regularly in the same timeframe as this rocket gets its first launch, their only hope is that customers will not want to ride along as a 90th payload in a BFR but will want a dedicated ride themselves.
Or perhaps I am being close minded, perhaps the market will grow sufficiently such that SpaceX will not even be able to suck up all the new launches and new demand, and the small-rocket companies will thrive.
I just don't want to see them left in the dust. A $10M price tag is incredible (I mean, wow, that's low! for a dedicated launch!). But will that be the expensive option by the time their rocket is ready for use?
Two concerns, it turns out. Will these rockets be reusable? I'm guessing not, since the article didn't mention it and these days in the rocket world, if you're not reusable, then who cares? You will be left in the dust.
Edit: Wait a minute. I just went to their website. It says nothing about reusability either. But it exclaims how great it would be to build and fly rockets in days instead of years. Are they very specifically making a disposable rocket? If so, fuck this company and fuck everything about it. It's not the way of the future to build large objects and throw them away. It's evil in fact, to research something like this in the modern era with an attitude of 'fuck you' to the materials' sources where they are mined from the Earth.
I'll hold off on an actual opinion until I know more. But I sure hope Y Combinator didn't invest in a fake-new-space-actually-oldspace company. I hope this is better than it looks because it looks awful.
Edit 2: What does the success case of this startup look like? Will they ever research reusability? Or are they aiming to make 1,000 new rockets per year? That's the success case based on the financials (=$10B revenue/year) and it sounds gross. Without reusable rockets that whole thing is extremely wasteful.
The efficiencies of 3D printing things quickly are not correctly accounted for in the loss that the planet takes due to increased mining and wasteful dumping that would have to occur (and which the investors and company do not pay for).
One extra efficiency to keep in mind: the rocket can be custom-made for each launch to exactly the right size for the payload. If you only have a few standard rocket sizes, launching small payloads is wasteful unless you can bundle them together, which means they have to be on the same orbit (or else carry extra fuel in the satellite to shift orbits).
The metal in a rocket isn't the most expensive part (it has to be well under 5% the weight of fuel). The expensive part is fabrication. So reusability is important iff fabrication is expensive. Reusability also requires adding extra launch weight for landing fuel and struts and guidance fins.
So it's too early to conclude that reusability is mandatory. For heavy repeated lifts to a standard orbit, maybe. For small lifts to custom orbits, maybe not. It all depends on the costs of fabrication.
Don't know why your comment was down-voted. $10m is a high launch price. Either SpaceX's BFR or a fully reusable New Glenn could get below that price with one or two orders of magnitude more payload.
And I completely agree about the financials. There's some pretty strong Kool-Aid being passed around in the smallsat industry. Requiring dozens or hundreds of launches per year to meet revenue requirements? The main argument against reuse has always been lack of demand, but if you're already assuming 100 launches per year (or thereabouts), reuse clearly makes more sense.
And 3D printing is not likely to reduce costs per unit aerospace dry mass. 3D printing is fantastic for increasing the iteration frequency and reducing tooling costs. But if you're entering high-rate production (as all these revenue assumptions imply), then that advantage of 3D printing rapidly disappears, and conventional manufacturing is almost always cheaper per unit.
And for performance, this is even more true. Conventional forgings have much higher specific strength than any 3D printing process with a similar alloy. The alignment in grain flow just can't be beat. And forgings allow mass production as well, so benefit a lot from series production, allowing low unit costs at high material performance. (The soda can is the ultimate manifestation of this: extremely good mechanical performance with very little weight and almost no cost.) 3D printing generally produces parts somewhere between wrought and cast. So if you're making the "mass produced expendable" argument for low launch cost, you should avoid 3D printing!
I have a deep (but autodidact) knowledge of space launch, and I professional do metal 3D printing, including of aerospace components.
And there are a whole bunch of these smallsat launchers. All of them seem to think they will be the winners with ~100 launches per year (in a market where Pegasus gets about 1 launch every two or three years??). They also all seem to think they can compete against reuse by just really trying hard to make expendable costs lower. I simply don't see how this is feasible.
In a world where there are hundreds of smallsat launches per year, there's no way you get to charge $10m per launch to do so.
