Saturday, December 30, 2023

The Top 10 US Launch Companies of '23 - Who Are the Other Nine?

Since this is the time of year when everyone does their take on the best of the previous year, I'll do it again this year.  Last year's piece was on January 2nd, so just after the start of '23, and I'm a little earlier than last year because the piece I'll reference from Ars Technica's Eric Berger was posted earlier than last year's. 

As always, there's more than a little opinion and gut feel here rather than just data, and like last year, chances are everyone would agree the leader by any measure is SpaceX.  Also like last year, for reference and as a common starting point, let me list the other nine in his order.  In the column he devotes a paragraph or two to each of them explaining why he chose them.  To save space, I'll list them here by the ranking and say to go read the original.

2: Rocket Lab
3: ULA
4: Firefly
5: Northrop Grumman
6: Blue Origin
7: Relativity Space
8: ABL Space
9: Stoke Space
10: Virgin Galactic

2:  Rocket Lab 

The rating is the same as I had last year, and I think they had a good year.  They set a new record (10) for launches in a calendar year, and would have had more except for losing the ninth launch of the year and stopping to understand the failure and take whatever corrective actions came up.  They also had some other notable firsts, including opening their first US-based launch site at Wallops Island in Virginia, launching their first hypersonic mission, HASTE, and re-flying a Rutherford rocket engine for the first time as they work toward reusability.

3: Firefly 

Here's my first difference with Ars.  They rank ULA here, while I rank ULA lower.  In September, the Alpha rocket made its first fully successful launch, performing a rapid-response liftoff for US Space Systems Command with the "Victus Nox" mission. That payload was integrated and launched within 27 hours of receiving the launch order.  Eight days ago, Dec. 22, they launched the Fly The Lightning mission for Lockheed Martin, but the second stage failed on its second burn to circularize its orbit.  Still, this is good progress for a launch company.  They're also working with Northrop Grumman to provide engines for Grumman's replacement of their Antares launch vehicle.   

4: Northrop Grumman 

Speaking of Northrop Grumman, the large government contractor launched just a single rocket in 2023—its final Antares 230+ vehicle in August.  While they're working on the Antares 330, they're going to launch their Cygnus cargo containers to the ISS on Falcon 9s through 2024.  At least. 

5:  ULA  

So why do I drop ULA from 3 to 5 compared to Ars Technica?  It's the old axiom of "so what have you done for me lately?"  While they're within two weeks of launching the first Vulcan Centaur, we've heard that before - or something like it.  People used to think "they're expensive, but they're good;" to me, that stops after just the first two words.  Yes, their Atlas V has had a good record over the 20 years it has been flying, but it's a low flight cadence and designed by a different company than the one that's flying them now. To paraphrase Dean Vernon Wormer, "chronically late and over budget is no way to go through life, son." 

6:  Relativity Space 

Relativity, had one launch this year, and like Firefly, the second stage failed.  We can chalk it up to the quote everyone loves to hate, but can't dispute: "space is hard, orbit is harder."  They shelved that Terran 1 rocket and have gone full bore on developing the Terran R, with goals of reusability and more payload to orbit than the Falcon 9.

7: ABL Space

ABL is a hard choice here; they had one launch last January but its flight ended just seconds later after the cutoff of its main engines. This caused the vehicle to crash back onto the launch pad in Alaska.  They have continued work and numerous upgrades have been made to the launch equipment and the first and second stages. Much of the equipment has already been shipped to Alaska for launch.  It's possible we'll see them try again in the first half of the year. 

8:  Blue Origin 

Eric Berger at Ars ranked Blue at #6, so why do I rate Blue below the previous two, who haven't had a successful launch?  Simply because a failure of the second stage in launch is farther along than not having launched at all.  They haven't launched any tourist suborbital flights in over a year, since they had booster failure, but successfully launched that platform with no people on board earlier this month.  Do I have to specifically say they haven't yet launched a New Glenn and that's probably looking like '25.

9: Stoke Space

Now we're soundly in the range of not really a launch company - but they have tested their radically different engines in a test reminiscent of the SpaceX's early Starship hops.  Overall they're doing some interesting things but there's a very challenging road ahead of them.  

10: Virgin Galactic

Last year, Virgin Orbit was the end of the list, but they went bankrupt and then out of business last year.  Virgin Galactic flew their VSS Unity "Space Plane" on suborbital hops six times this year and then said they were going to reduce their launch cadence and focus on development of a successor vehicle.  The next generation spacecraft are due to begin test flights as early as 2025 and theoretically can fly twice per week, with six customers, instead of the three or four passengers Unity is able to carry.  We'll have to see.

Launch of a GPS III Satellite in January of 2023 aboard a Falcon 9  Trevor Mahlmann photo.



9 comments:

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BUNCH

    During the 1960s, IBM and these five computer manufacturers, along with RCA and General Electric, had been known as "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs".

    ReplyDelete
  2. SpaceX/Rocket Labs, and The 8 Dorks?
    I wish the best for the startups, especially Stoke Space.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I put BO at the bottom. Why? Because I'm tired of promises made and not kept, of new mockups and flashy computer graphics but no actual flight-ready hardware.

    But what about the BE-4s on ULA's Vulcan? We'll see if they actually make it. As no flight proven BE-4 exists. Test stand articles, yes. Flight is a whole different matter as stresses that can't be tested show up, vibration, pressure, pressure differentials showing up in the piping, stress on connectors and computers that just doesn't exist anywhere else except during launch and flight.

