Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9
cnbc.comSubmitted by cnbc_official t3_120ws6p in space
rocketsocks t1_jdljti4 wrote
Reply to comment by New_Poet_338 in Rocket Lab targets $50 million launch price for Neutron rocket to challenge SpaceX’s Falcon 9 by cnbc_official
> They are targeting their next generation rocket at SpaceXs last generation rocket.
I wouldn't say that exactly. Neutron is fully LOX/methane, and it includes several innovations not seen in the Falcon 9 which potentially will be advantageous. That said, it is not the quantum leap that Starship represents, and SpaceX is still far ahead of anyone else in several areas (Raptor engine development perhaps, for example). However, in that regard, it is very likely that Neutron will be launching commercial payloads before Starship does.
From a practical standpoint Neutron or something very like Neutron is still an absolutely solid choice for Rocket Lab as their next move beyond Electron. It's achievable enough to reach the market soon. It's capable enough to be cost competitive even with the best in class, and it has a capability profile which should enable it to be profitable even given a lot of potential variability in the launch market. It's main target may be in servicing LEO constellations, but it'll have the capability to launch a wide variety of more conventional satellites. Even with the SpaceX "steamroller" in full effect there is still unmet need in the launch business. It's very likely that if Neutron work they won't have any problem finding customers for it.
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdly8w0 wrote
What innovations does Neutron have that F9 doesn't?
Also Starship is about a month or two from first orbital launch. Neutron is 2 years at minimum away. How do you see eactly Neutron launching customer payloads *before* Starship does?
DanFlashesSales t1_jdmqyyo wrote
>What innovations does Neutron have that F9 doesn't?
Methane engine, carbon fiber body, suspended 2nd stage, staged combustion engine, fairing that returns to the landing site with the first stage.
Anthony_Pelchat t1_jdmthaz wrote
Starship is focused heavily on reusability. While they may launch some Starlink missions early, they likely won't focus on customer payloads for a while, at least until reuse is working well. I would also expect SpaceX to take a while before lowing the price, both to focus on Starlink and to bring in some extra funds. And they need to put a lot of early focus on HLS for NASA.
All of this might give RL time to get Neutron going and to grab customers. Customers are also likely to grow as more try to compete with Starlink and try going away from SpaceX, similar to how OneWeb has been going with other launch providers (at least until Russia screwed them over).
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdonllf wrote
Rocket Lab doesn't know yet how to land and reuse rockets. It took SpaceX almost 10 landing attempts, and when they did land it another 2 years to reflight that booster. And many years after that to increase cadence. Rocket lab will have to get the same learning period and they move slower than SpaceX. And Starship will fly at minimum 2 years before Neutron 1st launch attempt. Where exactly do you see them have time to catch up?
Anthony_Pelchat t1_jdpbt4u wrote
Also don't forget that SpaceX has very little reason to lower Starship's pricing at first. Sell more expensive flights to first for super heavy launch needs (Falcon Heavy and SLS replacement options). Once they are ready to start replacing the Falcon 9, then expect prices to come down.
Anthony_Pelchat t1_jdpbg48 wrote
RL has something SpaceX didn't. They can see in hindsight all of the failures SpaceX made and learn from them. SpaceX only had the Shuttle's failures to really learn from. SpaceX was also trying to improve as a launch provider in general during that time. RL has already had a decent bit of experience.
With Starship, SpaceX actually has reasons to take it slow before signing up customers on it. Not positive they will of course. But they have a huge amount of flights for Starlink first. They also really need to get reusability nailed down, so waiting on customers allows them to take more risks.
When it all comes down it, Rocket Lab may move faster than expected and Starship may take longer before signing up customers even if it's flying a bunch first.
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdussoh wrote
Does Rocket Lab have access to internal SpaceX documentations of the software and rocket parts/materials that make F9 land and reused? No? Then watching them on YouTube doesn't really matter. They will have to learn to do it by themselves.
