On 2 Aug 2003 17:28:21 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

One Heavy mission should be cargo-equivalent to one STS flight,
not counting the mass of the needed orbital maneuvering stage.
With the stage, you would need no more than two Heavies to
replace the cargo of an STS mission.

So you need three Heavies to replace a Shuttle mission. Or two Heavies
and a Medium if they go the capsule route for OSP. This still doesn't
look like much of a bargain. Why not just build another Shuttle?

Add to this satellites have traditionally gotten bigger as time goes on
which will slowly increase the market for these big launchers.

The Heavy launchers can only compete commercially if they are
used to launch two or more satellites at a time.

Same as Ariane 5, which is a money-losing operation with only a single
customer onboard, hence Arianespace's desperate deal with Starsem for
the Soyuz.

The commercial
sat market was interested in Delta IV Heavy at one time (a
single Delta IV-H could put two Zenit or Proton class payloads
into GTO), but costs must now have risen too much to hold their
interest.

With NASA evidently leaning toward Atlas these days (Pluto, GOES), it
will be interesting to see LM's proposal for the OSP launch vehicle.
Atlas V-Heavy may yet see the light of day. And since Atlas V is
evidently coming in somewhat cheaper than Delta IV, it will be
interesting to see if LM tries to challenge Arianespace in the
dual-launch market.

I remain convinced that unless the government bulks up it's
currently thin launch requirements, one of these launchers will
be driven out of business.

It will have to be Zenit 3SL. The U.S. government won't put payloads
on a SeaLaunch no matter how much Boeing tries to persuade them its
really a US launch vehicle (Boeing's word is pretty much worthless
these days) and the Air Force will put enormous pressure on Boeing to
keep Delta IV alive ("kill Delta IV and the next round of tankers will
go to Airbus.") After Boeing's corruption penalties, there is no way
LM's Atlas V will be killed off. That leaves SeaLaunch. That ain't
fair, but such is life.

It will simply cost too much to
keep them flying if each machine only flies two or three times
a year. NASA and OSP may be needed to save one of these rockets.

Zenit is busy with commercial launch business that Boeing has
decided to let slip away. Soyuz and Delta II are both busy
with government launches, but Delta II's days are numbered once
the U.S. Air Force moves it's GPS launches to the EELVs. That
day will arrive in not too many more years.

Will Boeing revive its old Delta IV-Lite concept and gather all of the
Air Force's and NASA's remaining medium-class payloads under the Delta
IV banner? There has to be a point coming soon where maintaining two
production lines (Delta II and Delta IV) is going to be more expensive
than simply launching Medium-class missions on an overpowered Delta
IV. Add in the cost savings from maintaining only one launch facility
at the Cape, and I'm surprised Boeing didn't make that decision a few
years ago. Now that Delta IV is flight-proven, I expect such an
announcement in the near future.

Arianespace made a similar decision years ago vis a' vis Ariane 4 and
Ariane 5, and is now regretting it... bringing in Soyuz to launch
light, one-off payloads. But a Delta IV Medium or Lite is somewhat
smaller than Ariane 5, so the economic difference may be smaller for
Boeing, and the Decatur plant certainly has capacity to spare.

Brian