Space Firms Offer Launch Services
Satellite owners, on official notice that there might not be room for their expensive payloads on the space shuttle, are flocking to rocket builders to inquire about buying launch services.
Companies that manufacture or are planning to launch rockets said their phones started ringing earlier this month when rumors circulated about the change in government policy.
President Reagan confirmed the rumors on Friday by announcing that only 14 of 44 satellites scheduled for the shuttle would be carried into orbit once the craft resumes flights in 1988.
And on Tuesday, Martin Marietta Corp. of Bethesda, Md., announced that it is offering its Titan III space launch vehicle to launch commercial satellites.
Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole, at a news conference on Monday, said that Martin Marietta had received formal requests from satellite companies to launch 21 satellites and that Transpace Carriers, a Lanham, Md., firm that has marketing rights to McDonnell Douglas’ Delta rocket, has signed contracts for launching two. Dole said rocket builders waited to enter the commercial launch market until the government provided “concrete assurances that it will no longer compete for routine, commercial satellites.”
“The great news in Friday’s announcement,” she said, “is that the private sector got that green light.”
Martin Marietta spokesman Jack Boyd agreed that “we have been waiting for such an announcement . . . and we are now weighing the ramifications of it.” He said the company is finishing production of 15 Titan 34Ds for the Air Force and refurbishing 13 Titan 2s.
“We’ve had enough inquiries and market analysis to believe that there is a market there. Until the President made the announcement the other day, we weren’t sure it was a viable business,” Boyd said. “We examined it and have now decided it is, so we will go back to the people who made the inquiries and (to) other companies.”
Martin Marietta said that it is the only company in the nation currently operating a production line for launch vehicles and that the first launch could be as soon as early 1989. Titans have had 129 successful flights in 134 launches; the last two failed.
Rick Endres, corporate vice president of Transpace Carriers, said his company believes that there is a need for 120 satellite launches, both military and commercial, over the next six years.
Endres estimates that satellite launch service from now until 1992 represents about a $6-billion business, and other companies confirm the estimate.
Transpace already has received about 20 expressions of serious interest, Endres said, including some from foreign countries. Endres said Transpace could launch its first cargo as early as the fall of 1987, depending on how quickly 11 partly completed Deltas can be made ready.
Jack Isabel of General Dynamics Corp. of St. Louis, which makes the Atlas Centaur, said seven companies have made inquiries. He said his firm expects a need for 15 to 16 launches a year in the long term.
Endres said there are only three completed Delta rockets, and one of those will be used by NASA to launch an Indonesian satellite. The Air Force has first claim on the other two complete Deltas and on eight that were mothballed before they were finished. Transpace cannot make final launch plans until the Air Force releases its claim, he said.
Reagan’s announcement “was a green light for the ELV (expendable launch vehicle) industry. We anticipate a very strong investor response,” said Mark Daniels of Space Services Inc.
Daniels said Space Services has signed two customers to launch a total of eight satellites on its Conestoga II, capable of putting 300 pounds into a high orbit.
