Rocket Lab's Neutron Rocket Will Be More Reusable Than Falcon 9
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- Опубліковано 1 гру 2021
- Rocket Lab's Peter Beck presented a new update on the design of their forthcoming Neutron rocket and it's gone from being a near direct equivalent to the Antares to nearly matching the performance of the Falcon 9 but with much greater reuse potential and a significantly simpler and cheaper second stage.
Key differences include a much wider booster with more aerodynamic features for recovery and replacing the fairing with doors that can open and close to eliminate the need for separate fairing recovery.
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"I'm pretty sure this rocket is designed to operate from any volcano-based lair that you happen to have." LOL!!
The only rocket company CEO who DOESN'T have big supervillain energy is Tory. Everyone else is auditioning for the next Bond blockbuster
I have no idea what you're talking about, believe me.
If we're going to have volcano-based rockets, we'll definitely need sharks with frikin' laserbeams attached to their heads. Although that sounds more something Elon would do.
In other words, the rocket is made with 50 years old ideas and with a design based o 50 years old movies.
I hope it has "lazer beams".
Oh course it’s built for volcano bases. What is New Zealand but a giant volcano base?
Plus it doesn't appear on a lot of maps so it is a hidden volcano base !
Internment camp.
That was my first thought. Peter is a secret super villain posing as an entrepreneuring rocket man.
So the launch site is Mt Doom? Got it.
Lake Taupo launch site calling it now
I think having different solutions is healthy for the space launch industry.
I want to see what this actually looks like once it is flying.
I also appreciated the light digs at the competition. I think there is appreciation for what (at least some of) the others have accomplished.
Peter has a working product. His ideas and presentations deserve attention.
competition is what drives innovation, the high tech industries are looking amazing right now
same gross liftoff mass as a falcon 9, uses a similar engine design and a better fuel, yet lifts half as much to orbit.
While this sounds bad, it shows that they are being realistic. Things like the Chomper fairing will mass a *lot* more than the clamshell semi-disposable version.
My biggest concern is how they will get carbon fiber to handle multiple load cycles, multiple thermal cycles, without developing weaknesses. It is *hard* to test a huge carbon fiber structure for flaws.
As for credibility:
Right now, I have more confidence that this rocket will succeed, than I have in the BO New Glenn.
RocketLabs at least have a history of achievement, innovation and actually getting to orbit.
It seems like they're primarily optimising to make upper stage as cheap as possible to produce. Being shorter and stouter will mean that the heating will be spread over a larger area, so shouldn't need to handle quite as much heat.
We have been playing with carbon long enough to get a good idea, after that if you get ten flights per airframe ……… gut it and go again, the airframe is cheap
The quantity and quality of innovations shown for Neutron promise an engineering team that's quick on its feet, in an organization known for being quick on its feet. Yes, RL has more credibility for their success than BO, and even the new startups - a couple look good, but are a long way away from matching Electron, let alone Neutron.
@@donjones4719 k
Well, did falcon 9 ever put a maximum declared payload in the orbit, especially in the "reusable" configuration? I suppose they just don't lie as heavily as Elon usually does.
Carbon makes more sense than steel in this specific application because the first stage doesn't have to reenter all the way from orbit. It therefore doesn't have the same sort of temperature requirements that SpaceX does for Starship.
It's not so much that one is better than the other for rockets in general, as that different architectures reward different combinations of attributes and therefore materials.
Hadn't thought about that, thanks for pointing that out. Potential re-entry speeds for the booster would likely be around 3 km/s vs. starship's 7.8 km/s from LEO, or faster on Lunar return. Side note, low Mars orbital speed is 3ish km/s, aero-capturing at Mars from Earth transfer is still "only" about 5km/s, which I think just shows how LEO and lunar-return re-entry are the most insane high speeds and heat loads, if Starship can handle that it'll be able to do anything.
Yup, horses for courses. Starship is supposed to be able to re-enter from deep space, which is a whole lot hotter than re-entering a 1st stage booster from a sub-orbital trajectory.
You are all delusional - and I understand why). No matter what Musk says, the glider should not be allowed to heat up when entering the atmosphere - just because there are astronauts and cryogenic fuel inside. And, as Scott pointed out, the reason behind the selection is NOT special temperature requirements but simplicity and cheapness for fast prototyping. By the way, Shuttle is made of al-li alloys..
Also having an autoclave for something that large would be too stupendous
@@ncrean66 how do you propose to get back from orbit without heating up?
I love your appreciation for volcano-based rocket lairs. As a kid, You Only Live Twice was my favorite Bond film.
That was my first thought as well...the Bird One.
And twice, is the only way to live!
YOLT is still my favorite bond film. It's just the right amount of awesome and ridiculous, with ninjas and rockets, great girls and wild villains, advanced secret lairs, and an epic final battle. It doesn't get any more Bond.
@@scottwatrous they had alot of fun with the Bond films in the 60s and YOLT remains a favorite.
We need to check the Rocket Lab corporate roster for an E.S. Blofeld.
Most of the positive comments about the design have already been said, so I'll just throw in my admiration of the black and silver color scheme of Rocket Lab's vehicles, I think it adds a classy touch with a high tech look. I also love how these newer designs are looking more and more like the classic 1950s style, the way God and Robert Heinlein intended.
Black is New Zealands national colour for all there sporting teams... rocket lab is wearing there national colours 😎
Fun fact: Heinlein only had VTVL rockets early in his writing career, when there wasn't much known about rocketry. Later on, he transitioned to winged orbital vehicles with orbital transit stations. So "how Heinlein intended" is actually VTHL with separate vehicles for different tasks!
@@msudz1548 One would think it should be white in order to match the sheep.
