I don’t see why. Being close to the equator is generally good. The northern territories launch site is quite close. They also mention a southern launch site which would be farther, but even that one is almost as close to the equator as Florida.
Props to Northrop for standing up this group. I’m definitely not a fan of solids for spaceflight at this point, but it’s cool to see a company like Northrop starting a team focused on speed and innovation.
I think they make enough from their non-launch side that they’ll be fine.
I’m guessing their goal is to win constellation contracts where they handle everything but the payload, including buses, launch, licensing, and mission ops,
I got a bit worried when they had that round of layoffs, but it looks like they’re cruising right along. I assumed the layoffs were for financial reasons, but I wonder how much the shifting company identity was part of it…
I wonder why they would pay $15 million for a Firefly launch instead of like a tenth of that to fly on a Transporter. There must be a specific orbit they want? Or to fly sooner?
If this starts launching en masse at the same time as Kuiper and continued Starlink… Hoo boy we’ve got some proliferation on our hands. I can’t blame China for wanting their own megaconstellation, though.
Cargo contracts starting in 2028 for a station that should deorbit in 2030 seems like a tough sell. ESA should probably formally partner with one of the CLD stations and set up a longer research (and cargo) contract there. Maybe Starlab, which Airbus is a partner on? In my perfect world, ESA would fund a 2nd Starlab, either to dock to the first one or as a separate station in a different orbit.
As far as the US vehicles go- Crew Dragon is really the exception, not the rule, for signing commercial contracts (free flyers, ISS private flights). I’ll give Cygnus some credit for getting absolutely milked by NG for every pressure vessel they can think of, with the only contract I know of being the Lunar Gateway HALO, plus a partnership to deliver cargo to Starlab. I would lump Starliner and Dreamchaser in the same category until proven otherwise, but hopefully Dreamchaser has a better first flight (as long as no one crashes a forklift or something into it at Plum Brook).
And exactly as I feared, Mars Sample Return becomes the next black hole project sucking up the funding that could be spent far more efficiently on other stuff.
It seems like it might be. I suppose one could argue that the Falcon Heavy demo test flight could count as privately funded interplanetary mission, since its orbit crosses Mars’ orbit, but it didn’t go to Mars. There have also been a few interplanetary probes built by universities but launched by government agencies like NASA and JAXA.
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