Main Engine Cut Off - T+118: Rapid Agile Launch Initiative

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Last week, the US Air Force announced and expounded on the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. Along with the new initiative, the new era of small launch is finally here, so it’s worth discussing a bit. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 39 executive producers—Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Mike, David, Mints, Joonas, Robb, Tim Dodd the Everyday Astronaut, Frank, Rui, Julian, Lars, Heather, and six anonymous—and 239 other supporters on Patreon. Rapid Agile Launch Initiative - Main Engine Cut Off Rocket Lab to launch three R&D satellites for the U.S. Air Force | Rocket Lab Virgin Orbit wins first Defense Department launch contract - SpaceNews.com US Air Force releases RFI for SRP-O ASLON-45 small launch effort | Jane's 360 Relativity Signs Telesat, Eyes Polar Launch Site - Main Engine Cut Off Email your thoughts, comments, and questions to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Listen to MECO Headlines Join the Off-Nominal Discord Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn or elsewhere Subscribe to the Main Engine Cut Off Newsletter Buy shirts and Rocket Socks from the Main Engine Cut Off Shop Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon Music by Max Justus

Hello and welcome to Main Engine Cutoff. I am Anthony Colangelo and we're going to talk about the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative today. This was a thing that the Air Force expounded on last week, announced the name of this initiative and kind of assigned submissions to it and discussed a little bit about what it is all about. So I thought it was a good opportunity to talk about small launch a bit because there is this initial effort, but there's also some longer storylines here that I think would be useful to touch back in on since we haven't talked about it in a little while. So last week I was on a call with some U.S. Air Force officials talking about this mission. I got a nice invite to sit in on the call and ask a question or two.

So the idea here is that this is a program to rapidly acquire five launches for a total price of $25.6 million. And this is all focused on small payloads. So I want to break down who's involved in the program, the money side of things, since five launches for $25.6 million is pretty amazing. And then probably a little bit about payload and future stuff as well. So the five launches that we're talking about here are all slated to happen in 2019, according to the Air Force. The first one that is going to fly is the next Rocket Lab mission. This is their sixth flight. It'll launch three satellites for the Air Force and the Army and other parts of the DoD, the Department of Defense. So last week, Rocket Lab launched that mission for DARPA, and hot on the heels of that, they announced this next

mission is part of this Rally program. So, you know, Rocket Lab quickly becoming a favorite of the Department of Defense here. And this is the first of the five missions for Rally. So this is, I've heard that the mission was acquired for $5.7, $5.8 million for Rocket Lab. And this will fly in a couple of weeks. I think they're waiting on some payload things right now. So that's the first of five. The second launch that we know about, actually the only other launch that we know about, is a Virgin Orbit launch.

They are still working on getting Launcher 1 flying, so they are delayed until probably the end of the year right now, or at least another couple of months. We haven't really seen a lot out of Virgin Orbit lately. I've heard they've had some problems and some troubles with the captive carry flights they've done. So they're working a couple of issues before they're ready to launch. So they're a little bit behind schedule.

But last year, there was a mission announced for Virgin Orbit as part of the space test program. They said that they're going to launch a couple of space test program payloads. They haven't decided which ones. So that mission is apparently part of this rally initiative. And that, I've heard, will be the third launch for Launcher 1. So we'll see the first demo launch, something else, and then this space test program mission as well. The other three launches that are part of this rally program are not announced yet, but they did announce that all

five launches are spread over three launch providers. So we know Rocket Lab, we know Virgin Orbit, and there's one more missing. Again, they are all slated for 2019. They've said that they will launch 21 satellites over these five missions. So we can kind of use all of those data points to make some guesses about who is included, who is not included, before we go on to talk about everything else that comes with this program. So you got to think 2019, you think of who's been talking about launches in 2019. Rocket Lab, obviously, they're up and operating. They have a confirmed launch as part of this. The US site they've talked about as being targeted for third quarter 2019. So that's a likely option because if you remember when Rocket Lab picked Wallops Island as their next launch site,

the U.S. launch site, the Department of Defense also sent some money out that way to build a new payload facility out at Wallops, just a little north of the launch sites. So it seems somewhat likely to me that that could be part of this program as well as the Department of Defense is investing in that area. Rocket Lab's been saying 2019 very stridently. So I would put those two things together to say maybe that other launch

is the third launch of this program. Virgin Orbit, they've said 2019. Obviously, they're confirmed for this thing. I don't think they would be able to fit two missions in if they even get one mission in 2019. So I wouldn't think that they're likely part of this. The other the other launches that we don't know about yet. Virgin Orbit is also somewhat expensive.

