INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
DARPA wants to be able to launch anywhere, any time, and several times in a row
Is that too much to ask Not for Vector Space, Virgin Orbit, and an unnamed startup that just qualified to take place in the agency Launch
Challenge, which will push their responsive and mobile launch capabilities to the limit.
In the challenge, the teams will be notified that
they need to launch a payload to orbit from a given location only days beforehand
After doing so, they will then be told a second location from which they must launch again just days later
The winning team will receive up to $12M, with $11M and $10M available to the runners up, depending on how they perform.
&Today, most
military and government launches are national events that are planned years in advance and require large, fixed infrastructure,& said DARPA
program manager Todd Master in a release
&We want to move to a more risk-accepting philosophy and a much faster pace so we can put assets into space at the speed of warfighter
needs.&
Speaking at the 35th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Master announced the three companies that would be taking part in the
competition, which the agency announced around this time last year
Interestingly, none of them has yet put a payload into orbit.
These are the potential locations for launches.
Vector Space recently raised
$70M to pursue the first orbital launch of its Vector-R rocket and get manufacturing started at its Tucson facility
Its goal, to provide short-turnaround micro-launch services at a cadence measured in weeks.
Virgin Orbit — technically VOX Space — has a
747-based first stage that takes the two-stage rocket up to launch altitude, an assisted-launch strategy that has worked well for small
It may also be a uniquely good fit for this particular challenge, given that mobility of the rocket and payload are inherent to the aircraft
first stage style.
The last company has requested anonymity for now, as it is still operating in stealth mode
I thought at first it might actually be Stealth, which is in fact a launch startup currently in stealth mode, but it could just as easily be
one of the unknown number of companies quietly working on launch tech.
DARPA Launch Challenge offers $10M prize for short-notice,
rapid-turnaround rocketry
Each company received $400,000 for qualifying and making sure they&re legal (each needs FAA permission, among
The launches will take place sometime in 2020; A prize of $2M is available to each team that gets the first payload into the air, then $10M,
$9M, and $8M prizes are available for completing the second task
They&ll be judged on a variety of metrics.
All told that somewhere around $34,000,000 up for grabs
Of course, it will probably cost more than that to accomplish what DARPA asks
But that kind of how these competitions work.
We&ll know more when DARPA gives us more
Obviously we won&t know the dates of the launch until they are announced, but it&ll be some time before that happens (these companies need
to finish their launch vehicles) so you can relax for now
Unless you work at one of the participating teams, in which case get cracking.
Falcon Heavy first real launch is the dawn of a new
