Space launch market competition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competition 

Space launch market competition is the manifestation of market forces in the launch service provider business. In particular it is the trend of competitive dynamics among payload transport capabilities at diverse prices having a greater influence on launch purchasing than the traditional political considerations of country of manufacture or the national entity using, regulating or licensing the launch service.

Following the advent of spaceflight technology in the late 1950s, space launch services came into being, exclusively by national programs. Later in the 20th century commercial operators became significant customers of launch providers. International competition for the communications satellite payload subset of the launch market was increasingly influenced by commercial considerations. However, even during this period, for both commercial- and government-entity-launched commsats, the launch service providers for these payloads used launch vehicles built to government specifications, and with state-provided development funding exclusively.

In the early 2010s, privately developed launch vehicle systems and space launch service offerings emerged. Companies now faced economic incentives rather than the principally political incentives of the earlier decades. The space launch business experienced a dramatic lowering of per-unit prices along with the addition of entirely new capabilities, bringing about a new phase of competition in the space launch market.

History

In the early decades of the Space Age—1950s–2000s—the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and the United States pioneered space technology. This was 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 (ESA) was formed in 1975, largely following the same model of space technology development. Other national space agencies—such as China's CNSA and India's ISRO—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 among global commercial launch providers, the US market for military launches began to experience multi-provider competition in 2015, as the US government began to move away from their previous monopoly arrangement with United Launch Alliance (ULA) for military launches. By 2018, the ULA monopoly on US national security space launch had evaporated.

By mid-2017, the results of this multi-year competitive pressure on commercially bid launch prices was being observed in the actual number of launches achieved. With frequent recovery of first-stage boosters by SpaceX, expendable missions had become a rare occurrence for them. But the new landscape did not come without a cost. Many space launch providers are expending capital to develop new lower-cost reusable spaceflight technologies. SpaceX alone had expended about US$1 billion by 2017 in order to develop the capability to reuse orbital class boosters on a subsequent flight.

By 2021, the monopoly previously held by nation states to be the only entities to fund, train, and send astronauts for human space exploration was ending as the first mission with exclusively private citizens—Inspiration4—was launched in September 2021. The rocket and capsule for the flight, the training, and the funding are all provided by private entities outside of the traditional NASA process that had held the US monopoly since the early 1960s.

1970s and 1980s: Commercial satellites emerge

Non-military commercial satellites began to be launched in volume in the 1970s and 1980s. Launch services were supplied exclusively with launch vehicles developed originally for various Cold War military programs, with their attendant cost structures.

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."

2000-2010

Little market competition emerged inside any national market before 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 contractors'—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.

DARPA's Simon P. Worden and the 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."; 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.

2010s: Competition and pricing pressure

Launch market

Rocket		Origin	First launch	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
	Ariane 5	Europe	1996	12	8	12	6	10	12	10	10	9	8	7	3
	Proton-M	Russia	2001	8	7	11	8	8	7	3	3	0	3	1	2
	Soyuz-2	Russia	2006	1	5	4	5	8	6	5	5	5	6	4	9
	PSLV	India	2007	1	2	2	2	1	3	3	2	3	3	1	1
	Falcon 9 / Falcon Heavy	United States	2010	0	0	0	2	4	5	8	12	16	11	26	31
	Electron	United States  New Zealand	2017	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	0	3	6	6	6
	Vega	Europe	2012	N/A	N/A	0	1	1	2	2	4	2	2	1	3
	Kuaizhou 1A	China	2017	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	1	1	4	1	4
	Others	-	-	7	10	5	7	5	6	6	4	5	1	4	3
Total market				29	32	34	31	37	41	37	41	44	44	50	62

Since the early 2010s, new private options for obtaining spaceflight services emerged, bringing substantial price pressure into the existing market.

Before 2013, Europe's Arianespace, which flies the Ariane 5, and International Launch Services (ILS), which marketed Russia's Proton vehicle dominated the communications satellite launch market. 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.