They are a bigger launch vehicle, a little bit bigger than Rocket Lab, and they're about twice as expensive. So you're paying Rocket Lab five million dollars for a launch. Virgin Orbit, a full dedicated launch would be, I've heard like 12 to 15 or something. So buying that, you know, would quickly, you'd run out of money on this $25 million if you bought a full dedicated Virgin Orbit launch. And what we did hear when they announced that mission was it was a collection of space test program payloads. So maybe this is a rideshare mission, and that helps keep the cost down a little bit. But nonetheless, I think that helps keep the cost down a little bit.

But nonetheless, I think that probably is the only Virgin Orbit launch in this collection of five. The other small launch providers that have mentioned 2019, Firefly originally said that their first launch is slated for 2019. That will likely slip into 2020. But that would also be their first launch, not an operational launch. So even for an experimental program like this, that's working on prototyping out new procedures and new launchers, I don't think they would fly on Firefly's first launch of Firefly Alpha. So I would count them out for this program, but maybe if there's a second one of these in 2020 or 2021, maybe they'll get in that one at that point. Vector has been talking a big game lately. They've talked about doing one suborbital and one orbital test launch in 2019. They've said that for the past three years, so they tend to be

optimistic in their statements. So I'm a little skeptical, and it sort of fits in the same scenario where Firefly is, you know, would it be on their first launch? I don't know. So that one is a maybe. That would also help out on the money side of things to keep costs down. They're a very, very affordable launch provider because their payload is so small. In a similar boat is Astra. So we know that Astra has had a couple of campaigns out at Kodiak up in Alaska. They've done, I think it's two launches now at this point that they've done none to orbit successfully. We don't know exactly the final result of each of those launches, but they clearly are showing a lot of activity.

And in all the announcements here from the Air Force, they've mentioned Kodiak, the Alaska spaceport, as a place that these launches would happen from. So again, similar to Vector in that they have a small payload. They're not yet fully operational, but they've had a lot of activity over the last year, and they do seem very secretive. So that seems like they're probably linked to Department of Defense missions in some way, given their level of secrecy. So that's probably, I would put that in the maybe column as well. But there's really not a lot else that's talked about 2019 outside of those. Relativity, who we'll talk about in a little bit, they're not going to be ready until 2021. So that's definitely not happening. And there's really not a lot of launch providers that have talked about 2019. So I think that's the list to guess and choose from for the other

three launches of this program. But nonetheless, acquiring these launches this quickly, getting it flying and showing that the Department of Defense wants to take advantage of these small launch providers. I think there's a lot here to discuss outside of who's going to take part in these launches. So for the rest of the conversation, assume Rocket Lab, assume Virgin Orbit, and then pick your favorite of the options that I just listed. So the money side of things here is obviously an interesting piece to discuss because this is really the first generation of these very affordable small launch providers. So up until now, this section of the Air Force, the space infrastructure of the Air Force, you think logically, break down launch in your mind from the Air Force in two buckets. You have

the really big stuff, which is the National Security Space Launch Program. That's the SpaceX's, ULA's, Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman's, Omega's in that. Those are the big rockets that launch, you know, multi-thousand pound payloads. And then there's the small launch side of the Air Force, which Rally is part of. So the announcement from the Air Force included the payload mass would be up to 8,000 pounds to orbit. And that's the dividing line between the big launchers and the small launchers. So Rally is part of that small launch side of the Air Force. You'll see a bunch of different names. It does get pretty confusing, all the different acronyms to keep track of.

