CSF Appeals for Support for Armadillo Aerospace and Others
Statement from SARG Chair Dr. Steven Collicott on Suborbital Research Needs, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
“The Suborbital Applications Researchers Group (SARG) of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation notes John Carmack’s August 2, 2013 statement regarding the hibernation of rocket development at Armadillo Aerospace. The STIG rocket appeals to researchers by providing many of the advantages characteristic of next-generation suborbital vehicles including a gentle lift-off, pressurized payload bay, late payload access before launch, rapid payload access after landing, and a lower cost than traditional sounding rockets. Armadillo’s success to date, including domestic and international payloads lofted and safely recovered on several mission development flights and a flight to 95km memorably captured on video, highlights how close their hard work has brought them to achieving an important operational research capability eagerly awaited by many scientists. The researchers of SARG encourage Armadillo and all of the new suborbital companies in their pursuit of success with investors and vehicles””
Previous:
– John Carmack Joins Gaming VR Company Oculus Rift
– Armadillo Aerospace “Out of Money”
Marc’s note: Armadillo Aerospace isn’t the first space startup to run out of money and it won’t be last. It’s nice to see the CSF standing up for Armadillo and others but it’s a bit late for Armadillo. Carmack has moved on and has made it clear the company is low in his priority list. As for others, market forces and or government support will determine if they survive and possibly thrive.
What role did Morpheus and Mighty Eagle have in Carmack’s decision? Kind of hard to justify a business when one of your customers is also your largest competitor and part of your own government.
in addition, all of the researchers that CSF/SARG are encouraging to act get their funding from … NASA. There is a certain level of Pete Worden’s concept of a self-licking ice cream cone at work here.
One unique thing about Armadillo is that their website spoke honestly about failures, and about the technical details behind successes, to a degree seldom seen. The STIG seems like a solid, practical design.
It’s my understanding that NASA received considerable support from Armadillo in their initial experiments with the Pixel, then cut their ties. Why they did this is not clear. NASA sometimes goes out of its way to promote partnerships. In this case they had an experienced partner that could have contributed to the success of the program, and cut them off.
Armadillo was a very open company and they are to be applauded for that. As Mike and I are suggesting though, this suborbital market is still being supported mostly by NASA money – directly or indirectly – all while the agency uses Armadillo hardware to more or less compete with them. The fact that NASA likes their hardware – and bought it (since NASA no longer knows how to build it) speaks highly of what Armadillo accomplished. I suspect that we have not heard the last from them.
I hope not. A small company, almost a group of hobbyists, that can build a fully reusable liquid-propelled rocket that can reach space and land on a dime with a steerable parachute deserves continued support. Why don’t they shoot off a bunch of SBIR proposals like Orion Propulsion did?