The Next Generation of Rockets

By Struan Caughey

Photo credit to SpaceX

As we conclude the first quarter of 2021, the rocket industry has shown vital signs of moving from strength to strength. The past few years have been defined by small to medium-sized

rockets with a strong focus on reusability. This legacy started in 1977 with the launch of the Enterprise space shuttle. The turn around for the space shuttle cost approximately $450 million USD, and the shortest time to turn around and reuse it was 54 days. This is a far cry from SpaceX's 27 day current record at USD 15 million with the Falcon 9 B1060 on February 4th this year. We also now have players in the reusable market other than SpaceX, such as Rocket Lab, which also has fully operational rockets as well as projects at the developmental stage from Blue Origin, European Space Agency, I-space in China and Roscosmos, amongst others.

This year, however, three rockets have frequented the news, all from drastically different businesses. They have all been in the news for various reasons, what they share however is they're all the flagship rocket for each company.

SpaceX

First, we have the Starship from SpaceX. Their current line up of operational rockets are the Falcon rocket and the Falcon heavy rocket; however, neither of these have been making the news this year. Instead, Starship, the company's current rocket in development, has been hitting the headlines. There have been two successful 'hop' flights in 2020, reaching 150m. However, the main news is the four subsequent flights, all reaching at least 10km, three being this year, and all of which resulted in "rapid unscheduled disassembly". These rockets have excited space enthusiasts for two reasons; first, they will be the first operational fully reusable rocket with existing models having some single-use components. The second reason is that these are the rockets envisioned to take humans to Mars. They can take over 100 tonnes to low earth orbit, which would put it in a class of its own, there only ever being one other rocket, the Saturn V, with the same capacity.

SpaceX's Starship rocket taking off. Photo credit to SpaceX

Rocket Lab

Next, we look to the other end of the spectrum, New Zealand. Rocket Lab is a small reusable rocket firm operated out of Auckland but registered in the United States. This was not the company's original intention, with the original plan to be small,

cost-effective single-use rockets; however, the electron has now been iterated upon to become reusable like the Falcon and in dramatic fashion. A mid-air helicopter interception is used to catch the electron rocket on its descent. The CEO Peter Beck had intended that they would not venture towards the more populated part of the market of medium-sized rockets, instead sticking with their 300kg capacity booster; this now is in question. On March 2nd, again playing into Rocket Lab's flair for the dramatic, a Hollywood trailer-like announcement was released on Youtube where Peter Beck literally ate his hat as he announced their new Neutron Rocket, which would have 8000kg payload capacity launching the company directly into the upper end of small payload rockets and in a new direction. This will be similar to the company's Electron rocket, having only the first stage be reusable.

Neutron render - Photo credit to Rocket Lab

NASA

Lastly, there is NASA. The most famous space agency which still has the record for the rocket with the largest payload capacity (the Saturn V which took astronauts to the moon This rocket was able to handle sending 140,000 kg into low-earth orbit but was retired in 1973. With the current focus on renewed missions to both the Moon and Mars, there is a new need for a similar rocket. Instead of resurrecting a 50-year-old booster, NASA took steps to design the SLS, also known as the Space Launch System. This new rocket has been hitting the headlines for its recent static fire test, which showed the sheer amount of power this next-generation, interplanetary rocket has. When the SLS does go to launch, it will overtake the previously stated record. This rocket represents one of the few newsworthy rockets which is still only designed to be launched once. This is to increase the ship's maximum payload size. While the Rocket Lab Neutron rocket is substantially different from the SLS, SpaceX's Starship will compete with it. The trade-off at this moment would seem to be payload size on the SLS side with reusability and cost in favour of the Starship.

SLS Booster test - PC NASA

SLS concept photo - PC NASA

This is a recap of the three most reported rockets of 2021, which are all in different stages of development; however, there are many more that will also be going up against these boosters and further iterations on existing ones to make them more advanced. There are interesting arguments on both sides of reusability, with there being a great many benefits both in cost and speed of turn around; however, NASA shows that there is still a very real place for the more traditional rocket with high yield requirements. Wherever the industry goes, one thing is certain. Rocket science is only going up.