But some things you'll see when referring to the small launch side of things is RSLP, which is the Rocket Systems Launch Program. You'll see OSP, which is the Orbital Suborbital Program. But the big one to be aware of is you'll see SRP-O. That's the small rocket program orbital. Name pretty much self-explanatory, but that is the main thing that is going to, for the future, be the small launch acquisition program. In the same way that that National Security Space Launch Program acquires big launch vehicles, the small rocket program orbital, only a slightly better name, would acquire the smaller launch vehicles. The small rocket program Orbital, only a slightly better name,

would acquire the smaller launch vehicles. So it's hard to keep track of all these things going on. But the way to think of it, I asked a couple people in the business and behind this decision and all that, and Rally is a way to rapidly acquire these five launches. So they're using $25 million that they've got from various different programs, the space test program, and a couple other places within the Air Force and Department of Defense. So they're using that money to acquire five launches and work out... This is the first time that they're working with these launch providers. So they've got to work out some procedures and get used to working with them so that in the future, they know how acquisitions

should go, both sides of that. So Rally is a one-time thing. There might be another program in the future that uses some funding rules within the Department of Defense to get these kind of missions acquired. But long-term, that SRPO, the Small Rocket Program Orbital, is that right? Now I'm confused. The Small Rocket Program Orbital, yeah. That's the thing that will acquire stuff long-term. So I'm throwing a lot at you here, but there's a lot to unpack with this. And I think one of the main points is they've acquired five launches for $25 million. And when you look at who the Air Force was launching these kind of payloads with previously, all you've really got to work with is Pegasus, Minotaur 1, Minotaur 4, Minotaur C, pretty much all of the Northrop Grumman vehicles, the solid rocket boosters that launch payloads to orbit now.

But they're very expensive. Pegasus, way back in the day in the 90s, was selling for $6 million a launch. But today, the most recent one was acquired for $50-some million. Minotaurs are similarly, I think I saw anywhere from $20 to $40 million, whereas the prices that have been thrown out in these various articles and stuff like that. So previously to this, the price for these five launches wouldn't even get you a launch on one of those smaller dedicated vehicles. So this is really a big difference in the way that the Air Force is going to acquire these kind of launches in the future. And it's a bunch of new launch providers. They're new and they're coming online, and this is some

of their first launches. So it's new for the launch company, it's new for the Air Force, and everyone's trying to figure out how to interact, how to work together, how to make this successful. So Rally is really just focused on that, working out these new procedures, working out the new acquisition, and figuring out whatever they need to figure out going forward as this becomes a mainstay of the Air Force acquisition. So payload-wise, I mentioned that this would be everything up to 8,000 pounds to orbit. So this is really all-encompassing of the small launch providers that you know and love. Really, nobody in this small launch provider class, what we would talk about here on this show

as small launch providers, is even getting close to that payload cutoff. The only thing that does get close in the future is Firefly Beta. So Firefly, their first version is Firefly Alpha. That'll be a single stick launch vehicle that's about 1,000 kilograms or 2,500 pounds to orbit. Firefly Beta is kind of,

if you Falcon heavy-ized Firefly Alpha, put three cores together, that would launch something in that 8,000 pounds to orbit range. So not until that point, and that's years down the line, there's a lot of headroom between the providers that you're thinking of now that are coming online and the top end of what would be handled by this program. that are coming online and the top end of what would be handled by this program. So I asked around a little bit if that dividing line is really just the dividing line between the bigger launch vehicle programs and the smaller ones, or if they have payloads in mind that are in that class, and it is the former. It's just the dividing line between the big program and the small program. But knowing that does give you a lot of headroom. We've got a couple of

different classes of providers here. You've got Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit, and Vector and Astra obviously are in there, that are these smaller 50 to 250 kilograms to orbit range. And then you've got a collection of bigger launch vehicles that are being worked on right now. Firefly, Relativity, ABL Space, they're all targeting around 1,000 kilograms to orbit. So those are the two kind of classes right now, the very small launchers and then the small launchers. So all of that fits in this program all the same. And I think it's nice to have some smaller, some bigger providers, though I think, I've said this in the past, I think some providers are going to end up a little too small, and I'm really interested to see how these Fireflies and Relativities do in that 1,000

kilogram range. But this program does handle all of that, and the small rocket program Orbital will handle all of that as well. I want to share a couple more random thoughts that I've had over the last couple of days thinking about this Rapid Agile Launch Initiative program. But before I do, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who supports Main Engine Cutoff over at patreon.com slash Miko. This episode was produced by 39 executive producers. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Russell, John, Moritz, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, Mike, David, Mintz, Eunice, Rob, Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, Frank, Rui, Julian, Lars, Heather, and six anonymous executive producers. Thank you all so much for making this episode possible. If you want to help support the show just like those

