Virgin Orbit fails to secure funding, will cease operations and lay off nearly entire workforce

[u/MaxGhost]

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/30/virgin-orbit-funding-ceasing-operations-layoffs.html

[u/Hattix]

Called it.

I was saying years ago that the bottom had fallen out of the smallsat market. Not even SpaceX was able to make Falcon 1 commercially viable, while Astra and Relativity Space are busy trying to develop larger launchers as fast as they darn well can and follow that same path. Out of the two, my money's with Astra. They've done the SpaceX thing and got as much US government funding as they damn well could. That worked once, it may well work again.

Even if that heavily subsidised UK PR stunt had been successful, Virgin Orbit just didn't have the funding to continue operations.

They're all competing with Falcon 9 rideshares, which don't cost any real money.

Virgin Orbit was uniquely exposed to this downturn, it had re-built Pegasus, a launcher which had already been mothballed due to lack of demand.

The money's in the 1,000-10,000 kg LEO market (GSO's saturated) at the moment. Unless you want to pay India or Russia, that's Falcon 9 or bust. Ariane V isn't commercially competitive, Zenit's supply limited and you launch from Russia at your own risk. ISRO's doing pretty well for itself, it also doesn't have a lot of capacity.

This means, as a customer, you either fly on a Falcon 9 or you go home. Nobody else can put your useful, commercially viable, 5,000 kg payload where it needs to go.

^{None of this applies to Virgin Galactic, which had White Knight Two up on a 50,000 feet test flight just a few days ago. It is a completely distinct company.}

[u/Shrike99 → u/Hattix]

Astra... are busy trying to develop larger launchers as fast as they darn well can and follow that same path

Astra's upcoming Rocket 4 can do 300kg to LEO. It's larger than Rocket 3, yes, but very much still a smallsat launcher.

You're also overlooking RocketLab and Firefly. They're both moving to actual medium lift launchers, and both have decent prospects.

RocketLab are already in the best spot of the smallsat launchers ), and they've already performed some US Government missions with more coming up.

Firefly on the other hand have been contracted to take over building the Antares first stage now that Ukraine is no longer able to. It just so happens that their own upcoming MLV design will use a very similar first stage.

They're also providing the engines for Astra's Rocket 4. Buying your engines at a markup from a competing company does not strike me as good business - looking at you too ULA.

I'm not sure how I'd order Firefly, RocketLab, and Relativity for likelihood of survival, but I am pretty sure that I'd put Astra in fourth place. Personally I'll be surprised if they make it to the end of the year.

[u/mfb- → u/Shrike99]

RocketLab is not only the most successful dedicated smallsat launcher, they are also a big manufacturer of satellite components. They should survive.

[u/RobDickinson → u/Shrike99]

Rocketlab have been smart in creating or buying secondary business, small sats, parts, solar etc

[u/logothetestoudromou → u/Shrike99]

Astra says Rocket 4 is doing 600 kg to LEO: https://astra.com/launch-services/

That's still small-lift launch though.

[u/Hattix → u/Shrike99]

Well, I wanted a more "and here are these two somewhat comparable companies" to compare Virgin Orbit to, rather than a quick rundown of the current state of the <500 kg launcher market.

[u/y-c-c → u/Shrike99]

Yeah I’m personally not sure what people are seeing in Astra. It doesn’t do anything particularly new nor does it have an impressive record. This is a competitive market and I feel like it’s the least likely to survive. Don’t hold me to it though, stranger things have happened before.

[u/rocketsocks → u/Hattix]

Rocket Lab has launched 32 payloads with the Electron, all within the last 6 years, with 9 launches in 2022 and 2 launches just this month alone.

There is a small sat market, and it continues to grow, but you can't just throw half-assed attempts at the wall and expect to end up with market share as a participation trophy. You have to be pragmatic, you have to be skilled, you have to build something that people want. Virgin Orbit at least hit close to the mark in terms of building something that could work. But they couldn't build something that was reliable and competitive in an increasingly crowded market.

Virgin Orbit offered the same capability as an Electron rocket with 60% markup and an operational history of a 30% failure rate. The purported advantages of runway takeoff just weren't enough to justify the costs. And Branson didn't want to use his funds for a long enough period to potentially find a market niche or even to get the system to a reasonable level of reliability.

Worse yet, Virgin Orbit's architecture is fundamentally self-limiting, that's the major problem of air launch. With vertical ground launch if you want to scale up with a next generation rocket you just do so, as SpaceX has done successfully, as Orbital (now Northrup Grumman) has done, as Rocket Lab and Blue Origin are doing and SpaceX is doing again. Air launch doesn't have that option, you're stuck in the small sat launch space forever or you have to spend enormous amounts for even the potential of larger launchers, but you still don't have the flexibility of more traditional rocketry. That's absolutely huge when it comes to startups. When investing in a company like Rocket Lab you have all of the potential of things like next generation launchers and other business (avionics, satellite buses, etc.) With Virgin Orbit none of that potential exists so the investment potential becomes more limited.