Or they could scale up once they prove their ability to fly... just like SpaceX did with the Falcon 1. Which, granted, had more payload capacity that the Firefly Alpha is designed for. But they could follow a similar plan.
There may be some money in the small launch market. But physics is not kind to small rockets.
I'm not sure it makes sense to assume that all launch companies want to scale up and build vastly bigger rockets. SpaceX did it to go after the CRS launches, and now onto larger commercial/military payloads. Their endgame was never lightweight launch class.
Firefly is making it their business plan to go after a lucrative business, and one that is likely to grow dramatically in the coming years. They're competing with the capabilities currently offered to secondary payloads on larger launch vehicles or as primary payloads on e.g. Orbital's solid fuel vehicles. Orbital/ATK is the real competitor here, not SpaceX.
Firefly is planning a larger (1000kg) launch vehicle, which is still much smaller than a Falcon9.
Re:Firefly Space Systems
by thisjepisje on Monday July 07, 2014 @11:13AM
(#7999251)
Not sure if I understand you correctly, but:
>But physics is not kind to small rockets.
Why start with a small rocket, then?
Because limited funding is not kind to large rockets.
With that said, the addressable markets for the two companies are vastly different. Firefly is targeting the <1000kg payload market, with the hypothetical initial launch vehicle targeting <400kg. The Falcon 9 is designed for an order of magnitude more payload, with upcoming vehicles targeting an even greater capability.
So, at this stage there may be a small amount of talent competition (at ~25 employees) and hypothetically it could provide competition for secondary payload capabilities in the future if things work out.