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India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

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Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#61

Post by puszczyk »

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #50
appplication wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that this is less funding/valuation than hundreds of other random B2B Series C/D companies that may not even exist in 5 years. No point, just perspective.

Indian VC's don't really have the same appetite for deep tech as compared to America/Europe. R&D within Indian Enterprises is significantly less as compared to its peers. From what I know, its partially because of how taxation structures incentivize research as R&D tax breaks or similar don't particularly exist in India All of this makes founders more likely to move abroad where such research is more valued which mak…

Thank you for sharing that perspective; I'm from Eastern Europe and have had many Indian colleagues over the years (both in the EU and working remotely). I always wondered, given the super deep talent pool and many founders originally from India, why we don't see that many Indian companies on the global stage.

I guess Eastern Europe is a bit similar (in the fact that it had a brain drain; although maybe less so since my country joined the EU), but also have a unique challenges, i.e., the EU market is fragmented and the companies need to break into a market by market.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#62

Post by ggreer »

MobiusHorizons wrote: post #20
ambicapter wrote: post #13

4 stages feels like a lot of added complexity for your first launch. I assume it gives you more performance margin to drop weight/stages more often?

4 stages is certainly a lot more than most rockets, but most rockets don’t use solid rocket stages. Solid rocket motors are generally much more reliable/ simpler than liquid fueled stages, but they can’t be throttled or turned off early which makes it hard to achieve precise orbits. My guess is the extra stages allow for better control by carefully choosing when to light the next stage. The scout family of rockets ar…

Solid motors are simpler, but I wouldn't say they're more reliable. It was the solid booster failure that caused the Challenger disaster, and solid booster failures that have caused ULA's Vulcan Centaur rocket to be grounded. As you say, solids can't be throttled or turned off easily. They also can't be test fired. Yes, you can static fire a solid rocket and reuse the housing/nozzle/etc, but solids often fail due to imperfections in the propellant. Pockets of air or fractures in the propellant can cause a sudden increase in propellant surface area, which then generates more pressure, potentially blowing up the booster. With a liquid rocket, the engine can shut down if there's an anomaly. But with a solid, there's no option but to let the reaction continue.

There's also the issue that a solid booster must be "fueled" before it reaches the pad, meaning you have ground crew working around a large quantity of explosive material. A Brazilian solid rocket exploded on the launch pad, killing 21 people.[1] Liquid rockets can be made inert until everyone is far away, then loaded with propellant.

A big advantage of solid rockets is that they can be stored for long periods and quickly launched. This is handy for use cases like ICBMs, but not particularly important for commercial launches.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLS-1_V03

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#63

Post by somenameforme »

zbentley wrote: post #56
devnonymous wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rocket engineers/scientists are in high demand with lots of likely sponsors for immigration I wouldn't be too sure about the immigration part, when even a software engineer hire for a defence/defence adjacent job requires jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops of security clearances. Even the companies with deep pockets don't always get the best people in the world -- they just get the best people that HR c…

That's often true, but less true than it was a decade ago. Private, commercial space companies are a lot more numerous now. Sure, most of them have military contracts/oversight as well, but there are more opportunities with them that don't require military/government certification/authorization of immigrant hires than there were previously. Also, there are plenty of space companies that aren't in the US/UK/China who…

What are you basing this on? AFAIK space is still exactly the same, at least in the US. Rockets fall under ITAR and so all hiring at companies working in rocketry is generally going to fall under those regulations which exclude everybody except US citizens/permanent residents. ITAR covers anybody who might come in contact with controlled technologies, so even a e.g. janitor's going to hired with ITAR compliance in mind.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#65

Post by walrus01 »

alephnerd wrote: post #52
mayama wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India has developed ASAT, which is arguably more complicated that ICBM, agni series, they developed. India routinely understates ranges and appear non threatening. Agni5 and 6 are genuine ICBM, and with little tuning could reach anywhere in the world. India's bureaucracy and MEA is beset with gandhian mindset who try to avoid confrontations and minimise belligerence, opposite of PRC wolf warriors I guess.

