FAA/COMSTAC 2013 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts

[joek]

The FAA/COMSTAC 2013 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts was released 22-May-2013:

Executive Summary

The Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA AST) and the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) have prepared forecasts of global demand for commercial space launch services for the 10-year period from 2013 through 2022.

The 2013 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts report is in two sections:

•    The COMSTAC 2013 Commercial Geosynchronous Orbit (GSO) Launch Demand Forecast, which projects demand for commercial satellites that operate in GSO and the resulting commercial launch demand to GSO; and

•    The FAA’s 2013 Commercial Space Transportation Forecast for Non- Geosynchronous Orbits (NGSO), which projects commercial launch demand for satellites to NGSO, such as low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), elliptical (ELI) orbits, and external (EXT) orbits beyond the Earth.

Together, the COMSTAC and FAA forecasts project an average annual demand of 31.2 commercial space launches worldwide from 2013 through 2022, up from 29.1 launches in the 2012 forecasts. The reports project an average of 18.2 commercial GSO launches and 13.0 NGSO launches for 2013 through 2022.

...

For previous reports & studies, see here.

[joek]

A note for those unfamiliar with some of the minutiae in these reports...

1. The NGSO forecasts include commercial cargo and crew and is likely a bit optimistic given recent CCP events.  If you're interested in only NGSO satellites, that needs to be factored out.

2. There are "addressable" and "non-addressable" launches referred to in the GSO forecasts.  While the report is focused on addressable, some data includes non-addressable; the difference being:

This year’s Report is the 21st annual forecast of global demand for commercial GSO satellites and launches addressable by the U.S. space launch industry—that is, launches open to internationally competitive (including U.S.) launch service procurement—over the next 10 years.

[yg1968]

The NGSO forecasts include commercial cargo and crew and is likely a bit optimistic given recent CCP events.  If you're interested in only NGSO satellites, that needs to be factored out.

See page 56 for the anticipated commercial crew and cargo flights. I am not sure why there is 7 commercial crew test flights. Out of the 7 flights, I imagine that there would be one unmanned test flight and two manned flights for each of the two providers that are going through certification. There might be an extra ISS crewed test flight for the company that is downselected as a consolation price.

It is interesting to note that there is 6 cargo flights per year starting in 2018 (there is 5 cargo flights per year before that time). I wonder if the extra cargo flight per year could open up cargo transportation to a third participant (e.g., SNC or Boeing). At least that is what I am hoping for. Each cargo participants would have 2 cargo flights per year in such a scenario.