@@afx935 It is in soccer lol
Rocket Lab had long been on my watch list. Eagerly awaiting Neutron's 1flight. Vertical integration will be a must I think with a 2nd stage hanging in tension. The 2nd stage won't be much more than 2 tanks, an engine and some electronics with a payload on top.
Other companies should not be too upset, innovation and competition are good for business.
SpaceX is ahead in reusability by a long shot but I like to see others joining that fraternity. Starship is supposed to replace Falcon 9 eventually anyway.
Blue Origin is losing the race to a lot of startups. It will be 22 years and still not in orbit. Slow and steady is not winning any races.
Horizontal integration might be possible, because all the tanks are empty before a rocket goes out to the pad, If the 2nd stage pusher plunger in the 2nd stage engines holds the engine weight and something else holds the payload then you can basically remove all weight on the tank and if ou give it modest pressurization it will hold it's shape on it's side.
ugh.. if what you mean is for it's stock, it might be too late to buy on/after a successful flight test. or dime a dozen on failure :)
Virtical integration make sense, especially if they are planning on rapid turn around, you don't want to waste time having to lift Neutron on it side for new cargo and then do another lift to get it vertical again. Ideally all they should have to do is open the fairings, load the 2nd stage, fill the tanks and launch the payload.
What a cool design! The little jabs at SpaceX etc are funny - it's just friendly ribbing folks, nothing to get upset about. I have no doubt there's a whole lot of mutual respect between SpaceX and RocketLab. The integrated fairing and internal 2nd stage seems like a really good innovation and I like that they're designing to their strengths rather than just copying SpaceX's homework. Hope we see more of this in the near future.
In my dream world SpaceX and RocketLab would share knowledge and even collaborate on designs. It's currently a pipedream though. 8)
There are enough F9 template rocket designs haha
@@gildedbear5355 People move from one company to another, thereby "sharing" concepts.
I mean space x already said it will be bankrupt if it can't lanch a starship every 2 weeks by next year.....and so far it's like 75% of them have been completed with total losses ?
@@iamjadedhobo Loose concepts and expertise, but not technology or designs or data. You get in big trouble doing that.
This is so cool!! New rocket, new engines, new shape, new materials, new way to handle payload, reusability! Is this christmas already? This is what I want from space race
I'd feel bad to put breaks to your enthusiasm, but it will likely be a big challenge to make the Neutron work. Think about how many boosters SpaceX dropped into the ocean; Rocket Lab will likely not have nearly as much freedom (/funding) to experiment.
Hoping for the best tho, obviously. The rocket looks like something that could actually challenge or surpass the Falcon 9.
@@termitreter6545 That is what I'm so excited for. Challenge to make something completely new, never seen before (well apart from movie :)). After Electron I trust that they know the risk and they can make it. I also believe that sharing progress will atract investors so it will make it easy. And dont forget that the tech they use for rocket can be used for e.g. making other carbon stuff so it can make money for itself. R&D is always challenge especially with rockets and I'm glad that they share the ride with us :)
(Anyway thanks for devil's advocate, I do it often too ;) And I understand that all can fail miserably but many ambitious projects survived just because someone believed...)
@@termitreter6545 "Not much funding" is a very common factor in our country. The Hamilton Jet boat, the worlds fastest Indian record holder: Burt Munroe the worlds first flying plane: Richard Pearse the first proof of the brains' common highway: Professor Fauls & his team and all the agriculture and farming invention's, all developed with little to no funding. It seems to push New Zealander's to have to think that much harder. Like the saying goes, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Peter Beck seems to have a very methodical approach and I wish him all the best on this project.
@@David-yo5ws Yeh but Rockets are reaaaaally expensive, you can "just" prevail on spirit alone.
The thing that makes me worry is that almost nobody else made that jump from small rocket to heavy carrier rocket like SpaceX, let alone the reusability.
i want more. Capsule, shutel and spaceship. Like EVE ONLINE game xD
The new design certainly does seem fairly clever, kind of feels like they decided that if they would only be recovering the first stage, then how can we put as much of the mass and cost in the first stage. Because obviously you'd then be recovering more in total.
For an only first stage recover design, this seems like the best design I've seen so far by a fair margin. Excellent work really, it won't beat a well working fully reusable system, but it seems like the next best thing. One imagines it could probably be developed to the point that it would undercut the Falcon 9 in operational costs by a reasonable amount. And in the mean time they can pick up more experience on how to develop a fully reusable design.
I would like to remind people of GPS IIR-1.
A GEM SRB for Delta II was one of the first to be composite rather than metal. This one was particularly special because it took a hit during final vehicle integration. Some say a forklift hit a roof support with it leaving for the pad. Officially no one said. But there was no visible damage rather than a telltale dent the prior versions would have. So it arrived at the pad, it looked fine, they hooked it up, and launched.
The impacted area was now a mass of microfractures. It blew out after 12 seconds allowing a massive jet of flame to start burning up the center core of the Delta II and destroying an adjacent SRB. The control wiring was immediately vaporized and one second later, we had the world's largest firework of the year.
Dents are useful because they are warning you something happened. Composites often say nothing.
There's no way that panel could take similar stress after that impact.
interesting
Im quite sure Peter Beck is aware of that.
Exactly right. And composites don't have a yield point; they just suddenly break, often catastrophically. Metals yield and allow load redistribution. Some customers (NASA) also require acceptance testing for every part produced, which is very expensive and time consuming. Composites are a PITA.
All good points. Counter argument: 19 successful launches so far and not a single failure due to hull or tank problems.
One could argue, that it was not a failure of the composite that caused the mission loss, but a failure to report a workplace incident and accept responsibility for poor operation of the Fork.
If it had been reported, the part could have been swapped out, and mission loss avoided.
The fairing looks like the spaceship catcher in James bonds you only live twice, nice
I always thought Starship was more similar. That is the upper stage in James Bond, it launches on an Atlas lookalike.
