On 29 Aug 2003 12:45:58 -0700, (ed kyle) wrote:

If we use Delta and Atlas for supplying the station along with launching the
OSP you add 10-25 launches a year.
15 rockets a year for each launcher would be a good jump start.

It would be, but I don't think we'll see it. Since 2000,
inclusive, the combined total of all Atlas, Delta, Titan, and
Shuttle launches have averaged 19.7 launches per year.

True, but we are in a space launch doldrums of major proportions right
now. Both the commercial comsat market and the military satellite
launch pace have been markedly slower in the last four or five years,
as ever-longer-lived satellites haven't needed to be replaced. But
that won't be true too much longer. On the military horizon are Block
IIF Navstars (33 satellites) currently scheduled for about one launch
per year beginning in late 2005, that pace will quicken considerably
around the end of the decade as earlier GPS satellites begin needing
replacing. Meanwhile, Block III should begin to join the fleet around
2011. All this means that even without any commercial contracts, EELVs
will start having to really demonstrate rapid pace launches (at least,
a lot quicker than they're flying now) beginning around 2009. Add to
that the prospects of commercial contracts from the inevitable next
wave of major satellite orders in the second half of this decade,
(Atlas V, in particular seems likely to win quite a few, courtesy of
ILS, but its risky to write Boeing off as a lost cause, they've
rebounded from worse times than this before) and the EELV pads can
realistically expect to be quite busy.

And then there is NASA. OSP or US ATV are likely prospects to come
online at precisely the time GPS IIF/III and the comsat surge hits.

At the very least, an additional will be needed for whoever wins
NASA's contracts.

Existing Cape Canaveral
EELV pad capacity is probably about 12 per year.

But OSP and/or US ATV operations will likely monopolize pads too much
for the military and commercial EELV sectors taste.

Brian