Estimated payload cost per kg

Launch Vehicle	Payload cost per kg
Vanguard	$1,000,000
Space Shuttle	$54,500
Electron	$19,039
Ariane 5G	$9,167
Long March 3B	$4,412
Proton	$4,320
Falcon 9	$2,720
Falcon Heavy	$1,400

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

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."

Falcon 9 GTO missions 2014 pricing was approximately US$15 million less than a launch on a Chinese Long March 3B. 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.

In early 2014, the ESA asked European governments for additional subsidies to face the competition from SpaceX. Continuing to face "stiff competition on price", in April seven European satellite operator companies—including the four largest in the world by annual revenue—asked 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."

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." 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—replacing two launch vehicle families (Atlas V and Delta IV) with the new Vulcan architecture—while implementing an iterative and incremental development program to build a partially reusable and much lower-cost launch system over the next decade.

In June 2014, Arianespace CEO Stéphane Israël announced that European efforts to remain competitive in response to SpaceX's recent success had begun in earnest. This included the creation of a new joint venture company from Arianespace's two largest shareholders: the launch-vehicle producer Airbus and engine-producer Safran. No additional details of the efforts to become more competitive were released at the time.

In August 2014, Eutelsat, the third-largest fixed satellite services operator worldwide by revenue, indicated that it planned 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 they are using the lower prices they can get from SpaceX against Arianespace in negotiations for launch contracts.

By December 2014, Arianespace had selected a design and commenced development of the Ariane 6, its new entrant into the commercial launch market aiming for more competitively priced launch service offerings, with operational flights planned to begin in 2020.

In October 2014, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce to decrease launch costs by half. One of the reasons given for the restructuring and new cost reduction goals was competition from SpaceX. ULA had less "success landing contracts to launch private, commercial communications and earth observation satellites" than it had with launch US military payloads, but CEO Tory Bruno believed the new lower-cost launcher could be competitive and succeed in the commercial satellite sector. The US GAO calculated the average cost of each ULA rocket launch for the US government had risen to approximately US$420 million in 2014.

By November 2014, SpaceX had "already begun to take market share" 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." 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."

In 2015, the ESA was attempting to reorganize to reduce bureaucracy and decrease inefficiencies in launcher and satellite spending which had been tied historically to the amount of tax funds that each country has provided to it.

In May 2015, ULA stated 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. As of 2015, SpaceX had remained "the low-cost supplier in the industry." However, in the market for launches of US military payloads, ULA faced no competition for nearly a decade, since the formation of the ULA joint venture from Lockheed Martin and Boeing in 2006. However, SpaceX was also upsetting the traditional military space launch arrangement in the US, which in 2014 was called a monopoly by space analyst Marco Caceres and criticized by some in the US Congress. By 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. And by 2019, ULA, with their next-generation, lower-cost Vulcan/Centaur launch vehicle, was one of four launch companies competing for the US military's multi-year block-buy contract for 2022–2026 against SpaceX (Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy), Northrop Grumman (Omega), and Blue Origin (New Glenn), where only the SpaceX vehicles are currently flying and the other three are all slated to make their initial launch in 2021.

University of Southampton researcher Clemens Rumpf argued in 2015 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 show[ed] that technology has advanced sufficiently in the last 30 years to enable new, game changing approaches to space access." The Washington Post said that the changes occasioned from multiple competing service providers resulted in a revolution in innovation.

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, rationalized and streamlined" to respond to SpaceX price competition. Still, "Arianespace remained confident it could maintain its 50% share of the space launch market despite SpaceX's slashing prices by building reliable rockets that are smaller and cheaper."

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% of SpaceX' typical US$61 million per launch, although SpaceX had only forecast an approximately 30 percent launch price reduction from the use of a reused first stage by early 2016. In early 2016, Arianespace was projecting a launch price of €90–100 million, about one-half of the 2015 Ariane 5 per launch price.

