3 Space Companies That You May Not Have Heard Of

 Blue Origin

    If you have been following the space industry for any length of time, then you have probably heard of Blue Origin.  Jeff Bezos’s space company, it is probably the closest thing to a competitor for SpaceX. Blue Origin, just like SpaceX, has been developing reusable rockets to drive down cost and in my opinion flex their engineering prowess. They have two rockets and a lunar lander in their arsenal: New Shepard, New Glenn, and Blue Moon.

Their rockets, New Shepard and New Glenn, are designed for two different missions. New Shepard is for suborbital spaceflight, consisting of a single booster and a capsule sitting on top. New Shepard will launch and take the capsule up to the Karman Line (100 km, 62.14 miles), which is the boundary of space. The capsule will decouple from the booster where both will remain in free fall for a short while. The booster’s engine will then reignite and land back upright, while the capsule will deploy parachutes and land softly back on the ground. As of this article’s writing, three different New Shepard rockets have flown with 13 different launches, with the first launch on April 29, 2015 and the most recent launch being December 11, 2019.

New Glenn’s mission is for orbital spaceflight. It will have seven of Blue Origin's BE-4 engines and will be able to lift 13 metric tons to geostationary orbit or 45 metric tons to Low Earth Orbit. Only the first stage of New Glenn is designed for reusability and is designed to perform a minimum of 25 flights with little inspection and maintenance required between the flights. New Glenn was designed with a single configuration that will be able to perform a variety of missions for Civil, Commercial, or National Security customers. As of the date of this article's writing, New Glenn has not launched, but is expected to perform its first flight in 2021.

Blue Moon is Blue Origin’s lunar lander and is designed to deliver either cargo or crews to the moon. According to Blue Origin, the lander will be able to land several metric tons of cargo onto the moon depending on the configuration. Blue Moon has been chosen to  be the lander for the Human Landing System (HLS) for NASA’s Artemis Program. 

Rocket Lab

        Rocket Lab is an American rocket manufacturer that is owned by a New Zealand subsidiary. Rocket Lab mainly performs small satellite launches with their Electron rocket. The electron is a two stage rocket that is made of carbon composite materials that allow the rocket to be strong and lightweight. The rocket’s first stage is powered by nine of Rocket Lab’s Rutherford Engines which use a mixture of oxygen and kerosene as fuel. The second stage utilizes a single Rutherford Engine that was designed to improve its performance in vacuum conditions. Rocket Lab is proud to be the first company to make an oxygen/kerosene engine that uses 3D printing technology for all of the rocket engine’s primary components. The Electron has successfully launched 95 satellites as of the writing of this article.

Rocket Lab also has a spacecraft program called the Photon. The Photon is a satellite that is designed and built by Rocket Lab around the customer’s payload and mission objectives. The Photon has two configurations, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Interplanetary. The LEO configuration is able to hold a payload mass of 200 kg and if the customer wishes to go beyond LEO the configuration can be at least 40 kg. 

Rocket Lab will be helping NASA’s Artemis program by launching NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) CubeSat into lunar orbit. 

Relativity Space

Relativity Space is a groundbreaking company that is changing the way rockets are made.  Relativity Space 3D prints the entirety of their rocket parts, including its engines, and uses a vertically integrated technology platform to reduce costs. Through a combination of 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and autonomous robotics, Relativity is developing a rocket factory like no other. 

Relativity Space’s rocket is the Terran 1. It is a two stage fully 3D printed rocket that has the ability to lift up to 1,250 kg into Low Earth Orbit. The Terran 1 can be built in less than 60 days and has a total of 700 parts, where other rockets have about 60,000. The first stage will utilize nine of Relativity Space’s Aeon 1 Engines which will produce a combined thrust of 228,000 lbf-vac (Pound Force in Vacuum). The second stage will use the Aeon-Vac engine that will produce a thrust of 29,800 lbf-vac.  As of this article’s writing the Terran 1 has not flown, but there have been over 300 test fires of the Aeon engines.

Stargate is the company’s factory where they print their rockets. The company develops the Terran 1 rocket and Stargate at the same time to improve the design, production, quality and speed. Stargate has zero fixed tooling which allows the company to perform design changes and optimizations quicker. Another benefit that the zero fixed tooling adds is that they can perform real time quality control of their parts. Stargate also uses sensor and analytics to optimize manufacturing through the use of machine learning.

Relativity Space is not only a company that will change the game of rockets but its factory will change the aerospace world.