Smallsat launch provider Spaceflight is set to graduate from providing secondary payload rideshares to its first dedicated rocket launch.
Smallsat launch provider Spaceflight is set to graduate from providing secondary payload rideshares to its first dedicated rocket launch.
It has ordered a Falcon 9 launch vehicle from SpaceX and has scheduled the launch date for the second half of 2017.
Spaceflight has said the manifest for the Falcon 9 mission, which has a list price of US$61.2m on SpaceX’s website, is almost full.
The “2017 Sun Synch Express” mission will take satellites weighing between 5kg and 575kg to a sun-synchronous orbit, a low Earth orbit popular for Earth imaging craft.
According to a pricing chart on Spaceflight’s website, it charges US$1.75m to take a 50kg payload to LEO and US$28m to take 1000kg the same distance. A Falcon 9 can carry 13,150kg to LEO.
In response to a question from SatelliteFinance regarding the pricing list, a Spaceflight spokesperson said that the prices listed is Spaceflight’s typical rideshare pricing, however, at this time it is not disclosing the official price of the rocket purchase or the rates paid by customers for the 2017 launch of the Falcon 9. Spaceflight also told SatelliteFinance it had self-financed the mission.
That Spaceflight can justify booking a Falcon 9 for one of its rideshare launches reflects the burgeoning size of the smallsat market. Spaceflight said this new “dedicated rideshare” launch option offered “cost-effective rideshare pricing with first-class service typically associated with buying a private rocket”.
It plans to schedule a steady stream of annual dedicated rideshares to popular orbits, such as geosynchronous transfer orbits, starting with the 2017 Sun Synch mission.
Up until this point Spaceflight has arranged its rideshare launches as secondary payloads on other launches, a practice it will continue alongside its solo flights. The disadvantage of being a secondary payload is that Spaceflight and its customers have to adapt to the concerns of the company which has bought the launch.
Spaceflight said its customers on dedicated rideshares will have more certainty on their launch schedules which was “not previously available to rideshare customers, and can thereby avoid delays resulting from geo-political issues or primary satellite schedule changes”.
One problem Spaceflight would not be immune to is the health of the launch vehicle itself. Following a near perfect record, Falcon 9 suffered its first launch failure in late July. The rocket is still grounded and SpaceX and the industry as a whole appear confident that the crash was just a blip. SpaceX expects to return to flight before the end of the year.
Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight’s launch business, said: “By purchasing and manifesting the entire SpaceX rocket, Spaceflight is well positioned to meet the smallsat industry’s growing demand for routine, reliable access to space.”
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, commented: “Dedicated missions for Rideshare-class payloads are an excellent way to promote space enterprise and research.”
“We are pleased that Spaceflight has successfully brought this multi-faceted partnership together.”
Formed in 2010, Spaceflight says it has launched 81 satellites to date and has over 135 satellites to deploy through 2018.
Spaceflight’s business is split into three. In addition to the launch services it also builds commercial satellite components and spacecraft through Spaceflight Systems and provides satcoms services to smallsat customers through Spaceflight Networks.
In a further push into the smallsat industry, Spaceflight announced an imagery venture in June called BlackSky Global, which envisages a constellation of 60 satellites by 2019.
