By Mike Gruss
Hello weary travelers. Last week was conference-heavy for the space community. There was AFA in the Washington, D.C. area, where Space Force leadership was on hand offering a view of priorities for Gen. Doug Schiess and Erich Hernandez-Baquero.
Then there was World Space Business Week in Paris. I spoke with ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher where he discussed his optimism for Europe’s human spaceflight program.
And finally, there was AMOS, the space situational awareness program in Maui, where Gen. Stephen Whiting said satellite tracking must evolve.
Conferences provide a natural milemarker to measure where industry sentiment is. In this case, let’s focus on launch. Our team heard whispers about a looming launch bottleneck in April at Space Symposium, full blown concerns in Amsterdam in late May and then last week it was the subject du jour at World Space Business Week.
But while most everyone wanted to talk about the topic — or was prepared to be asked about it or share an opinion about it — there never felt like a consensus.
Jeff Foust spoke to leaders who explored the range of emotion on display for this topic.
NUISANCE: “For the foreseeable future, starting from 2029, it’s a big headache,” said Eugene Kim, executive vice president of Satrec Initiative, a South Korean Earth observation company, during one conference panel Sept. 17.
PANIC: “We have a whole bunch of customers coming to us and saying, ‘Oh my God, can you fly us? Because SpaceX no longer gives us a chance to launch,’” said Giulio Ranzo, chief executive of Avio, during a Sept. 10 earnings call. His company builds and operates the Vega C rocket.
MORE PANIC: “We seem to see a lot of panic in the industry over the lack of capacity,” said Jeff Thornburg, chief executive of Portal Space Systems, on a Sept. 16 panel. His company recently bought a Falcon 9 for the first flight of its Supernova maneuverable spacecraft, offering capacity on the launch for rideshare payloads.
DON’T PANIC! (which is always calming advice.): “Don’t panic. This is not a structural problem. It’s a temporary gap,” said Renato Panesi, chief commercial officer of D-Orbit. That company has flown orbital transfer vehicles on many SpaceX rideshare missions. “We were expecting this. At least, we were prepared to face it.”
Find solace in the fact that others share your feelings.
Two more tidbits on this topic. When he appeared on the Space Minds podcast, I asked Pacôme Révillon, the chief executive officer of Novaspace, if it was likely that launch prices could double by the early 2030s. He said it was difficult to say if they would in fact double, in part because of different mission requirements, but he acknowledged prices are already climbing. That episode drops tomorrow. (Follow Space Minds on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to catch it when it's released.)
Finally, one company probably not worrying? Rocket Lab. Their launch this week was the 17th so far this year for Electron, including three flights of HASTE, a suborbital version of the rocket. It was also the fifth launch of the rocket since early August.
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