Asteroid mining

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Artist's concept of asteroid mining

433 Eros is a stony asteroid in a near-Earth orbit

Asteroid mining is the exploitation of raw materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects.

Minerals can be mined from an asteroid or spent comet then used in space for construction materials or taken back to Earth. These include gold, iridium, silver, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten for transport back to Earth; iron, cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, aluminium, and titanium for construction.

Due to the high launch and transportation costs of spaceflight, inaccurate identification of asteroids suitable for mining, and in-situ ore extraction challenges, terrestrial mining remains the only means of raw mineral acquisition today. If space program funding, either public or private, dramatically increases, this situation is likely to change in the future as resources on Earth are becoming increasingly scarce and the full potentials of asteroid mining—and space exploration in general—are researched in greater detail.^[1]:47f However, it is yet uncertain whether asteroid mining will develop to attain the volume and composition needed in due time to fully compensate for dwindling terrestrial reserves.^[2][3][4]

Purpose

Based on known terrestrial reserves, and growing consumption in both developed and developing countries, key elements needed for modern industry and food production could be exhausted on Earth within 50–60 years.^[5] These include phosphorus, antimony, zinc, tin, lead, indium, silver, gold and copper.^[6] In response, it has been suggested that platinum, cobalt and other valuable elements from asteroids may be mined and sent to Earth for profit, used to build solar-power satellites and space habitats,^[7][8] and water processed from ice to refuel orbiting propellant depots.^[9][10][11]

Although asteroids and Earth accreted from the same starting materials, Earth's relatively stronger gravity pulled all heavy siderophilic (iron-loving) elements into its core during its molten youth more than four billion years ago.^[12][13][14] This left the crust depleted of such valuable elements until a rain of asteroid impacts re-infused the depleted crust with metals like gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten (some flow from core to surface does occur, e.g. at the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a famously rich source of platinum-group metals)^{[citation needed]}. Today, these metals are mined from Earth's crust, and they are essential for economic and technological progress. Hence, the geologic history of Earth may very well set the stage for a future of asteroid mining.

In 2006, the Keck Observatory announced that the binary Jupiter trojan 617 Patroclus,^[15] and possibly large numbers of other Jupiter trojans, are likely extinct comets and consist largely of water ice. Similarly, Jupiter-family comets, and possibly near-Earth asteroids that are extinct comets, might also provide water. The process of in-situ resource utilization—using materials native to space for propellant, thermal management, tankage, radiation shielding, and other high-mass components of space infrastructure—could lead to radical reductions in its cost.^[16] Although whether these cost reductions could be achieved, and if achieved would offset the enormous infrastructure investment required, is unknown.

Ice would satisfy one of two necessary conditions to enable "human expansion into the Solar System" (the ultimate goal for human space flight proposed by the 2009 "Augustine Commission" Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee): physical sustainability and economic sustainability.^[17]

From the astrobiological perspective, asteroid prospecting could provide scientific data for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Some astrophysicists have suggested that if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations employed asteroid mining long ago, the hallmarks of these activities might be detectable.^[18][19][20] Why extraterrestrials would have resorted to asteroid mining in near proximity to earth, with its readily available resources, has not been explained.

Asteroid selection

An important factor to consider in target selection is orbital economics, in particular the change in velocity (Δv) and travel time to and from the target. More of the extracted native material must be expended as propellant in higher Δv trajectories, thus less returned as payload. Direct Hohmann trajectories are faster than Hohmann trajectories assisted by planetary and/or lunar flybys, which in turn are faster than those of the Interplanetary Transport Network, but the reduction in transfer time comes at the cost of increased Δv requirements.^{[citation needed]}

The Easily Recoverable Object (ERO) subclass of Near-Earth asteroids are considered likely candidates for early mining activity. Their low Δv makes them suitable for use in extracting construction materials for near-Earth space-based facilities, greatly reducing the economic cost of transporting supplies into Earth orbit.^[21]

An example of a potential target^[22] for an early asteroid mining expedition is 4660 Nereus, expected to be mainly enstatite. This body has a very low Δv compared to lifting materials from the surface of the Moon. However it would require a much longer round-trip to return the material.
Multiple types of asteroids have been identified but the three main types would include the C-type, S-type, and M-type asteroids:

1. C-type asteroids have a high abundance of water which is not currently of use for mining but could be used in an exploration effort beyond the asteroid. Mission costs could be reduced by using the available water from the asteroid. C-type asteroids also have a lot of organic carbon, phosphorus, and other key ingredients for fertilizer which could be used to grow food.^[23]
2. S-type asteroids carry little water but look more attractive because they contain numerous metals including: nickel, cobalt and more valuable metals such as gold, platinum and rhodium. A small 10-meter S-type asteroid contains about 650,000 kg (1,433,000 lb) of metal with 50 kg (110 lb) in the form of rare metals like platinum and gold.^[23]
3. M-type asteroids are rare but contain up to 10 times more metal than S-types^[23]

A class of easily recoverable objects (EROs) was identified by a group of researchers in 2013. Twelve asteroids made up the initially identified group, all of which could be potentially mined with present-day rocket technology. Of 9,000 asteroids searched in the NEO database, these twelve could all be brought into an Earth-accessible orbit by changing their velocity by less than 500 meters per second (1,800 km/h; 1,100 mph). The dozen asteroids range in size from 2 to 20 meters (10 to 70 ft).^[24]

Asteroid cataloging

The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofit foundation with headquarters in the United States, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes. As a non-governmental organization it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect asteroids that could one day strike Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions.
The foundation's 2013 goal was to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space telescope, Sentinel, hoping in 2013 to launch it in 2017–2018. The Sentinel's infrared telescope, once parked in an orbit similar to that of Venus, is designed to help identify threatening asteroids by cataloging 90% of those with diameters larger than 140 metres (460 ft), as well as surveying smaller Solar System objects.^{[25][26][27][needs update]}

Data gathered by Sentinel was intended to be provided through an existing scientific data-sharing network that includes NASA and academic institutions such as the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Given the satellite's telescopic accuracy, Sentinel's data may prove valuable for other possible future missions, such as asteroid mining.^[26][27][28]

Mining considerations

There are three options for mining:^[21]

1. Bring raw asteroidal material to Earth for use.
2. Process it on-site to bring back only processed materials, and perhaps produce propellant for the return trip.
3. Transport the asteroid to a safe orbit around the Moon, Earth or to the ISS.^[11] This can hypothetically allow for most materials to be used and not wasted.^[8] Along these lines, NASA has proposed a potential future space mission known as the Asteroid Redirect Mission, although the primary focus of this mission is on retrieval. The House of Representatives deleted a line item for the ARP budget from NASA's FY 2017 budget request.^{[citation needed]}

Processing in situ for the purpose of extracting high-value minerals will reduce the energy requirements for transporting the materials, although the processing facilities must first be transported to the mining site. In situ mining will involve drilling boreholes and injecting hot fluid/gas and allow the useful material to react or melt with the solvent and the extract the solute. Due to the weak gravitational fields of asteroids, any drilling will cause large disturbances and form dust clouds.

