It's interesting to see how @RocketLab's Neutron rocket fits in with the market in a regime that I call the "Soyuz-Antares Class" for the mid-2020s.
Here's my opinion:pic.twitter.com/uMJGx5XvCl
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* India - To be honest I don't know what's going on w/
@isro's long-delayed RP-1/LOX LV replacements, they seems to be all in on HSF today instead? I thought they could be a dark horse a la PSLV but their new rockets' development schedule feels wrong.Diesen Thread anzeigen
* Chinese competitors: The most provocative foreign competitor of the class w/ their leading reusable rocker candidate based on the exactly-in-same-class Long March 8. Very interesting; yet CASC & other potential private LSPs are literally living in another ecosphere... 
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And finally of course there's
@SpaceX - they current handle the "Delta II-Antares" market w/ RTLS Falcon 9s, while Neutron needs ship landing. I doubt that@RocketLab can knock F9 out of the market, but at least there's room for them to coexist a la Antares/Atlas V.Diesen Thread anzeigen -
Note that big customers likes to split LV contracts (in this range it's usually F9/Soyuz or F9/Atlas nowadays, not to mention using different size LVs). RL doesn't need to completely beat F9 to stand in the market as is, though perhaps w/ lower flight rate.
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"But what about Starship?" Good question, but I doubt that Starship - assuming it can go in service soon (TM) - have *that* much lower cost than any rocket out there to squash competitors at an order of magnitude smaller. I can definitely see Starship/Neutron splits in contracts.
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So I do think a conventional (?), 1st stage reusable Soyuz-Antares class rocket has quite some market to stand out. Whether RL is the one to capture it remains to be seen, but IMHO the chance is there for
@Peter_J_Beck et al. to occupy.Diesen Thread anzeigen
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