Back then that was sci-fi, we're living in the future mate
Sharks with lasers
I love to see how all these companies approach the same problem in different ways. And include cool-factor in the list of requirements.
Am a SpaceX fanboy through and through, yet I cannot wait for actual competition in the Space industry. RocketLab is one of the few companies that put their money where their mouth is and I couldn't be more excited for the success of Neutron.
Indeed, although i did not like the Cold War, it truly shows what some competition can force people to do
They're going to nail SpaceX to a wall with this design, because it's got none of the stupidities that were somehow worked into Starship, plus it addresses issues we've learned of with reusability over th past few years. Time to change camps :) lol
@@Stereo3DProductions They're completely different systems with completely different intended markets. Neutron is a rocket with half the payload of a Falcon 9. Starship is a rocket with a payload significantly exceeding that of the Saturn V.
They can, and likely will, coexist perfectly happily
Im doubling down on my RKLB shares
The ideas that make up the design are genious (integrating faring with first stage and let it attached, non-aearodynamic lightweight second stage which is suspended to save material...) - looking forward to see if they work in practice or if they end up with something being more expensive than falcon 9 while not being cheaper.
Regarding Carbon Fiber, Elon Musk mentioned in his talk that it was not just about rapid iteration why they moved away from carbon. A major point was that if there is wanted to be used autogenous pressurization, there would be hot oxygen as ullage gas inside which would be agressive to react with the carbon fiber - so additional coating required to prevent that. Also same issue during orbital reentry. So they would end up with a weight that is not much better than stainless steel for Starship - the possilbe better performance is just not worth the extra effort.
However, both of these downsides do not apply to Neutron: other engine cycle (wonder what theyll use for ullage pressure, but since its gas generator, there is no hot oxygen that could be used) and only first stage reenters (slower speed). So for Neutron design it looks like its clearly best performing option but there cannot be derived that starship really takes a lot of performance hit from using stainless steel instead.
I was under the impression that spaceX had given up on autogenous pressurisation, since it was consistently causing issues in the landing tests.
@@luelou8464 they've moved away from it for now, but I think they want to return eventually? That decision came well after the switch to steel though
@@luelou8464 Other way around. They tried using Helium but went back to autogenous only, because helium bubbles caused pump instability. For Raptor the tank does need to be filled with a single fluid only since it doesn't handle bubbles nearly as well as Merlin. This is common for staged combustion engines.
Rocketlab avoids that by using a GG cycle similar to Merlin, so they can probably just use any pressurant.
The dry mass of Starship is just insane. A Heavy-lift Vehicle from NASA's SPS study has similar payload to Starship (120t), yet only 4000t mass when full. Which is less than simply the fuel mass of Starship, and even with some mass reserve! Apparently, aluminium construction/winged flyback is a pretty efficient design!
The autogenous oxygen does not need to be an extremely hot ullage gas that threatens the carbon fiber tank. The excessive temperature can be reduced by injecting liquid oxygen spray into the hot gas stream. This will result in a greater flow rate of replacement gas volume but at a more modest temperature.
I remember your video when Rocket Lab first announced the Neutron, you said it was basically the exact same size as the Antares and that that probably wasn't a coincidence. But let's face it, this design is way less Antares and way more The Jetsons. It really does look like what you'd get if you asked a rocket designer in the 1950s to draw a rocket from the 2050s. I love it.
Also, your comments about the volcano heavily reminds me of Top Gear's review of the Marauder, a military armored vehicle that civillians could buy: "First you have to pass a background check - to make sure you're not a villain, living in a hollowed-out volcano..."
LOL, I remember that episode.
I thought the background check was to make sure you ARE a villain, and at least made the down payment for your hollowed-out volcano lair.
I'm glad I wasn't the only person who thought "James Bond" when they showed the four part jaws fairing.
Me too. Hey, if it works...
I thought sandworm
I'm probably in SpaceX fanboyism but I love this and welcome it. I think Peter was a bit over the top with the demo but it's a demonstration and he can be cheeky.
Now, I'll believe some of this when I see it - same I said with SpaceX but we are in the age of landing rockets so I believe they will be able to do it.
What an age of rockets we are living in.
A tension frame vs a compression frame makes me think back to the original Goddard rocket, and I feel like there might have been someone looking at a picture of that and going 'hmmm'
Even though it's still really in compression for the majority of the thrust being imparted on the shell itself, so definitely some interesting load paths.
“I didn’t set any alarms for it or anything like that, my body just sort of woke up naturally and compelled me to watch it as if I have some need for rockets”
Lol literally exactly the same story for me. For some reason I accidentally fell asleep at 10pm last night and woke up at 4:30 am, perfect timing to see this coming up
My dog is my alarm clock.
I love everything about this. The clamshell fairing is brilliant!! Also I thought the digs at other companies was pretty funny. It’s not comparable tho. Starship is supposed to be able to go to Mars and has to return from orbit. Spacex also wants to build hundreds or thousands, so price of materials is a bigger issue. In theory rocket lab needs 5-10 at each launch site and just reuse them over and over so if it costs more to build but is more efficient it’s worth it.
It is totally comparable to Falcon 9 though. But I agree with you.
@@aretorta agreed. But other the falcon is a traditional design that has been upgraded to add reusability, where as starship and neutron are being designed with innovative designs for reuse from the beginning.
Another neat thing about Starship is that it is never going to work. Even if they get it into a technically functional state, it won't be financially viable, as they pulled the "parameters" out of their arses instead of actually calculating them. The entire rocket crumbles under its own weight if you give it a little bump, and that's without payload and fuel...
@@pberci93 Ah, I can’t wait to revisit this comment in a couple of months when starship reaches orbit and returns to the launchpad successfully.