Mining operations require special equipment to handle the extraction and processing of ore in outer space.^[21] The machinery will need to be anchored to the body,^{[citation needed]} but once in place, the ore can be moved about more readily due to the lack of gravity. However, no techniques for refining ore in zero gravity currently exist. Docking with an asteroid might be performed using a harpoon-like process, where a projectile would penetrate the surface to serve as an anchor; then an attached cable would be used to winch the vehicle to the surface, if the asteroid is both penetrable and rigid enough for a harpoon to be effective.^[29]

Due to the distance from Earth to an asteroid selected for mining, the round-trip time for communications will be several minutes or more, except during occasional close approaches to Earth by near-Earth asteroids. Thus any mining equipment will either need to be highly automated, or a human presence will be needed nearby.^[21] Humans would also be useful for troubleshooting problems and for maintaining the equipment. On the other hand, multi-minute communications delays have not prevented the success of robotic exploration of Mars, and automated systems would be much less expensive to build and deploy.^[30]

Technology being developed by Planetary Resources to locate and harvest these asteroids has resulted in the plans for three different types of satellites:

1. Arkyd Series 100 (the Leo Space telescope) is a less expensive instrument that will be used to find, analyze, and see what resources are available on nearby asteroids.^[23]
2. Arkyd Series 200 (the Interceptor) Satellite that would actually land on the asteroid to get a closer analysis of the available resources.^[23]
3. Arkyd Series 300 (Rendezvous Prospector) Satellite developed for research and finding resources deeper in space.^[23]

Technology being developed by Deep Space Industries to examine, sample, and harvest asteroids is divided into three families of spacecraft:

1. FireFlies are triplets of nearly identical spacecraft in CubeSat form launched to different asteroids to rendezvous and examine them.^[31]
2. DragonFlies also are launched in waves of three nearly identical spacecraft to gather small samples (5–10 kg) and return them to Earth for analysis.^[31]
3. Harvestors voyage out to asteroids to gather hundreds of tons of material for return to high Earth orbit for processing.^[32]

Asteroid mining could potentially revolutionize space exploration. The C-type asteroids's high abundance of water could be used to produce fuel by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. This would make space travel a more feasible option by lowering cost of fuel. While the cost of fuel is a relatively insignificant factor in the overall cost for low earth orbit manned space missions, storing it and the size of the craft become a much bigger factor for interplanetary missions. Typically 1 kg in orbit is equivalent to more than 10 kg on the ground (for a Falcon 9 1.0 it would need 250 tons of fuel to put 5 tons in GEO orbit or 10 tons in LEO). This limitation is a major factor in the difficulty of interplanetary missions as fuel becomes payload.

Extraction techniques

Surface mining

On some types of asteroids, material may be scraped off the surface using a scoop or auger, or for larger pieces, an "active grab."^[21] There is strong evidence that many asteroids consist of rubble piles,^[33] making this approach possible.

Shaft mining

A mine can be dug into the asteroid, and the material extracted through the shaft. This requires precise knowledge to engineer accuracy of astro-location under the surface regolith and a transportation system to carry the desired ore to the processing facility.

Magnetic rakes

Asteroids with a high metal content may be covered in loose grains that can be gathered by means of a magnet.^[21][34]

Heating

For asteroids such as carbonaceous chondrites that contain hydrated minerals, water and other volatiles can be extracted simply by heating. A water extraction test in 2016^[35] by Honeybee Robotics used asteroid regolith simulant^[36] developed by Deep Space Industries and the University of Central Florida to match the bulk mineralogy of a particular carbonaceous meteorite. Although the simulant was physically dry (i.e., it contained no water molecules adsorbed in the matrix of the rocky material), heating to about 510 °C released hydroxyl, which came out as substantial amounts of water vapor from the molecular structure of phyllosilicate clays and sulphur compounds. The vapor was condensed into liquid water filling the collection containers, demonstrating the feasibility of mining water from certain classes of physically dry asteroids.^{[citation needed]}

For volatile materials in extinct comets, heat can be used to melt and vaporize the matrix.^[21][37]

Extraction using the Mond process

The nickel and iron of an iron rich asteroid could be extracted by the Mond process. This involves passing carbon monoxide over the asteroid at a temperature between 50 and 60 °C for nickel, higher for iron, and with high pressures and enclosed in materials that are resistant to the corrosive carbonyls. This forms the gases nickel tetracarbonyl and iron pentacarbonyl - then nickel and iron can be removed from the gas again at higher temperatures, perhaps in an attached printer, and platinum, gold etc. left as a residue.^[38][39][40]

Self-replicating machines

A 1980 NASA study entitled Advanced Automation for Space Missions proposed a complex automated factory on the Moon that would work over several years to build 80% of a copy of itself, the other 20% being imported from Earth since those more complex parts (like computer chips) would require a vastly larger supply chain to produce.^[41] Exponential growth of factories over many years could refine large amounts of lunar (or asteroidal) regolith. Since 1980 there has been major progress in miniaturization, nanotechnology, materials science, and additive manufacturing, so it may be possible to achieve 100% "closure" with a reasonably small mass of hardware, although these technology advancements are themselves enabled on Earth by expansion of the supply chain so it needs further study. A NASA study in 2012 proposed a "bootstrapping" approach to establish an in-space supply chain with 100% closure, suggesting it could be achieved in only two to four decades with low annual cost.^[42] A study in 2016 again claimed it is possible to complete in just a few decades because of ongoing advances in robotics, and it argued it will provide benefits back to the Earth including economic growth, environmental protection, and provision of clean energy while also providing humanity protection against existential threats.^[43]

Proposed mining projects

On April 24, 2012 a plan was announced by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources. The company is called Planetary Resources and its founders include aerospace entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis. Advisers include film director and explorer James Cameron and investors include Google's chief executive Larry Page and its executive chairman Eric Schmidt.^[16][44] They also plan to create a fuel depot in space by 2020 by using water from asteroids, splitting it to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel. From there, it could be shipped to Earth orbit for refueling commercial satellites or spacecraft.^[16] The plan has been met with skepticism by some scientists, who do not see it as cost-effective, even though platinum is worth £22 per gram and gold nearly £31 per gram (approximately £961 per troy ounce).^[when?] Platinum and gold are raw materials traded on terrestrial markets, and it is impossible to predict what prices either will command at the point in the future when resources from asteroids become available. For example, platinum traditionally is very valuable due to its use in both industrial and jewelry applications, but should future technologies make the internal combustion engine obsolete, the demand for platinum's use as the catalyst in catalytic converters may well decline and decrease the metal's long term demand. The ongoing NASA mission OSIRIS-REx, which is planned to return just a minimum amount (60 g; two ounces) of material but could get up to 2 kg from an asteroid to Earth, will cost about US$1 billion.^[16][45]

Planetary Resources says that, in order to be successful, it will need to develop technologies that bring the cost of space flight down. Planetary Resources also expects that the construction of "space infrastructure" will help to reduce long-term running costs. For example, fuel costs can be reduced by extracting water from asteroids and splitting to hydrogen using solar energy. In theory, hydrogen fuel mined from asteroids costs significantly less than fuel from Earth due to high costs of escaping Earth's gravity. If successful, investment in "space infrastructure" and economies of scale could reduce operational costs to levels significantly below NASA's ongoing (OSIRIS-REx) mission.^{[46][non-primary source needed]}This investment would have to be amortized through the sale of commodities, delaying any return to investors. There are also some indications that Planetary Resources expects government to fund infrastructure development, as was exemplified by its recent request for $700,000 from NASA to fund the first of the telescopes described above.

