Commercial Space Transportation: Recent Trends and Projections for 2000–2010

Abstract

Over the past 10 years, the number of commercial space launches worldwide has tripled, from an average of 12 launches a year between 1990 and 1994, to between 36 and 37 commercial launches in each of the past three years. This is the result of increasing demand for geosynchronous communications satellites and the emergence of non-geosynchronous (NGSO), or low Earth orbit (LEO), communications constellations beginning in 1997. Several such systems — Iridium, Globalstar, and Orbcomm — were deployecf between 1997 and 1999. As the number of commercial launches has rapidly increased, so too have forecasts for future launch activity.

Since mid-1999, however, a number of developments in the satellite communications market have led to a re-examination of those more optimistic forecasts. The most significant development was the bankruptcy of Iridium, the pioneering low Earth orbit mobile telephony constellation. As a result, many of the non-geosynchronous satellite constellations expected to be launched in the next five years are now facing increased skepticism from the financial community. These decreased expectations are reflected in the 2000 Commercial Space Transportation Forecasts, published in May 2000 by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/ AST) and the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).