@@pberci93 > The entire rocket crumbles under its own weight if you give it a little bump
Most orbital rockets are like this. 8.5km/s of dV is a bitch. You HAVE TO make your tanks very light to get to that number. All rockets are significantly supported by tank internal pressures during launch, they would crumble under 4g acceleration if not that.
I don’t get why people fanboy one company when you can fanboy the aerospace industry. Pretty much any company putting money (and not actively damaging the industry) into aerospace is worth getting excited for. Remember competition is good.
only if there is actual competition, thinking along the line of Intel here. If not then you end up back in the rising costs and less innovation due to it not being necessary. At the moment I don't think anyone competes with SpaceX, not when you think they pretty much now are flying more missions than everyone else combined. Then you take Starship, that will move SpaceX into a whole new catagory and all the rest will be left behind. I am waiting for the first interplanetary launch of Starship when Elon, as per the FH mass sim, decides to send up a Tesla Semi as the payload ;~)
Because only Musk wants to settle Mars. While new tech is always neat, I can't get all that excited about cheaper satellite launches.
Still, cool concept. Will be fun to see this thing launch - and especially land.
As an Aussie, I love that the Kiwi Rocket lab team are working on their rockets and giving us something to look at in the southern hemisphere 👌
I wish them all the best!
Fly Safe!
Space X fans should be jubilant.
With that rocket, they put pressure on Space X to make a better rocket.
So the competition will make this more interesting overall.
The rocket is only cgi animations. Like saying my Kerbal Space Program rocket puts pressure on spacex.
@@pluto8404 They've got a leg up on your Kerbal rockets because they've flown many orbital launches at this point
@@pluto8404 so was the falcon 9 and starship at one point…..
Pretty much are, Rocket Lab is turning out to be what we would've wanted Blue Origin to be
Except there are stories that SpaceX is out of cash and can't produce rockets fast enough to meet their deadlines and could go bankrupt.
I'm glad it's strong enough to withstand an impact from an in orbit I-beam.
or a gaggle of Starlinks...
@@iamjadedhobo good luck hitting them...
@@filip9564 There's only a few of them now, but they multiply like rabbits in the outback :p
The soviet satellites will defend themself...
Thanks for the overview, I plan to watch the entire rocket lab presentation soon but I knew you would have something out this evening at the latest.
"I didn't set an alarm clock for this, I didn't intend to wake up for this, my body just sort of woke up and compelled me to watch it, as if it had some sort of a Need for Rockets."
~ Scott Manley
Dammit Son, you are a Legend...
It is good to see someone looking to build an intermediate-size rocket, with SpaceX planning to phase out Falcon 9, it should have a decent market for flights in a few years. It does reiterate just how far ahead of the industry SpaceX has found itself, that even their most innovative competition is still years away from flying a reusable first stage. It is also good to see that Rocketlab is planning on improving the concept of first stage reusability, and not just copying SpaceX. I'm sure they will have their share of difficulties, and I'm sure plans will evolve as they get closer to production, but it's a bold step in the right direction for Rocketlab to admit they were wrong about reuse, and change course to remain relevant for the coming era of rocketry.
> SpaceX planning to phase out Falcon 9
I doubt they would do so unless/until they have even cheaper replacement. Wouldn't make economic sense.
@@denysvlasenko9175 Do they just plan to use Starship for everything? I guess it can carry a zillion satellites at once, though not sure what they do to get them all to various specific orbits.
@@denysvlasenko9175 They already have an even cheaper replacement in the works, and that is Starship. Although it has a much higher payload capacity than Falcon 9 it will be much cheaper per launch. Not just per ton of payload but per launch, by which I mean a Starship launching with a 100 ton payload will cost about the same as if it launched with a one ton payload and that will be cheaper than a Falcon 9 launching with any size of payload. It may actually cost even less than an Electron launch currently costs. While I don't think it will be nearly as low as the 2 million Musk is saying it will nevertheless be far cheaper than anything else. I am guessing somewhere in the range of 15 to 30 million per launch with the actual amount of payload carried making very little difference in the cost. The price charged to the customer will of course be something entirely different and will be more defined by what the market will take rather than the cost, much like they do today with Falcon 9.
That said, they would still retain the Falcon 9 for a considerable time concurrent with Starship but for a variety of reasons other than economics,not least of which being the track record required by certain clients, which the Starship would have to earn over a period of several years.
I've been saying for years, the day SpaceX landed their first booster, every other company instantly fell 10 years behind. And if they didn't immediately scrap everything they were working on to focus on reusability, they just fell further behind by the day.
Legacy institutions are going about like it's business as usual while SpaceX is lapping the field. Starship is going to end up beating SLS and Vulcan to orbit. To Rocket Labs credit, they've both accepted the challenge of reusability and taken a vertical expansion approach to help open the doors to space to more people.
The fairing thing is epic.
Indeed! That made my jaw drop during the presentation!
Great Bond reference, there! And thanks for the update on this new rocket design - pretty freaking cool!
Thanks for making these videos Scott. Keep it up.
A lot of really clever ideas here. I especially like the second stage using tensile strength.
Right, it looks like they are letting the second stage handle the bulk of the delta-v while designing the first stage primarily as a dedicated "get out of the atmosphere" RTLS stage.
I am super curious about the supersonic characteristics of this first stage shape during launch. This is a huge amount of forward facing surface. Isn't there a reason that rockets are long and pointy?
The rocket does look like it demands vertical integration, but that looks like a feature rather than an oversight for a few reasons: Not needing to lay the vehicle down and lift it back up reduces the downtime from landing to re-launch. Horizontal integration adds requirements to the payload as well as not all payloads are designed with the structural integrity to handle laying sideways.
