The US/Russian International Launch Services (ILS) company yesterday claimed a 50% share in the commercial launcher market with competitor Arianespace.
Vance Coffman, president and chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin which, with Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, operates ILS, says that the company had "...reached its 50% share business target two years earlier than planned".
ILS has a backlog of 49 launches, says president Charles Lloyd, with 20 launches for the Russian Proton DM rocket and 29 for the US Atlas booster fleet. This compares with Arianespace's backlog of 42 satellites.
Some missions flown by the Ariane 44L can carry two satellites, the Atlas and Proton can carry only one communications satellite per flight. Lloyd says that ILS is poised to attain a launch rate of 1.6 per month over the next 19 months, "the highest rate for a commercial launch operator".
There will be five more ILS Proton launches of civilian commercial satellites this year starting with the PanAmSat 5 in July and six launches by the Atlas, starting with the Superbird C also in July.
Two of the Atlas launches are for the US Air Force under a Medium Launch Vehicle contract which is not strictly "commercial" and this military/government element adds confusion to comparing the backlog figures - which is all part of the one-upmanship in the highly-competitive launcher business.
ILS's backlog also includes six other government satellites. Another reason for of the confusion is ILS's inclusion of unidentified satellites which are launch "reservations".
Source: Flight Daily News