Another similar venture, called Deep Space Industries, was started by David Gump, who had founded other space companies.^[47] The company hoped to begin prospecting for asteroids suitable for mining by 2015 and by 2016 return asteroid samples to Earth.^[48] By 2023 Deep Space Industries plans to begin mining asteroids.^[49]

At ISDC-San Diego 2013,^[50] Kepler Energy and Space Engineering (KESE,llc) also announced it was going to mine asteroids, using a simpler, more straightforward approach: KESE plans to use almost exclusively existing guidance, navigation and anchoring technologies from mostly successful missions like the Rosetta/Philae, Dawn, and Hyabusa's Muses-C and current NASA Technology Transfer tooling to build and send a 4-module Automated Mining System (AMS) to a small asteroid with a simple digging tool to collect ~40 tons of asteroid regolith and bring each of the four return modules back to low Earth orbit (LEO) by the end of the decade. Small asteroids are expected to be loose piles of rubble, therefore providing for easy extraction.

In September 2012, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) announced the Robotic Asteroid Prospector project, which will examine and evaluate the feasibility of asteroid mining in terms of means, methods, and systems.^[51]

Being the largest body in the asteroid belt, Ceres could become the main base and transport hub for future asteroid mining infrastructure,^[52] allowing mineral resources to be transported to Mars, the Moon, and Earth. Because of its small escape velocity combined with large amounts of water ice, it also could serve as a source of water, fuel, and oxygen for ships going through and beyond the asteroid belt.^[52] Transportation from Mars or the Moon to Ceres would be even more energy-efficient than transportation from Earth to the Moon.^[53]

Companies and organizations

Organizations which are working on asteroid mining include the following:

Organisation	Type
Deep Space Industries	Private company
Planetary Resources	Private company
Moon Express	Private company
Kleos Space	Private company
TransAstra	Private company
Aten Engineering	Private company
OffWorld	Private company
SpaceFab.US	Private company
Asteroid Mining Corporation Ltd. UK[54]	Private company

Potential targets

According to the Asterank database^[when?], the following asteroids are considered the best targets for mining if maximum cost-effectiveness is to be achieved:^[55]

Asteroid	Est. Value (US$)	Est. Profit (US$)	Δv (km/s)	Composition
Ryugu	95 billion	35 billion	4.663	Nickel, iron, cobalt, water, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia
1989 ML	14 billion	4 billion	4.888	Nickel, iron, cobalt
Nereus	5 billion	1 billion	4.986	Nickel, iron, cobalt
Didymos	84 billion	22 billion	5.162	Nickel, iron, cobalt
2011 UW158	8 billion	2 billion	5.187	Platinum, nickel, iron, cobalt
Anteros	5570 billion	1250 billion	5.439	Magnesium silicate, aluminum, iron silicate
2001 CC21	147 billion	30 billion	5.636	Magnesium silicate, aluminum, iron silicate
1992 TC	84 billion	17 billion	5.647	Nickel, iron, cobalt
2001 SG10	4 billion	0.6 billion	5.880	Nickel, iron, cobalt
2002 DO3	0.3 billion	0.06 billion	5.894	Nickel, iron, cobalt

Economics

Currently, the quality of the ore and the consequent cost and mass of equipment required to extract it are unknown and can only be speculated. Some economic analyses indicate that the cost of returning asteroidal materials to Earth far outweighs their market value, and that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs.^[56][57] Other studies suggest large profit by using solar power.^[58][59] Potential markets for materials can be identified and profit generated if extraction cost is brought down. For example, the delivery of multiple tonnes of water to low Earth orbit for rocket fuel preparation for space tourism could generate a significant profit if space tourism itself proves profitable, which has not been proven.^[60]

In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mi) contains more than US$20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals.^[10][61] A comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km (0.62 mi) could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron–nickel ore,^[62] or two to three times the world production of 2004.^[63] The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 1.7×10¹⁹ kg of nickel–iron, which could supply the world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals.

Not all mined materials from asteroids would be cost-effective, especially for the potential return of economic amounts of material to Earth. For potential return to Earth, platinum is considered very rare in terrestrial geologic formations and therefore is potentially worth bringing some quantity for terrestrial use. Nickel, on the other hand, is quite abundant and being mined in many terrestrial locations, so the high cost of asteroid mining may not make it economically viable.^[64]

Although Planetary Resources indicated in 2012 that the platinum from a 30-meter-long (98 ft) asteroid could be worth US$25–50 billion,^[65] an economist remarked any outside source of precious metals could lower prices sufficiently to possibly doom the venture by rapidly increasing the available supply of such metals.^[66]

Development of an infrastructure for altering asteroid orbits could offer a large return on investment.^[67]

Scarcity

Scarcity is a fundamental economic problem of humans having seemingly unlimited wants in a world of limited resources. Since Earth's resources are not infinite, the relative abundance of asteroidal ore gives asteroid mining the potential to provide nearly unlimited resources, which would essentially eliminate scarcity for those materials.

The idea of exhausting resources is not new. In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote, because resources are ultimately limited, the exponential growth in a population would result in falls in income per capita until poverty and starvation would result as a constricting factor on population.^[68] It should be noted that Malthus posited this 220 years ago, and no sign has yet emerged of the Malthus effect regarding raw materials.

• Proven reserves are deposits of mineral resources that are already discovered and known to be economically extractable under present or similar demand, price and other economic and technological conditions.^[68]
• Conditional reserves are discovered deposits that are not yet economically viable.^{[citation needed]}
• Indicated reserves are less intensively measured deposits whose data is derived from surveys and geological projections. Hypothetical reserves and speculative resources make up this group of reserves. Inferred reserves are deposits that have been located but not yet exploited.^[68]

Continued development in asteroid mining techniques and technology will help to increase mineral discoveries.^[69] As the cost of extracting mineral resources, especially platinum group metals, on Earth rises, the cost of extracting the same resources from celestial bodies declines due to technological innovations around space exploration.^[68] However, it should be noted that the "substitution effect", i.e. the use of other materials for the functions now performed by platinum, would increase in strength as the cost of platinum increased. New supplies would also come to market in the form of jewelry and recycled electronic equipment from itinerant "we buy platinum" businesses like the "we buy gold" businesses that exist now.

