Main Engine Cut Off - T+80: DARPA Launch Challenge

Episode Date: April 25, 2018

The DARPA Launch Challenge has been officially unveiled, so I spent some time breaking down the competition and speculating about who will enter and what DARPA wants out of it. This episode of Main Engine Cut Off is brought to you by 30 executive producers—Kris, Pat, Matt, Jorge, Brad, Ryan, Jamison, Nadim, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant, and six anonymous—and 158 other supporters on Patreon. DARPA Launch Challenge Rocket Lab Virgin Orbit Vector Astra Space preparing for suborbital test launch - SpaceNews.com Firefly Aerospace Relativity Space Stratolaunch ARCA | Engineering The Future Email your thoughts and comments 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

Welcome to Main Engine Cutoff, I'm Anthony Colangelo, and today I want to break down the DARPA Launch Challenge. This is something that we heard about a couple of months ago, heard some rumors about it, challenge. This is something that we heard about a couple of months ago, heard some rumors about it. And just last week, DARPA released some information about the launch challenge that details what the process is going to be and a little bit about what the goals are for the launch challenge. I've been thinking about it. It's kind of weird, I think. I'm a little confused about what it actually is for, what it will accomplish, and just generally how it fits in to the burgeoning small launch market. So I wanted to spend some

time breaking it down because I have a good feeling that this will be a topic on future shows. So I wanted to do a little bit of an early first instinct, first gut reaction kind of episode about the DARPA Launch Challenge. So let's dive into it. We'll start by reading some of the information out of the PDF that DARPA released over at darpalaunchchallenge.org. So reading from that document, the goal of the DLC, the DARPA Launch Challenge, is to demonstrate responsive and flexible space launch capabilities from the burgeoning industry of small launch providers. The payload range they indicate here is 10 kilograms to 1,000 kilograms.

The DLC will focus on driving the emerging small launch community to be able to launch from anywhere on extremely short notice without prior knowledge of their missions. There will be a close coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, which grants licenses for commercial space launches and will be involved throughout the DLC. So that part there they're talking about is trying to respond to some of the questions that have come up is like, well, if you're trying to launch on 14 days notice, how do you get a launch license for that

that quickly? Because it tends to take a lot longer to get a launch license, especially with some of these other variables that we'll be getting into in a second here. The general overview of the process here is that there's a qualification phase that is kicking off now and running until, let's see, December 14th, 2018. That is when you need to be completing your qualification materials and submit them all to DARPA to be entered into this launch challenge. There is an upcoming industry day where you'll be able to meet with DARPA and ask questions and get some information. I think that's May 23rd right now. And so that's really a tight timeline to get through this qualification phase.

This document says that there's a three-step process. Reading from that document again. This process consists of pre-qualification, DARPA challenge application, and FAA license application. Additional information for each step is provided below, yada yada. Once you complete those three steps, you are qualified for the launch phase. And then you would be awarded a cash prize of some sort. That cash prize for completing the qualification phase is $400,000. So if you're able to apply and get qualified and get accepted by FAA and DARPA, you would be awarded $400,000, which is a nice little bit of a prize to offset some of the work that has to go in up front.

And then once you're qualified, you enter the launch phase of the mission. And the launch phase here is a kind of a... This is really what the challenge is about, obviously. Reading from the document, the launch phase will consist of two launch competitions designed to occur in a serial manner within weeks of one another in late 2019. The launch challenge will conduct two different launch competitions at two different locations, launch number one and launch number two. A successful outcome in launch number one will be a prerequisite for participation in launch number two. Competitors will receive

information about the launch sites with less than 30 days prior. They have a typo in their document. Less than 30 days prior to each launch. Once launch sites are announced, competitors will transport their launch vehicle, equipment, and necessary infrastructure

