Despite setback, SpaceX still shaking up LSP market
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets on the assembly line at the company’s assembly facility in Hawthorne, California. Photo Credit: SpaceX
The space industry is growing – and becoming more crowded with launch service providers ready to deliver payloads into orbit. Older launch systems are being replaced by newer vehicles, with increasing capabilities and power. The most important factor is that the one astronomical cost to send payloads into orbit is diminishing. This has been made possible predominantly by a small handful of companies – with one among them helping to prompt dynamic change within the industry.
The last couple of years has born witness to player burgeoning on the space launch market. The California-based company SpaceX has introduced its two-stage Falcon 9 rocket family of rockets. In so doing, they almost immediately became a serious rival for long-established launch service providers both domestically and globally.
SpaceX made history in 2012 when it delivered one of the firm’s Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the first commercial company ever to visit the orbiting lab.
Arianespace has seen the LSP market gain new suppliers since the European firm’s formation in 1980. Photo Credit: S. Martin / Arianespace
By 2013, the Falcon 9 was the lowest-costing launch vehicle in the industry as it offered flights to low-Earth orbit (LEO) for approximately $56.5 million.
This rival offer came as a blow to European space giant Arianespace, which holds the leading position of approximately 60 percent market share for commercial satellite launches. SpaceX’s more competitive offer forced Arianespace to re-think its pricing policy and lower their launch costs, which, at that time, were established at about $140 million per flight.
“I am looking at our pricing policy and if we must adapt it to the competition, we will,” Stéphane Israël, Chairman and CEO of Arianespace said in November of 2013. “We’ll look at the overall efficiency of the Ariane business with a view to optimizing it.”
Arianespace’s Ariane 5 heavy launch vehicle currently flies in two configurations, the ECA and ES. It is capable of delivering 21 metric tons to LEO and up to 10 metric tons to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). By comparison, the Falcon 9 v1.1, which is now the only active booster of the Falcon 9 family, can deliver 13 metric tons to LEO and nearly 5 metric tons to GTO, making it more competitive than the Ariane 5 in terms of cost.
The European firm is not taking these events lying down, however.
After increasingly losing customers to SpaceX for satellite launches, the European company is planning to lower the cost per flight to about $96 million. This new price range could be implemented when the new Ariane 6 launcher is developed, which could deliver 11 metric tons to GTO, making Arianespace’s offer more affordable. The first flight of the Ariane 6 is currently slated to take place in 2020.
“Unless the other rocket makers improve their technology rapidly, they will lose significant market share to the Falcon 9,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and chief designer.
SpaceX is also expanding its portfolio by developing a heavier version of the Falcon booster. The Falcon Heavy should allow the company to send a record-breaking payload of 53 metric tons to LEO and slightly more than 21 metric tons to GTO – with a starting price of $90 million for up to 6.4 metric tons. When one considers SpaceX is currently working to field the new v1.2 Falcon 9, the launch service market is set to undergo further changes.
SpaceX and Arianespace aren’t the only players aspiring for their share of the launch market. International Launch Services (ILS), a U.S.-Russian joint venture, is planning to use the Angara booster being developed by Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center to help them compete in this lucrative market.
ILS already employs the Russian-built Proton booster, and has added the Angara as the newest addition to its commercial fleet.
The Angara 5 is a heavy-lift version of the booster that should have a payload capacity of hoisting some 24.5 metric tons to LEO and 7.5 metric tons to GTO. The smaller Angara 1.2 will be able to deliver much less – only 3.8 metric tons to LEO. Though the exact price of the launches is still not known, ILS aims to be competitive with SpaceX and Arianespace in terms of cost.
Despite the setback incurred on June 28, 2015, SpaceX continues its efforts to develop innovative technologies in the launch services market. Photo Credit: SpaceX
“In order not to lose the commercial space market altogether, Russia should start developing a rocket that would cost about $50 million per launch, so as not to leave this segment of the market to SpaceX,” said Andrei Ionin, a member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.
ILS believes the Angara family of launch vehicles will attract customers thanks in part to their ability to support virtually all spacecraft to all orbits, altitudes, and inclinations for the low, medium, and heavy-lift range.
Angara 1.2 commercial launches could start as soon as 2017. The heavier version could begin delivering satellites into orbit a few years later, perhaps as early as 2021.
However, the real revolution in the space launch market could come from the development of a genuinely reusable launch system. SpaceX is currently working on its own program and has made progress toward having the first stage of the Falcon 9 on its Automated Spaceport Drone Ship placed out in the Atlantic Ocean some 300 miles off the Coast of Florida.
The company began its attempts to retrieve the first stage, and the nine Merlin 1D rocket engines incorporated therein in 2013.
SpaceX has said that if they are successful in developing the reusable technology, launch prices of around $5 to 7 million for a reusable Falcon 9 are possible. This technology would be a giant leap towards making spaceflight more affordable.
These efforts encountered a delay on June 28, 2015, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1, with the Dragon spacecraft, was tasked with carrying out the seventh operational Commercial Resupply Services flight to the International Space Station on behalf of NASA. It was not to be. One hundred and 39 seconds into the flight, an over-pressure event – instigated by a failure in a strut in the booster’s stage – resulted in a complete loss of both the launch vehicle, the Dragon spacecraft, and the (roughly) 4,000 lbs of cargo it had carried.
