The Defense Department is looking to develop on-demand launches to allow the military to quickly replace satellites that are damaged or destroyed. | NASA/Getty Images space Pentagon’s ‘on-demand’ space launch challenge presents host of challenges Small launch startup Vector discusses the inherent difficulties of sending a payload aloft on short notice.

Some of the biggest challenges facing the Pentagon’s effort to enlist companies to demonstrate they can launch satellites on demand may be on Earth -- such as a mountain of licensing paperwork and figuring out logistics with short notice of the launch site.

That's the take of a top executive of one of the three launch companies competing in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Launch Challenge , which plans to have participants launch a payload on short notice from a yet-to-be-disclosed launch site and then do it again just a few weeks later. The first launch is set to take place early next year.


"Getting paperwork in to the [Federal Aviation Administration] for five licenses for five different spaceports simultaneously is a herculean task,” says Robert Cleave, the chief revenue officer at Vector, an Arizona-based small launch company founded in 2016. “We have two people dedicated to doing this with support staff of a couple more.”

The Defense Department is interested in developing on-demand launch because it will allow the military to quickly replace satellites that are damaged or destroyed.

Vector is competing for a $10 millino prize along with Virgin Orbit and a “stealth” team yet to be named to be awarded to the first company to launch both payloads. (Each team that successfully launches the first payload will also in $2 million).

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But another big challenge they are facing is transporting the rocket when the companies will only learn the location of their launch site a few weeks ahead of time, added Cleave, who previously worked at Lockheed Martin.

“Do we put one in the middle of the country and say this is the equidistant spot, let’s just put it in Omaha, Neb., and just go from there? Given that it’s in January or February, you have the logistical issue of weather,” he added. “It’s a challenge by every definition of the word.”

Cleave also spoke to POLITICO about the company's policy advocacy in Washington and the future of the small launch market,

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

How is Vector preparing for the DARPA Launch Challenge?

The first one is regulatory. Getting paperwork in to the [Federal Aviation Administration] for five licenses for five different spaceports simultaneously is a herculean task. It is an enormous amount of work. We have two people dedicated to doing this with support staff of a couple more.

Second, we are of course building the rockets, testing and qualifying.

The third is getting prepared for our operations and how we might be able to do our operations efficiently knowing that we could be literally from Kodiak, Alaska, to Florida in a couple weeks time. How do we transport? … Do we stage? Do we put two out there, knowing that maybe they won’t be used? Do we put one in the middle of the country and say this is the equidistant spot, let’s just put it in Omaha, Neb., and just go from there? Given that it’s in January or February, you have the logistical issue of weather. It’s a challenge by every definition of the word.

What are Vector’s biggest policy priorities in D.C.?

The biggest regulatory organization that we work with on a day to day basis is the FAA and they have the dual requirement. On the one hand, they’re there to ensure the safety of people and they’re also trying to promote launch. We recognize that they have these antithetical, opposing objectives if you will. … When we have to submit a license application, we have to put in a specific trajectory. If an engineer a month later changes a parameter in our design that affects the trajectory, we have to resubmit. So what we would love to see … is speed, or perhaps velocity. How do you match the cadence or business velocity that we are being asked to do by our customers, how do we make sure the regulatory framework matches that?

What are the biggest challenges you’re facing to scale the company?

The phrase I use with my boss is we’re going from a startup to a growup. … You’re bringing in more talent and more senior leadership. Getting that talent into the right position is challenging, because sometimes people think they’re really good at one job, but the reality is they’re maybe average or they don’t have the skill set or experience so it’s really challenging.

As we go from a startup to a growup, we need to instill processes. … We don’t want to have the processes of a 50-year-old legacy company because that doesn’t make sense for us. We still need to be nimble. But we want to increase the operational efficiency of the company and processes tend to help if you do them properly.

The third is behaving more like … a company that’s expected to make profits for its investors. Initially you have a vision of what you want to be … and investors put money into you because they believe in that vision. But eventually investors want their money back. So how do you maximize your value to be sold? Or how do you increase your margins so you can return to the shareholders through earnings? That framework, that thinking needs to become more rigorous. We’re not quite there yet … but I anticipate that will be a problem in the future.

What do you have coming up in 2019?

We have a launch this summer that we’re excited about. … This is an internal risk reduction launch funded by Vector with no payload on it.

What is the future of small launch and talk about a bubble in the industry?

We track over 100 launch vehicles companies. … Out of those 100, how many of those are going to be real? … How many of those companies are going to be able to get $100 million? I think that takes out the vast majority. When you look at the demand, there was 160 [small satellites launched] on average [each year] over the last five years with the projection of 520 by 2022 per year. When you think about those kinds of numbers … that has a tremendous amount of quantity.

The legacy lift market was the same. Everyone was trying to do six metric tons to geosynchronous transfer orbit. … When you look at our launch vehicle capabilities, [Vector, Virgin, Firefly are all targeting lifting different masses to different orbits.] So we’re actually not in the same space, we’re more complimentary. Then it becomes a case of what does the user want.

You were previously at Lockheed Martin. What has your transition been like?

I would try to push us into envelopes we couldn’t go into. If you look at Lockheed, Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon … you test and test and test and test until you’re done. That costs a lot of money. That’s why their stuff is so expensive. I found it ironic and disappointing when I was at Lockheed that people would applaud when SpaceX had a failure. If Lockheed had a failure, do you think people would applaud? No … There’s no way they could have a failure. ULA can not have a failure whatsoever. With SpaceX, it’s no problem. In fact, let’s make a blooper reel out of it. If you really want to get into cutting edge, think about the ‘60s. … They took all kinds of risks and all kinds of failures happened and it was acceptable. So society’s image of what’s acceptable and what’s not, there’s really a different lens for both of those companies.

Being entrepreneurial, I was frustrated with the lack of leaning forward taking place in the company. That was a big factor right there. The other big factor was the inability to control your own destiny. You’re a cog in the wheel. … The transition is hard because I had the infrastructure. I had a business card that could get me into any door I wanted to. That was nice. … Our suppliers took us very seriously. If we called them, they dropped their other calls. Now we’re the one being dropped. We have some suppliers say, you’re not big enough, we’re going to go work with Boeing. That is a problem for us.

