Private Firms Eager to Launch Commercial Satellites : Officials Say Companies Will Invest Tens of Millions to Fill Gap Left by Shuttle Program
Heartened by President Reagan’s decision to end the government’s monopoly on space, private companies have told the Administration that they will rapidly invest tens of millions of dollars and begin commercial launches of satellites in 30 to 36 months, officials said Monday.
Reagan announced Friday that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will build a replacement for the Challenger space shuttle, destroyed in the Jan. 28 disaster that killed its crew of seven and grounded the nation’s space program. At the same time, however, he ordered NASA to get out of the business of launching commercial satellites.
At a news conference Monday, Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole said private industry officials had assured her that “they are ready, willing and able” to fill the launch void left when Reagan formally abandoned an original goal of the shuttle program: to pay its own way by hauling commercial cargoes into space.
‘Everything to Gain’
“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain by moving routine satellites off the shuttle,” Dole said. “ . . . By eliminating the government monoply in space transportation, we can expand America’s fleet of launchers at no cost to the taxpayer.”
Dole said that NASA’s “highly subsidized shuttle system” for launching commercial satellites had been the biggest barrier to a major role in space for the private sector and that Reagan’s announcement Friday means private companies no longer will have to compete with the government.
She said such aerospace giants as Martin Marietta and General Dynamics and such new firms as Transpace Carriers Inc., Space Services Inc. and American Rocket Co. are eager to move ahead. “The companies tell us 30 to 36 months, so (in) 1989 they’d be ready to launch,” she said.
Martin Marietta officials told her recently that it has received formal requests from companies to launch 21 satellites, Dole said, and General Dynamics has received formal requests for 14 launches. Transpace Carriers, a Maryland firm that has marketing rights to the Delta rocket, already has firm contracts for launching two, she said.
Lease Negotiations
Dole said the Transportation Department’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation will draw up safety regulations to govern private launches, which could be made from government facilities such as Kennedy Space Center, Fla., under lease agreements yet to be negotiated.
Madeline Johnson, director of the Transportation Department office, said that beginning in 1989 there will be a need for “at least 10 to 15 launches a year, maybe more.” She said France’s Ariane rocket program, the only other now available for commercial launches, has a capacity of eight launches a year and already is booked.
NASA’s three remaining shuttles are scheduled to return to flight status in February, 1988, after redesign of the type of solid rocket booster that caused the Challenger accident. The replacement shuttle, to be built by Rockwell International Corp., is scheduled for delivery in early 1991.
Launch Contracts
The space agency has 44 contracts for commercial satellite launches aboard shuttles between now and 1994, but officials say only about 15 can be launched before the contracts expire. Priority on shuttle flights will go to military and intelligence payloads and “shuttle unique” cargoes--those that cannot be launched any other way.
Meanwhile, NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher said at a news conference that even with Reagan’s approval to build a fourth shuttle, “there are a lot of uncertainties which are left to be resolved.”
He said that Reagan’s commitment for new NASA funding for a Challenger replacement is only $272 million for fiscal 1987, which begins Oct. 1, and that the space agency will need an additional $665 million in 1988 and $715 million in 1989. “I am hopeful not very much will come out of NASA’s” budget or from other space programs, Fletcher said, adding that the White House gave “no guarantees.”
The White House funding plan was criticized as “inadequate and indefensible” last week by three Republican senators--Jake Garn of Utah, Slade Gorton of Washington and John C. Danforth of Missouri--who chair committees or subcommittees overseeing NASA’s budget. When asked about this, Fletcher replied: “I think the comment was probably partially in order, because we in NASA are in serious funding difficulties.”
But, responding to another question, Fletcher said morale at the space agency is “up 1,000%” because of Reagan’s order to start work on the replacement shuttle. “I think that makes us feel better throughout the organization,” he said.