> India's bureaucracy and MEA is beset with gandhian mindset who try to avoid confrontations and minimise belligerence, opposite of PRC wolf warriors I guess. It isn't because of some purported Gandhian mindset. It's becuase India is in a pacing conflict with China and Pakistan, whereas China is in one with the US and historically the USSR. Assuming the Chagos Archipelago dispute gets resolved in the next decade (Ind…

I presume they're thinking any potential adversaries have functioning intelligence agencies, so something as public as a launch is sufficient. No need to come out and explicitly state it.

If I, some rando on the internet, can theorize "that sure looks like it could be turned into a storable icbm that could deliver a nuke to hawaii or Tierra del Fuego or anywhere else on the globe" can make that guess, then any other major world power is likely far ahead of me in analysis.

Also well known that having the institutional knowledge and technical capability to build or adapt something in a fairly short time frame is almost as good as having the thing ready to go.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#66

Post by walrus01 »

literalAardvark wrote: post #39
zbentley wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat, but rocket engineering has some upward cost pressures that offset the savings from being in India: expertise is expensive even adjusting for the cost of labor (many staff are likely competing on salary with the rest of the world--rocket engineers/scientists are in high demand with lots of likely sponsors for immigration); aerospace materials/fabrication have a pretty global supply and patent chain even give…

Rocketry is tightly controlled by ITAR, so mobility is lower than you'd expect for a high value field.

And MTCR

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#67

Post by walrus01 »

a34729t wrote: post #57
darth_avocado wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably meant the third country with a private sector capability to launch rockets, US and China being the other two.

as opposed to New Zealand?

Rocket Lab is a US company, they would not have been able to build what they did without full ITAR and MTCR compliance.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#68

Post by walrus01 »

numpad0 wrote: post #55
londons_explore wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you need at least a little thrust ~40 mins later to circularize the orbit? Obviously solid rockets can't be relit. Could that be the use of the 4th stage?

Rockets are usually two-staged + satellites. The booster take it to outside of the atmosphere, then the upper stage puts it into a ballistic trajectory, and the payload does the circularization burn 45 minutes or so after the liftoff at the peak of the parabola. Above is the basic semantics, and it can be further optimized, such as by extending battery power for the second stage to use it for circularization, inserti…

One example of a typical liquid fueled small third stage would be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fregat

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#69

Post by alephnerd »

walrus01 wrote: post #65
alephnerd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India's bureaucracy and MEA is beset with gandhian mindset who try to avoid confrontations and minimise belligerence, opposite of PRC wolf warriors I guess. It isn't because of some purported Gandhian mindset. It's becuase India is in a pacing conflict with China and Pakistan, whereas China is in one with the US and historically the USSR. Assuming the Chagos Archipelago dispute gets resolved in the next decade (Ind…

I presume they're thinking any potential adversaries have functioning intelligence agencies, so something as public as a launch is sufficient. No need to come out and explicitly state it. If I, some rando on the internet, can theorize "that sure looks like it could be turned into a storable icbm that could deliver a nuke to hawaii or Tierra del Fuego or anywhere else on the globe" can make that guess, then any other…

> I presume they're thinking any potential adversaries have functioning intelligence agencies, so something as public as a launch is sufficient. No need to come out and explicitly state it.

Exactly. This is the norm.

Re: India's first privately-developed rocket reaches orbit on debut launch

#70

Post by FpUser »

somenameforme wrote: post #63
zbentley wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's often true, but less true than it was a decade ago. Private, commercial space companies are a lot more numerous now. Sure, most of them have military contracts/oversight as well, but there are more opportunities with them that don't require military/government certification/authorization of immigrant hires than there were previously. Also, there are plenty of space companies that aren't in the US/UK/China who…

What are you basing this on? AFAIK space is still exactly the same, at least in the US. Rockets fall under ITAR and so all hiring at companies working in rocketry is generally going to fall under those regulations which exclude everybody except US citizens/permanent residents. ITAR covers anybody who might come in contact with controlled technologies, so even a e.g. janitor's going to hired with ITAR compliance in mi…

>"AFAIK space is still exactly the same, at least in the US." - I believe he is talking about countries other than the US
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