In March 2017, SpaceX reused an orbital booster stage that had been previously launched, landed and recovered, stating the cost to the company of doing so "was substantially less than half the cost" of a new first stage. COO Gwynne Shotwell said 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]."

A 2017 industry-wide view by SpaceNews reported: By 5 July 2017, SpaceX had launched 10 payloads during a bit over six 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." 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 [the] 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.

By 2018, the monopoly ULA had held on US national security space launch was over. ULA responded to the Falcon 9 by beginning development in 2014 on the Vulcan rocket, a partly reusable vehicle powered by Blue Origin BE-4 engines, intended to replace its ageing expendable Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. In early 2018, SpaceNews reported that "[t]he rise of SpaceX has disrupted the launch industry at large." By mid-2018, with Proton flying as few as two launches in an entire year, the Russian state corporation Roscosmos announced they would retire the Proton launch vehicle, in part due to competition from lower-cost launch alternatives.

In 2018 SpaceX launched a record 21 times, exceeding the 18 launches in 2017; ULA had flown just 8 flights in 2018. That record was again beaten in 2020 with 26 Falcon 9 launches and 2021 with 31 launches.

In early 2019, the French "Court of Audit criticized Arianespace for what it "perceived as an unsustainable and overly cautious response to the swift rise of SpaceX’s affordable and reusable Falcon 9 rocket." The Ariane 6 was found to be uncompetitive with SpaceX launch service provider options, and further found that "the most probable outcome for Ariane 6 is one in which the very existence of the rocket will be predicated upon continual annual subsidies from the European Space Agency (ESA) in order to make up for the rocket’s inability to sustain commercial orders beyond a handful of discounted shoo-in contracts."

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 had been invested in the space sector. US$2.9 billion of that was venture capital financing, of which $1.8 billion was invested in 2015 alone.

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 has been the largest investment to date in a launch service provider.

SpaceX developed the Falcon Heavy (first flight in February 2018), and are developing the Starship launch vehicle with private capital. No government financing is being provided for either rocket.

After decades of reliance on government funding to develop the Atlas and Delta families of launch vehicles, in October 2014 the successor company—ULA—began development of a rocket, initially with private funds, as one part of a solution for its problem of "skyrocketing launch costs". 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". ULA had asked the US government in 2016 to provide a minimum of US$1.2 billion by 2020 to assist it in developing the new US launch vehicle. It was unclear how the change in development funding mechanisms might change ULA plans for pricing market-driven launch services. Since Vulcan development began in October 2014, the privately generated funding for Vulcan development has been approved only on a short term basis. The ULA board of directors—composed entirely of executives from Boeing and Lockheed Martin—is approving development funding on a quarter-by-quarter basis.

Other launch service providers are developing new space launch systems with substantial government capital investment. For the new 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. €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. 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.

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

The economics of space launch are driven, in part, by business demand in the space economy. Morgan Stanley projected in 2017 that "revenue from the global industry will increase to at least US $1.1 trillion by 2040, more than triple the figure in 2016. This does not include "the more aspirational possibilities presented by space tourism or mining, nor by [NASA] megaprojects."

2014 and beyond

A number of market responses to the increase of lower-cost competition in the space launch market began in the 2010s. As rocket engine and rocket technologies have fairly long development cycles, most of the results of these moves would not be seen until the late-2010s and early 2020s.

ULA entered into a partnership with Blue Origin in September 2014 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. ULA indicated then they expected the new stage and engine to start flying no earlier than 2019 on a successor to the Atlas V A month later, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce 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, but in the event, the high-level design was announced in April 2015. By early 2018, ULA had moved the first launch date for the Vulcan launch vehicle to no earlier than mid-2020, and by 2019, were aiming to launch in 2021.

