Tim Furniss/LONDON
Over 29 days, beginning on 12 August, about $3 billion-worth of spacecraft and boosters fell in pieces from the sky following three launch failures. A Titan 4A, the first Delta III and a Zenit 2 were lost, together with 14 satellites, 12 of them on the Zenit. The Titan's Mercury electronic intelligence satellite may be subject to a $70 million launch incentive insurance, says Airclaims.
The 12 Globalstar satellites and PanAmSat's Galaxy X - which was lost on the Delta III - were insured for a total of $412 million. Added to the in-orbit losses this year of the Galaxy IV sister satellite ($165 million), the Echostar IV ($219 million) and the Russian Kupon 1 communications satellite ($88.9 million), the space insurance business looks grim.
The years 1997 and 1998 look likely to make break-even at best for the space insurance market - and the industry is entering one of the busiest periods ever for commercial launches.
So far this year - not including the Galaxy IV loss, the claim for which applied to its 1997 launch year - about $800 million of underwriting has been obtained and about $720 million paid out. Another loss of an insured payload this year will put the space insurance industry into the red for the first time since the mid-1980s.
TEST OF NERVES
Over the next three months, as many as 30 commercially insured satellite launches are planned and "-nerves will be severely tested between now and the end of the year", says Simon Clapham, an underwriter with the Marham Space Consortium at Lloyds of London. These "carry a lot of insurance", he adds, citing particularly the launches on an Atlas 2A and Ariane 4 of two Eutelsat satellites in one week in October.
The planned launches also include three of the first commercial ones by the Russian Soyuz booster, flying under the banner of Starsem, the Russian-Arianespace-Aerospatiale consortium. The three Soyuz will carry four Globalstar satellites each, under a contract negotiated long before the Zenit failure. The first Soyuz-Globalstar launch is due to lift off from Baikonur on 5 November.
Two of the recent failures have raised controversial issues. Firstly, is it sensible to carry a commercial satellite on the first flight of a new launcher? The Boeing Delta III was not the first booster to fail on its maiden flight. The first EER Systems Conestoga booster self destructed in October 1995, with the loss of its payload. China's Long March 3B and its Intelsat 708 satellite were lost after a flight lasting just a few seconds in February 1996, and the first Ariane 5 broke apart in June that year, shattering $400 million-worth of Cluster science satellites.
Even before the Zenit accident, the Boeing-led Sea Launch venture was considering flying a dummy payload on the maiden Zenit 3 flight, scheduled for early next year from a platform in the Pacific Ocean. The Zenit 3 is a Ukrainian Zenit 2 equipped with a third stage from the Russian Proton. The firstSea Launch was to have carried the Galaxy XI communications satellite. Because it has already lost two Galaxy satellites, PanAmSat is having second thoughts about flying on the maiden Sea Launch.
Similarly, Eutelsat has decided to take its W2 satellite off the Ariane 503 development flight. It will be replaced by a dummy communications satellite built by Keyser Threde and the W2 will fly on an Ariane 4. The new Ariane 5 has yet to make what in commercial terms could be regarded as a fully successful flight. The Ariane 503 launch has been scheduled tentatively for 13 October.
LARGE LAUNCHER LOSESES
The second issue, resulting from the Zenit failure in particular, concerns satellite operators - and the space insurance industry - coming to terms with the risk of losing a constellation of satellites with the failure of one large launcher. Such a launch is selected because it is a cheaper way to orbit small mobile-communications satellites, compared with flying just one or two spacecraft on small launchers.
The Zenit launch cost Loral about $12 million, compared with about $70 million for a launch on a Western booster. The US company has already cancelled the two remaining Zenit launches of 24 Globalstar satellites and 12 each have been switched to additional Soyuz and Delta boosters.
The Zenit failure and resultant loss of 12 Globalstars has raised the hopes for success of those companies developing small boosters - with the market to launch replacement satellites for low earth orbit (LEO) mobile communications systems particularly in mind.
The LEO market is increasing, the Teal Group market research firm says, and may represent 75% of the launch business by 2008. It forecasts that 1,017 commercial communications satellites, valued at $49.8 billion - about 45% of the market in terms of worth - will be launched from 1999 to 2008. These represent up to 70% of the total satellite market.
Marco Caceres, who prepared the Teal report, says 449 of the satellites will be for LEO mobile communications systems, such as the Iridium and Globalstar, and 384 for broadband multimedia systems, including the Spaceway and Skybridge. "The next growth period will begin in 2002-3 with launches of replacement satellites for the first generation LEO mobile communications satellite systems and launches of initial multimedia satellites," he says.
Speaking just before the Globalstars were lost, Caceres warned, however, that these statistics "-do not necessarily mean more business for small satellite launchers because the trend is likely to be for launches of constellations of satellites on larger launchers". Another incident like the Zenit failure could change that.
Source: Flight International