As of September 2016, there are 711 known asteroids with a value exceeding US$100 trillion.^[55]

Financial feasibility

Space ventures are high-risk, with long lead times and heavy capital investment, and that is no different for asteroid-mining projects. These types of ventures could be funded through private investment or through government investment. For a commercial venture it can be profitable as long as the revenue earned is greater than total costs (costs for extraction and costs for marketing).^[70] The costs involving an asteroid-mining venture have been estimated to be around US$100 billion in 1996.^[70]

There are six categories of cost considered for an asteroid mining venture:^[70]

1. Research and development costs
2. Exploration and prospecting costs
3. Construction and infrastructure development costs
4. Operational and engineering costs
5. Environmental costs
6. Time cost

Determining financial feasibility is best represented through net present value.^[70] One requirement needed for financial feasibility is a high return on investments estimating around 30%.^[70] Example calculation assumes for simplicity that the only valuable material on asteroids is platinum. On September 5, 2008 platinum was valued at US$1,340 per ounce, or US$43,000 per kilogram. On August 16, 2016 the value had decreased to $1157 per ounce or $37,000 per kilogram. At the $1,340. price, for a 10% return on investment, 173,400 kg (5,575,000 ozt) of platinum would have to be extracted for every 1,155,000 tons of asteroid ore. For a 50% return on investment 1,703,000 kg (54,750,000 ozt) of platinum would have to be extracted for every 11,350,000 tons of asteroid ore. This analysis assumes that doubling the supply of platinum to the market (5.13 million ounces in 2014) would have no effect on the price of platinum. A more realistic assumption is that increasing the supply by this amount would reduce the price 30–50%.^{[citation needed]}

Decreases in the price of space access matter. The start of operational use of the low-cost-per-kilogram-in-orbit Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in 2018 is projected by astronomer Martin Elvis to have increased the extent of economically-minable near-Earth asteroids from hundreds to thousands. With the increased availability of several kilometers per second of delta-v that Falcon Heavy provides, it increases the number of NEAs accessible from 3 percent to around 45 percent.^[71]

Regulation and safety

Space law involves a specific set of international treaties, along with national statutory laws. The system and framework for international and domestic laws have emerged in part through the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.^[72] The rules, terms and agreements that space law authorities consider to be part of the active body of international space law are the five international space treaties and five UN declarations. Approximately 100 nations and institutions were involved in negotiations. The space treaties cover many major issues such as arms control, non-appropriation of space, freedom of exploration, liability for damages, safety and rescue of astronauts and spacecraft, prevention of harmful interference with space activities and the environment, notification and registration of space activities, and the settlement of disputes. In exchange for assurances from the space power, the nonspacefaring nations acquiesced to U.S. and Soviet proposals to treat outer space as a commons (res communis) territory which belonged to no one state.

Asteroid mining in particular is covered by both international treaties—for example, the Outer Space Treaty—and national statutory laws—for example, specific legislative acts in the United States^[73] and Luxembourg.^[74]

Varying degrees of criticism exist regarding international space law. Some critics accept the Outer Space Treaty, but reject the Moon Agreement. Therefore, it is important to note that even the Moon Agreement with its common heritage of mankind clause, allows space mining, extraction, private property rights and exclusive ownership rights over natural outer space resources, if removed from their natural place. The Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Agreement allow private property rights for outer space natural resources once removed from the surface, subsurface or subsoil of the moon and other celestial bodies in outer space. Thus, international space law is capable of managing newly emerging space mining activities, private space transportation, commercial spaceports and commercial space stations/habitats/settlements. Space mining involving the extraction and removal of natural resources from their natural location is without question allowable under the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Agreement. Once removed, those natural resources can be reduced to possession, sold, traded and explored or used for scientific purposes. International space law allows space mining, specifically the extraction of natural resources. It is generally understood within the space law authorities that extracting space resources is allowable, even by private companies for profit. However, international space law prohibits property rights over territories and outer space land.

Astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Steven J. Ostro raised the concern altering the trajectories of asteroids near Earth might pose a collision hazard threat. They concluded that orbit engineering has both opportunities and dangers: if controls instituted on orbit-manipulation technology were too tight, future spacefaring could be hampered, but if they were too loose, human civilization would be at risk.^[67][75][76]

The Outer Space Treaty

After ten years of negotiations between nearly 100 nations, the Outer Space Treaty opened for signature on January 27, 1966. It entered into force as the constitution for outer space on October 10, 1967. The Outer Space Treaty was well received; it was ratified by ninety-six nations and signed by an additional twenty-seven states. The outcome has been that the basic foundation of international space law consists of five (arguably four) international space treaties, along with various written resolutions and declarations. The main international treaty is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967; it is generally viewed as the "Constitution" for outer space. By ratifying the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ninety-eight nations agreed that outer space would belong to the "province of mankind", that all nations would have the freedom to "use" and "explore" outer space, and that both these provisions must be done in a way to "benefit all mankind". The province of mankind principle and the other key terms have not yet been specifically defined (Jasentuliyana, 1992). Critics have complained that the Outer Space Treaty is vague. Yet, international space law has worked well and has served space commercial industries and interests for many decades. The taking away and extraction of Moon rocks, for example, has been treated as being legally permissible.

The framers of Outer Space Treaty initially focused on solidifying broad terms first, with the intent to create more specific legal provisions later (Griffin, 1981: 733–734). This is why the members of the COPUOS later expanded the Outer Space Treaty norms by articulating more specific understandings which are found in the "three supplemental agreements" – the Rescue and Return Agreement of 1968, the Liability Convention of 1973, and the Registration Convention of 1976 (734).

Hobe (2006) explains that the Outer Space Treaty "explicitly and implicitly prohibits only the acquisition of territorial property rights" – public or private, but extracting space resources is allowable.

The Moon Agreement

The Moon Agreement (1979–1984) is often treated^{[by whom?]} as though it is not a part of the body of international space law, and there has been extensive debate on whether or not the Moon Agreement is a valid part of international law. It entered into force in 1984, because of a five state ratification consensus procedure, agreed upon by the members of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Still today very few nations have signed and/or ratified the Moon Agreement. In recent years this figure has crept up to a few more than a dozen nations who have signed and ratified the treaty. The other three outer space treaties experienced a high level of international cooperation in terms of signage and ratification, but the Moon Treaty went further than them, by defining the Common Heritage concept in more detail and by imposing specific obligations on the parties engaged in the exploration and/or exploitation of outer space. The Moon Treaty explicitly designates the Moon and its natural resources as part of the Common Heritage of Mankind.^{[citation needed]}

The Moon Agreement allows space mining, specifically the extraction of natural resources. The treaty specifically provides in Article 11, paragraph 3 that:^{[citation needed]}

Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place [emphasis added], shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the Moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the Moon or any areas thereof.

The objection to the treaty by the spacefaring nations is held to be the requirement that extracted resources (and the technology used to that end) must be shared with other nations. The similar regime in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is believed to impede the development of such industries on the seabed.^[77]

Legal regimes of some countries

Some nations are beginning to promulgate legal regimes for extraterrestrial resource extraction. For example, the United States "SPACE Act of 2015"—facilitating private development of space resources consistent with US international treaty obligations—passed the US House of Representatives in July 2015.^[78][79] In November 2015 it passed the United States Senate.^[80] On 25 November US-President Barack Obama signed the H.R.2262 – U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act into law.^[81] The law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own space resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids. According to the article § 51303 of the law:^[82]

A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States

In February 2016, the Government of Luxembourg announced that it would attempt to "jump-start an industrial sector to mine asteroid resources in space" by, among other things, creating a "legal framework" and regulatory incentives for companies involved in the industry.^[74][83] By June 2016, announced that it would "invest more than US$200 million in research, technology demonstration, and in the direct purchase of equity in companies relocating to Luxembourg."^[84] In 2017, it became the "first European country to pass a law conferring to companies the ownership of any resources they extract from space", and remained active in advancing space resource public policy in 2018.^[85]

Missions

Ongoing and planned

• OSIRIS-REx – planned NASA asteroid sample return mission (launched in September 2016)
• Hayabusa 2 – ongoing JAXA asteroid sample return mission (arriving at the target in 2018)
• Asteroid Redirect Mission – potential future space mission proposed by NASA (if funded, the mission would be launched in December 2020)
• Fobos-Grunt 2 – planned Roskosmos sample return mission to Phobos (launch in 2024)

Completed

First successful missions by country:^[86]

Nation	Flyby	Orbit	Landing	Sample return
USA	ICE (1985)	NEAR (1997)	NEAR (2001)	Stardust (2006)
Japan	Suisei (1986)	Hayabusa (2005)	Hayabusa (2005)	Hayabusa (2010)
EU	ICE (1985)	Rosetta (2014)	Rosetta (2014)
Soviet Union	Vega 1 (1986)
China	Chang'e 2 (2012)

In fiction

The first mention of asteroid mining in science fiction is apparently Garrett P. Serviss' story Edison's Conquest of Mars, New York Evening Journal, 1898.^[87][88]

The 1979 film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is about the crew of the Nostromo, a commercially operated spaceship on a return trip to Earth hauling a refinery and 20 million tons of mineral ore mined from an asteroid.