have, head over to patreon.com slash Miko, sign up there, and if you're at the $3 a month level, you get access to Headlines, which is a little show I do every weekend, running through all the stories of the week, some stuff that I don't even get to cover here on the podcast. There's been a lot this year in headlines. So it's a great way to support the show and to stay up on Space News. So go check that out at patreon.com slash Miko. And thank you all so much. All right, so a couple of random thoughts that I've had thinking about this last couple of days. I know there's a lot in here, but it's pretty hard to get your head around all these different little programs. I think that's mostly because there wasn't a lot of activity in this section of the market. And the Air Force is rightly seeing this as the time they need to jump on it and sort everything out as all these new launch providers come on.

So they are doing it at the right time where it's not a couple of years until we're seeing these launches. It's a couple of months. I think that's a really good sign for small launch and the Air Force and the Department of Defense in general. sign for small launch and the Air Force and the Department of Defense in general. So it shows how ready they are to take advantage of this kind of stuff and have this kind of access to space, especially as we talk about things like the Space Development Agency, which is being talked about a lot in the Space Force debate. And one of the first programs that the Space Development Agency would be tackling is this distributed constellation of small satellites for different sensors that the

military would need in general. So that's something that's got a lot of talk lately, is using small satellites for some sort of network of satellites. Rather than acquiring a handful of really expensive satellites, the Space Development Agency would like to take that different tact and deploy a constellation, which is all the hotness today. So this is a lot of trends leading in this direction. But at this point, you see this kind of small launch program happening, and you see that talk in the headlines. And I think you kind of get a sense that things are working out in that direction. And it's something the Department of Defense in general is seeing as a viable path for the future. And that's a good sign. One of the things I asked about on the call and sort of stumped everybody, I'm still waiting on

an answer back via email, but I asked about the amount of launch sites left at Vandenberg. And if you've been listening for a while, you'll know I get on this rant a little while, but we're running out of pads that have polar accessible launch azimuths that could get something from the ground to orbit in a polar inclination, something between, I don't know, 60 and 90 degrees. Some of the stuff that flies out of Vandenberg is actually a little bit retrograde, so it's not exactly polar. Some of the launches that have happened recently have been like 60 degrees inclination, but backwards. And then the hotness is the sun-synchronous orbit orbit so that's about 97 degrees inclination

we only have vandenberg and then the the launch site up in alaska which doesn't have that many pads it has a lot of area to launch out of so when you see people like astra they have mobile launch infrastructure as does vector so that would work up there but there's not a lot of infrastructure built there for people to take advantage of and at vandenberg they're running out of space they're running out of pads because people are jumping on pads. Firefly locked up Space Launch Complex 2 West last year. And I think that Relativity is going to take 3 West, is my guess right now. That's what I would bet on. Because recently, they mentioned that they're getting close to picking out a West Coast

launch site. And Space Launch Complex 3 West has been inactive since 2005. Back in 2005, there was a Falcon 1 on that pad. So I would expect to see that come back online and I could see Relativity jumping on that if they are serious about getting a West Coast launch site. But other than that, we're running out of spaces for these small launchers to launch out of and to set up infrastructure. There's just not that many launch pads that have polar accessible azimuths. So I asked how many there are left. Nobody really seemed to know that. And I also asked if there's any expansion plans at Vandenberg or up in Alaska or out at Wallops or any sites beyond that, because I could see this becoming a real issue. If we're expecting

to have this many launch providers that can fly to polar orbits, which are very popular for the kind of stuff that the Air Force is talking about launching here, we're really running out of pads there. And I think the oversupply of launch companies that we have right now will run head on to this problem in the next year or two. So I'm very curious how we get out of that jam. Maybe we expand up in Alaska quite a bit, make it easier to get there, because getting there is a pretty hard problem to solve. I don't really know where else we could put a new launch site that has these polar accessible corridors, but that's something that I think the Air Force is going to need to solve if they want to see more of this activity here.

