A new rocket-building startup called Vector Space Systems comprised of Elon Musk's SpaceX alums, has raised an astounding $21 million in the latest funding round led by Sequoia Capital to build smaller and less costly rockets.
The latest addition of capital renders Vector's grand total of funding to $31 million, a figure that is being channeled towards decreasing barriers to entry and augmenting speed and efficiency to actual space orbit through the creation of micro rockets.
While Musk's own ventures have been able to drastically decrease the individual costs of rockets from the initial $100 million, their focus has largely been on grander and bigger spaceships. Conversely, Vector in fact aims to produce a $1.5 million rocket that can carry small satellites into orbit. The way to achieve this is by procuring economies of scale through increasing the amount of launches initiated per year, so as to spread immense costs over larger volumes: the corporation is therefore attempting to propel 100 launches into full throttle per year. This value reflects the current capacity of the whole aerospace industry itself.
"Securing this round of funding is not only a testament to the industry's confidence in our team and launch vehicle technology, but is also a significant validation of the entire micro satellite launch industry," said Jim Cantrell, CEO and co-founder of Vector. "We are seeing dramatic growth in the demand for space access, and we look forward to continuing to deliver on our mission to expand the commercial space market."
The "growth" that Cantrell refers to also takes the form of tight competition, as Vector is not alone in its conquest to revolutionize the rocket world: startups like Planet Labs Inc. and Capella Space Inc. are also trying to create smaller spaceships to achieve things that their bigger counterparts cannot currently do, including covering a greater amount of ground to photograph for satellite data.
That being said, SpaceX itself is still a force to be reckoned with. The corporation's flagship piece is the Falcon 9 rocket, which stands "230 feet tall and can take 50,000 pounds of gear to low-Earth orbit." The Falcon 9 can carry a bus-sized satellite or ferry supplies to the International Space Station for around 1/5 of what its long time nemesis and competitor United Launch Alliance LLC charges, at $60 million apiece.
Vector, however, has outdone not only itself but also SpaceX when it comes to fulfilling Musk's vision of tinier spacecraft. Its rockets are relatively much smaller than the Falcon 9's and Vector's first spacecraft, the Vector-R, stands "just 42 feet high and can take only 132 pounds of stuff to orbit at a cost of $1.5 million per flight." The problem is that many of these rockets aren't big enough to actually accommodate the bulky satellites that constitute a majority of the launch market.
What's more is that CubeSats, small and cheap satellites that are about the size of a shoebox, are most notably employed by Planet Labs Inc. even though they are a key player in Vector's future expansion plans. Hopefully the capital raised by Vector recently will help it receive the edge it needs over its competitors, one that will benefit not only the corporation but intergalactic interactions.