C. J. Cherryh's novel, Heavy Time focuses on the plight of asteroid miners in the Alliance-Union universe, while Moon is a 2009 British science fiction drama film depicting a lunar facility that mines the alternative fuel helium-3 needed to provide energy on Earth. It was notable for its realism and drama, winning several awards internationally.^[89][90][91]

In several science fiction video games, asteroid mining is a possibility. For example, in the space-MMO, EVE Online, asteroid mining is a very popular career, owing to its simplicity.^[92][93][94]

In the computer game Star Citizen, the mining occupation supports a variety of dedicated specialists, each of which has a critical role to play in the effort.^[95]

Gallery

• 

  Artist's concept from the 1970s of asteroid mining
• 

  Artist's concept of an asteroid mining vehicle as seen in 1984
• 

  Artist's concept of an asteroid moved by a space tether
• 

  A future space telescope designed by Planetary Resources company to find asteroids

Space launch market competition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The space launch services business began in the 1950s with national programs. Later in the 20th century commercial satellites became major customers, and international competition also became commercial. In the early 2010s, a new phase of space launch market competition emerged.

History

In the early decades of the Space Age—1950s–2000s—the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pioneered space technology augmented by collaboration with affiliated design bureaus in the USSR and contracts with commercial companies in the US. All rocket designs were built explicitly for government purposes. The European Space Agency was formed in 1975, largely following the same model of space technology development, and other national space agencies—such as China's CNSA^[1] and India's ISRO^[2]— also financed the indigenous development of their own national designs.

Communications satellites were the principal non-government market. Although launch competition in the early years after 2010 occurred only in and amongst global commercial launch providers, the US market for military launches began to experience multi-provider competition in 2015, as the US government moved away from their previous monopoly arrangement with United Launch Alliance for military launches.^[3][4] By mid-2017, the results of this multi-year competitive pressure on launch prices was being observed in the actual numbers of launches achieved. With frequent recovery of first-stage boosters by SpaceX, "expendable missions are now a rare occurrence" for them.^[5]

1970s and 1980s: Commercial satellites emerge

Non-military commercial satellites began to be launched in volume in the 1970s and 1980s, but launch services were supplied exclusively with launch vehicles that had been originally developed for the various Cold War military programs, with attendant cost structures.^[6]

SpaceNews journalist Peter B. De Selding has asserted that French government leadership, and the Arianespace consortium "all but invented the commercial launch business in the 1980s" principally "by ignoring U.S. government assurances that the reusable U.S. space shuttle would make expendable launch vehicles like Ariane obsolete."^[7]

Little market competition emerged inside any national market prior to approximately the late 2000s. Some global commercial competition arose between the national providers of various nation states for international commercial satellite launches. Within the US, as late as 2006, the high cost structures built in to government contractor's—Boeing's Delta IV and Lockheed Martin's Atlas V—launch vehicles left little commercial opportunity for US launch service providers but considerable opportunity for low-cost Russian boosters based on leftover Cold War military missile technology.^[8]

DARPA's Simon P. Worden and USAF's Jess Sponable analyzed the situation in 2006 and offered that "One bright point is the emerging private sector, which [was then] pursuing suborbital or small lift capabilities." They concluded "Although such vehicles support very limited US Department of Defense or National Aeronautics and Space Administration spaceflight needs, they do offer potential technology demonstration stepping stones to more capable systems needed in the future.";^[8] demonstrating capabilities that would grow in the next five years while supporting published list prices substantially below the rates on offer by the national providers.^[9]

2010s: Competition and pricing pressure

Launch market

Rocket	First launch	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018 (planned)
Ariane 5	1996	12	8	12	6	11	12	14	14	15
Proton-M	2001	8	7	11	8	8	7	3	3	2
Soyuz-2	2006	1	5	4	5	8	6	5	5	12
Falcon 9	2010	2		1	3	6	8	9	18	25
Vega	2012				1	1	2	2	4	3
Antares	2013				1	3		1	1	2
Others		10	14	8	10	9	11	10	10	26
Total market		31	34	36	34	46	46	44	55	85

Since the early 2010s, new private options for obtaining spaceflight services emerged, bringing substantial price pressure into the existing market.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In early December 2013, SpaceX flew its first launch to a geosynchronous orbit providing additional credibility to its low prices which had been published since at least 2009. The low launch prices offered by SpaceX,^[13] especially for communication satellites flying to geostationary (GTO) orbit, resulted in market pressure on its competitors to lower their own prices.^[14]

In years prior to 2013, the communications satellite launch market had been dominated by Europe's Arianespace, which flies the Ariane 5, and International Launch Services (ILS), which markets Russia's Proton vehicle.^[14] In November 2013 Arianespace announced new pricing flexibility for the "lighter satellites" it carries to orbits aboard its Ariane 5 in response to SpaceX's growing presence in the worldwide launch market,^[15] and followed in early 2014 with a request to European governments for additional subsidies to face the competition from SpaceX.^[16]

By late 2013, with a published price of US$56.5 million per launch to low Earth orbit, "Falcon 9 rockets [were] already the cheapest in the industry. Reusable Falcon 9s could drop the price by an order of magnitude, sparking more space-based enterprise, which in turn would drop the cost of access to space still further through economies of scale."^[10] Falcon 9 GTO missions 2014 pricing was approximately US$15 million less than a launch on a Chinese Long March 3B.^[17] Despite SpaceX prices being somewhat lower than Long March prices, the Chinese Government and the Great Wall Industry company—which markets the Long March for commsat missions—made a policy decision to maintain commsat launch prices at approximately US$70 million.^[18]

Continuing to face "stiff competition on price,"^[9] seven European satellite operator companies—including the four largest in the world by annual revenue—requested in April 2014 that the ESA "find immediate ways to reduce Ariane 5 rocket launch costs and, in the longer term, make the next-generation Ariane 6 vehicle more attractive for smaller telecommunications satellites. ... [C]onsiderable efforts to restore competitiveness in price of the existing European launcher need to be undertaken if Europe is [to] maintain its market situation. In the short term, a more favorable pricing policy for the small satellites currently being targeted by SpaceX seems indispensable to keeping the Ariane launch manifest strong and well-populated."^[19] In competitive bids during 2013 and early 2014, SpaceX was winning many launch customers that formerly "would have been all-but-certain clients of Europe's Arianespace launch consortium, with prices that are $60 million or less."^[19]

