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A comment on ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehearsal. Parent comment

Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by someperson on Thursday November 23, 2023 @07:01PM (#38399220)
People regularly forget the distant second private rocket company after SpaceX is Rocket Lab, with no one else close.

Blue Origin is almost completely irrelevant. Jeff Bezos may buy United Launch Alliance, but it likely won't help given Blue Origin's abysmal track record.

Amazon's Project Kuiper (the Starlink competitor) has no affordable launch provider since they're avoiding SpaceX, so it's also dead in the water.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by GuB-42 on Thursday November 23, 2023 @07:42PM (#38399523)
I tend not to think of Rocket Lab as an American company as it was founded in New Zealand. But considering that its is mostly growing in the US now, maybe it is after all.
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by jasonwatkinspdx on Thursday November 23, 2023 @09:02PM (#38399981)
It's incorporated in the US, headquartered in CA, and traded on NASDAQ so it's definitely a US company, just one with a NZ heritage.
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by dash2 on Friday November 24, 2023 @04:56AM (#38402225)
[Cries in UK at how great companies feel they have to move to America to succeed]
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by konschubert on Friday November 24, 2023 @01:56PM (#38406975)
[Would like to cry in EU, but can't because Threads is blocked.]
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by chasd00 on Thursday November 23, 2023 @07:28PM (#38399438)
What happened at blue origin? Is it just a hobby and not a business?
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by jwells89 on Thursday November 23, 2023 @07:39PM (#38399502)
While I can’t confirm since I haven’t worked there and am not in the industry, I’ve read that one of the biggest issues Blue Origin is dealing with is trouble with retaining talent. One article I read couple years back called it a revolving door if I recall correctly.

If that’s true there’s likely major managerial or structural issues that are gumming things up.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by oh_sigh on Thursday November 23, 2023 @08:13PM (#38399724)
Sounds just like some of Jeff's other ventures
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by dmd on Thursday November 23, 2023 @09:18PM (#38400056)
Lots of people aren’t aware that Blue Origin hasn’t had even one launch to orbit yet. Or even a failed attempt. They literally haven’t left the starting line yet.
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by somenameforme on Friday November 24, 2023 @12:15AM (#38400835)
And that they were founded before SpaceX. It really emphasizes that space remains an extremely difficult industry, which makes all the recent progress even more exciting.
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by sangnoir on Friday November 24, 2023 @01:44AM (#38401211)
There seems to be decent business in suborbital niche.
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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by physicles on Friday November 24, 2023 @12:26AM (#38400878)
The current lame duck CEO, Bob Smith, was pretty unpopular and ineffective. We’ll see if his replacement is any better.

From [0]:

> As a space reporter, I have spoken with dozens of current and former Blue Origin employees, and virtually none of them have had anything positive to say about Smith's tenure as chief executive. I asked one current employee about the hiring of Limp on Monday afternoon, and their response was, "Anything is better than Bob."

[0]: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/09/bob-smith-is-finally-g...

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by was_a_dev on Friday November 24, 2023 @04:19AM (#38402003)
Most folks don't realise that RocketLab is also more than just a launch provider. They have diversified into providing their own satellite platform, Photon. Which I think, in itself, is a innovative product for space.

It is the platform NASA is using for the upcoming ESCAPADE mission to Mars. And it was used for the CAPSTONE Lunar mission, for example.

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Re:ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket passed a major full-scale rehea... by the_third_wave on Friday November 24, 2023 @03:06PM (#38407646)
Bezos has one advantage while the current regime in in place: he is not Musk, he is ideologically aligned and as such can get favours without much pressure on actually delivering.

As to whether Amazon's Spacelink competitor will be launched depends on whether BO can get their New Glenn rocket - a Falcon 9 competitor - up and running. If they do they should be able to 'launch their own dogfood' just like SpaceX is doing with Starlink on Falcon 9.

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