Re-launch procedure is probably no more complicated than drive a crane out, lift the thing from hardpoints inside the vehicle, put it back on the launch stand, inspect the vehicle for any flight defects, drop a fully integrated payload & upper stage into it, refuel & fly again.
"inspect the vehicle for any flight defects" (and check the engines and supporting infrastrucutre like pumps and vents for full functionality/damages/parts past their life expectation) is the bit that up to now has made reusing stuff EXTREMELY expensive and time consuming. Just assuming it will be NO matter with the Electron without any prototypes already existing and allowing these aspects to be tested is silly.
The Falcon 9 takes several weeks for overhauling. Even if you can cut it down to "A few days" it's far from "land it, give it a shine and send it back up". THAT is possibly decades away even though Musk also has these dreams for Starship. As long as their heatshield drops off under any vibrations that too is a pipedream.
@@Ugly_German_Truths You do realize that the first stage is only sub-orbital, right? The heating is completely different from anything SpaceX has to deal with now. More than New Shepard, but FAR less than anything orbital. Even if rapid reusable orbital isn't a thing tomorrow, that's very clearly not a problem Neutron's first stage needs to solve at all.
Peter has said since the presentation that Neutron will be made vertically, transported vertically, and live its whole life when on the ground vertically. This is driving their search for a manufacturing site, almost certainly near their launch site at Wallops Island. This also explains his remark about no need for complex ground equipment - once transported to the launch pad it will be free standing, no strongback. Unknown if there will be a simple structure to fuel the upper stage.
This makes a vertical integration structure necessary, though. Also a vertical hanger that's equivalent to Falcon 9's horizontal one, for refurbishment/inspection.
@@4thImpulse The falcon 9 first stage is also suborbital and probably reaches similar speeds to neutron first stage, so I'd say they are comparable.
"My body just sorta woke up, and compelled me to watch it - like it has some sort of need for rockets" Lol! ...yeah I feel it too. 😆 My 2yo son is named Rocket, his twin sister is Star. Proud dad! I love this channel, hope one day they will too? Cheers Mr Manly 💛🇦🇺👍
Thanks for another insightful review. Its nice to see what aspects need to be addressed. I was concern about the landing legs as well, but we'll have to see what happens once they start testing it. I would think they'll have to put tiles on it to keep it being burnt away from the engine exhaust.
What I've learned: The body needs rocket when you wake up early and then it's good to have a volcano base to launch your ultra light James Bond villan like rocket.
Bahahaha. The amount of accidental inuendo in that one sentence was brilliant. Love it
As a SpaceX fanboy I REALLY like the look of the Neutron. It feels very much like it was designed for reusability from the very beginning with few restrictions on what the design could be.
Yes, this is one of the few companies who DID get the memo: today, any new rocket design which does not reuse 1st stage is obsolete before it flies.
We can see RL let their design team loose with NO restrictions.
@JZ's Best Friend Starship uses a similar idea
So cool that your body just woke you up for the announcement lmao. Happened to me for the partial lunar eclipse recently. I didn't set an alarm but I woke up at 3am because I had a dream that I missed it and then I woke up and saw it.
Always good to see a video from you again. They are consistently good! 😊👍
Their fairing makes me think of the Graboids from Tremors!
Send this suggestion to Astra Rockets...
The I-beam demo was cute n'all, but "being hit by an I-beam on a pendulum" isn't a typical use case for a rocket structure.
SpaceX (and now Blue with their Jarvis project) are going with stainless steel upper stages because they need it for high energy re-entry. As Elon said at the time the switch from carbon was announced, when the carbon's thermal protection system is added to the mass of the carbon, 304 stainless comes out with a better weight figure. But if you're not retrieving your second stage, and your rocket concept sacrifices first stage efficiency to give the second stage the highest performance possible (as Neutron's is), then you don't have the thermal heating problem and you need your second stage to be as light as possible because all of that mass is going all the way to orbital velocity. Using carbon fibre is clearly necessary for this, I don't think there's any danger of steel being used unless Rocket Lab vault-face and decide they want to recover second stages.
Carbon fiber has a higher melting temperature. I believe the switch to stainless was more to do with manufacturing than complications. Starship is supposed to be a rocket they can build in a day and explode the next day. Due to Starships mass manufacturing and rapid prototyping. I think Carbon and stainless are different when it comes to cold liquids.
@@joeyknight8272 The melting temperature is an irrelevance. It'll fail long before it melts. Yes, manufacturing with stainless is easier, and that was part of what drove the switch, but the weight saving from stainless over carbon was also a factor.
@@spychopath agree to disagree
@@joeyknight8272 it's not an opinion to disagree on, the epoxy that bonds carbon fiber composites starts to break down at 150c well before melting. Even with high temp epoxy it starts to break down at 300c. Stainless retains is strength to over 500c and if it overheats it isn't going to irreparably degrade like burning off epoxy would.
@@JamesSeedorf but those are just words for you and the other person. How do not know rocket lab doesn't use a special carbon fiber and binder? How do i know you aren't lieing? There's no links and thoss links might be towards non space grade carbon fiber. So i can agree to disagree until you provide for a soild fact that you or the other person is completely correct. I know i might be wrong and likely am but i still have to ability to agree to disagree
it'll be interesting to see what they come up with. I've worked with polyimide composites which are supposed to be about the limit of what you can do with polymers, it was pretty resilient stuff but I wouldn't put it next to a burning methox torch like you get from the engine, it will burn up eventually
While I miss your KSP videos I'm sure we'll see them again when KSP 2 releases. But until then, I love these frequent updates on the space program. Your videos are great, very focused and cover the essentials. Thanks for helping me keep up and a bit educated.
Their second stage is really novel.
What I want to know, as your average supervillain, is how likely this rocket will be to explode withing my volcano base if meddled with by secret agent types?
Just as importantly, is there gonna be a more phallic variant?