In June 2014, Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel announced that European efforts to remain competitive in response to SpaceX's recent success have begun in earnest, including the creation of a new joint venture company from Arianespace's two largest shareholders: the launch-vehicle producer Airbus and engine-producer Safran. No specific details to become more competitive were released at the time.^[20] In 2015, the European multinational space agency—the European Space Agency (ESA)—is endeavoring to reorganize in order to reduce bureaucracy and decrease inefficiencies in launcher and satellite spending which have been historically tied to the amount of tax funds that each country has provided to the ESA.^[21]

In August 2014, Eutelsat, the third-largest fixed satellite services operator worldwide by revenue, indicated that it plans to spend approximately €100 million less each year in the next three years, due to lower prices for launch services and by transitioning their commsats to electric propulsion. They indicated that they are using the lower prices they can get from SpaceX against Arianespace in negotiation for launch contracts.^[22] By November 2014, SpaceX had "already begun to take market share"^[23] from Arianespace. Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen said, in reference to ESA's program to develop the Ariane 6, "Each year that passes will see SpaceX advance, gain market share and further reduce its costs through economies of scale."^[23] European government research ministers approved the development of the new European rocket—Ariane 6—in December 2014, projecting the rocket would be "cheaper to construct and to operate" and that "more modern methods of production and a streamlined assembly to try to reduce unit costs" plus "the rocket's modular design can be tailored to a wide range of satellite and mission types [so it] should gain further economies from frequent use."^[9] In early 2016, Arianespace was projecting a launch price of €90–100 million, about one-half of the 2015 Ariane 5 per launch price.^[7]

Facing direct market competition from SpaceX, the large US launch provider United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced strategic changes in 2014 to restructure its launch business—reducing two launch vehicles to one—while implementing an iterative and incremental development program to build a partially reusable and much lower-cost launch system over the next decade.^[24] In October 2014, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half. One of the reasons given for the restructuring and new cost reduction goals was competition from SpaceX. ULA has had less "success landing contracts to launch private, commercial communications and earth observation satellites" than it has had with launch US military payloads, but CEO Tory Bruno believes the new lower-cost launcher can be competitive and succeed in the commercial satellite sector.^[25] The US GAO has calculated that the average cost of each ULA rocket launch for the US government has risen to approximately US$420 million.^[26] In May 2015, ULA stated that it would go out of business unless it won commercial and civil satellite launch orders to offset an expected slump in U.S. military and spy launches.^[27]

As of 2015, SpaceX had remained "the low-cost supplier in the industry."^[28] However, in the market for launch of US military payloads, ULA faced no competition for the launches for nearly a decade, since the formation of the ULA joint venture from Lockheed Martin and Boeing in 2006. However, SpaceX is also upsetting the traditional military space launch arrangement in the US, which has been called a monopoly by space analyst Marco Caceres and criticized by some in the US Congress.^[29] As of May 2015, the SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 was certified by the USAF to compete to launch many of the expensive satellites which are considered essential to US national security.^[30]

University of Southampton researcher Clemens Rumpf argues that the global launch industry was developed in an "old world where space funding was provided by governments, resulting in a stable foundation for [global] space activities. The money for the space industry [had been] secure and did not encourage risk-taking in the development of new space technologies. ... the space landscape [had not changed much since the mid-1980s]." As a result, the emergence of SpaceX was a surprise to other launch providers "because the need to evolve launcher technology by a giant leap was not apparent to them. SpaceX shows that technology has advanced sufficiently in the last 30 years to enable new, game changing approaches to space access."^[31] The Washington Post has said that the changes occasioned from multiple competing service providers has resulted in a revolution in innovation.^[12]

By mid-2015, Arianespace was speaking publicly about job reductions as part of an attempt to remain competitive in the "European industry [which is being] restructured, consolidated, rationalised and streamlined" to respond to SpaceX price competition. Still, "Arianespace remained confident it could maintain its 50 per cent share of the space launch market despite SpaceX's slashing prices by building reliable rockets that are smaller and cheaper."^[32]

Following the first successful landing and recovery of a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage in December 2015, equity analysts at investment bank Jefferies estimated that launch costs to satellite operators using Falcon 9 launch vehicles may decline by about 40 percent of SpaceX' typical US$61 million per launch,^[33] although SpaceX has only forecast an approximately 30 percent launch price reduction from the use of a reused first stage.^[34]

In March 2017, SpaceX reflew an orbital booster stage that had been previously launched, landed and recovered, stating that the cost to the company of doing so "was substantially less than half the cost" of a new first stage. COO Gwynne Shotwell said that the cost savings "came even though SpaceX did extensive work to examine and refurbish the stage. We did way more on this one than [is planned for future recovered stages]."^[35]

A 2017 industry-wide view by SpaceNews reported: By 5 July 2017, SpaceX had launched 10 payloads during a bit over 6 months—"outperform[ing] its cadence from earlier years"—and "is well on track to hit the target it set last year of 18 launches in a single year."^[5] There were indeed 18 successful Falcon 9 launches in 2017. By comparison, "France-based Arianespace, SpaceX’s chief competitor for commercial telecommunications satellite launches, is launching 11 to 12 times a year using its fleet of three rockets — the heavy-lift Ariane 5, medium-lift Soyuz and light-lift Vega. Russia has the ability to launch a dozen or more times with Proton doing both government and commercial missions, but has operated at a slower cadence the past few years due to launch failures and this year’s discovery of an incorrect material used in some rocket engines. United Launch Alliance, SpaceX’s chief competitor for defense missions, regularly conducts around a dozen or more launches per year, but the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture has only performed four missions" through mid-year 2017.^[5]

Raising private capital

Private capital invested in the space launch industry prior to 2015 was modest. From 2000 through the end of 2015, a total of US$13.3 billion of investment finance has been invested in the space sector, with US$2.9 billion of that being venture capital financing.^[36] Of the US$2.9 billion private venture capital money invested from 2000 to 2015, $1.8 billion was invested in 2015 alone.^[36]

For the space launch sector, this began to change with the January 2015 Google and Fidelity Investments investment of US$1 billion in SpaceX. While private satellite manufacturing companies had previously raised large capital rounds, that was the largest investment to date in a launch service provider.^[37]

SpaceX developed the Falcon Heavy (first flight in February 2018), and are developing the BFR, launch vehicles with private capital. No government financing is being provided for either rocket.^[38][39]

After decades of reliance on government funding to develop the Atlas and Delta families of launch vehicles, the successor company—United Launch Alliance (ULA)—began, in October 2014, development of a rocket with private funds as one part of a solution for a problem of "skyrocketing launch costs" at ULA.^[11] However, by March 2016 it had become clear that the new Vulcan launch vehicle would be developed with funding via a public–private partnership with the US government. By early 2016, the US Air Force had committed US$201 million of funding for Vulcan development. ULA has not "put a firm price tag on [the total cost of Vulcan development but ULA CEO Tory Bruno has] said new rockets typically cost $2 billion, including $1 billion for the main engine,"^[40] and ULA has asked the US government to provide a minimum of US$1.2 billion by 2020 to assist it in developing the new US launch vehicle.^[40] It is unclear how the change in development funding mechanisms might change ULA plans for pricing market-driven launch services. Vulcan is a large orbital launch vehicle with first flight planned no earlier than 2019.^[41] Since Vulcan development began in October 2014, the privately generated funding for Vulcan development has been approved only on a short term basis.^[11][40] The United Launch Alliance board of directors—composed entirely of executives from Boeing and Lockheed Martin—is approving development funding on a quarter-by-quarter basis.^[42]

Other launch service providers are developing new space launch systems with substantial government capital investment. For the new European Space Agency (ESA) launch vehicle—Ariane 6, aiming for flight in the 2020s—€400 million of development capital was requested to be "industry's share", ostensibly private capital, while €2.815 billion was slated to be provided by various European government sources at the time the early finance structure was made public in April 2015.^[43] In the event, France's Airbus Safran Launchers—the company building the Ariane 6—did agree to provide €400 million of development funding in June 2015, with expectation of formalizing the development contract in July 2015.^[44]

As of May 2015, the Japanese legislature was considering legislation to provide a legal framework for private company spaceflight initiatives in Japan. It was not clear whether the legislation would become law and, if so, whether significant private capital would subsequently enter the Japanese space launch industry as a result.^{[45][needs update]}In the event, the legislation appears to have not become law, and little change in the funding mechanism for Japanese space vehicles are anticipated.