    At least Stokes is innovating, and rapidly. I think they'll be flying by mid 2024 if we hold off an economic crisis that makes The Great Depression look like Biden's 4 years of 'economic growth.'

    Virgin is at least reorganizing and working hard to fix their issues. And they aren't relying on BO's bullscat

    I actually might move ULA higher, because they reacted quickly and forcefully to fix Centaur's issues and have been stuck furiously twiddling their thumbs waiting for BO to get their collective heads out.

    In reality, I'd remove BO from the list, giving them a 'dishonorable mention' and put Sierra Nevada in as the Big Underdog. SN's Dreamchaser is about ready to fly, basically waiting on BO's engines for Vulcan. SN's been furiously testing its inflatable habitat system, going from just a ball to a ball with a potential window and far exceeding pressures expected in space. They've pushed to the level, maybe even surpassing, that Bigelow got with their inflatable habitat pressure and damage tests, only missing out on orbital testing of which Bigelow did do, both independent satellites and a module on the ISS.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's easy to argue Blue deserves to be below Stoke Space and Virgin Galactic simply because they've done pretty much nothing this year. Stoke tested their new engines successfully doing a throttled liftoff and landing. Virgin did monthly suborbital flights. The main thing Blue has got going is larger bank account to draw down so they're more likely to be in business next year than the other two.

    The optimistic view is that if they're in business they can still "mend their ways." It may require replacing a lot of the staff, but that can be done. To his credit, Bezos himself seems to see this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We're NEVER going to the moon or elsewhere. Nobody ever has (other than unmanned) craft. All this is just a grift for stolen tax dollars.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To my regular readers: "Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired" - to borrow a quote from Jonathon Swift in 1721. If someone thinks this despite literally volumes upon volumes of evidence, you won't convince them otherwise.

      That is the greatest damage of "settling" for the space shuttles and ISS; by not demonstrating it over and over again, by behaving like they did, the space agencies reinforced this belief system.

      Finally, you may note that post didn't contain a single reference to manned spaceflight. It was simply rating the American launch service providers by their performances. The amount of unmanned missions has always totaled thousands of tons more cargo than manned.

      Delete
    2. Ah, God, not another one.

      We had the technology, and threw it away. Though the remaining tech got us Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. That's it.

      Then we rebuilt the tech in the ARES 1 and ARES 5 (which, curiously, looks like the SLS...) and even launched ARES 1 with an Orion capsule, then threw it all away, from drawings to test articles to production equipment, when the administration changed in 2009. (Kind of like how the Keystone Pipeline equipment and the Southern Border Fence parts not put up were sold pennies on the dollar in 2021 after the change of administration.)

      It's not that we don't have the ability to have gone to the moon in the 70's, 80's, 90's, 2000's, 2010's and now 2020's, but every time we as a nation get behind manned moon missions and programs, the next administration comes along and tears it all down and kneecaps anyone who worked on it.

      There were Lunar-Orbit systems designed off of Shuttle hardware, heavy lift vehicles designed using boosters and the main tank with a second stage on top (basically SLS before SLS.) And Shuttle-Derived Landers, and long range exploration craft. This was back in the 70's while the Shuttle was being built. And designed in the 80's. Designed in the 90's. Even the ARES system was Shuttle Derived Tech, solid rocket boosters and the main tanks on the first stage. A proposed engine for ARES 5 and SLS was a modern take on the F1 engine, called the F1B, which was designed by 3D modelling all existing F1 engine parts, then redesigning them using modern CNC and 3D metallic printing and composites and modern robotic welding, things like lost foam casting (as invented by Outboard Motor Corporation, take foam castings of sections of a major part, glue them together and pack in casting sand or casting material, heat and melt the foam out, then cast a solid component rather than having 5-15 gaskets.)

      We have had the technology all along. We just haven't had the national interest or political interest to follow through a program that is going to last over 8 years. Since Nixon, the Democrats have always destroyed the space agenda, throwing everything away, relying on old and very expensive systems (like what ULA furnished and the Shuttle) to keep us in space.

      Yes, Bush II started the end of the Shuttle. But he also started the programs that were to replace the Shuttle and give us back beyond-LEO space, that would be the ARES systems.

      Go into the historical records of the Apollo and Saturn systems. Advance Apollo capsules, the next generation, would have been 75-90% reused, replacing only things like used up life support, changing the heat shield, parachute system and such. An advanced larger capsule based on Apollo, and a Long Endurance Module (a habitat that replaced the lunar lander on top of the S-IVB stage) were proposed. Heavier landers launched without an Apollo capsule and to rendesvous in lunar orbit.

      A whole host of Saturn based launch vehicles, from an improved S1B for to launch only crewed capsules to LEO orbit to massive 500,000 or more tons to LEO versions that used F1A engines on sidemount boosters.

      We were supposed to have nuclear powered tugs and 'interplanetary stages' by now.

      Rotating space stations made of 6-12 SIVB based stages and more stages used as the spokes and the hub.

      We had the tech.

      We just didn't have the push or the political 'juevos' to pull it off.

      Delete
    3. Very well said, my friend.

      Government programs are the bane of space exploration because of this habit of wasting money by the boatload.

      Delete
    4. Kinda like Boeing's Management, SiG. Put the Engineers in charge and it'll get done much cheaper and much faster. Just look at SpaceX, for example. While SX *does* lap at the Gubmint teat, an awful lot of private equity is put into SpaceX's endeavors!

      The politicians always muck it up by trying to please ALL their Constituents and end up with a boondoggle or two. Or three. You know the drill.

      Delete