If they get any more phallic, they will get a 'cease and desist' letter from Blue Origin. I see this being more butt-plug than dildo.
@@thePronto the fins on it might make the eyes water a little though ;~)
Hullo! I was on Boca Chica Beach 3 days ago. Awesome to behold in person. Tonight I'm staying at a hotel in Huntsville, Al. Birthplace of NASA. Can't wait to check out the museum in the morning. Godspeed, and fly safe, all.
Scott Manley is just super fast with content!
I feel like the fairing count is going to be reduced to 2. It might be simpler, but won't look nearly as cool
Let's compromise on 3.
I suspect the strakes/landing legs will get simplified too, just like starship went through many iterations. Aesthetics go out the window when they literally cost millions of dollars.
It's always gonna be a Muon in my heart
I had to laugh at his example hitting metal VS composite. Yeah, if metal is wrecked you can see it.Composites the damage is hidden. You need an ultrasonic scanner to see the damage.
Ask the airline industry about hidden damage in metal structures. They use ultrasound and magnetic testing equipment nowadays.
Went better than a certain unbreakable windows demo at least lol
And they even didn't bolt the stand down. I bet all three would be destroyed. Unnecessary passive aggression.
@@kargi42 It's just a lighthearted dig, nothing anyone takes seriously, least of all Rocketlab themselves. They know perfectly well that its not at all representative of actual conditions.
Denting/deformation is definitely better than sudden failure.
This looks so cool, much more futuristic than Falcon 9
Thanks for the great video as always!🚀 That clamshell fairing is a great idea! Could you do a video on nuclear-electric propulsion please?🚀🚀
Launch 7 has to be "You Only Launch Twice" :P
I wouldn't completely discount the 'volcano base' idea - after all, Peter Beck & Rocket Lab are New Zealanders & NZ is a pair of volcanic islands.... 🤔🌋
And as an Aussie, I really love Peter Beck's tongue-in-cheek demo... like the whole "I'll eat my hat" thing, it's always great to see execs who don't take themselves too seriously!
Lot of neat ideas, really like it. It seems like they're giving up some performance (which is what everyone is obsessed with) in exchange for more robust reusability. Makes sense to me-- if you have a rocket that can be turned around very quickly and cheaply with understressed engines, it's a win even if its capabilities aren't totally cutting edge power/weight ratios. Fuel is relatively very cheap, so make more trips. Perfect for constellation missions, which seem to be the new hotness.
Underrated comment 👏.
RL design philosophy here is very much about reliability and ease of turnaround and handling and they're prepared to sacrifice performance to do that.
Since it was updated this morning I’ve been waiting for you to make this
Yeah Scott's slowness is really becoming unbearable lol
If Rocket Lab ever docks a module to the ISS they'll have to call it Gluon.
Ahah
Even better if it was a node module, that would "glue" modules together.
@@HalNordmann and of course the microgravity cattle research module - Muon.
Thinking outside of the box, reducing the redundant irrecoverable mass, increasing the re-useability = good economic sense and results in greater lift capability. Very cool presentation and this beast will work well together with Starship not against. They will/should be mutually coherent vehicles. Nice one New Zealand and USA.
It's 200,000 pounds lighter than what SpaceX is making, because less dry mass means less fuel, slightly smaller engines, and on and on. It all adds up. The downside is the massive sunk cost and tooling. In the end, though, less static weight required per kg to orbit wins, as it significantly lowers the cost to the customer. I suspect their cost per kg to orbit may be awfully close to the magic $1000 per kg. SpaceX is nowhere close to that number at present, and even those crazy people at SpinLaunch ( if it works - lol ) are looking at $500K for 500kg - about the same price.
looks really cool cant wait to see the tests
This thing looks like the Razorback from the expanse and I’m all here for it.
Kind of curious how they plan to convince people to fly on it. Kind of hard to do a launch escape through a fairing.
You can suppose the Human version will not have a fairing, like some old USA rockets did back in the 60. Or the Soyouz still.
I doubt they will even try to get it human rated. There will probably be more than enough business running supplies to space.
They didn't really talk about wanting to human-rate it this time. I know in the first announcement it was sorta teased as a possibility (maybe, eventually) but I think that aspect is really optional and is kinda planned as an afterthought like reusability on Electron. They just mentioned it once so Peter Beck wouldn't have to eat another hat
@@joshua43214 Peter mentioned at the launch, and repeated in this presentation, that he intends to fling humans into orbit with it.
Maybe now on we won't be seeing more launch escape systems. Starship which will probably be the future system of human space transportation won't be having it as well. Maybe it's time to leave old escape systems and build more reliable, safe rockets. I can't say I undoubtedly support this idea but things are changing in terms of designs for sure.
Carbon fiber composites gain a LOT of working temperature range if impregnated with polysialates (so called "geopolymers") instead of traditional epoxy resins. If the pores are sealed up to prevent oxidation, some formulations were maintaining their strength past 800°C.
Interesting, and puts the nail in the steel-supremasist argument. Lets not forget that the ultimate heat resistent material is carbon-carbon which covered the shuttle nose and wing leading edges, and it's basically just made by baking carbon fiber binders down to nothing but graphite, the cost is brittleness but they can presuamably make a trade off between the two.
@@kennethferland5579 The only issue with carbon-carbon is that it can burn if heated in air. Using a ceramic (or geopolymer) binder to protect it from oxygen does a lot to improve its lifespan.
Thanks for losing sleep to catch this presentation and bring it to us!
I love how Scott dryly inserts a humorous reference - pauses for a beat - and then presses on, while I laugh out loud here... :)
Would be cool if that landing-pad were a mini-volcano - a hydraulic lift that sinks into the ground for refueling and vertical reloading, and lifts back up for launch.
