Financial Operational Losses in Space Launch

Abstract

The high cost of access to space has been a problem since the beginning of the space age. Most attempts to reduce this cost are centered on improvements to launch vehicle design. While this approach has been fruitful, less attention has been paid to other causes of high cost. Two of these are wastage of launch vehicle payload capacity and use of cost-ineffective launch vehicles. Both of these are associated with the way the launch vehicles are operated, and so are operational losses. This work examines the extent of operational losses in space launch over the period January 1, 2000, to September 29, 2013, and considers strategies for reducing these losses. The cumulative worldwide wastage for this period was 654 tons, which is 20.4% of total payload capacity, and represents a financial loss of no less than $8.72 billion (2014$). The cumulative loss due to cost-ineffective launch vehicle selection is less certain, but is no greater than 43.8% of total launch cost, or $19.3 billion. Two possible strategies may combat operational losses: changing launch vehicle selection or rearranging payloads. Changing launch ve- hicle selection can in principle eliminate cost-ineffective launch vehicle use, but is prevented in some measure by non-economic considerations. Rearrangement of payloads cannot eliminate wastage, but can reduce it considerably, to as little as 2% in some cases. Combining these two strategies by applying a bin-packing algorithm to the set of launch vehicles and payloads can yield a considerable cost savings, reducing total launch costs to geosynchronous orbit by as much as 53% if both launch vehicle selection and payload arrangement are unrestricted. Even in the most restrictive scenario where payloads must be launched in the same calendar year they actually were and launch vehicle choice is restricted to the launch vehicles actually used during that year, cost savings of 19.1% over the actual launches are possible.