Cayley - 7/9/2006 10:57 AMWho is Space Transport Inc anyway?
PurduesUSAFguy - 11/9/2006 8:14 AMI wonder if this move is a precurssor to Lockheed Martin/ULA moving to try and make the EELV workable on the commercial market, a feild in which the Atlas V has been less then stellar in and to the best of my knoweledge the Delta IV hasn't been a player in at all.
Speeking of with the ULA pending what is going to happen to the Delta IV line? Are they going to down select to the Atlas and just keep the DIV Heavy around to side step having to develop the three barrel varient of the Atlas or what?
Without Boeing, Sea Launch is likely to fold up, so I hope they won't pull the plug too
sammie - 10/9/2006 10:28 PMQuoteWithout Boeing, Sea Launch is likely to fold up, so I hope they won't pull the plug tooHow whould Sea Launch fold, although I haven't seen figures they are doing a full manifest for the next couple of years.
lmike - 10/9/2006 4:41 PMCoincidentally Boeing and LM (and Arianespace via Alcatel, etc... for their respective launcher) sat divisions manufacture the very same satellites their respective rocket enterprises launch. A sat's customer does have a say, as does the payload insurer, but launch market is not a free market. The upshot = Sea Launch (and Land launch by extension) would fold if Boeing pulls out, the payloads would be transferred. This scenario is highly unlikely, however. The Sea Launch scheme seems to be too good for Boeing to drop.
Space Lizard - 10/9/2006 8:39 AMLockMart could not put money on Angara for legal reasons so no change here.ILS was in a bad mood as Arianespace is back and, together with Sea/Land Launch, it skeams most of the commercial market.ILS sells mostly Protons and Atlas 5 cannot break through as a commercial vehicle.Without Boeing, Sea Launch is likely to fold up, so I hope they won't pull the plug too. Else we would be back to Arianespace's pre-ILS monopoly.For RD-180, the agreement was between LockMart and Energomash (through Roskosmos), so it should not be affected.
What is interesting is that eight Atlas V have flown with two Nasa mission in the eight and no EELV launches which would indicate some commercial success.
What doesn't add up is the desire to form ULA to combine overhead and at the same time to split the marketing group up and loose synergy.