![]() One of SpaceX’s customers agreed that the company effectively had a monopoly on the market. “I think critical and continued increases in government budgets focused on space and communications are going to be essential to pushing forward technologies,” he said, “and maybe even enabling a second or third launch company.” He suggested that increased government investment might be needed to bolster competition in the launch market. “No one wants a monopoly choking off one point of the value chain.” “Having such a dominant launch service provider is probably not healthy in general for the commercial prospects of the industry,” said Vikram Nidamaluri, managing director of the telecom, media, and entertainment group at investment banking firm Lazard. SpaceX’s dominance in the launch market became an unofficial theme of World Satellite Business Week, starting with the very first panel. “No one wants a monopoly choking off one point of the value chain.” Vikram Nidamaluri, managing director of the telecom, media, and entertainment group at investment banking firm Lazard It had become increasingly clear that companies needing to launch their satellites in the near future had few options beyond SpaceX, particularly those spacecraft too large to launch on a small vehicle like Electron, as other launch providers stumbled. “SpaceX is probably the monopolist right now”Įven before the Rocket Lab failure, people were tossing around the word “monopoly” when it came to SpaceX. All data is collected from publicly available sources no privately sourced company information is included in this analysis. RocketLab’s remaining 2023 manifest before Sept. “Either by bankruptcy or by delays, so many launch companies just haven’t gotten there yet and haven’t demonstrated repeatable success that will give us confidence to put our satellites on those launch options,” he said in an interview during World Satellite Business Week a week before the Electron failure.Īnd now, at least temporarily, that duopoly has become a monopoly. ![]() He had no complaints about the performance of either company but lamented the lack of options from others. The company has launched its satellites both on Electrons and on SpaceX Transporter rideshare missions. “We have a duopoly, right? It’s just two of those guys,” said John Serafini, chief executive of HawkEye 360, a company that operates a constellation to perform radio-frequency geolocation. The lack of launch options has become frustrating to some companies. Northstar Earth and Space, a Canadian company developing a constellation of satellites to collect space situational awareness data, had also switched to Rocket Lab after Virgin Orbit’s failure, with its satellites expected to launch on Electron before the end of the year. The customer that was going to launch next on Electron after Capella Space was Japanese radar imaging company iQPS, which switched to Rocket Lab earlier this year after Virgin Orbit’s failure: it had been next to fly on LauncherOne when Virgin went under. Those technical and financial problems left developers of small satellites with few options to launch. Some companies suffered launch failures, while others faced financial setbacks, most notably Virgin Orbit, which went bankrupt this spring. Rocket Lab had emerged as the leader of the Western small launch market as others struggled. “We’ll find it, fix it and be back on the pad quickly,” Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, posted on social media a few hours after the failure. The company has provided few details about exactly what went wrong. Telemetry displayed on the launch webcast showed the rocket’s speed decreasing, suggesting the upper stage’s single engine was not working.Ībout 45 seconds after stage separation, the launch director delivered the bad news: “All stations, we have experienced an anomaly.” The first stage appeared to work as planned, but video from the rocket was lost moments after stage separation. On that day, an Electron lifted off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, carrying the second in a series of Acadia radar imaging satellites for Capella Space. 19, those plans came plummeting back to Earth - literally. Credit: Rocket Lab via Flickrīut, as many in the launch industry often say, you’re only as good as your most recent launch. Rocket Lab’s 41st Electron mission, the “We Will Never Desert You” mission for repeat customer Capella Space, failed to reach orbit during a Sept. It also made strides toward its goal of reusing the Electron first stage, such as flying a reused Rutherford engine. The company was planning to fly up to 15 Electrons in 2023, compared to nine in 2022. The company conducted its first Electron launches from Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia, and flew a new suborbital version of the rocket, called HASTE, to tap into the hypersonics testing market. Rocket Lab had been on an upwards trajectory for the first eight and a half months of the year.
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