Proceedings of the Workshop - United Nations Office for Outer ...

SESSION TWODiscussion PaperH. Peter van FenemaAdjunct ProfessorInstitute of Air and Space LawMcGill UniversityCanadaExpanding Global Launch ServicesIntroductionOver the past five years, the character of space launchservices has changed in a number of ways.First, the role of governments as the main procurersof their ‘own’ national launch services has beendeclining, and other entities, primarily national andinternational telecommunications companies andorganizations are taking over as the main customers;put differently, competition between internationallaunch providers, for commercial customers worldwide,has rapidly increased.Second, the deployment of communications satelliteconstellations such as Iridium, Globalstar andOrbcomm since 1997 has brought a shift fromtraditionally mostly single payload launches intogeostationary orbit (GEO) to more and morecommercial multiple payload launches into low earthorbit (LEO).Governmental and private industry analyses regardthese trends as long-term phenomena. Some figures toillustrate these points. According to the U.S. FederalAviation Administration, the number of commerciallaunches worldwide has nearly tripled from 14 in 1994to 36 in 1998, representing 15 percent and 44 percentrespectively of worldwide launch activities.1In 1998, launch service providers of five countries,with Europe counted as one country, took care of these36 commercial launches, as follows:CountryU.S.A. 17Europe 9Russia 5Ukraine 1China 4Number of launchesThe same government source reports that, of agrand total of 167 spacecraft launched in 1998 on 82launches, 104 spacecraft were of a commercial nature,of which 82 had a LEO destination; 78 of the latterwere for the account of Iridium, Globalstar andOrbcomm. These appeared on the launch manifests ofprimarily U.S., but also Russian (7), Ukrainian (12)and Chinese (8) launch companies. Europe onlyperformed GEO launches in 1998.'See Commercial space transportation: 1998 year in review,FAA Associate Administrator for Commercial SpaceTransportation (AST) (January 1999)