to the locations in an expedient and safe manner. Teams will receive further requirements for each launch less than 14 days prior to the launch, including specific launch pad, payload, and orbit details, as well as the physical payloads to be launched. This is intended to be reflective of future needs for tactical use of space where the details of launch requirements are not known until they are dictated by mission needs. So the cash prizes for

the launch phase. If you carry out launch one successfully into LEO, into the correct orbit, you will be awarded $2 million, and then you would be able to proceed to launch two. And in launch two, competitors that are able to deliver another spacecraft to LEO will then be ranked by payload mass, time, accuracy, and the top three spots will receive cash prizes. $10 million for first, $9 million for second, $8 million for third. So that's the kind of basic structure of Launch. Another little section down here in the document that details Launch sites. Apparently, here's what they say about where these Launch sites would be. For initial planning purposes, competitors should assume any current or future FAA-licensed spaceport may be used. Launch site services are planned to be austere, primarily a concrete pad with bolt-down fixtures

and generator or shore power. DARPA may consider providing additional commonly used resources dependent upon needs common among competitors. DARPA will provide a list of potential launch sites in early 2019. So I think we could safely assume the launch sites that would be used here are Kennedy or Cape Canaveral, Wallops Island, Virginia, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and maybe this Pacific Spaceport or Kodiak up in Alaska. My guess would be that those are the four that this launch challenge is limited to. So you kind of get an idea here about what the idea is. They want two rapid launches. They want to deliver some payloads to LEO. And we could basically assume that that means a low inclination orbit from somewhere on the East Coast and a polar inclination orbit from somewhere on the West Coast. There's a lot more information

in this document, so head over to DARPAlaunchchallenge.org if you want to read the whole thing. I just read the highlights out of there. So knowing the timeline, the budget, the goals of the mission, the mission outlines there, I want to get into some speculation about who might enter this thing, what DARPA is trying to get out of it, and really just try to figure out what's going to happen here over the next two years with this launch challenge. But before we do that, I do want to say a very, very big thank you to all of the supporters of Managing Cutoff over on Patreon. Patreon.com slash Miko is where you can go to help support this show. This is a listener-funded show exclusively. No ads, nothing, no outside influence.

Just you out there listening to the show, enjoying the show, want to help, support. There are 188 of you supporting the show over at patreon.com slash miko. I'm so thankful for all of your support week in and week out. This particular episode of the Managing Cutoff was produced by 30 executive producers. Chris, Pat, Matt, George, Brad, Ryan, Jameson, Nadeem, Peter, Donald, Lee, Jasper, Chris, Warren, Bob, Brian, Russell, John, Moritz, Tyler, Joel, Jan, David, Grant,

and six anonymous executive producers. That list is getting ever longer and I could not do it without them and everybody else over at patreon.com slash Miko. Head there if you want to help support the show. All right, now the fun side, the speculation, the stuff y'all come here to listen to.

First up, maybe let's cover some of the existing players in the market and how they fit into the DARPA Launch Challenge. Overall, not a good fit, is what I would say with broad strokes. And really, there's only two really existing or near existing players that could enter this. Because again, this is, it doesn't specifically say so, that it is limited to the US. But knowing that it's a Department of Defense kind of situation, I would imagine that that's going to be mostly US players. I should check that again, though. I don't think there's anything in that document that specifically says you have to be US focused. But that's where

I'm going to focus here because, again, this is DoD payloads tends to be US launch providers. So first up, Rocket Lab. They are the operating small launch player in the market. They are right out of this because they launch out of New Zealand. They cannot launch from these other sites that are going to be used. So really, the idea here of launching from multiple sites and being in the continental US or whatever is right out for Rocket Lab. That's not going to work. Good price for Rocket Lab though, if they weren't already flying, right? $10 million for first place, that covers two flights from Rocket Lab. So overall, the prize money would work out. But again, would be super weird for a company that's already operating to enter some sort of experimental

