EVEN rocket science isn’t rocket science any more. The number of launch
vehicles goes up and up, but somehow the technology isn’t keeping pace. A
devastating analysis from French insurance firm AGF says that new rocket designs
are less reliable than they were 20 years ago, when commercial satellite
launchers first became big business.
Satellite television, satellite telephones and wireless Internet all add up
to a burgeoning demand for space launches. The number of different types of
rocket available on the multibillion-dollar commercial launch market has
quadrupled over the past two decades. But despite advances in propulsion
technology and the increasing use of computerised flight control and guidance
systems, rocket builders don’t appear to be any better at getting their new
craft safely aloft.
In fact, it’s these computer systems that many industry insiders say should
take much of the blame for the problem, along with the need to carry heavier
payloads. The rigorous drive to cut costs is another factor—though that
could prove counterproductive if the failures continue.
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As if to underline AGF’s findings, woeful news emerged last month from NASDA,
one of Japan’s two space agencies. The American satellite maker Hughes has just
cancelled an order with NASDA for 10 launches, following repeated failures of
its heavy-lifting rocket.
AGF’s survey set out to check how successful new rockets were in their first
few launches—the benchmark measure for new designs. It found that during
the first five launches of a new type of rocket between 1980 and 1984, 60 per
cent experienced at least one failure. And AGF’s Guy Lallour points out that in
the past five years almost two-thirds of new launches experienced at least one
failure—a worse record than 20 years ago.
“New launchers are not getting any more reliable because the nature of
satellite missions is changing,” says Lallour. “They are launching much heavier
satellites that make more demands on the launcher.” The practice of
“co-locating” a number of satellites in the same orbits—so that their
signals can all be picked up by a single TV dish, for example—is also
technically challenging. “And these come at a time when the market is
increasingly commercial, with big budget and time constraints.”
AGF’s analysis is centred on new rocket designs. You might think this means
that its figures are of academic interest only: after all, even launchers that
get off to a shaky start generally get it right in the end. But the commercial
world doesn’t work like that. Currently, satellite makers demand flat rates
across all launcher types, says Lallour. But pressure from insurers is set to
change this. Individual rocket manufacturers will have to ensure their products
compete keenly in terms of reliability. Failure to improve the reliability of
early flights will send future insurance premiums—and therefore the total
cost of the satellites they insure—into orbit, and their commercial
ambitions crashing to Earth. “The reliability of launchers has to be reflected
in the insurance rates in future,” says Lallour. “The price has to be
commensurate with the risk.”
The new rocket designs now coming into commercial service include Lockheed
Martin’s Atlas 3 and Boeing’s Delta 3 from the US, Ariane 5 from “Europe’s
Arianespace, and the Proton M from Khrunichev of Russia. The last three all
failed on their maiden flights. People are starting to ask why rocket makers
haven’t smoothed out technological difficulties and driven failure rates down
for new designs, says Space News. Lallour puts the blame for this on
cost cutting. “The budget constraints mean there is a lot less actual testing of
components being done, with more being done in simulation,” he says.
Pierre-Eric Lys, AGF’s manager of space operations insurance, says ideas like
NASA’s “Faster, Better, Cheaper” programme—recently criticised in an
independent report on the failures that have dogged its Mars missions—are
part of the problem. “Design-to-cost programmes like that mean people have to
stick to budgets no matter what technical problems come up,” Lys points out.
Not surprisingly, the launchers’ manufacturers see things differently. “I
don’t agree with AGF’s analysis. They are looking probably at our competitors,”
says Mario Delpine of Arianespace. “Ariane 4 has had 54 successful launches in a
row—we stand at a success rate of 97.5 per cent, which is the best record
on the commercial launch market today.”
But while Ariane 4 is undoubtedly a solid performer, the history of
Arianespace’s heavy-lifting rocket Ariane 5 illustrates the problem highlighted
by AGF. Ariane 5 blew up on its maiden flight in 1996, destroying the European
Space Agency’s four-satellite Cluster mission. Its second flight, with a dummy
payload, failed to reach its intended orbit. The three flights since then have
been fine, however.
“With a rocket, all your eggs are in that one flight and there’s always a
chance of a failure,” says David Todd, who edits the SpaceTrak database.
SpaceTrak monitors launchers’ success rate, and is used by the companies that
insure satellite payloads. It is published by Airclaims, a London company that
advises insurers when they face claims from the aviation industry. “A maiden
flight is a brand-new vehicle,” says Todd. “It’s not like an aircraft that’s
been test flown in small altitude and speed steps.” He says the industry should
be wary of using maiden flights for launches.
In an analysis of rockets’ maiden flights, Airclaims found that 12 out of 23
new designs that flew in the past decade—not including more reliable
converted ballistic missiles—suffered failures first time round. And of
the nine failures that made a second attempt, six failed then too.
Computerisation of rocket guidance and control may be a key factor in these
failures, says Todd.
Poor design
The recent failure of a Zenit 3 rocket launched from Boeing’s Sea Launch
platform in the Pacific was due to what Todd dubs a “programmer medley”. When
software engineers tried to “tidy up” a computer program after two successful
flights, they accidentally introduced an error that left a flight-critical valve
open. Ariane 5’s maiden failure is another famous computer foul-up
(New Scientist, 27 July 1996, p 10).
More than four decades after the Soviet Sputnik probe blazed a trail into
space, rocket makers have worked out how to make propulsion reliable. So is
software now scuppering launches? “Guidance systems do seem to go wrong more
than anything,” says Todd.
But other types of fault may be to blame, too. Nowhere has the failure of
rocket technology been felt more keenly than in Japan. NASDA’s lost contract
with Hughes was worth $836 million. Yet in 1996, when the contract was
signed, it was seen as a vindication of Japan’s H 2 programme. Its cancellation
now is a body blow for Japan’s ambitions as a commercial satellite launcher.
Poor design and manufacture led to the H 2’s downfall, says Todd. Observers have
blamed things as varied as stray insects causing short circuits and bubbles in
liquid hydrogen fuel that fractured a turbine blade. Production of the main H 2
rocket was suspended last December after two failed launches in a row.
Development of its successor, the cheaper H 2A version, is also on hold.
Is this the end of the road for Japan? The European Space Agency had already
booked an experimental communications satellite called Artemis onto the maiden H
2A flight. It opted for the Japanese launcher instead of the twice-failed Boeing
Delta 3. Todd wonders why. “I’d choose the Delta 3,” he says, “on the basis of
third time lucky.”