SpaceX has no reason to go slow with Starship. They can launch many Starlink flights before a customer if they want, but they need the experience sooner rather than later. Customers also don't care much about reuse at first, only for their payload to go to orbit, as they didn't care with F9 landing attempts.
Or Rocket Lab may move slower than expected, since even from first successful landing to reuse it took SpaceX 2 years time... And Starship can go a lot faster since its design has lessons learned from F9 landings and reuse.
Anthony_Pelchat t1_jdvgycn wrote
>They will have to learn to do it by themselves.
True, and I didn't otherwise. But SpaceX was extremely opened about many of the issues that Falcon 9 had.
>SpaceX has no reason to go slow with Starship.
Again, SpaceX has massive reasons to delay customers. They need the first several launches themselves with Starlink. That matters more to them than getting customers on Starship. And they need to focus on reusability first, which may mean many changes. Those changes have a chance to cause a flight failure. SpaceX would absolutely want to avoid damaging a customer payload. Not putting on customer payloads allows them to make more risky changes.
>Customers also don't care much about reuse at first, only for their payload to go to orbit, as they didn't care with F9 landing attempts.
They care about reliability. Period. Starship has none at the moment. That won't be the case for long, but a single failure would push customers back for a long time.
Plus why would any customers choose Starship over F9 right now? If Starship is more expensive per flight, they are choose F9. Starship won't be cheaper until it starts rapid reusable flights. The only other reason why someone would choose Starship is payload capacity. And if they are building something that big, they wouldn't have gone with RL anyways.
>Or Rocket Lab may move slower than expected, since even from first successful landing to reuse it took SpaceX 2 years time... And Starship can go a lot faster since its design has lessons learned from F9 landings and reuse.
RL could go slower and SS faster. However, that is unlikely. It took F9 two years as SpaceX was still learning to fly altogether. RL isn't going through the same issue. And again, RL has the ability to see the failures that F9 ran into to avoid the same. SS is trying to achieve something never before done. They will hit issues and delays. That's perfectly fine. SpaceX understands and accepts that.
Anthony_Pelchat t1_jdvhkym wrote
One final thing, SpaceX has no reason to rush faster on Starship as there is no competition. Rocket Lab is not competing with Starship and never will. They will take the scraps that fall off the table once Starship hits it's goals. Starlink alone is liking to make more profit this year than Rocket Lab. And it isn't even at 1/10th it's final goal.
Try to keep that in perspective. SpaceX won't be making a push for customers for Starship as it simply has no reason to.
rocketsocks t1_jdnbk80 wrote
Neutron has a simpler design for landing legs and returns the fairing along with the booster allowing for much more reliable and faster reuse. Neutron also uses LOX/methane which should provide for greater engine longevity, and the engine design is more sophisticated than Merlin-1D. They also designed Neutron to return to the launch site from the start, which simplifies operations.
Starship is likely closer to its first test launch than Neutron is, but that doesn't mean it's closer to operational commercial launches. Starship is vastly more complex than Neutron, and because it is larger many steps of making it operational will just inherently take longer. We've seen this already in how long the development process has been. SN10 was fully two years ago, they're still working on ground facilities problems, they're still working on problems with thermal protection, they're still working on problems with getting all of the engines working together, and so on.
I have faith that SpaceX will be able to tackle those problems successfully, but they just have a lot more to work on than Neutron has because it's a bigger and much more ambitious vehicle and flight profile. Neutron's design may be innovative but fundamentally it is within a by now fairly well explored problem space. They're not trying to do a chopstick catch, they're not trying to do spin apart staging, they're not trying to reuse the upper stage yet, they're not trying to light over two dozen engines at launch, etc.
More to the point, because Neutron is so much simpler they have a much lower bar before entering the commercial launch market. If they can reliably reach orbit (even if reuse is not at 100% with the first launch) then they can start getting business. Starship is likely to have a longer period of development even after the first test launches because it is a more complex design. Even if they achieve success with an orbital flight they still have more work to do, and I doubt they'll have commercial customers in that time frame.