launch challenge like this for the chance of funding their two missions. So that's kind of an odd thing that we'll keep coming back to here over and over again. The other near existing player is Virgin Orbit. They're getting ready for their first launch. I think that should be under their belt this year. Air Launch was not specifically alluded to in that document, but based on the specifications, it's obviously a very good fit for it. They can get to multiple launch inclinations with Air Launch, and they're able to take off from their spaceport. So I think they would technically fit. But again, Virgin Orbit would be a weird fit here, because they will already be operating by the time this launch challenge is taking place. And a single Virgin Orbit launch is about $12

million. So I'm not sure why they would enter, you know, two launches here to potentially win, I guess, $12 million total if they were able to finish launch one and two. To barely cover one of their launches, I'm not sure what they would be incentivized here to enter this competition. So from looking at it in that perspective, I think the DARPA Launch Challenge is specifically focused on new entrants into the small launch market. There are no fewer than what I've calculated to be one quadrillion small launch players that are getting ready to be active. So I really think that the DARPA Launch Challenge is focused on those players. So let's run through the ones that we know about publicly

and try to figure out if they would be a good fit or not and see what we can draw from there. First up is Vector. We've heard a ton from Vector in the past year or two. I generally am pretty skeptical about Vector. There seems to be a lot of talk, not a lot of action yet. They say that they are working towards maybe launching something into orbit this summer from the Pacific spaceport. They are definitely the lower end of the payload scale. So the payload scale for DARPA launch Challenge is 10 kilograms to 1,000 kilograms. Vector is right around 50 kilograms per launch or something about that. Very low payload.

But they have this mobile infrastructure, right? They can, quote unquote, launch from anywhere. They have this mobile launcher that they can take. They've already done some launches out at the future site of the Camden Spaceport in Georgia. They've done a suborbital launch from out near them in the Southwest. So they do have this mobile infrastructure, which is kind of what they need for this DARPA launch challenge. They need to be able to take their stuff over to Cape Canaveral, for instance, and then move it over to Vandenberg or take it from Wallops and move it to Kodiak Pacific Spaceport.

Kodiak is such a better name. I'm probably just going to keep calling it Kodiak, to be honest. Price wise, I don't think we have a specific amount pegged to Vector yet. But in general, with that low of a payload, I think they would be able to get two launches under that $12 million prize total if they were to finish launch one and two. So money-wise, I think that would work out for them. Overall, the money isn't great here. It's not a particularly compelling amount of funding, but we'll get into that in a second. We have this Astra Space Company that was supposed to carry out a suborbital launch

from Pacific Spaceport just a couple of weeks ago, but they had to scrub and then they're going to take a couple of more weeks or months to get that back in order. But the idea there, again, is to have some mobile launch capability to be able to responsibly launch something up from any spaceport. So they are a very good fit for this. They have worked with DARPA in the past, so maybe DARPA knows something about the specifications there. They are still pretty quiet, but they seem like a good fit here. Uh, so late 2019 fits with the DARPA launch challenge prize. And from the Firefly, uh, Alpha user's guide that they released about a month ago or so, they have this little excerpt.

Firefly is currently securing a site at Vandenberg Air Force Base to support the initial test flight of Alpha and a substantial number of future customers. Documentation submission to Air Force Space Command and Vandenberg Air Force Base 30th Space Wing is complete. Vandenberg is Firefly's 30th Space Wing is complete. Vandenberg is Firefly's primary planned domestic launch site, and that will cover obviously polar inclinations. They also go on to say that they are in the process of securing an East Coast launch site. Potential locations would be Cape Canaveral, Kennedy Space Center, or the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. That's Wallops Island in Virginia. Once an East Coast launch site is determined, Firefly can establish a site within

24 months or less to include approvals and necessary construction. So they would already have to have that approved and selected to be able to build that in time for the DARPA launch challenge. So I'm not sure how that affects firefly's um eligibility for the darpa launch challenge their payload is on the higher range up towards that they actually can launch more than the range here for darpa launch challenge so that would work for them uh then we have other players like relativity the company that is working to 3d print their uh rockets we don't know yet about where how they're going to launch if they're going to have where or how they're going to launch, if they're going to have mobile infrastructure, if they're going to have built-in pad infrastructure. But their first test launch is right now scheduled for late 2020. So that takes them out of the running. There are other players like Strata Launch. Obviously, they only right now work with Pegasus vehicles, which are hella expensive. I would classify that as hella expensive. which are hella expensive.

