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Rocket Lab Inaugurates The Era Of Even Cheaper Rocket Launches (bloomberg.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the frugal-frontiers dept.

pacopico writes: Elon Musk and SpaceX kicked off the New Space era with low-cost, reusable rockets. But now there's something just as dramatic brewing with really, really cheap rockets and really, really cheap satellites. Bloomberg has just profiled Peter Beck, a self-taught rocket engineer from New Zealand, who has built a $5 million rocket that will be taking cubesats [miniaturized satellites] from Planet Labs and others to space in the next few weeks. The story talks about a new type of computing shell being built around the Earth and all the players trying to fill it up.

4 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Really Cheap Satellites may not be good by taiwanjohn · · Score: 2

    IIRC, Rocket Lab is also contracted to carry MoonEx's Google Lunar X-Prize (GLXP) mission later this year. All the more reason to wish them well on these upcoming flights.

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  2. They haven't succeeded yet - first try failed. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Their first try didn't make orbit. Oh, they are somewhat legit, but I wouldn't celebrate too much until they've proved to have solved the problem and orbited something.

    Granted, it took four tries for Mr. Musk to get there and even the Chinese government and all their resources just welped their second Long March 5 launch - space is hard and all that. Still, Rocket Labs still has some ways to go before they are a legit launch provider.

  3. Yes by DrYak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you RTFA : yes, and actually they managed quite a few feat to make it both legal and easier on them.

    e.g.:
    - the launch site is privately owned (no competition to use it by other branches government)
    - the launch site is quite remote (no need to wait and coordinate with air traffic)
    etc.

    basically they managed to be legit, and they did in creative manner that actually enable them to operate better.

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  4. Re:look at $/pound not $/launch by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    For a customer with only 1 small satellite, it's still cheaper to fly RocketLab. You can only share satellites on a Falcon-9 if they're supposed to end up in (almost) the same orbit.