Blue Origin is also planning to begin flying its own orbital launch vehicle—the New Glenn—in 2021, a rocket that will also use the Blue BE-4 engine on the first stage, the same as the ULA Vulcan. Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos initially said they did not plan to compete for the US military launch market, stating 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." 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." This decision was reversed in 2017, with Blue Origin saying it did intend to compete for US national security launches. In 2019, Blue was not only competing to offer the New Glenn launch vehicle for the US military's multi-year block-buy contract for "all [US] national security launches from 2022 to 2026" against SpaceX, ULA (for which Blue is on contract to provide the BE-4 engines for the ULA Vulcan), and others, it had "said the Air Force competition was designed to unfairly benefit ULA."

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, to supplement or replace the Ariane 6 that was only then beginning full development in Europe, by mid-2015, and subsequently renamed Ariane Next, 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. Responding to competitive pressures, one stated objective of Ariane Next is to reduce Ariane launch cost by a factor of two beyond improvements brought by Ariane 6. Ariane 6, the European launch vehicle design prior to Ariane Next has seen delays. In 2014, operational flights of the expendable Ariane 6 were slated to begin in 2020, but by mid-2021 had slipped to 2022.

SpaceX stated in 2014 that if they were successful at 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. 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 Starship. SpaceX indicated in 2017 that the single-launch marginal cost of the Starship would be approximately US$7 million. In November 2019, Elon Musk reduced this figure to $2 million -- $900,000 for fuel and $1.1 million for launch support services. 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, 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."

According to an industry panel interviewed in October 2018, an industry shakeout is expected between 2019 and 2021 due to the excess supply compared to demand. Prices should reach stability once the new entrants have demonstrated their capabilities.

In the first quarter of 2020, SpaceX launched over 61,000 kg (134,000 lb) of payload mass to orbit while all Chinese, European, and Russian launchers placed approximately 21,000 kg (46,000 lb), 16,000 kg (35,000 lb) and 13,000 kg (29,000 lb) in orbit, respectively, with all other launch providers launching approximately 15,000 kg (33,000 lb).

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 developing the Space Launch System (SLS), capable of lifting very large payloads of 70 to 130 metric tons (150,000 to 290,000 lb) from Earth. On the commercial side, SpaceX has been privately developing their next-generation Starship launch system, featuring fully reusable boosters and spacecraft, and targeting 150 metric tons (330,000 lb) of payload. Development of the methalox Raptor engine began in 2012, first flight tests were done in 2019. By 2014, NASASpaceflight.com reported: "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."

The Starship is planned to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, as well as the Dragon spacecraft, initially aiming at the Earth-orbit launch market, but explicitly adding substantial capability to support long-duration spaceflight in the cislunar and Mars mission environments. SpaceX intends this approach to bring significant cost savings that will help the company justify the development expense of designing and building the Starship system.

Following the successful maiden flight 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 million, I'm so used to hearing different numbers with NASA." Space journalist Eric Berger extrapolated: "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."

A consolidated Arianspace reported 15 total launches for the Ariane, Soyuz, and Vega rockets in 2021. 

Launch contract competitive results

Before 2014

Before 2014, Arianespace had dominated the commercial launch market for many years. "In 2004, for example, they held over 50% of the world market."

• 2010: 26 geostationary commercial satellites were ordered under long-term launch contracts.
• 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.
• 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."
• 23 geostationary orbit communications satellites were placed under firm contract during 2013.

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.

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.

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

Overall in 2014 Arianespace took 60% of commercial launch market share.

2015

In 2015, Arianespace signed 14 commercial-order launch contracts for geosynchronous-orbit commsats, while SpaceX received only nine, 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.

The launch of the US Air Force's first GPS III satellite is expected no earlier than 2017 rather than 2016 as originally planned. ULA—after having held a government-sanctioned monopoly on US military launches for the previous decade—declined to even submit a bid, 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.

Since 2016

SpaceX's market share increased rapidly. In 2016, SpaceX had 30% global market share for newly awarded commercial launch contracts, in 2017 the market share reached 45%, and 65% in 2018.