I would classify that as hella expensive. They've been hiring propulsion engineers and a whole bunch of other people. So maybe they have something up their sleeve to be able to do this kind of responsive launch. And again, similarly to Virgin Orbit, be able to air launch to multiple incarnations. There are mysterious companies like Arca Space, which is going through some sort of weird,

mysterious legal situation now, but they're working on small launchers. And there's a thousand other ones that are quiet, that we don't know about, that we don't have any info on yet, that are probably part of this. So overall, looking at all these players in the space here, it's very tough to find any of these that are good candidates for the DARPA Launch Challenge, that are able to launch from multiple sites, that are able to do that cheaply enough to make the money worth it, and that are very specifically timed. They can't already be close to operations or else the launch challenge is pretty much useless to them, like Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit.

They're going to be in operations, deep into operations by the time this potential prize money would roll around. So it's really not worth their effort. And you can't be too early because you need to fly by the end of 2019. So Relativity and companies like that that are targeting 2020 aren't good fits for this. So you really have to be looking at the DARPA Launch Challenge as a way to fund your demo missions. So for somebody like Vector, who hasn't had their flight yet, but they talk about the fact that they're close, or Astra is kind of getting into these operations now, Firefly is well positioned again, the launch site makes it hard for them, but those players

are in development, they're getting close to the launch pad, and they do have to fly demo missions anyway. So maybe this DARPA launch challenge is a good way to fund those early demo missions that would otherwise be completely funded by yourself. So, you know, maybe that's one way to look at it, as DARPA is trying to encourage, they're trying to give people money to fly demo flights. I'm not quite sure that's the case, though, because there are just so few people positioned like that right now. So either DARPA has some inside knowledge of who's getting close to the launch pad,

who could be on the launch pad in a year or so, or they are using this as a way to kind of flush out these companies that are right now in stealth mode, as they call it. Maybe they're using it as a way to flush some flush out these companies that are right now in stealth mode, as they call it. Maybe they're using it as a way to flush some of those out and say, hey, we're going to keep all of your information confidential if you apply for this, but we want you to know there is this prize money to be awarded, that it seems well fit for demo flights. If you are getting close to operations, we would like to hear from you and we would like to start working with you on things. That is my overall theory right now, that this is DARPA's way of putting some feelers

out about who's getting close to the launchpad of these small players out there. I'm not quite sure who they're going to find. I'm very intrigued about if and when they find anybody for this kind of thing that we don't already know about. But that's kind of what I'm going to be watching for in this DARPA launch challenge, to see if anyone comes out of the wood know about. But that's kind of what I'm going to be watching for in this DARPA launch challenge, to see if anyone comes out of the woodwork with a vehicle that's close to ready in the way that Astrospace has, in the past couple months,

appeared on the scene out of stealth mode and had a at least working first stage that was going to do a suborbital flight. So it'll be interesting to see who comes crawling out of the woodwork for this kind of thing. And I'm sure, like I said at the beginning of the show, I'm sure this will be a topic on a future show. So I wanted to get this little bit of thinking done up front before we

get into all of that. So with that, that'll be it for this week. Thank you so much for all your support again over at patreon.com slash Miko. If you've got any thoughts on the DARPA launch challenge, I would love to hear them. Anthony at managingcutoff.com is the email or on Twitter at wehavemiko. Otherwise, thanks again for listening and I will talk to you next week.