EDIT:I forgot to mention: 3D printing is not a cheaper manufacturing option than existing conventional manufacturing on a per-dry-unit basis. You're still talking on the order of $1000/kg, which is the same as finished aerospace products. PLUS, there's still an enormous amount of touch labor involved in 3D printing anything. The main advantage of 3D printing is the minimum order is 1, which is good for testing and iteration.
>just don't want to see them left in the dust. A $10M price tag is incredible. But will that be the expensive option by the time their rocket is ready for use?
Just before Russian rouble crashed, Soyuz 2 was estimated to cost USD $5.5 in materials and labour. With current rouble fx rate, it should be well lower. If they will get squeezed much, they may well remarket disposed ICBMs again. And at that point, I don't see any Western competition having a chance. Maybe Chinese will deliver bearable launch service on solids by then.
Pure material costs play a rather small part of considerations for a launch service provider. This is why Space X is not booked for years ahead, and launch services companies still line up for Proton that had 4 successive failures, and launch on ULA vehicles for twice the Space X cost.
Only companies for which launch cost is a genuine issue or which simply want to get to space by any means possible (startups, 3rd world countries) will be going for them.
It would seem that way from a casual glance, but rocket piping is quite complex, and currently assembled from hundreds or thousands of segments. Being able to print such assemblies will permit faster, lighter production, and production of shapes currently infeasible to cast/assemble. It could be dramatic, or slight. The key will likely be implementing a scaling strategy and qc.
[+] [-] njarboe|8 years ago|reply
But going to their website[1] this launch market does not seem to be the company's main focus. They want to develop the technology to build currently very complicated objects with two orders of magnitude lower parts count. This is desired so that the products can be more easily built on Mars. I can see that as a long term profitable outcome with applications on Earth along the way.
From their mission statement[2]:
In the early days of settlement, there will be few people living on Mars. Intelligent automation and lightweight, compact 3D printing are fundamental technologies needed to quickly build a new society with scarce resources - and the most scalable means to get back home.
An ambitious goal (with an incongruous phrase tacked on the end??).
[1]https://www.relativityspace.com/home [2]https://www.relativityspace.com/mission/
[+] [-] gnode|8 years ago|reply
Furthermore, to develop rockets on Mars you'd also need a substantial supporting industry (metallurgy, testing, etc.).
[+] [-] MPSimmons|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanmarsh|8 years ago|reply
0: https://vimeo.com/260505466
[+] [-] madengr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobeat|8 years ago|reply
More info at their website: http://www.relativityspace.com
[+] [-] Gravityloss|8 years ago|reply
Now, printing might work for some other materials than carbon with similar or even higher strength to weight ratio. But AFAIK unproven so far. Would be a whole separate science project with lots of other applications than rockets.
Also, looks like the engine had some machining work done, maybe after the laser sintering aka 3D printing part, since the surface was smooth and shiny.
[+] [-] erdle|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] monochromatic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fudged71|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptoz|8 years ago|reply
One concern:
> The Terran booster will hit what the company believes is a sweet spot between smaller rockets under development by Rocket Lab (and others) and the much larger Falcon 9 built by SpaceX.
The market is moving very quickly right now. I'm not sure the Falcon 9 will even be flying by the time this launches. Maybe that will mean more opportunity for them, it is hard to say. But it seems to me that all these small-rocket companies are banking on one specific idea: that the convenience or dedicated customer service they provide will exceed the pros of going with a more established low-cost provider like SpaceX. With BFR flying regularly in the same timeframe as this rocket gets its first launch, their only hope is that customers will not want to ride along as a 90th payload in a BFR but will want a dedicated ride themselves.
Or perhaps I am being close minded, perhaps the market will grow sufficiently such that SpaceX will not even be able to suck up all the new launches and new demand, and the small-rocket companies will thrive.
I just don't want to see them left in the dust. A $10M price tag is incredible (I mean, wow, that's low! for a dedicated launch!). But will that be the expensive option by the time their rocket is ready for use?
Two concerns, it turns out. Will these rockets be reusable? I'm guessing not, since the article didn't mention it and these days in the rocket world, if you're not reusable, then who cares? You will be left in the dust.