Another thing that was asked on the call was their kind of feelings about assured access to space in this area of launch. Because up on the bigger side of things, the SpaceX's and the ULA's, there is this, you know, mission statement to have assured access to space. So that's why you see the bigger launch vehicle programs funding to launch providers. Coming out of the days of the Atlas and Delta days, they still back then, Atlas and Delta were put in that position because there was this assured access mission to make sure that there's always two vehicles that can launch the payloads needed. So that's something that exists up on the larger side. And the question was asked, do they feel the same about the smaller end of the scale as well?

And from what their answer was, they basically right now are ready to flow with the ebbs and flows of the industry and see who comes online, who's operational. They'll take advantage of who's launching. But right now, they're not going to be picking two providers to go with and give all their launches to two providers to make sure they stay around. They're going to see how the industry plays out first. So I think that's a good tactic to take here because, like I said, we have an oversupply of launch companies, a lot of people working on this area, a lot of new launch vehicles that are supposed to come online in the next handful of years. So the Air Force is going to stand back, take advantage of who they can at this point. But five years down the line,

if there is a good bit of consolidation and some of these smaller companies fold up and you get into a situation where you see a Rocket Lab, a Virgin Orbit, and maybe a Firefly being successful, if there's two or three there, they might change their tune a little bit on the assured access thing. That also means that we have to see how the payload side develop as well. Maybe there isn't as much interest in these smaller payloads from the Department of Defense. Maybe the Space Development Agency doesn't pan out, and they don't get that little LEO network that they're working on.

If the payloads don't pan out, then assured access might never be a thing that they have on the small launch side of the industry. But if it does, and if there's consolidation in the launch infrastructure, two things that I would bet on, then assured access I could see coming into play in the debates in five years. So to wrap up, I think this is a really good announcement from the Air Force. It shows that they are ready to develop this side of the market and ready to work with this side of the market. They are working on launches that are happening this year.

So this is no longer a thing that is a couple of years off. This is a thing that they're going to be launching this year. And in a couple of weeks, we'll see one off of a rocket lab electron, you know, so this is really happening right now. And I think it's a smart time for the Air Force to do this kind of program to take part in this kind of program, and to shepherd things along a little bit and prepare us for the 2020s, which looks to be an era that's dominated by small launch if everything works out the way that people are hoping right now. It's a little bit ironic, and I don't think the irony should be missed, that they're announcing these five launches for $25 million while Pegasus is struggling to get this NASA ICON mission off the ground. They've

been super delayed on that Pegasus launch, and Pegasus does not launch very frequently. It really doesn't fly much, and it is really having problems right now. So this Icon launch could be the last of Pegasus, and I think this might be the torch passing moment. So it's pretty ironic to have this announcement happen while that's struggling on some airstrip somewhere as they work out issues with Pegasus. So moving forward, we've got another thing to look forward to this year on this front, the Small Rocket Program Orbital. They'll be awarding a launch under the Agile Small Launch Operational Normalizer 45. Aslon 45 is the name of the mission. The RFP went out last year. This is a 40 kilogram spacecraft to

550 kilometers. And it's a 45 degree inclination. That's where that 45 number comes from. So this is a lower inclination launch. This isn't polar. So this would be either out of the East Coast, or I guess out of New Zealand. I'm not sure if they have a mandate to fly this off of the US. But nonetheless, that is supposed to be awarded later this year in a couple of months. And that is the Small Rocket Program Orbital that is awarding that. So that is like the first operational launch. This isn't the prototype kind of rally launch. This is something that is an actual launch that is being awarded. So that's kind of the moment that we transition from this prototype phase into the real phase. So that'll be fun to watch later this year. So that's kind of my wrap up of the Rapid Agile Launch Initiative. Sorry for throwing out about

a million acronyms. I'm sure you're going to be firing away at Wikipedia trying to find all this stuff. But I have a bunch of stuff in the show notes over at mainenginecutoff.com. And that is it for this week. Thank you all for listening so much. If you've got something to say, email me, anthonyatmainenginecutoff.com or on Twitter at WeHaveMiko. And otherwise, I will talk to you next week. We've got, we should have a budget amendment from NASA on April 15th. So I'll be back talking about that next week. Thank you all so much. And I will talk to you later.