The commercial launch market is flat at best and likely to stay that way for the next few years, meaning the number of launch services companies may contract, industry panelists said at SATELLITE 2019.
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell told a roundtable on GEO and heavy-lift launch services: “There’s a lot of interest in building launch vehicles to service the same markets. At the same time, the commercial industry has experienced a pretty significant contraction in recent years, so I don’t think there’s actually room for all of us.”
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Shotwell argued there would probably be enough launches to sustain no more than three different vehicles in each class: “While we might all be on the panels in future years, I don’t think all of us will be getting into orbit.”
Tory Bruno of ULA predicted “for most of this next decade” there would be no more than 30 to 35 launches a year. “All the launch companies are kind of similar with big capital assets like launchpads and factories. We all need 8 to 12 launches a year to be a viable economic entity. That’s room for four. There’s going to be two in Europe. That leaves us two domestically … We’ll be one of them.”
ULA’s new Vulcan vehicle was purpose-built for military launch: “Every rocket is optimized for a single set of missions … In this case, we chose to optimize here.”
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith took a less pessimistic tone. “The appetite for data is insatiable,” he said. “That trend is going to continue to happen, it’s going to continue to multiply and there’s going to be a launch services impact to that.” VS
