Commercial Launch: All Government Subsidies Are Not Created Equal
US’ Private Space Industry Opposes Use Of ISRO Launch Vehicles, NDTV
“I think the concern about using Indian boosters is not so much the transfer of sensitive technology to a nation that is a fellow democracy, but rather whether the Indian launches are subsidised by the government to a degree that other market actors would be priced out of the market,” Elliot Holokauahi Pulham, CEO of Space Foundation, said. Testifying before a Congressional committee, Mr Pulham said there has been some discussion about allowing US built satellites to fly on boosters such as the Indian PSLV. Eric Stallmer, president Commercial Spaceflight Federation, opposed efforts to facilitate a government-subsidised foreign launch company. “In this case, India, to compete with US companies. Such policy runs counter to many national priorities and undermines the work and investment that has been made by the government and industry to ensure the health of the US commercial space launch industrial base,” Mr Stallmer said.”
Keith’s note: This is all rather odd and self-serving. Both Space Foundation and Commercial Spaceflight Federation depend on commercial space company membership dues. On one hand it is wrong to allow U.S. commercial payloads to be launched by India because their rockets have large government subsidies. Yet Space Foundation and CSF think that it is just fine to launch these same U.S. commercial payloads on Chinese, Russian, and European launch vehicles – all of which get substantial government subsidies. Meanwhile ULA has been getting billions a year for decades in U.S. government subsidies to keep both EELV fleets afloat (with no competition until recently) – and they will now get more money to wean themselves from RD-180 engines whose use was mandated by the U.S. government. Again, where you stand depends on where you sit.
The Indians have been making noises lately about privatizing the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). If the PSLV manufacturing facility and IP base are transferred to private ownership and the PSLV pad(s) at the Satish Dhawan spaceport are also transferred, or at least long-term leased, to said private entity, then there should be no defensible reason for keeping U.S.payloads off this booster.
Given that the PSLV is an expendable launch vehicle, even pricing its launches at marginal production cost plus profit shouldn’t discommode SpaceX or Blue Origin from a competitive standpoint. For other U.S. launch services providers, of course, YMMV.
When it comes to politicians, where they stand depends on who’s filling their pockets.
One nit, Keith. I don’t believe the U.S. government forced Lockheed Martin to to use the RD-180 in the Atlas 3 and Atlas 5. It’s true there wasn’t as good or as affordable hydrocarbon engine in the U.S. arsenal as the RD-170, so Lockheed partnered with Energomash to fund development of its RD-180 variant. And don’t get me started on NASA’s benign neglect of the hydrocarbon engine industrial base (versus solids or hydrolox). The RD-180 was the right choice for Lockheed, and the Clinton Administration saw U.S. industrial funding of Energomash as more of a feature than a bug of the Atlas 5. But nobody *made* them use Russian engines.
If no one made them use the engine then why does ULA and Congress say that they did? Why is Congress paying them to find alternatives?
I think the reality is that the government allowed Lockheed Martin to sell them launch services using Russian engines. When the government suddenly wants to change its policy on allowing Russian content, as a smart customer government should plant seeds across the competitive industry to develop better systems that use domestic propulsion, which is exactly what the Air Force is doing.
This is just another example of the government picking winners and playing favorites. Its just another subsidy to allow the government to sway their part of the space launch pie.
At the time, Lockheed was held to a promise of domestic production of RD-180, even by an actual deadline which was set to 2002. They got the deal approved, and the promise was obviously not followed through on.
No one indeed made them use the engine, it was Lockheeds pick as they competed against domestic alternatives. There is probably a couple articles worth of interesting facts in the origin story of how that deal happened – starting early in 1992ish actually.
It was a competition between 3 then separate American propulsion companies – Rocketdyne, Pratt & Whitney, and Aerojet. P&W and Aerojet went to russia on a gold rush in 1992, Aerojet went after Samara NK-33 engines, P&W went to EnergoMash for a RD-170 derivative. Rocketdyne offered an upgraded variant of MA-5D which they withdrew shortly before the downselection in 1996. Notably Lockheed signed on for Proton ILS also in 1992
The Atlas deal was only approved conditional of having the engine domestically produced after repeat assurances by Lockheed ( Aviation Week, June 23 1997, Page 24-25 )
From ULA:
Why was the RD-180 engine originally selected?