2019 and beyond

United Launch Alliance (ULA) entered into a partnership with Blue Origin in September 2014 in order to develop the BE-4 LOX/methane engine to replace the RD-180 on a new lower-cost first stage booster rocket. At the time, the engine was already in its third year of development by Blue Origin, and ULA indicated then that they expect the new stage and engine to start flying no earlier than 2019 on a successor to the Atlas V.^[46] A month later, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half. One of the reasons given for the restructuring and new cost reduction goals was competition from SpaceX. ULA intended to have preliminary design ideas in place for a blending of the Atlas V and Delta IV technology by the end of 2014,^[25][47] but in the event, the high-level design was announced in April 2015.^[41] By early 2018, ULA had moved the first launch data for the Vulcan launch vehicle to no earlier than mid-2020.^[48]

In 2014, Arianespace commenced development of the Ariane 6, as its new entrant into the commercial launch market, with operational flights beginning in 2020.^[49]

Blue Origin is also planning to begin flying its own orbital launch vehicle—the New Glenn—in 2020, a rocket that will also use the Blue BE-4 engine on the first stage, same as the ULA Vulcan. Blue Origin initially said they did not plan to compete for the US military launch market, stating that the market is "a relatively small number of flights. It's very hard to do well and ULA is already great at it. I'm not sure where we would add any value."^[50] Bezos sees competition as a good thing, particularly as competition leads to his ultimate goal of getting "millions and millions of people living and working in space."^[50] But this changed in October 2017.^{[how?][51][52]}

In early 2015, the French space agency CNES began working with Germany and a few other governments to start a modest research effort with a hope to propose a LOX/methane reusable launch system, tentatively named Ariane NEXT^[53], by mid-2015, with flight testing unlikely before approximately 2026. The stated design objective was to reduce both the cost and duration of reusable vehicle refurbishment, and was partially motivated by the pressure of lower-cost competitive options with newer technological capabilities not found in the Ariane 6.^[54][55] Responding to competitive pressures, one stated objective of Ariane NEXT is to reduce Ariane launch cost by a factor of 2 beyond improvements brought by Ariane 6.^{[56][needs update]}

SpaceX stated in 2014 that if they were successful with developing the reusable technology, launch prices in the US$5 to 7 million range for the reusable Falcon 9 could be achieved in the longer term.^[57] In the event, SpaceX did not choose to develop the reusable second stage for the Falcon 9, but are doing so for their next-generation launch vehicle, the new fully reusable BFR. SpaceX indicated in 2017 that the single-launch marginal cost of BFR would be approximately US$7 million.^[58]

After the mid-2010s, prices for smallsat and cubesat launch services began to decline significantly. Both the addition of new small launch vehicles to the market (Rocket Lab Electron, Firefly, Vector, and several Chinese service providers) and the addition of new capacity of rideshare services, are putting price pressure on existing providers. “Cubesats that used to cost US$350,000–400,000 to launch are now US$250,000 and going down.”^[59]

Competition for the American heavy-lift market

As early as August 2014, media sources noted that the US launch market may have two competitive super-heavy launch vehicles available in the 2020s to launch payloads of 100 metric tons (220,000 lb) or more to low-Earth orbit. The US government is currently developing the Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift launch vehicle for lifting very large payloads of 70 to 130 tonnes (150,000 to 290,000 lb) from Earth. On the commercial side, SpaceX has been privately developing a much-larger next-generation launch vehicle^[60]—that has been variously termed the Mars Colonial Transporter, the ITS launch vehicle, and, currently, BFR—with rocket engine development beginning by 2012. By 2014, "SpaceX [had] never openly portrayed its BFR plans in competition with NASA’s SLS. ... However, should SpaceX make solid progress on the development of its BFR over the coming years, it is almost unavoidable that America’s two HLVs will attract comparisons and a healthy debate, potentially at the political level."^[60]

Following the successful first launch of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy in February 2018, and with SpaceX advertising a US$90 million list price for transporting up to 63,800 kg (140,700 lb) to low-Earth orbit, U.S. President Donald Trump said: "If the government did it, the same thing would have cost probably 40 or 50 times that amount of money. I mean literally. When I heard $80 [sic] million, I'm so used to hearing different numbers with NASA."^[61] Space journalist Eric Berger reported: "Trump seems to be siding with commercial space advocates, who say that, while rockets like the Falcon Heavy may be slightly less capable than the SLS, they come at a drastically reduced price that will enable much quicker, broader exploration of the Solar System."^[61]

The SpaceX BFR, announced in 2017, is being designed to lift a 150 tonnes (330,000 lb) payload to Earth orbit in reusable mode, or 250 tonnes (550,000 lb) in expendable mode.^[62] The first suborbital flight tests are planned for 2019.

Launch contract competitive results

Before 2014

Prior to 2014, Arianespace had dominated the commercial launch market for many years. "In 2004, for example, they held over 50% of the world market."^[63]

• 2010: 26 geostationary commercial satellites were ordered under long-term launch contracts.^[64]
• 2011: Only 17 geostationary commercial satellites went under contract during 2011 as an "historically large capital spending surge by the biggest satellite fleet operators" began to tail off, something that had been anticipated to follow the various satellite fleets being substantially upgraded.^[64]
• 2012: As of September 2012, the major launch providers globally were Arianespace (France), International Launch Services (United States) which markets the Russian Proton launch vehicle, and Sea Launch of Switzerland which markets the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit rocket. In late 2012, each of them had manifests that were "full or nearly so for both 2012 and 2013."^[64]
• 23 geostationary orbit communications satellites were placed under firm contract during 2013.^[65]

2014

A total of 20 launches were booked in 2014 for commercial launch service providers. 19 were for flights to geostationary orbit (GEO), one was for a low-Earth orbit (LEO) launch.^[66]

Arianespace and SpaceX each signed nine contracts for geostationary launches, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was awarded one. United Launch Alliance signed one commercial contract to launch an Orbital Sciences Corporation Cygnus spacecraft to the LEO-orbiting International Space Station following the destruction over the pad of an Orbital Antares vehicle in October 2014. This was the first year in some time that no commercial launches were booked on the Russian (Proton-M) and Russian-Ukrainian (Zenit) launch service providers.^[66]

