News New European airlaunch smallsat company.

[RGClark]

Swiss Space Systems Announces Smallsat Launch System.
Posted by Doug Messier on March 13, 2013, at 10:09 am
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2013/03/13/swiss-space-systems-announces-smallsat-launch-system/

This could compete with Virgin Galactic's LauncherOne proposal.

I'm glad there is another European entrant in the commercial launch field but the development cost seems high, $263 million to launch only 250 kg to orbit. SpaceX only spent $300 million to develop the Falcon 9 that could launch 10,000 kg to orbit. I suspect this company is using standard governmental financing methods to estimate the cost of this launcher development.

Also, studies have shown that the suborbital vehicle that will serve as the reusable lower stage, can be done with a *single* hydrogen fueled stage, i.e., no carrier aircraft would be required:

SpaceShipTwo could be single stage to suborbit says ESA firm.
By Rob Coppinger on April 29, 2010 4:24 PM
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2010/04/spaceshiptwo-could-be-single-s.html

Reusable Space Plane Idea Intrigues Europeans.
Rob Coppinger, SPACE.com Contributor
Date: 01 May 2012 Time: 04:30 PM ET
http://www.space.com/15494-vinci-space-plane-suborbital-flight-idea.html

These studies propose using the upcoming Vinci engine but it would probably work just as well using two or three of the hydrogen fueled HM-7B engines currently used on the Ariane 5 upper stage.

This is for a SpaceShipTwo sized vehicle. A SpaceShipOne sized vehicle could probably be done using a single HM-7B engine that would suffice to make a reusable first stage to launch only 250 kg sized payloads to orbit.

This would make for a much cheaper development cost both for the first stage of a small orbital launcher use and for the suborbital tourism use.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

SpaceX spent way more money getting the engines and basic rocket systems developed - they didn't start the Falcon 9 development at zero. Especially the Falcon 5 development is not mentioned at all. And then, this does not include the various moments in which SpaceX simply took stuff from NASAs junkyard and spend some money to make them fit. The most turbopump of the Merlin series for example had been developed by NASA initially and was just slightly modified.

Just copying any numbers from Musks Twitter stream does not make them useful information.

 

[RGClark]

Another indication of lowered development cost by private financing, StratoLaunch's Paul Allen is expecting to develop this system for $300 million:

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratolaunch_systems"]Stratolaunch Systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

This is for a system to launch 6,000 kg to orbit. But Swiss Space Systems is planning to spend nearly that to launch only 250 kg to orbit. This leads me to think its virtually certain S³ is using standard governmental accounting methods to estimate their development cost, rather than following the SpaceX model to sharply reduce costs.

Bob Clark