You mean like the lunar base in *2001 - A Space Odyssey.*
What would be interesting is to know is if they will autonomously pressurize this design.
One interesting little dig at musk was the cleaning of the carbon sheet after it was hit. This was a copy of Musk doing it after he hit the Cybertruck with the hammer.
Seems to me a 1st stage that RTLS right away doesn't get much advantage from autonomous pressurization, considering the complexity of engineering it and mastering it.
Actually this was Franz with Hitting it and cleaning it...
I love this concept! looks very different from any other rocket around, I really hope this ages well!
Great video as always!
5:29 I would guess that retaining the faring makes it more aerodynamic on re-entry.
It should be noted that the city of Auckland (where Rocket Lab is based) is situated directly on a volcanic field of over fifty volcanoes...
Plenty of hidden launch base options.
If I remember correctly, their main facility in Auckland is about 200m from Panmure Lagoon. So hypothetically that facility could be connected via old lava tunnels to a secret base below the old caldera... ;)
Still my favourite youtube channel by far. Good stuff Scott!
Truly innovative. I love that after all the years of rocket development and SpaceX recent advances upon which this builds, there is still room for improvement to be explored.
Never heard of this rocket. Bet it will go into orbit before Blue Origin. I'm ready to bet $50 on it.
I would not bet against this. If they are making real progress in delivering Neutron, this will light a fire under Blue Origin. Then we will see if their engineers can work as hard as their lawyers.
as much as i love rocket lab…we have seen so many companies showing us grandiose CG rockets before they even have an engine built that its hard to take anyone seriously right now. Especially when they say how much better they will be than their competition that is already flying.
and im not saying spacex has been any different when they started with the falcon9, but i wish companies would just slow down on the CG hopium a bit until they actually have so,ething to show.
and how do you attract capital to fund this then?
@@colinsoutherntrue, but its the first of their "big" presentations i can remember. Maybe i just misremember but i cant recall them doing it for Falcon 1.
And i dont think an investor would be very impressed by this. Again: thats kind of the issue. We have seen so many companies do CG mockups and big presentations and the majority never delivered anything.
As an investor id look at the facts and an actual risk assessment, not this kind of video.
Id argue these arent really aimed at serious investors either. The same way no one ends up investing in Starship because Elon musk does a CGI video of mars habitats.
This whole presentation thing is more of a public image move. And nowadays most people have become very used to seeing these companies not deliver and fail. So im not sure what you really get by that.
Additionally most of these companies you cannot even invest in as a normal person. They are looking for a small number of big investors, not people that buy 500 bucks worth of stock.
So yeah...its not like i completely disagree with the notion, but i doubt thats really the point.
@@joansparky4439 dude. they are not attracting your capital either way. You cannot buy SpaceX stock. Arguably you could buy rocket labs stocks, but this isnt how they finance their business. These companies are mainly financed by a few big investors, not crowd funding.
And by now these investors have seen dozens of companies with nice CGI mockups and big dreams and nothing delivered in the end. No real investor funds a company based on these videos. They are for the public image.
Investors woudl take a long and hard look at actual risk assessments and facts, not a CGI video of a rocket and someone ramming an metal beam into a piece of spaceship hull.
Anyone can make this kind of video. And many companies did. And most failed to deliver. Thats not really a tradition you want to take part in.
@@colinsouthern this was a reply to your “spacex didnt start with falcon 9”, so of course im talking about a spacex-product.
thats what i mean. sure - if you deliver you earn some credibility. both spacex and rocket labs have done so in the past. but as you said it still doesnt mean anyone takes musks time tables seriously. and no investor goes into a round of funding based on musks timetable or a new CGI video.
These are for the general public, not investors. Thats all i wanted to say. Because you initially said something along the lines of no videos no rnd budget. whereas id argue these kinds of videos do little to attract serious investors.
@@TheVergile its not my capital they're after, there is much much bigger fish to catch, but catching them they must to get this done ;-)
Love the volcano base landing idea, so cool how neutron lands.
Wow man, this is some seriously interesting stuff here. VERY different thinking and I love it. Game changing I think. Fantastic.
In my view. Neutron looks like SpaceX's early BFR design mated with Blue Origin's New Glenn first stage
Rocket Lab needs a secret volcano base!
“It’ll operate from any volcano base you have.“ I love it!
really interesting what they came up with for the second stage and fairing!
Having a quick look at the landing legs during the re-entry animations, it looks like they retract upwards into the longer "fins". Likely that they only extend during final landing
Beck described them as 'static' in the update. That might change. ref: ua-cam.com/video/7kwAPr5G6WA/v-deo.html
Looking forward to how they will fuel the second stage when it's inside of the 1st stage.
Scott added some text noting that the two long fins could double as raceways for cabling, etc. Perhaps RL is going with the Starship design of fueling the upper stage thru pipes on the 1st stage. SpaceX abandoned that design only recently.
In that case the fins could contain the needed plumbing, which will turn inside when nearly at the upper stage level.
@@donjones4719 It's actually quite simple. They can open the fairing on the pad and fuel it from a launch tower, then close it again. Heavy plumbing, complexrouting, and potential leaks is not as simple and direct as a hose with a coupling that can be disconnected right before launch. The 2nd stage fuel is measured in kg instead of tons, after all. Just... yeah... building a tower is more cost, potentially. The other option would be to simply fuel it on the ground and lift it into place. but that's essentially needing the same tower/crane/silo to be built...They have a much cheaper vehicle, but the sunk cost is adding up quickly.
When I saw that faring opening up, my brain immediately started playing the space music from you only live twice.
Good bit of innovation with this rocket. Looks like the leg tips retract into the skegs on the side of the rocket , you can see them retracted on the launch pad section of the vid. .