The decision to use the RD-180 for the Atlas V launch vehicle is a result of post-cold war cooperation between U.S. businesses and the Russian defense industry. The RD-180 relationship was urged by the U.S. government as a means of preventing Russian military technology from proliferating. The RD-180 was jointly developed by U.S. and Russian Defense Industries to provide the Atlas V with a technologically advanced and reliable engine. Since then, the Atlas V product has provided enormous value and mission assurance for ULA customers.
This is factually incorrect.
Tell ULA. Its a quote from their website.
The U.S. managed a launch quota program in the 1990s, limiting the number of U.S. satellites that could be launched by Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian rockets. The program protected the U.S. launch industry but it harmed the U.S. satellite industry, which opposed the quota system. The quotas strengthened the competitiveness of foreign satellite manufacturers and contributed to advances in foreign satellite technologies that previously were available only in U.S. satellites.
In reality it also harmed the U.S. launch industry which didn’t have to seek cost control and efficiency, only effectiveness, thereby leading to the demise of the industry as a whole on the international commercial satellite market. Basically it evolved only to service the U.S. government. Not a healthy position to be in for long term sustainability.
They clearly forgot the old adage that nothing lasts forever.
Cheers
Keith,
I need to take stronger issue with your comment on how CSF President Eric Stallmer responded to a narrow question about the use of Indian launch vehicles. He correctly voiced the consensus position of the CSF members, namely that the PSLV appears to be a heavily subsidized government-operated launcher, but that the waiver system in place gives small satellite companies an important escape valve until new domestic smallsat launch systems are in place.
But your accusation that it’s FINE with CSF “to launch these same U.S. commercial payloads on Chinese, Russian, and European launch vehicles – all of which get substantial government subsidies” is just flat out false. Eric didn’t say anything about that, and CSF doesn’t believe that.
The issue here is whether U.S. industry is competing with foreign industries (however subsidized they or we are) versus competing with a government that can completely ignore little details like having to raise investment capital. We don’t approve of the latter, whether it’s the PSLV’s developer/operator ISRO, the Chinese Red Army-owned Great Wall Corporation… or our own NASA when it was marketing Shuttle flights back in the 1980s before Challenger.
Thanks in advance for correcting the implication of your comment above.
– Jim Muncy
Senior Policy Advisor
Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Gee then why didn’t Eric say any of this? He had a perfect forum within which to do so. You are just as evasive and contradictory as the rest of CSF is on this i.e. it is OK for some countries to subsidize – but not others. Oh and waivers are always the response to these glaring inconsistencies. Gimme a break. You guys just want a selectively-walled garden within which to play. I am not correcting anything. Eric can comment if he wishes.
Good of you to finally come clean about who you represent. Took a while but thanks anyway.
Cheers
When I post a *representing* a client, I sign it with an acknowledgement of that representation. Most of my comments are written as an individual, not on behalf of a client, and just based on my lifelong support of commercial space. Indeed, I think even Keith would agree I’m pro-commercial first, and that’s why my clients hire me. I’m not your average space lobbyist.
Then you speak for Eric and CSF in this regard?
It’s likely most folks here know who you are and your business. I did, and I do like to see wide opinions. Just my two cents.
Without knowing who the other respondents here actually are, commenting here is just a one-way conversation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but ULA nor it’s owners seem to be members of the CSF. In fact it seems to largely comprise the so-called ‘Newspace’ companies.
It seems therefore in the absence of any other information, that these member organisations would indeed be against government subsidies since the all ‘profess’ to be ‘commercial’ operators. Are they indeed only going after ISRO or does this also include (somewhere) objections to other countries noted by Keith?
So I seem to be missing something here.
Cheers