The Future is Not Like the Past, or How the Cost of Access to Space may Change the Market

Abstract

Launch vehicles have long development times and even longer operational lives. Prediction of future payload requirements is therefore difficult. The prediction of future pay load requirements for “next generation” launchers has tended to be an extrapolation of current trends. Performance of launch vehicles has tended to be calculated on a cost per kilogram in orbit. As a consequence (expendable) launchers have tended to grow larger, with an accompanying assumption that satellite masses will also grow. The geosynchronous satellite market, currently the primary commercial launcher customer, has followed this pattern. However, some disruptive trends may be detected in which the “rules of the game” change. While “constellation” communications systems have yet to prove successful, these demanded large numbers of relatively small satellites in multiple orbits, with the capability or replacing individual losses at low cost. At still smaller sizes, the capabilities of mini- and microspacecraft have been growing, but the development of this market is inhibited by the cost of launch. Currently this can be two to three times the cost of the spacecraft. Further new applications may exist if both cost and accessibility can be improved. Opportunities to meet these (largely hidden) markets may come through providing secondary launch opportunities on large, cost-efficient current launchers, or possibly through the development of small re-usable vehicles.