Commercial Rockets

Maybe I can forecast some winners and losers... first, the large rockets.

• Falcon 9: winner today, winner tomorrow, since nobody will catch their low costs.
• New Glenn: maybe a secondary winner, but won’t beat Falcon.
• Vulcan: I originally said survivor only, but I’m starting to think winner.
• OmegA: loser (yup, cancelled).
• Antares: loser.
• SLS: loser.
• Starship: should eventually win big, but maybe not in the short term.
• Ariane: survivor.
• Skylon: some variant might eventually end up a real winner, but it’s a long way off.
• Irtysh: a temporary semi-winner, maybe, then a limited governmental role.
• Angara: might eventually do better than Irtysh, but looking like a loser so far.
• Proton updates: loser (came true shortly after adding this section... it and Soyuz will retire with honor, like Atlas and Delta).
• Long March 2-4: survivor, eventually retiring with honor.
• Long March 6 and 7: semi-winner for a limited time, then settling into a governmental role.
• Long March 5 and 9: probably governmental only, I’m guessing survivor.
• Long March 8: winner if they get reusability to work.
• Amur: winner if they get reusability to work.
• H: survivor, governmental role.
• GSLV: survivor, until replaced with RLV (which could be a winner).

Now, small rockets.

• Pegasus and Minotaur: loser (yeah, Northrop/Orbital is fucked).
• LauncherOne: I’m thinking it’ll look like a winner for a while... long term, can't say, may fail to make profit.
• Vector: I previously said winner... they had me fooled.
• Alpha: at least partial winner? Has a fair chance. LauncherOne might have the edge over it.
• Vega: short term winner, long term loser.
• Electron: winner if they can achieve a good cadence, at least for a while... long term iffy as they could be underpriced or overvolumed.
• Astra: winner if they can keep costs low enough.
• Terran: I’m guessing loser, but don’t write them off yet.
• Rokot and START: losers.
• Kuaizhou, Long March 11, and the like: short term winners, long term losers.
• PSLV: eventually will retire with honor when something better replaces it.
• SSLV: short term winner, will need to be replaced eventually.
• Bloostar and Miura: at least one of the two could be a winner, but both are looking shaky.
• Haas: loser, because these guys are bozos.
• Neptune: loser.
• Phantom Express: could be a big winner? Nope, they gave up on it. Too bad — I thought the idea had great potential.
• Shavit, Safir, Simorgh, Unha: governmental role, eventual loser.
• Nuri: loser due to privatization (I previously said survivor).
• VLS and MLS: loser.
• Tronador: loser.
• New Line: looking winner-like at this point, but it’s early yet.
• Prime: possible winner, but competition is tough.
• all the me-too small launch companies that take another four years to reach orbit: losers.

Finally, some broad overall trends.

• Reusability: big winner.
• Solid fuel in general: loser for main stages, survivor in secondary roles.
• Hypergolic fuel in general: survivor in secondary roles.
• Small payload capacity: winner, but only for a few companies.
• Gigantic payload capacity: eventual winner? But not any time soon.
• Whoever manages to someday lift payloads without a rocket: winner.

Conclusion: Blue Origin should make a two-stage Shepard for smallsats, and Rocket Labs should add a chute to the Electron booster, and try to save it before it hits. Otherwise the smallsat business could fall into the hands of the Spaniards, aieee! (After I wrote that, I found that Bezos is indeed considering the two stage Shepard idea, and Rocket Labs announced a chute for the Electron.)

(In another how-did-I-do update, Northrup bounced back from cancelling the Omega by being awarded a big contract to build new replacement ICBMs. Who thought we needed new ICBMs??)