C u later (7/14/22)

Good morning. Anyone else catch that full moon last night? What a beaut.

In today's newsletter:🚀 Vega C you later 🛰️ A ton of smallsats📝 Contract report

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We Have Liftoff

The first Avio-built Vega C blasted off from French Guiana at 15:13 CET (9:13 ET) yesterday. The mission successfully deployed the LARES2 passive satellite for the Italian space agency (ASI) and six small secondary payloads.

The primary payload aboard the first Vega C flight was the LARES2 laser reflector. It’s essentially a space disco ball that researchers will shoot lasers at. Their goal? To study the Lense–Thirring effect predicted by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.

And then we have the ridesharing cubesats:

• GreenCube will attempt to grow plants in microgravity.

• AstroBio aims to test a solution for detecting biomolecules.

• Trisat-R was developed to improve space radiation modeling.

• Celesta will examine short circuits in electronic systems caused by energetic particles.

• Alpha will study phenomena related to Earth's magnetosphere.

• MTCube-2 aims to determine what effect space radiation has on different types of flash memory.

Vega’s big brother enters the chat

The 35-meter Vega C launch vehicle represents a performance and mission flexibility upgrade from its predecessor, while also reducing the cost-per-kg launch cost.

The new vehicle includes two new solid-fuel rocket stages, including the new P120C booster that will also be utilized by ArianeGroup’s Ariane 6, which is scheduled to make its debut in 2023. Vega C also features an upgraded upper stage, a larger fairing, and new payload adaptors. This equates to an additional 800 kg of payload capacity, enabling the vehicle to carry up to 2.2t to orbit.

An uncertain future

Despite only just entering the market, the future of Vega C is already uncertain. This uncertainty stems from the availability of the AVUM+ upper stage engine that Avio sources from Ukraine-based Yuzhmash.

The conflict in Ukraine has all but cut off the supply of the engine, with no guarantee that it will come back online soon, if at all. ESA and Avio are working on evaluating several options to mitigate the shortage, including the consideration of two unspecified alternative engine options.

This week, though, Europe is celebrating the successful launch of its newest rocket!

Editor’s note: Andrew put a lot of love into our full online story on Vega C’s maiden flight, walking us through the pan-European effort to build the rocket, expanding on the space disco ball, and providing many more important details.

Definitely take a look at the full thing here.

A Ton of Smallsats a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

Euroconsult has released its eighth report on the small satellite market. The TL;DR–the smallsat industry has big things in the works over the next decade.

A boom in upmass: The market intelligence firm’s analysis found that ~18,500 satellites weighing <500kg are likely to reach orbit by 2031. That adds up to ~365 tons per year of smallsat upmass alone, or an average of about a ton per day.

• From 2012-2021, an average of 466 smallsats were launched per year. Over the next decade, that number is expected to nearly 4x to 1,846.

• 69% of those satellites are expected to be owned and operated by commercial space players, 19% by civil government entities, 8% by academia, and 4% by defense.

• Euroconsult expects 73% of that upmass to come from North America. Next up is Asia with 18% and Europe with 8%.

The many megaconstellations planned for the next decade are expected to make a big impact on this market. 81% of the smallsats to be launched by 2031 will be part of larger constellations, Euroconsult projects.

The value of the smallsat market is poised to grow, too, the company reports. Euroconsult expects that the smallsat manufacturing market will balloon to ~$56B from ~$16B in the last decade, and that the smallsat launch market will grow from ~$8B to ~$28B.

It’s not all sunshine…Supply chain issues and high inflation won’t spare the smallsat industry.

“We anticipate that stakeholders that have yet to raise significant amounts of capital will likely face a difficult situation, leading to smaller constellations, canceled projects, and scope reductions, as well as consolidation,” said Alexandre Najjar, a senior consultant on the report, in a press release. Another issue, we might humbly add, will be the growing risks of satellite conjunctions and orbital debris.

Share this story for your daily ton of smallsats:

In Other News

• OSC (the US Office of Space Commerce) expects to start developing a space traffic management architecture, National Space Council Executive Secretary Chirag Parikh said yesterday.

• The Air Force completed its NEPA environmental review of proposed US Space Command locations, finding no significant impact at any location.

• Avascent is out with an intriguing new report on public US space spend. “With inflation eroding the value of any planned [$$$] increases and a potential recession looming, space investment in real dollars may have reached its zenith,” the consulting firm notes.

• RFA published video of its Helix hot-fire test. The rocket maker has now conducted three long-duration tests, all using the same engine.

• China plans to launch an asteroid deflection test in 2026, SpaceNews reports.

• ULA and Ball picked the payloads that will launch in their K-12 high-power sport rocket launch program. The ULA intern-built rockets will launch next Saturday from Pueblo, CO, delivering ~768 lbs average thrust and reaching heights of ~4,200 ft.

• Rocket Lab’s ($RKLB) MAX Flight Software hit its 50th mission milestone. The software is operational on 53 space vehicles and has spent a cumulative 161 years in space.

• US inflation rose 9.1% YoY in June, with the core CPI print coming in at 5.9% (vs. 5.7% exp). More context on what that means here.

The View from the Lab

Procter & Gamble will launch Tide laundry detergent to the ISS on today’s CRS-25 cargo resupply mission. The SpaceX-launched, ISS National Lab-sponsored experiment will investigate how P&G’s Tide to Go pens and wipes work in space.

Fortunately for all of us, A) P&G isn't sending up any Tide Pods and B) the space station doesn’t have any Gen Z TikTokkers who would want to try the Tide Pod Challenge in space.