Search Result

Srl

Item

ID: 086540

Commercial suborbital sounding rocket market: role for reusable launch vehicles / Jurist, John M

Jurist, John M	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Publication

2009.

Summary/Abstract

Space advocates adopted the tenet that the way to reduce the cost of space access is to fly reusable vehicles so development and production costs could be amortized over many flights. Some have also suggested that commercial suborbital flights, both for scientific payloads and for human space flight participants, may provide a path in which a revenue stream can be ultimately used to fund orbital and deep space operations. Some aspiring space launch providers (NewSpace) have incorporated in order to develop and fly such vehicles. This paper examines the economic and business conditions for reusable suborbital sounding rockets. Given current market size and pricing, the global nonmilitary suborbital sounding rocket market is less than 60 flights of perhaps 200-kilogram payloads annually at roughly $1 million each. High demand elasticity (increased demand with lowered prices) at a price of significantly less than $250 per kilogram of payload might increase the market to possibly 1500 flights annually. The business case for developing and flying reusable sounding rockets for this market cannot be closed with investor capital unless flight rates are markedly higher than at present. This paper discusses potential approaches to closing the business case.

Key Words

Space ; Commercial Suborbital Sounding Rocket Market ; Reusable Launch Vehicles ; Commercial Suborbital Flights

In Basket

Export

ID: 169356

Corporate Groupthink: the Main Obstacle to an Affordable Lunar Base / Ashford, David

Ashford, David	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Summary/Abstract

This article describes a launch vehicle development roadmap that uses only proven technology and that could lead to a thousand-fold reduction in the cost of sending people to orbit within about 15 years. It could reduce the cost of the first lunar base by very approximately ten times. This would clearly revolutionise spaceflight and create a new space age. The roadmap involves a combination of full reusability, aeroplane-like vehicle design and high traffic levels, especially from space tourism, to provide economies of scale. This line of development could have started some fifty years ago, and the failure to do this has led to a corporate groupthink that is probably now the biggest obstacle to progress.

Key Words

Space ; Space Tourism ; Reusable Launch Vehicles ; Low-Cost Access to Space ; Planes

In Basket

Export