The premise is that the present forms of attempting to develop commerce in space is fundamentally defective in two ways: 1) It is too risky and expensive to start "big", that is, with a conventionally sized launch system. 2) There is not actually a market in launch services for 1000 pound class satellites.
An example of the first point is that no such venture has succeeded as of March 2006. The first Falcon launch in Kwajalein has over 100 million at risk (see http://thespacereview.com/article/489/1 )
There is not enough demand or applications for large satellites to support an industry. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus system has had only 36 launches in their over 15 year lifetime. A launch rate of one each 5 months.
See http://www.microlaunchers.com/ for the presentation of the case for starting "small".
An example of the first point is that no such venture has succeeded as of March 2006. The first Falcon launch in Kwajalein has over 100 million at risk (see http://thespacereview.com/article/489/1 )
There is not enough demand or applications for large satellites to support an industry. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus system has had only 36 launches in their over 15 year lifetime. A launch rate of one each 5 months.
See http://www.microlaunchers.com/ for the presentation of the case for starting "small".
posted by Charles Pooley | 9:12 AM
1 Comments:
test comment Dec 1, 2011 to see if this is still active.
I have relocated to Las Vegas from Mojave CA since Sept 2010, still preparing Microlaunchers start-up.
The current plan is to seek interested participants in the 2012 NASA Nano-Satellite Challenge ( http://challenge.gov/NASA/49-nano-satellite-launch-challenge ) with the $2 million prize.
The plan for this will follow somewhat that of the N Prize entry, as in http://www.microlaunchers.com/7816/L3/sa09/sa09.html .
The plan is to set up production of about 100 "ML-1" launchers, use first several for the Challenge, then the remainder for a Cubesat launch service.
I will either be adding frequently to this blog or start another.
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