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The question has already been asked here why no one has built a rocket to launch one CubeSat.

Here I'm asking about something sort of like SS-520, but commercial.

When I google the smallest rocket for launching satellites, at first all the results are about SS-520. But then I stumbled across Skylark Micro by accident. Is it the smallest rocket now?

Does anyone know about even smaller rockets?

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    $\begingroup$ I adjusted the formatting a bit and added link(s) to the question you mentioned. Can you take a look to see if this is still okay? $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Jan 12, 2021 at 10:19
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    $\begingroup$ For a commercial success of this XXS rocket, the launch of one Cubesat only should be cheaper than a launch of only two or three CubeSats together using the smallest (and cheapest) multi CubeSat launcher. But you can't scale down all parts of small rockets with the same factor for weight and price. $\endgroup$
    – Uwe
    Jan 12, 2021 at 13:51
  • $\begingroup$ Skylark Micro is suborbital. What is the point of launching a satellite in a suborbital path? Are you sure you are looking for suborbital rockets too? If yes then maybe rockets that pass a certain height? Otherwise any sounding rocket qualifies $\endgroup$
    – Joe Jobs
    Jan 21, 2021 at 19:08
  • $\begingroup$ Vector-R is designed to launch 60 kg to LEO - Blue Whale 1 is planned to become the smallest orbital rocket in the world with a mass of only 1790 kg - putting 50 kg to SSO. Also see SMA-2 Micro - 15 kg to LEO - spacemissionarchitects.com/sma-2 - Also Space Ops - Rocky 1 - 5kg - newspace.im/launchers/spaceops $\endgroup$
    – Joe Jobs
    Jan 21, 2021 at 19:28

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That particular page on their website is not very clear, but the "products" tab makes it a bit clearer, as does the Wikipedia summary: "Skylark Micro" is intended for suborbital launches. It is thus not in the same class as orbital launchers like the SS-520.

Skyrora are developing an orbital launcher, the "Skyrora XL". It is not yet in service, but the documentation they have published suggests it will be around 24m long with a fuelled mass of 56t, and a payload of around 2-300kg. This is substantially larger than the SS-520 - it is more comparable to something like the Electron or Falcon 1.

SS-520 was an engineering test to see if it could be done; the answer was "yes". It probably isn't the smallest rocket that could be built to do that job (though I'd be surprised if it was possible to make one much smaller) - but as the other question indicates, it's unlikely it would be commercially viable for most payloads.

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https://docplayer.net/25482385-A-sounding-rocket-launch-technique-for-pico-satellite-payloads-mark-s-goll-and-david-w-dunham-texas-rocket-company-and-kinetx-inc.html

Described is a "low cost, low technology" launch vehicle. Often when "smallest" is specified that means high performance and high cost.

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    $\begingroup$ Welcome to the site. I notice that your username is the same as one of the authors listed on the linked paper. Are you aware that the supporting webpage citations 3 and 4, which are supposed to describe the launch vehicle in question, are broken? It's difficult to determine how the proposed vehicle compares to the SS-520-4 with the information in the link. $\endgroup$
    – Erin Anne
    Sep 29, 2022 at 3:42
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    $\begingroup$ Also, StackExchange discourages "link-only" answers (partly because of the danger of link rot); it's preferred to quote the major supporting facts from the citation in your post here in addition to the link from the citation. $\endgroup$
    – Erin Anne
    Sep 29, 2022 at 3:45
  • $\begingroup$ What Erin said, and you need to explicitly state that you are one of the authors of the linked article. In its current state, your answer may be treated as spam. $\endgroup$
    – PM 2Ring
    Sep 29, 2022 at 3:47
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    $\begingroup$ Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. $\endgroup$
    – Community Bot
    Sep 29, 2022 at 4:29

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