Middle Path To Space

 

Big remains beautiful in the satellite business, but launch vehicle operators are preparing new offerings to meet expected demand from commercial and government customers for small- and medium-class rockets that can deliver smaller payloads more cost-effectively.

Demand for large spacecraft will hold true for operators placing communications spacecraft in geostationary orbit, but the overall picture of satellite manufacturing trends — and consequent demand of launch services — is rather more complicated. “We see a continuation in the growth of mass of geo satellites, at least for applications such as mobile satellite services that require powerful payloads. At the same time, demand for smaller satellite payloads remains strong,” says Rachel Villain, director of space and communications at Euroconsult. “The fact is that different types of payloads meet different needs and respond to different logics. New entrants or operators in no-growth markets, for example, might decide that it makes more sense for them to invest in smaller satellites.”

In other words, only an analysis of satellite demand to see how this is segmented into large, medium and small platforms can give a measure of the consequent demand for launch services. But what is the overall demand for satellites? In a study released in March, the Teal Group, a defense and aerospace consulting firm, listed a total of 2,033 payloads proposed to be developed worldwide through 2009-2028. “This is what we call a mission model, that is to say a big picture of what is proposed to be built. Naturally, it does not mean that all payloads accounted for in the model will see the light of day,” says Marco Caceres, senior analyst and director of space studies at the Teal Group. “We estimate that only a quarter of the payloads listed in our mission model requires heavy-lift launchers to geostationary transfer orbit.”

This leaves a potentially vast market for small- and medium-class launchers: spacecraft spanning from nanosatellites and microsatellites built for scientific missions by universities and research institutions to larger commercial spacecraft for applications such as Earth observation, communication and navigation. Yet, numbers can be deceiving. The crucial issue is that it will be up to payload owners to decide whether to have them delivered in large batches on heavy-lift rockets or in smaller batches or individual launches by smaller rockets. Several factors are likely to inform these decisions, of which price is a major one.

Traditionally, small launchers have proved to be more expensive than larger rockets in terms of price per weight unit. This is likely to remain the case in the near future, as the case of the Arianespace family of launchers clearly illustrates. “Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega offer a three-fold step increase in performance: Ariane 5 is three times more powerful than Soyuz, which is three times more powerful than Vega,” says Jean-Yves Le Gall, CEO and chairman of Arianespace. “However, this three-to-one ratio does not exactly apply to prices, because we have fixed costs that remain the same no matter which launcher is used.”

However, launch costs are only one of the factors to be taken into consideration. The number of dual or multiple missions on heavy-lift rockets likely will diminish in the future, as the trend towards heavier payloads continues — besides, it is not always possible or easy for multiple satellites to share the same payload bay. In addition, while there are modular vehicles in the market that could be scaled down to accommodate small payloads (such as the Delta 4 and Atlas 5, for example), they might not always represent a cost-effective solution. “Modularity has a cost,” says Villain. In other words, while price likely will remain a factor affecting the commercial success of small and medium launchers, it is not going to be the only decider when it comes to choosing a launch vehicle. Issues such as the types of missions and applications satellites are built for, their countries of origin, and the general economic climate also need to be taken into account. All things considered, it is a complex and varied picture emerges.

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