Five years after SpaceX began to recover Falcon 9 booster stages, and three years after they began reflying previously-flown boosters on commercial flights, the US military contracted in September 2020 for flying several US Space Force GPS satellite flights in 2021+ on previously-flown booster rockets in order to reduce launch costs by over US$25 million per flight.

Launch industry response - to lower prices - from 2014

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

In 2014, United Launch Alliance (ULA) began a multi-year major restructuring of processes and workforce to decrease launch costs by half. 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 were the "beginning of a major reorganization and redesign" as ULA endeavors to "slash costs and hunt out new customers to ensure continued growth despite the rise of [SpaceX]".

According to one Arianespace managing director in 2015, "'It's quite clear there's a very significant challenge coming from SpaceX,' he said. 'Therefore, things have to change - and the European industry is being restructured, consolidated, rationalised and streamlined.' "

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."

Airbus announced in 2015 that they would open an R&D center and venture capital fund in Silicon Valley. 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." Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders said: "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."

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’s successful recovery of a first stage rocket in December 2015 did not change the Arianespace outlook. Arianespace CEO Israel stated the next month 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."

Despite ULA restructuring begun in 2014 to decrease launch costs by half, the cheapest ULA space launch in early 2018 remained the Atlas V 401 at a price of approximately US$109 million, over US$40 million more than a SpaceX standard commercial launch, that the US military began to utilize for some US government missions that flew in 2018. By early 2018, two European government space agencies—CNES and DLR—began concept development for a new reusable engine aimed to be manufactured at one-tenth the cost of the Ariane 5's first-stage engine, Prometheus. As of January 2018, the first flight test for the rocket engine in a demonstration vehicle was expected in 2020. The goal was to "establish a base of knowledge for future launch vehicles that could, maybe, be reusable."

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 entities launching smallsats to purchase custom launch dates and launch orbits, increasing overall responsiveness to launch purchasers.

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 was projected to shrink to about 10% of the world's commercial launch market. Russia launched only three commercial payloads in 2017. Technical problems with the Proton rocket and intense competition with SpaceX have 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 indicated it may reduce focus on the commercial launch market. In April 2018, Russia's chief spaceflight official, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said 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."

The global launch market revenue from the 33 commercial orbital launches in 2017 was estimated to be just over US$3 billion while the global space economy is much larger at US$345 billion (2016 data). 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. Russia may be the first launch provider to be a casualty of over supply of launch services.

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. 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."

In mid-2018, no fewer than three commercial launch vehicles—Ariane 6, Vulcan, and New Glenn—were being targeted for initial launch in 2020, two of them explicitly aimed at competitively responding to the offerings of SpaceX (although journalists and industry experts were expressing doubts that all these target dates would be met).

In addition to building new launch vehicles and endeavoring to lower launch prices, competitive responses may include new product offerings, and now do include a more schedule-oriented launch cadence for dual-manifested payloads on offer from Blue Origin. Blue Origin announced in 2018 they intend to contract for launch services a bit differently than the contract options that have been traditionally offered in the commercial launch market. The company has stated they will support a regular launch cadence of up to eight launches per year. If one of the payload providers for a multi-payload launch is not ready on time, Blue Origin will hold to the launch timeframe, and fly the remaining payloads on time at no increase in price. This is quite different from how dual-launch manifested contracts have been previously handled by Arianespace (Ariane V and Ariane 6) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (H-IIA and H3). SpaceX and International Launch Services offer only dedicated launch contracts.

In June 2019, the European Commission provided funding for a three-year project called RETALT to "[copy the] retro-propulsive engine firing technique used by SpaceX to land its Falcon 9 rocket first stages back on land and on autonomous drone ships." The RETALT project funding of €3 million was provided to the German Space Agency and five European companies to fund a study to "tackle the shortcoming of know-how in reusable rockets in Europe."

