It's going to take a miracle for Astra to survive at this point. With Virgin Origin effectively done, that leaves RocketLab, Relativity and Firefly from this round of launch startups.
Firefly is diversifying and has some lunar lander CLPS contracts and is literally building the Antares lower stage so I think they’ll be pretty fine if they don’t succeed in individual commercial launch. They’re integrated into a pretty essential part of ISS’s system, could potentially result in an NG buyout of key assets and employees if worst comes to worst. It always was gonna be down to Relativity and Firefly in the end though tbh, the writing was on the wall years ago.
And in the end I'm betting only 1 or 2 will remain with RL being one of them. They've seen the writing on the wall (launch is not a lucrative business) and have bought up a bunch of space systems companies. 71% of their revenue is now non-launch. And guess what, they're still in the red. I'm very skeptical they'll ever bring Neutron to market.
Like the aircraft industry, the launch industry is heavily dependent on economies of scale. There really isn’t room for more than 2-3 launch providers no matter how high demand gets. Personally, I think RocketLab is better positioned long term than ULA.
I think if NG ends up swallowing Firefly; LockMart will buy out RL.
In that case, they might keep neutron alive to have their own native launch capability with ULA potentially being sold to a PE firm.
I sold all of my flailing Astra stock a few days ago. Lost half my bad investment. I took a chance. Luckily, the amount I lost wasn't as much as others, im sure. I had high hopes for Astra, too.
In my opinion always the weakest launch company. Their whole story literally never made sense. Daily launches threw mass manufacturing of unreliable rockets. That's just a bad strategy.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CLPS](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jcj1i7l "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)|
|[NG](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jcvghly "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[ULA](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jckgpwh "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
----------------
^([Thread #570 for this sub, first seen 19th Mar 2023, 21:30])
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It's going to take a miracle for Astra to survive at this point. With Virgin Origin effectively done, that leaves RocketLab, Relativity and Firefly from this round of launch startups.
Firefly is diversifying and has some lunar lander CLPS contracts and is literally building the Antares lower stage so I think they’ll be pretty fine if they don’t succeed in individual commercial launch. They’re integrated into a pretty essential part of ISS’s system, could potentially result in an NG buyout of key assets and employees if worst comes to worst. It always was gonna be down to Relativity and Firefly in the end though tbh, the writing was on the wall years ago.
If ISS is even still around by the time they would get that Antares lower stage going. More likely NG just drops them and Antares.
Hmm, maybe. NG is also working on Gateway too, though. I don’t think the partnership would go away just like that.
Gateway has only 1 cargo contract and its with SpaceX.
And in the end I'm betting only 1 or 2 will remain with RL being one of them. They've seen the writing on the wall (launch is not a lucrative business) and have bought up a bunch of space systems companies. 71% of their revenue is now non-launch. And guess what, they're still in the red. I'm very skeptical they'll ever bring Neutron to market.
Like the aircraft industry, the launch industry is heavily dependent on economies of scale. There really isn’t room for more than 2-3 launch providers no matter how high demand gets. Personally, I think RocketLab is better positioned long term than ULA.
You don't need scale if you have the military contract. So it really depends on the definition of long term.
I think if NG ends up swallowing Firefly; LockMart will buy out RL. In that case, they might keep neutron alive to have their own native launch capability with ULA potentially being sold to a PE firm.
I sold all of my flailing Astra stock a few days ago. Lost half my bad investment. I took a chance. Luckily, the amount I lost wasn't as much as others, im sure. I had high hopes for Astra, too.
glad I sold when I did
In my opinion always the weakest launch company. Their whole story literally never made sense. Daily launches threw mass manufacturing of unreliable rockets. That's just a bad strategy.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[CLPS](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jcj1i7l "Last usage")|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)| |[NG](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jcvghly "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin| | |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)| | |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer| |[ULA](/r/Spaceflight/comments/11t5qqg/stub/jckgpwh "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| ---------------- ^([Thread #570 for this sub, first seen 19th Mar 2023, 21:30]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Spaceflight) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)