The Sept. 6 failure of a commercial Proton-M rocket following an anomaly
in the vehicle's second stage will shut down one of the world's three principal
commercial-launch vehicles just eight months after one of the other two - the
Sea Launch Co. Zenit 3SL - was grounded because of its own failure.
As was the
case with the Sea Launch incident, the most serious consequence of
the Proton mishap likely will be felt not by the affected customer, Japan's JSAT
Corp., but by other commercial operators depending
on a launch in the coming months. They have nowhere to turn given the current
state of the global commercial-launch industry.
The Proton's
second-stage engine failure occurred slightly more than two
minutes after liftoff from the Russian-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The JCSAT-11 telecommunications satellite, owned by JSAT of Tokyo, was destroyed.
The
satellite and launch were insured for about $185 million, according to
insurance industry officials. JSAT had planned to use the satellite as an
in-orbit backup for its current eight-satellite fleet, and the company said the
failure will have no impact on its business. JSAT immediately ordered a
replacement satellite from the JCSAT-11 builder, Lockheed Martin Commercial
Space Systems of Newtown, Pa.
International
Launch Services (ILS) of McLean, Va., which sells commercial Proton launches,
was scheduled to loft three more
satellites this year, including the Americom 14 and Sirius 4
spacecraft. Luxembourg-based SES said in a Sept. 6 statement that the failure
would have no impact on its 2007 financial results.
Also
scheduled for a Proton launch this year was Telenor Satellite Broadcasting's Thor 5 - now labeled Thor 2R - which
is badly needed because the company's
three satellites are full and two are scheduled for retirement in 2010 and 2011.
Cato
Halsaa, chief executive of Telenor Satellite Broadcasting of Norway, said Sept.
6 that the company is reviewing its options as it awaits news on when Proton will return to
service.
Numerous
other companies will be in the same position as Teleport given the current squeeze on the
commercial-launch market and the lack of available alternatives.
Sea Launch
President Rob Peckham said at the annual Euroconsult satellite-finance
conference here Sept. 5 that, assuming Sea Launch's return to flight occurs in
October as scheduled, the company plans to make a second launch
toward the end of the year. For 2008, Sea Launch is solidly
booked, assuming its manifested satellite payloads arrive on
schedule, Peckham said.
Arianespace, whose Ariane 5 vehicle
can loft two medium-size telecommunications
satellites at a time, is fully booked for the remainder
of 2007. Arianespace may or may not have a slot available
in 2008 - again depending on whether scheduled customers are on time with their
payloads, Arianespace Chief Executive Jean-Yves Le Gall said in a Sept. 6
interview.
"This latest event should drive home
to satellite operators the need to reserve slots for 2009 as early as they can,"
Le Gall said. "As for what Arianespace's availability is, we are increasing our
Ariane 5 launch rate from six this year, to seven - and maybe eight - in 2008,
and to eight in 2009."
The Atlas 5 rocket, built by United
Launch Alliance and marketed commercially by Lockheed Martin, is booked also, mainly with U.S. Air
Force satellites, until sometime in 2009 at the earliest.
Sea Launch's
Zenit 3SL, Proton-M and Europe's Ariane 5 rocket all were showing full or
nearly full manifests even before the Sea Launch failure,
which caused a near-panic among some satellite
owners as they sought alternatives.
ILS was
able to accommodate a couple of Sea Launch customers on the Proton-M manifest
in the wake of the January crash, as was Arianespace.
But several
Sea Launch customers whose business plans called for 2007 in-service dates have
been unable to switch, and this will undoubtedly be the case for customers on Proton's waiting list.
Stephen T. O'Neill, president of Boeing
Satellite Systems International of El Segundo, Calif., which has several customers
waiting for Sea Launch to resume operations, said during the Euroconsult
conference Sept. 5 that, in light of what happened with Sea Launch, "a launch
failure in the next 12 months could have a serious effect on some companies' business
models."
Meanwhile,
the Russian government and ILS announced
that each would form failure-review teams to assess what went wrong with the
Proton-M's second stage. Russian government satellites account for at least 50
percent of the Proton's near-term launch manifest.
Satellite
insurance brokers meeting here Sept. 6 for the Euroconsult conference said the
Proton failure almost certainly will scuttle any
chance for profitability this year in the space-insurance sector.
Eric J.
Allensbach, senior space underwriter and managing director of Swiss Re, said
the Sea Launch and Proton-M insurance claims, combined with the deferral of
premiums that were expected from subsequent launches of these vehicles that now
will not take place this year, will make 2007 a money-losing year.
Pierre-Eric
Lys, managing director of insurance underwriter SpaceCo of Paris, agreed that
2007 would end in a loss.
The Russian
space agency, Roskosmos, and Proton-M prime contractor Khrunichev Space Center
of Moscow said the failure occurred when Proton was at an altitude of 47 miles
(76 kilometers).
The Kazakh government, which leases
the Baikonur Cosmodrome site to Russia for $115 million per year, said Sept. 7
that some 15 pieces of the rocket or its payload have been recovered. Kazakh
authorities said they would conduct their own investigation into the pollution
effects of the Proton's fuel falling once again on Kazakh territory. Past launch failures at Baikonur
have resulted in cash payouts by Russia and in delayed launches as the two
governments negotiated return-to-flight conditions.
Press statements posted on the
Roskosmos and Khrunichev Web sites said debris from the failure came down about
31 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the Kazakh city of Dzhezkazgan and that
no injuries or property destruction were reported. In the wake of the crash, Kazakh authorities
threatened to impose tougher safety requirements on Baikonur launches.
Simon
Saradzhyan contributed to this article from Moscow.
