Author Topic: At a tipping point for space launch?  (Read 2624 times)

Offline meberbs

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At a tipping point for space launch?
« on: 02/01/2018 09:04 pm »
There were 13 orbital launches in January this year (and already 1 in February.) This corresponds to an annual rate of 156 launches per year. As far as I can tell (based on Wikipedia timeline of spaceflight) the most attempts in a year was 139 in 1967. This tells me that this is likely close to a record number of launch attempts in a month. Does anyone know what the current record is?

More surprisingly, current launch schedules look like there are over 170! launches planned in total for this year, so while I doubt we will hit that number, I can't find any reason to expect that we won't keep up near the current rate, and set a new record year for launches. This is compared to the last 27 years where we haven't hit 100 launch attempts in a year since 1990 (which had 121 attempts.) Personally, until I saw the chart on the Wikipedia timeline, I had been thinking it would be a good year if we actually get just over 100 launches. This year is a giant spike that I thought was just a mistake, but after some research (including checking the consolidated schedule on this site) it looks like it is mostly real.

I have been expecting for a few years now that we would hit a tipping point around 2020 where enough various factors such as reusable launchers, commercial crew, mega-constellations, and serious plans for commercial stations add up to bringing in a truly new era for spaceflight. The giant spike in launch frequency this year seems like it might be one of the first signs of coming change, or mean that we have already hit a tipping point (possibly a more limited one than what I still expect for 2020.)

Offline Lar

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #1 on: 02/01/2018 10:39 pm »
Or, everyone's chewing through backlog and 2019 sees a stall, with another, much larger spike in 2020 as Starlink and Oneweb start seriously deploying...
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Offline TrevorMonty

Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #2 on: 02/01/2018 10:55 pm »
The smallsat LVs start flying this year. Expect 6-9 from Electron if no problems and a couple test flights from LauncherOne and Vector. Say upto12 from these 3 in 2018 and 30 in 2019.

Still more LV in development so maybe few more start flying 2019.

Offline sanman

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #3 on: 02/02/2018 02:24 am »
The smallsat LVs start flying this year. Expect 6-9 from Electron if no problems and a couple test flights from LauncherOne and Vector. Say upto12 from these 3 in 2018 and 30 in 2019.

Still more LV in development so maybe few more start flying 2019.

Will we see any new innovations or advancements in the world of smallsats, now that the launch providers are becoming more available?

Offline Zingpc

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #4 on: 02/02/2018 04:40 am »
The tipping point will be when we get away from using reusable rockets.
Even with not throwing away complex machinery after single usage is not the game changer.

The game changer/ tipping point is the scale of operation. We need to serious get away from ‘tin can’ space loads.

I think the first such launch system would be a massive ground sled two stage air breathing first stage winged horizontal rocket. The second stage is a conventional Russian engined orbiter. The sled provides the speed where the horizontal rocket can be thrown to say 1000 ft altitude at a high a speed as possible. This would require a huge runway with large electric sleds.

Offline Athrithalix

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #5 on: 02/02/2018 08:44 am »
In terms of small satellites, the likely trends for the future are going to be in launching large constellations, Starlink, OneWeb, ICEYE, as capabilities of small hardware increase the advantages of having a large number of cheaper satellites will start to be more important than replacing a few behemoths each decade. In terms of technologies/advancements, I’d imagine that relay capabilities will grow, formation flying, modularity, and in-orbit servicing all have a startup or two dedicated to developing these capabilities (as well as some larger players).

The advent of small launchers will be important in filling out the orbits of these constellations, as rideshare opportunities don’t always cover all the orbits a smallsat constellation is going to want. Though I’d imagine the majority of small satellites will continue to be launched as rideshares due to the significantly lower cost.

This stuff is covered nicely in reports that were free from SpaceWorks and SAC:
http://www.spaceworkscommercial.com/
https://sa.catapult.org.uk/services/market-reports/small-sats-market-intel/

Offline meberbs

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #6 on: 02/15/2018 03:57 pm »
Or, everyone's chewing through backlog and 2019 sees a stall, with another, much larger spike in 2020 as Starlink and Oneweb start seriously deploying...
I agree, eating through backlog is probably a big part of this year's spike. One Web should have initial deployments this year, and I expect serious Starlink deployments in 2019, so I expect it to be somewhat smooth, even if it drops a bit next year.

Amusingly, I checked the timeline of spaceflight on Wikipedia again, and the list of flights for this year has only gotten longer. I checked the history to see if this was a mistake, and an edit that increased the number of planned flights came with the comment "Even more scheduled flights… Lies, damn lies and launch schedules :)" At this point, more planned launches this year probably just means more slipping to next year.

Offline AncientU

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #7 on: 02/15/2018 05:02 pm »
Or, everyone's chewing through backlog and 2019 sees a stall, with another, much larger spike in 2020 as Starlink and Oneweb start seriously deploying...
I agree, eating through backlog is probably a big part of this year's spike. One Web should have initial deployments this year, and I expect serious Starlink deployments in 2019, so I expect it to be somewhat smooth, even if it drops a bit next year.

Amusingly, I checked the timeline of spaceflight on Wikipedia again, and the list of flights for this year has only gotten longer. I checked the history to see if this was a mistake, and an edit that increased the number of planned flights came with the comment "Even more scheduled flights… Lies, damn lies and launch schedules :)" At this point, more planned launches this year probably just means more slipping to next year.

To some degree, this is true.
But if we are going to see elasticity in the launch market, it has to turn up somewhere.
2018 may be the year.
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Offline DreamyPickle

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #8 on: 02/15/2018 05:14 pm »
The "backlog argument" would be more convincing if 2017 had an unusually low number of launches but 90 is higher than most recent years.

Offline AncientU

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #9 on: 02/15/2018 09:14 pm »
The "backlog argument" would be more convincing if 2017 had an unusually low number of launches but 90 is higher than most recent years.

There should have been some dip in the annual launches to create a backlog... but there hasn't been one to my knowledge.  Have to be careful how to calculate the current uptrend because of small number statistics and some halting and restarting that the launch providers have experienced, but there does seem to be more to launch and more providers of that service these days.
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Offline meberbs

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Re: At a tipping point for space launch?
« Reply #10 on: 02/16/2018 02:36 am »
The "backlog argument" would be more convincing if 2017 had an unusually low number of launches but 90 is higher than most recent years.

There should have been some dip in the annual launches to create a backlog... but there hasn't been one to my knowledge.  Have to be careful how to calculate the current uptrend because of small number statistics and some halting and restarting that the launch providers have experienced, but there does seem to be more to launch and more providers of that service these days.
As you mention, small numbers make the statistics difficult.

The last few years have been relatively flat, but under the assumption that launch would have been growing steadily for the last few years if it wasn't for some other factors (e.g. major launch failures), that can still mean there is excess backlog pushing up the rate this year, and this is just a single spike before the rate evens out at something in between.

I think the launch rate is still growing, and expect it to stay about the same next year as this year, or be a bit higher, but not another massive increase like it looks like this year may be. Multiple assumptions go into this though, so it is just my perspective.

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