I was looking back over the last few years 2010 (15) 2011 (19) 2012 (19) and 2013 (15) with the number of Chinese orbital launches either coming close or in some cases exceeding American orbital launch rates. This year as the first half of the year comes to a close the Chinese have only a single orbital launch on the books with even India, Europe and the Japanese surpassing them. Does anyone know what is going on?
So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
I think the US are building a new spaceport.... it will be in Boca Chica, TX...
Quote from: weedenbc on 06/30/2014 01:05 amSo the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.Who is it that is launching U.S. astronauts into orbit now?The point in recent years is the relative change. Russia and China launch counts are trending up, they are launching people, and building new spaceports and launch vehicle families. The U.S. and Europe are trending down, both depend on engines from the former USSR, and neither can launch people. - Ed Kyle
Orbital launch rate is a very poor metric for measuring anything meaningful. The reason the US launch rate dipped in the 1970s while the Soviet rate went higher is because the US was building much more sophisticated satellites that could stay on orbit longer. So the superior Soviet launch rate was actually a signal of decreasing Soviet space power relative to the Americans, not increasing.
Of course launch rate is not the only metric, but that does not make it invalid. It seems to me a good general indicator of a country's funding and investment in space. Discounting it seems to me to be ignoring a bit of reality. Ed Kyle
IIRC high-rank CAST officials said there are 25-30 launches scheduled next year. So that’s probably where all the resource's gone.
Quote from: heinkel174 on 07/01/2014 12:39 amIIRC high-rank CAST officials said there are 25-30 launches scheduled next year. So that’s probably where all the resource's gone. Where did they say that?Do you happen to have a source?
[Here ITAR has hit them really hard, basically forcing them to either sell the satellite and launch service together. It has also hit them hard on their own fleet reliability. I believe that they will focus on LV vehicle transition and components development. My guess is that in 5 to 10 years they'll have a launch rate more akin to USA's.
Quote from: baldusi on 06/30/2014 02:51 pm[Here ITAR has hit them really hard, basically forcing them to either sell the satellite and launch service together. It has also hit them hard on their own fleet reliability. I believe that they will focus on LV vehicle transition and components development. My guess is that in 5 to 10 years they'll have a launch rate more akin to USA's.Certainly hit their ability to sell services, but hasn't hit their reliability, since 2000 130 launches by my count, 3 failures. That's a 97.7% success rate.
ITAR certainly hit they hard in the late 1990s’. There are no CZ-3B launch for more than six years, as no Chinese Comsat is larger enough to require a CZ-3B. Only one launch occurred in 2001. Many versions of the Long March experienced long gaps between missions, which caused all sorts of problems from the quality control and risk reduction viewpoint. An insider told me that the reduced demand also have big impact on mission costs in the early 2000s. They gradually recovered due increasing domestic demand and cooperation with the Europeans, but another round of ITAR tightening last year effectively killed ITAR-free Comsats. The different is this time the domestic demand is sufficient to keep a healthy operations tempo, and CGWIC managed to sell an average one Comsat per year to third world countries. The next great challenge is fleet transition. AFAIK they’re approaching this with great caution, and the transition is going to be quite slow. The number of payloads that requires (or are scheduled to) be launched by the new CZ family before 2020 is relatively small: TG modules, Chang’e-5/6, possibly a precursor for the DHF-5 plus other payloads that can be switched between the old and new LVs. IMO the new CZ family will remain more or less experimental till at least 2020 (except maybe CZ6) and the phase-out of DF-5 derivatives will only start after the new LVs are brought to a degree of maturity.
There is no valid basis behind your statements. Provide primary sources and physical evidence to back your claims.CZ-3B was retired and replaced with new failure tolerant CZ-3B/E because of recurring launch failures occurring with CZ-3B.See this thread for more info: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=30673.0
However, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.
Quote from: wannamoonbase on 07/28/2014 08:30 pmHowever, if it wasn't for the decision by the US and other western countries to keep former soviet engineers busy after the collapse of the Soviet Union with commercial launches and engine exports their entire space industry would likely be long dead and buried.I doubt it. Did their military hardware industry vanish? The Russians have more space clients than just the US.
I take back everything I said about the lull. China is picking up the pace with earnest 2 launches in 24 hours and I think they are already at 12 so this year will slide in with the rest. Always good to see the worldwide launch rate go up this year we might break 90 we will have to see.