I never knew Space X's Falcon 9 was 12' diameter to fit on the roads. Funny how so much of our engineering is determined by road and railway sizes.
and not new either.. look up the design considerations to tanks and jeeps for WW2, probably even planes.. You'll be surprised.
That’s also why the 737 fuselage is the size it is - for rail transport.
i too enjoyed Mr Becks presentation i love spacex but mr beck is definitely on the right track anyone gnashing their teeth or fanboying need to grow up
Nice video Man Scotley.
Finally some new rocketry ideas :D
I mean except SpaceX
It is nice to see advancements in rocket development. After 50 or some years of stagnations where engines developed in the 1950s like the RL-10, AJ-10 and RD-107 were still considered state of the art, now new engines and airframes are popping into existence with regularity. SpaceX has much to do with this trend. Without Elon it is doubtful we'd be seeing any of this level or rapidity of innovation.
@Lynn Geek One step at a time. Let's get off world colonies and then worry about FTL drive.
Wow. Never thought I'd see us Kiwis put something like this out there. Mind you, the Hamilton jet boat set the bar too :)
Love it, hope to see more smaller guys do great things
Imagine having the extra fuel in the second stage to enable it to get back down to an orbit were it can be catched by another neutron first stage and brought down to earth again
If second stage would go slow enough to be caught it would immediately deorbit. But maybe it would be possible to time it perfectly
@@LauPaSat-pl even if they timed it perfectly, the second stage would just smash into the first one at several km/s
there's no way you could recover something from orbit without yourself being in orbit too
@@dabs4270 That's why you slow upper stage to suborbital velocity. It will go down super fast, but you can try to catch it "mid fall". But that needs several km/s delta v
Just remember that every ounce of extra fuel, fairings, and Landing hardware you carry into orbit has to be subtracted from the payload capacity. That's why SpaceX quickly gave up on recovering the 2nd stage of the falcon 9.
They could keep them in orbit and wait until the next cargo Starship comes by to catch it and bring it back to earth ;-)
Hmm. Trying to outspaceX spaceX. This is gonna be interesting. My general prediction is that the Falcon 9 is the Sojus of the 21st century.....because nothing will ever get the adolation, reliability or cheapness of the first properly sensible launch system ever put into mass production. (Sensible as in not having escalating costs, waste of hardware and horrible manhour/result ratio)
Most incoherent post in this whole section. Nice job.
I find the demo with the battering ram a big roll-eyes moment (room temperature conditions, flat panel, ...). Also, they are comparable to falcon 9, not to starship.
But, rhetorics aside, it is great that they go with a different technological path: this will allow both to be compared in that application
This looks really cool and sleek looking forward to seeing it fly!
Rockets becoming more and more like 40s-50s Sci-Fi.
I don't know if it's self-fullfilling prophecy or authors were right
Fun fact: Heinlein only had VTVL rockets early in his writing career, when there wasn't much known about rocketry. Later on, he transitioned to winged orbital vehicles with orbital transit stations. So "how Heinlein intended" is actually VTHL with separate vehicles for different tasks!
My main question is how do they intend to human rate this vehicle with the integrated fairing? That would seem to preclude a lot of abort scenarios. Will it be a specialized version without the fairing? Seems a human rating would be questionable with that design.
Also, I do understand the arguments for a gas generator cycle, and that closed cycles are more complex and have more failure points etc - I know - but another part also laments the impulse lost. Also, unburned methane in the atmosphere... (and yes I do have similar thoughts about the Merlin).
Edit: maybe a combustion tap off...
Isn't that methane dumped into hot plume, so it heats up and burn with atmospheric oxygen? When it comes to human rating it, I also thought it may be difficult. But maybe they fairing is so thin, it can be broken up by aborting capsule? We'll just have to wait to see
What if they will have an option to remove fairings and replace them with faring like second stage for human travel.
@@urosrot7916 The question is then "Will the first stage be able to do safe re-entry", as that would leave it open
A crewed vehicle would need to survive reentry, so perhaps it would be reasonably simple to forego the fairings entirely.
Or, like Apollo and Soyuz, use an expendable fairing and (as you suggest) skip the reusable fairings entirely.
@@LauPaSat-pl In that case, the "an I-beam can't even dent it" test would really come back to bite them lol
I love how the second stage becomes optimized for one thing, space, and doesn't need to worry about the atmosphere anymore. Just like the super heavy landing legs which are put on the ground since it is optimized for flight - not landing.
This is a very very cool design.. nowadays we see projects looking very similar due to "efficiency reasons" but Neutron has a whole new thing going on.. I'm very excited to see it going forward
His graphical presentation game is nearly as good as BlueO's, and they have actually achieved orbit. This puts them about 10 years behind SpaceX and they should have a viable rocket equal to Falcon just after Falcon is retired for Starship. (scratches head)
Always going to want different classes of launch vehicle. Starship might be a great heavy-lift vehicle, but a medium-lift launcher will still be needed and with SpaceX retiring the Falcon 9, *someone* has to fill that gap. It sure as hell isn't going to be Blue Origin.
Starship is a beast, yes, but what if a customer doesn't need to utilize the 100 or so tons to orbit capability? That's where rockets like Neutron come in. There will always be a place for medium-lift vehicles.
Well, according to Elon the Starship will be more economical than a Falcon or FH, and he expects to be launching weekly. There will be plenty of space for everyone as ride shares to use up space, and cheaper than anyone else can provide.
We will see, its going to be a good show either way. I cant wait to some new really big new space station modules to get lifted and a build a new station that dwarfs anything yet envisioned. I keep expecting to hear SpaceX has acquired Bigelow Aerospace.
@@fjanson2468 Forgot about rideshares, you have a good point. It really depends on what the market wants to go with. Neutron would be more direct to a desired orbit while Starship could be cheaper yet slower to get to the same orbit.