Future competitor for SpaceX? Firefly Space Systems

[Carl White]

Established by a former SpaceX engineer, Tom Markusic.

The design of that rocket is what made Ars gravitate toward exploring Firefly’s story in the first place: rather than walking down more traditional rocketry paths, the Alpha will be constructed from composites and will use a methane-fueled plugged autogenously pressurized aerospike engine.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/11/ ... rth-orbit/

[paperburn1]

I read it,

[D Tibbets]

I think that Firefly rocket co. may not be a competitor, at least a direct competitor, with Space X. They are in different markets- small versus large payloads.

The arospike engines might evolve into a competitive rocket design, though as mentioned, any gains would apply mostly to a SSTO effort. With 2-3 stages the efficiencies of the bell nozzle rockets at their employed altitudes may exceed the overall efficiencies of the arospike, and perhaps at less engine weight.

Elon Musk may even be one of the major investors in this company..

I think E. Musk has expressed interest in liquid methane engines. Methane is more ISP efficient than kerosine, but does not incur nearly the cooling/ insulation penalty and low density (requires larger heavier tanks to deliver the same amount of thrust) storage of hydrogen. I sometimes wonder if the Space Shuttle might have been better with methane main engines . ISP of perhaps 400 instead of the ~ 450 with hydrogen seems a step back. But with the smaller and lighter external tank (not to mention the lethal insulation problem with the Shuttle external tank), I wonder where the break even point would be.

Dan Tibbets