FLUG REVUE February 2005: Heavy-lift launchers face uncertain market

February 2005

ARIANE 5+ AND DELTA IV HEAVY

By Matthias Gründer

The new heavy-lift launchers, Ariane 5+ from Europe and Delta IV Heavy from the USA, are very delicate. Despite being so powerful, they have been treated like fragile eggs since birth and only handled with velvet gloves. Many years ago, when they were designed, their prospects still looked rosy, with forecasts of booming markets and massive payloads. Up to twelve of them a year would be deployed, either with enormous communications platforms bound for geostationary orbit on board or else with multi-launch facilities for ten to twelve small satellites of the expected mobile communications constellations. In the case of the latter, it was assumed that each system would comprise up to 600 satellites, so that the shareholders could look forward to glittering prospects. Hence the replacement of the smaller Ariane 4 by its larger successor seemed only logical.

Yet, as is so often the case, before long a huge discrepancy started to develop between theory and practice. The big payloads failed to materialise, and instead the trend is towards smaller satellites that are easier to replace if lost. Then the mobile radio satellite constellations slid straight into bankruptcy before they could even enter into service, leaving in their wake a crisis for the launch service providers and a glut of inexpensive and powerful rockets, since during the boom period providers had flocked around to get a piece of the action. What was left was, at least in Europe, a new giant launcher for which there were not enough customers, whereas the alternative, a flexible family of launch systems, booked up for years ahead, had been sent to retirement in favour of its big sister.

Meanwhile , the Americans had at least been sufficiently cautious to design its new launchers under the government and US Air Force funded Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) programme as a family, so as to be able to cover the entire bandwidth of the public and commercial transport requirements. In this way, both the Atlas V from Lockheed Martin and the Delta IV from Boeing are quite well equipped for the future markets, whereas today Arianespace faces problems that no one would have thought possible a few years ago, when the company was the undisputed star performer of global commercial satellite transportation.

For the emphasis is on commercial business. Here, a glance at the launch calendar shows that although the order book may be reasonably full for the next few years, two to three launches per year will in practice hardly justify the huge expenditure required by the construction of the launchers in the European space industry and the operation of a dedicated space centre in French Guyana. The fact that Russian partners are being invited to join in and are having their own launch pad for the Soyuz launch vehicle erected in Kourou does not alter the fact that this launcher will actually be performing precisely the tasks that Ariane 4 once took care of so effectively and that the result will be to force Arianespace to share the meagre pickings from the shrunken market.

It is the same old story. Another characteristic of today's satellite market is particularly unfortunate for the transport organisations, namely, the fact that a normal launcher, for example the Ariane 5, is too large for just one satellite, yet it is too small for two spacecraft of this category. The rationale behind the decision to build only heavy-lift versions had in fact been that they would then be able to carry either two medium or one heavy satellite into orbit, if there were really to be heavy single units. The problem of logistically reconciling two satellites from different providers and with end positions a long way apart was tricky, but not insurmountable.

But what is needed right now is the really more powerful, heavy version of what is otherwise a correctly dimensioned launcher. All the same, an Ariane 5 with a payload capacity of 6.2 tonnes that is transporting only a single satellite weighing four tonnes is like using a truck when a pick-up would have been sufficient. Deployed in this way, it will never make a profit. Only if it is launching two satellites can the costs be reduced sufficiently to finally make a profit.

But unfortunately the first test flight of the new Ariane 5+, mission V-157 on 11 December 2002, proved a fatal disaster, as the engine nozzle developed in Sweden burned out. The Ariane had to be destroyed, the satellites on board were a case for the insurance industry and the more powerful upper stage, developed and built in Bremen, never got the chance to show what it could do.

Since then, all those involved have been working very circumspectly on a second attempt, as Arianespace would not survive another failure. Boeing in turn viewed its competitor from Europe with suspicion and, in the light of Arianespace's unfortunate experiences, took its time over launching its first Delta IV Heavy into orbit. Adequate funding was of course ensured thanks to a guaranteed requirement for launches of both military satellites of the Armed Forces and scientific payloads for NASA. Still, after previous heavy financial losses in the satellite business and the embarrassment of having been caught spying on its competitor, Lockheed Martin, they need a success badly, not least because the revelations of industrial espionage were punished by the cancellation of launch orders from the US Air Force.

To this extent, Boeing needs the Delta IV Heavy simply as a statement of trust for potential customers. Lockheed Martin on the other hand is sufficiently secure to adopt a more relaxed approach with the heavy-lift version of the Atlas V and will only start to think about the launch calendar once real demand has been registered. In the meantime the Russian International Launch Services (ILS) partners can deal with any peaks in the traffic with its Proton workhorse.

Despite this, fresh hope is germinating at all the transport companies that there could be a bright future for the large launchers, since, following the announcement of the US “Moon, Mars and beyond” space initiative at the beginning of 2004, the end of the American Shuttle is now a certainty. However, flights to the moon and Mars can only be conducted with powerful, conventional rockets, and here the American companies are not the only ones who see favourable prospects ahead. For even a country like the USA cannot conquer the solar system on its own, but needs international co-operation to do so. This in turn means that the heavy components of future space vehicles will need corresponding launcher resources. So it would appear that after a long lean period there will be a future for the large rockets after all.

From page 74 of FLUG REVUE 2/2005

Last updated 10 January 2005

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