For perspective, eight additional satellites in 2014 were booked "by national launch providers in deals for which no competitive bids were sought."^[66]

Overall in 2014 Arianespace took 60% of commercial launch market share.^[67][68]

2015

Overall in 2015, Arianespace signed 14 commercial-order launch contracts for geosynchronous-orbit commsats, while SpaceX received only 9, with International Launch Services (Proton) and United Launch Alliance signing one contract each. In addition, Arianespace signed their largest launch contract ever—for 21 LEO launches for OneWeb using the Europeanized Russian Soyuz launch vehicle launching from the ESA spaceport—and two Vega smallsat launches.^[7]

In a 2015 US competition for a (no earlier than 2017^[69] but possibly planned for 2018 as of November it costs 11 million US dollars 2015^[70]) US military launch to loft the first of the third-generation GPS III satellites into orbit, ULA—after having held a government-sanctioned monopoly on US military launches for the previous decade—declined to even submit a bid, thereby leaving the likely contract award winner to be SpaceX, the only other domestic US-provider of launch services to be certified as usable by the US military.^[3]

Launch industry response

In addition to price reductions for proffered launch service contracts, launch service providers are restructuring to meet increased competitive pressures within the industry.

ULA has begun a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half.^[25] In May 2015, ULA announced it would decrease its executive ranks by 30 percent in December 2015, with the layoff of 12 executives. The management layoffs are the "beginning of a major reorganization and redesign" as ULA endeavours to "slash costs and hunt out new customers to ensure continued growth despite the rise of [SpaceX]".^[71]

According to one Arianespace managing director, "'It's quite clear there's a very significant challenge coming from SpaceX,' he said. 'Therefore, things have to change … and the whole European industry is being restructured, consolidated, rationalised and streamlined.' "^[72]

Jean Botti, Chief technology officer for Airbus (which makes the Ariane 5) warned that "those who don't take Elon Musk seriously will have a lot to worry about".^[73]

Airbus announced in 2015 that they would open a R&D center and venture capital fund in Silicon Valley.^[74] Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier stated: "What is the weakness of a big group like Airbus when we talk about innovation? We believe that we have better ideas than the rest of the world. We believe that we know because we control the technologies and platforms. The world has shown us in the car industry, the space industry and the hi-tech industry that this is not true. And we need to be open to others' ideas and others' innovations,"^[75]

Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders stated that "The only way to do it for big companies is really to create spaces outside of the main business where we allow and where we incentivize experimentation...That is what we have started to do but there is no manual...It is a little bit of trial and error. We all feel challenged by what the Internet companies are doing."^[76]

Following a SpaceX launch vehicle failure in June 2015—due to the lower prices, increased flexibility for partial-payload launches of the Ariane heavy lifter, and decreased cost of operations of the ESA Guiana Space Center spaceport—Arianespace regained the competitive lead in commercial launch contracts signed in 2015. SpaceX successful recovery of a first stage rocket in December 2015 has not changed the Arianespace outlook. Arianespace CEO Israel stated that the "challenges of reusability ... have not disappeared. ... The stress on stage or engine structures of high-speed passage through the atmosphere, the performance penalty of reserving fuel for the return flight instead of maximizing rocket lift capacity, the need for many annual launches to make the economics work – all remain issues."^[7]

Despite ULA restructuring begun in 2014 to decrease launch costs by half,^[25] the cheapest ULA space launch in early 2018 remains the Atlas V 401 at a price of approximately US$109 million, more than US$40 million more than a SpaceX standard commercial launch, which the US military began to utilize for some US government missions flying in 2018.^[77]

By early 2018, two European space agencies—CNES and DLR—are to begin developing a new reusable engine aimed to be manufactured at one-tenth the cost of the Ariane 5's first-stage engine, Prometheus. Its first flight test (in a demonstration vehicle) is expected in 2020. The goal is to "establish a base of knowledge for future launch vehicles that could, maybe, be reusable".^[78]

In the market for launches of small satellites—including both rideshare launch services on medium-lift and heavy-lift launch vehicles, and the developing capacity from small launch vehicles—prices were falling by early 2018 as more launch capacity entered the market. Cubesat launches that had previously cost US$350–400 thousand had declined by March 2018 to US$250 thousand, and prices were continuing to decline. New capacity from Chinese Long March and Indian PSLV medium-lift vehicles and a number of new small launchers from Virgin Orbit, Rocket Lab, Firefly, and a number of new Chinese small launch vehicles are expected to put more downward pressure on prices, while also increasing the ability of smallsats to purchase custom launch dates and launch orbits and increasing overall responsiveness to launch purchasers.^[59]

As recently as 2013, nearly half of the world's commercial launch payloads were launched on Russian launch vehicles. By 2018 the Russian launch service market share is projected to shrink to about 10% of the world's commercial launch market. Russia only launched three commercial payloads in 2017.^[79] Technical problems with the Proton rocket and intense competition with SpaceX has been the prime drivers of this decline. SpaceX's share of the commercial market has grown from 0% in 2009 to a projected 50% for 2018.

By 2018, Russia has been indicating that it may reduce focus on the commercial launch market. On 17 April 2018 Russia's chief spaceflight official, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated in an interview "The share of launch vehicles is as small as four percent of the overall market of space services. The four percent stake isn’t worth the effort to try to elbow Musk and China aside. Payloads manufacturing is where good money can be made."^[80]

The global launch market revenue from the 33 commercial orbital launches in 2017 are estimated to be only just over US$3 billion. The global space economy, however is much larger at US$345 billion in 2016. The launch industry is becoming increasingly competitive; however, to date there has been no indication of a large increase of launch opportunities in response to decreasing prices.^[81] Russia may be the first launch provider to be a casualty of over supply of launch services.^[82]

By May 2018, as SpaceX prepared to launch the first Block 5 version of Falcon 9, Eric Berger reported in Ars Technica that, during the eight years since its maiden launch, Falcon 9 had become the dominant rocket globally, through SpaceX efforts to take risks and relentlessly innovate driving efficiency upwards.^[83] The first Block 5 booster flew successfully on 11 May 2018, and SpaceX then "lowered the standard price of a Falcon 9 launch from US$62 million to about US$50 million. This move further strengthens SpaceX’s competitiveness in the commercial launch market."^[84]

Effect on related industries

Satellite design and manufacturing is beginning to take advantage of these lower-cost options for space launch services.

One such satellite system is the Boeing 702SP which can be launched as a pair on a lighter-weight dual-commsat stack—two satellites conjoined on a single launch—and which was specifically designed to take advantage of the lower-cost SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.^[85][86] The design was announced in 2012 and the first two commsats of this design were lofted in a paired launch in March 2015, for a record low launch price of approximately US$30 million per GSO commsat.^[87] Boeing CEO James McNerney has indicated that SpaceX's growing presence in the space industry is forcing Boeing "to be more competitive in some segments of the market."^[88]

Early information on a new constellation of 4000 satellites intended to provide global internet services, along with a new factory dedicated to manufacturing low-cost smallsat satellites, indicate that the satellite manufacturing industry may "experience a shock similar to what the launcher industry is experiencing" in the 2010s.^[31]

Venture capital investor Steve Jurvetson has indicated that it is not merely the lower launch prices, but the fact that the known prices act as a signal in conveying information to other entrepreneurs who then use that information to bring on new related ventures.^[89]