It's very likely that Starship development will continue through a phase of Starlink-only launches for a period of many months, and depending on the timeline it's very possible that Neutron will be launching customer payloads before Starship does.
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdoobox wrote
Until now SpaceX is the only provider who lands and reuse rockets. They only one who knows how to do that. Do you know how I call it, when someone else says that it's going to do it better? I call that BS. Rocket Lab should first attempt to land a rocket successfully, then relaunch it, and then they can talk. Until then...
Yeah,it does mean that exactly. Starship is about to launch in less than 2 months and then cadence will increase. Neutron is at minimum 2 years away, possibly 3-4, and then a few flights until they start landing attempts, another few to land, and another 2 years to relaunch that and then another 2 to increase launch cadence. Good luck.
rocketsocks t1_jdoqzdo wrote
The DC-X was doing vertical landings in the '90s, Blue Origin has been doing vertical landings with their New Shepard since 2015. Yes, it's harder to do with a larger rocket but Rocket Lab is stacking the odds in their favor (by going for RTLS only, for example), and they have the benefit of watching SpaceX having done it.
When SpaceX began testing landings of the Falcon 9 they had a grand total of 7 successful orbital launches under their belt. Rocket Lab has done over 30 launches of the Electron and they have a tremendous amount of public knowledge to draw from. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they succeeded with landing on the first attempt.
Starship is a great design, but it's incredibly ambitious and will take a while to achieve maturity because of its complexity and ambition. Far too many people are riding the Starship hype train imagining that as soon as it achieves partial success with an actual launch they'll start launching commercial payloads a week later and retire the Falcon 9 the week after that.
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdusci8 wrote
Also a helicopter does vertical landings. Does this count? We are talking about orbital rockets. Not suborbitals.
Unless Rocket Lab have stolen the source code and trade secrets of the materials etc, they will have to pass the same amount of time of trial and error.
If Rocket Lab lands rocket on first landing attempt, then they definitely would have stolen some F9 trade secrets.
So? SpaceX is the fastest moving aerospace company. It will take sooner than you realize.
Literally no one has said that they will retire F9 immediately. No one. Starship has hype cause it's revolutionary rocket and people notice that. It will transform humanity's access to space. And that's not hyperbole.
And don't forget the important thing. SpaceX knows how to execute landings and reuse. They've been doing this for years, getting better and better. Starship's design is based on lessons learned from F9 landings and reuse. So most likely they will land and reuse it sooner rather than later. Much sooner than competitors like Neutron.
rocketsocks t1_jdw95o9 wrote
Landing a booster from an orbital rocket is a greater challenge than a sub-orbital rocket, but not insanely so. SpaceX took time to figure out how to do it because they were trying many different methods and they were trying to do the R&D extremely cheaply. And it worked. Today we have the benefit of hindsight, and companies like Rocket Lab have the benefit of being able to follow in SpaceX's footsteps, without having to steal their confidential trade secrets. Some lessons on the process are publicly known, such as the use of an entry burn to moderate speed, and so on. Some lessons are actually publicly available data because NASA commissioned SpaceX to gather data on supersonic retropropulsion to inform future Mars landings. SpaceX's "secret sauce" has never been trade secrets, it's always been it's ability to execute operationally and get things done.
Additionally, Neutron is attempting an easier flight profile than Falcon 9, it's not doing barge landings and instead focusing solely on returning to the launch site. SpaceX succeeded with their first ever attempt at an RTLS landing, which was their first successful landing overall, and their success rate for ground landings was very high (100% in fact) even while they were improving the reliability of drone ship landings. It's just an easier and simpler flight profile. But it requires you design the rocket from the get go with that in mind (because you need enough performance margin), which Neutron and Starship have been.
