Firefly Aerospace's Bill Weber says in a small launch vehicle panel at #smallsatsymposium they're preparing for an Alpha launch for a responsive space mission in May; after that, perform launches every two months.
Virgin Orbit's Dan Hart: investigation into LauncherOne failure last month still in progress, but everything points to a filter in the second stage that got dislodged and "caused mischief downstream." It was "a $100 part that took us out." Working on return to flight from Mojave.
Lots of discussion on the panel about affordability and launch costs. Arianespace's Marino Fragnito suggests an unnamed company (which sounds a lot like SpaceX) is setting smallsat launch costs so low on rideshare missions other companies can't make money.
Rocket Lab's Adam Spice agrees about the effect SpaceX Transporter missions are having on the market; will force a "survival of the fittest" among small launch companies.
Spice: we're at the beginning of the bloodletting of aspirational launch companies. Won't see much M&A activity; the weak will just die.
Avio's Giulio Ranzo says he can't go into details about Vega C accident investigation, but that report should be released soon. Confirms it is a problem with the second stage, which could allow earlier return to flight of the original Vega (which uses a different stage.)
Finally, neither US nor European companies on the panel said they're worried about competing with Chinese small launch vehicles; Fragnito says a "big political change" would be needed to allow them to compete for Western business.
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