As SpaceX’s COO and President Gwynne Shotwell noted during a press conference held a few hours after the accident, all aerospace firms operate with the understanding that such incidents are a part of the business. The mishap has not slowed the NewSpace firm’s efforts with the next flight of a Falcon 9 slated to take to the skies later this year.
Tomasz Nowakowski
Tomasz Nowakowski is the owner of Astro Watch, one of the premier astronomy and science-related blogs on the internet. Nowakowski reached out to SpaceFlight Insider in an effort to have the two space-related websites collaborate. Nowakowski's generous offer was gratefully received with the two organizations now working to better relay important developments as they pertain to space exploration.
Already a bit of old news. Falcon V 1.2 is going to fly this year. It is a 1.6 million pound thrust machine able to put more into LEO and GEO than Ariane at $60 million per flight. It could be recoverable, meaning cost per launch could drop by 30 percent or more in the very near future.
Space X is also incorporating ion thruster into its GEO satellite delivery. Essentially a 450 Specific Impulse cryogenic upper stage replaced by a 3500 Specific Impulse Xenon NEXT system. Do this Ariane simply cannot compete.
Biggest factor, left out of this story. It is going to cost the ESA $5.3 billion USD to develop its Ariane 6. It cost Space X under $450 million to get to its newest variant of Falcon V 1.2. V 1.2R. Based on this there is absolutely no way ESA can fly at a profit. In addition it appears at this time Donald Trump, or even a Democrat populist will win in 2016. (Trump more likely than not given today’s polling he is getting amongst Blacks and Hispanics, up about 10 points over what Romney received in 2012). Guess what? A 5.3 billion USD government subsidy will not go unnoticed. There will be repercussions.
Space X is also going to have Raptor flying by the time Ariane 6 flies. A single core Raptor system producing between 4.6 million pounds thrust, to a whopping 9 million. This machine able to be configured into a three core monster, and recoverable both stages. With NEXT and an ability to put up several megawatts of panels to drive it this rocket’s secondary payload ability will exceed that of the Ariane 6.
LEO payload of a Raptor single core on the order of 70 Metric tons, three core with the big engines close to 320 tons, in conventional format. Recoverable this machine loses half this capacity. Do you smell what Elon Musk is cooking!
I believe ESA is going to shrink down to under 25% of the global satellite launch business. Its heyday is over.
SpaceX’s website lists the Falcon Heavy at $90M for 6.4 metric tons to GTO, not 21 metric tons as stated in this article. Huge difference. Am I missing something?
Falcon Heavy has a projected capability of 21,200kg to 1800ms GTO. The listed price is for a single payload to GTO (the biggest GEO payloads are around the 6 ton mark), and Falcon Heavy will be able to carry more than one per flight.
Looks like the article got updated to the right number. Good stuff.
Patrick Falcon V roman is symbol is wrong it should be Falcon IX try to type the correct roman symbol next time. Please don’t involve Donald Trump in SpaceX LSP Market discussion it’s not relevant to the story a nice day.
He means V for Version 1.2, not a roman numeral.
Patrick,
It’s NASA that’s using NEXT to propel a space observatory to an extra-zodiacal orbit. It’s essentially a satellite propulsion system. NASA’s press release spoke of it as an upper stage, but made it clear it’s not a SpaceX upper stage. AFAIK the only development SpaceX is doing with electric engines are Hall thrusters for small satellites.
Brett,
when Falcon Heavy is flown with the intention to recover all three first stages, payload to GTO drops to ~7 tonnes. When only the side boosters are recovered it increases to ~14 tonnes GTO. With no recovery at all Falcon Heavy can (maybe) achieve 21 tonnes. The estimate of 21 tonnes is old so some uncertainty there. There’s also uncertainty whether 53 tonnes to LEO (another old estimate) is achievable without propellant cross-feed, an idea SpaceX has apparently abandoned as they have said the center core will fly with a somewhat different fuel mix from the side boosters. We’ll just have to wait until SpaceX provides updated figures.
The real game changer is going to come when SpaceX finally cracks re-usability, at that point I do not see how the current efforts of other LSPs will be effective unless they too actually invest in similar technology.
Is there really any use for a Falcon Heavy class launcher? It is too small for any meaningful human spaceflight. One could combine two or three of them to put another foot print on the Moon, but that’s not very useful.
And who needs more tonnage of satellites in GEO? Isn’t miniaturization proceeding and the economic lifetime of satellites decreasing because of electronics developments? I’d say that FH is stuck in the middle, but who am I to argue against Elon’s business plan. I just pray that it works, and thus far it seems to.
Elon Musk’s business plan. You make him sound like he is a part of Boeing’s strategy. From my perspective, Elon has always thought outside of the box. Eccentric in a way. Which has rattled the traditional engineering/business train of thought. But, then, when theoretical physics, science fiction & engineering is combined into a company by a dreamer, then exciting things start to happen outside the established norm.