SpaceX may be able to get things done, but Starship is a tremendous amount to bite off all at once. The launch tower is different, the landing profiles are different, there is upper stage atmospheric re-entry and controlled descent, there is upper stage landing, there is the thermal protective system on the upper stage, there is orbital propellant transfer, and on and on and on. Getting all of these things working is required in order to meet their Artemis Program Starship-HLS commitments. Without those commitments it's possible that Starship could see commercial service in a sort of "early access" mode where they were still working on upper stage landings and reuse, but because of the Starship-HLS contract it's very likely that'll be a secondary priority.
I'm not sure why people have this idea that Starship is going to be easy or why Neutron is going to be hard. Neutron vs. Starship are just fundamentally different things. Neutron is a much shorter race to "run" compared to Starship, it's a sprint vs. a marathon. Even if SpaceX is much faster at working through Starship design and development issues than Rocket Lab is with Neutron they just have much, much longer to go.
seanflyon t1_jdwrme1 wrote
Are you calling the DC-X a suborbital rocket? That seems like a stretch, it never made it to space or close. DC-XA got 3140 meters up. That is about a quarter as high as a normal commercial aircraft flights.
Charming_Ad_4 t1_jdza5zc wrote
It is insanely so. x100 more difficult. If it wasn't, someone else would have landed an orbital rocket by now, when they landed a suborbital in the 90s.
What many different methods of landing the rocket did they try? Does Rocket Lab knows all of them?
Oh wow, SpaceX secret sauce is getting things done and execute!! Wow that's not what we call secret sauce!
I'm not sure you've noticed, that Gwenn and Elon have both said they will do around 100 Starship launches before land on the moon with HLS. So...that kind of mean a hell of a lot of launches with Starlink and customer's sats. And they don't need orbital refilling for that.
Cause SpaceX does know how to land and reuse. And Starship's design is made with lessons learned from F9. Rocket Lab and Neutron don't have lessons learned. That's why so many people believe Starship is easier for SpaceX than Neutron for Rocket Lab. And SpaceX does work faster. Rocket Lab will need at least 3 years for first launch, another 2 for first landing, another 2 for first reuse. So 7 years to make reusability and that's the minimum time. Starship will fly in a couple of months. So....
rocketsocks t1_je1ae4y wrote
> It is insanely so. x100 more difficult. If it wasn't, someone else would have landed an orbital rocket by now, when they landed a suborbital in the 90s.
It's not insanely difficult, it just hasn't been tried very often. Every program that tried VTVL rocket landing has succeeded (DC-XA, Blue Origin, SpaceX). It just hasn't been tried much. The reason it hasn't been tried much is because reuse hasn't been prioritized or done very pragmatically. Prior to the 2000s most RLV development focused on unrealistic designs such as the Shuttle or SSTOs, not on simple two stage launchers with booster reuse. More so, there hasn't been much competition in the launch vehicle space until the 2000s, for a variety of reasons, so extreme cost competitiveness wasn't a major factor until then.
Additionally, there are many natural optimizations that have traditionally been made with expendable launchers which deoptimize them for booster reuse. Expendable launchers tend to have simpler, lower cost first stages with only a few engines (Delta IV, Atlas V, and Ariane 5 only have one), while the majority of the cost and complexity is pushed into the upper stage. This makes first stage reuse much harder, especially in the VTVL configuration (it's very difficult to throttle down a single huge engine vs. simply turning off extra engines) and it makes it useless, as you end up simply saving the cost of expending the cheapest part of the rocket. You have to go into two stage launch vehicle design while planning ahead for VTVL first stage reuse to actually make it worthwhile. The genius of SpaceX was that they made very pragmatic design decisions that aimed at reusability straight out of the gate, and they figured out how to do the R&D for reuse within the context of paying commercial customer flights, making use of "thrown away" hardware that created the equivalent of a billion dollar funding stream. But much of that can be copied by anyone paying attention. SpaceX may have some degree of "secret sauce" that drives their success, but simply achieving VTVL reusable rockets is not it alone.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments