Tim Furniss/LONDON
The success of the European Space Agency-funded demonstration launch of the Ariane 502 in October buoyed the European space industry after the calamitous failure of the 501 in June 1996. Assuming a successful 503 demonstration flight in May, the Ariane 5 will be taken over by Arianespace on flight 504 in about October 1998. The Ariane 5 will then be operated in tandem with the Ariane 4 until about 2002.
On the commercial front, Arianespace, the European launcher company, which holds about 50% of the commercial civil-launch services market, will be under greater threat, with the introduction of the Boeing Delta III in June 1998.
It is already fighting neck-and-neck with the US/Russian ILS International Launch Services company, which has transformed the commercial career of the Russian Proton K workhorse, offered alongside the Lockheed Martin Atlas fleet, which introduces the new Atlas 2AR in December1998.
With Boeing and Lockheed Martin now expected to win contracts from the US Air Force to build vehicles for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle programme - dual-sourcing replacing the single-source approach which was to have been adopted by the US Air Force - a new fleet of commercial launchers will be on the market (based on improved versions of the Delta and Atlas fleet) underwritten by $2 billion-worth of military contracts.
The possible introduction of many new low- Earth-orbit communications-satellite constellations after 2000 creates hopes for smaller launchers, such as Russia's Rokot, which is being marketed with the help of Daimler-Benz Aerospace. The Orbital Sciences Pegasus is up and running after a chequered start, but Lockheed Martin needs some successful launches of its new Athena booster under its belt.
China's commercial-launch contracts have dwindled and it remains to be seen whether a successful run of Long March 3B launches will restore confidence in the vehicle, while Japan will have to wait until after the start of the next century to compete in the market with an uprated and cheaper H2A.
Source: Flight International