Edit: Wait a minute. I just went to their website. It says nothing about reusability either. But it exclaims how great it would be to build and fly rockets in days instead of years. Are they very specifically making a disposable rocket? If so, fuck this company and fuck everything about it. It's not the way of the future to build large objects and throw them away. It's evil in fact, to research something like this in the modern era with an attitude of 'fuck you' to the materials' sources where they are mined from the Earth.
I'll hold off on an actual opinion until I know more. But I sure hope Y Combinator didn't invest in a fake-new-space-actually-oldspace company. I hope this is better than it looks because it looks awful.
Edit 2: What does the success case of this startup look like? Will they ever research reusability? Or are they aiming to make 1,000 new rockets per year? That's the success case based on the financials (=$10B revenue/year) and it sounds gross. Without reusable rockets that whole thing is extremely wasteful.
The efficiencies of 3D printing things quickly are not correctly accounted for in the loss that the planet takes due to increased mining and wasteful dumping that would have to occur (and which the investors and company do not pay for).
[+] [-] tlb|8 years ago|reply
The metal in a rocket isn't the most expensive part (it has to be well under 5% the weight of fuel). The expensive part is fabrication. So reusability is important iff fabrication is expensive. Reusability also requires adding extra launch weight for landing fuel and struts and guidance fins.
So it's too early to conclude that reusability is mandatory. For heavy repeated lifts to a standard orbit, maybe. For small lifts to custom orbits, maybe not. It all depends on the costs of fabrication.
[+] [-] Robotbeat|8 years ago|reply
And I completely agree about the financials. There's some pretty strong Kool-Aid being passed around in the smallsat industry. Requiring dozens or hundreds of launches per year to meet revenue requirements? The main argument against reuse has always been lack of demand, but if you're already assuming 100 launches per year (or thereabouts), reuse clearly makes more sense.
And 3D printing is not likely to reduce costs per unit aerospace dry mass. 3D printing is fantastic for increasing the iteration frequency and reducing tooling costs. But if you're entering high-rate production (as all these revenue assumptions imply), then that advantage of 3D printing rapidly disappears, and conventional manufacturing is almost always cheaper per unit.
And for performance, this is even more true. Conventional forgings have much higher specific strength than any 3D printing process with a similar alloy. The alignment in grain flow just can't be beat. And forgings allow mass production as well, so benefit a lot from series production, allowing low unit costs at high material performance. (The soda can is the ultimate manifestation of this: extremely good mechanical performance with very little weight and almost no cost.) 3D printing generally produces parts somewhere between wrought and cast. So if you're making the "mass produced expendable" argument for low launch cost, you should avoid 3D printing!
I have a deep (but autodidact) knowledge of space launch, and I professional do metal 3D printing, including of aerospace components.
And there are a whole bunch of these smallsat launchers. All of them seem to think they will be the winners with ~100 launches per year (in a market where Pegasus gets about 1 launch every two or three years??). They also all seem to think they can compete against reuse by just really trying hard to make expendable costs lower. I simply don't see how this is feasible.
In a world where there are hundreds of smallsat launches per year, there's no way you get to charge $10m per launch to do so.
EDIT:I forgot to mention: 3D printing is not a cheaper manufacturing option than existing conventional manufacturing on a per-dry-unit basis. You're still talking on the order of $1000/kg, which is the same as finished aerospace products. PLUS, there's still an enormous amount of touch labor involved in 3D printing anything. The main advantage of 3D printing is the minimum order is 1, which is good for testing and iteration.
[+] [-] baybal2|8 years ago|reply
Just before Russian rouble crashed, Soyuz 2 was estimated to cost USD $5.5 in materials and labour. With current rouble fx rate, it should be well lower. If they will get squeezed much, they may well remarket disposed ICBMs again. And at that point, I don't see any Western competition having a chance. Maybe Chinese will deliver bearable launch service on solids by then.
Pure material costs play a rather small part of considerations for a launch service provider. This is why Space X is not booked for years ahead, and launch services companies still line up for Proton that had 4 successive failures, and launch on ULA vehicles for twice the Space X cost.
Only companies for which launch cost is a genuine issue or which simply want to get to space by any means possible (startups, 3rd world countries) will be going for them.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] baybal2|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nugi|8 years ago|reply