In December 2021, the Government of France announced a plan to fund the "France-based rocket firm ArianeGroup to develop a new small-lift rocket called Maïa by the year 2026." The country is doing this separately from the normal intergovernmental projects of the European Space Agency, where France also plays a major role since the ESA founding. The French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire said France intends to "have our SpaceX, we will have our Falcon 9. We will make up for a bad strategic choice made 10 years ago."

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. 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. 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."

Early information in 2015 on the Starlink constellation of 4000 satellites operated by SpaceX 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 supply shock similar to what the launcher industry is experiencing" in the 2010s.

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.

Launch vehicle cost vs mass launch cost

While vehicle launch cost is a metric utilized when comparing vehicles, the cost per lb/kg launched is also an important factor that is not always directly correlated with the overall launch vehicle cost. The cost per lb/kg launched varies widely due to negotiations, prices, supply & demand, customer requirements, and the number of payloads manifested per launch. Pricing also differs depending on required orbit. Geosynchronous orbit launches historically taking advantage of economies of scales with larger launch vehicles and greater use of the maximum payload capacity of a vehicle vs LEO launches. These varying cost and requirements makes market analysis imprecise.

First launch of the competitive PSLV-CA and PSLV-XL versions (2007 and 2008)

Maiden flight of Vega was non-commercial

Excluding two demo flights of Kuaizhou-1 version in 2013 and 2014

Dog behavior

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_behavior 

 

A drawing by Konrad Lorenz showing facial expressions of a dog - a communication behavior. From the lower left, fear increases in the upward direction and aggression increases to the right.

Dog behavior is the internally coordinated responses of individuals or groups of domestic dogs to internal and external stimuli. It has been shaped by millennia of contact with humans and their lifestyles. As a result of this physical and social evolution, dogs, more than any other species, have acquired the ability to understand and communicate with humans, and they are uniquely attuned in these fellow mammals. Behavioral scientists have uncovered a wide range of social-cognitive abilities in the domestic dog.

Co-evolution with humans

Main article: Origin of the domestic dog

The origin of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) is not clear. Whole-genome sequencing indicates that the dog, the gray wolf and the extinct Taymyr wolf diverged around the same time 27,000–40,000 years ago. How dogs became domesticated is not clear, however the two main hypotheses are self-domestication or human domestication. There exists evidence of human-canine behavioral coevolution.

Intelligence

Main article: Dog intelligence

Dog intelligence is the ability of the dog to perceive information and retain it as knowledge in order to solve problems. Dogs have been shown to learn by inference. A study with Rico showed that he knew the labels of over 200 different items. He inferred the names of novel items by exclusion learning and correctly retrieved those novel items immediately. He also retained this ability four weeks after the initial exposure. Dogs have advanced memory skills. A study documented the learning and memory capabilities of a border collie, "Chaser", who had learned the names and could associate by verbal command over 1,000 words. Dogs are able to read and react appropriately to human body language such as gesturing and pointing, and to understand human voice commands. After undergoing training to solve a simple manipulation task, dogs that are faced with an insolvable version of the same problem look at the human, while socialized wolves do not. Dogs demonstrate a theory of mind by engaging in deception.

Senses

Main article: Dog anatomy § Senses

The dog's senses include vision, hearing, sense of smell, taste, touch, proprioception, and sensitivity to the earth's magnetic field.

Communication behavior

Main article: Dog communication

Dog communication is about how dogs "speak" to each other, how they understand messages that humans send to them, and how humans can translate the ideas that dogs are trying to transmit. These communication behaviors include eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of bodies and limbs) and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones and taste). Humans communicate with dogs by using vocalization, hand signals, and body posture. Dogs can also learn to understand communication of emotions with humans by reading human facial expressions.

Social behavior

Two studies have indicated that dog behavior varied with their size, body weight and skull size.

Play

Dog-dog

Play between dogs usually involves several behaviors that are often seen in aggressive encounters, for example, nipping, biting and growling. It is therefore important for the dogs to place these behaviors in the context of play, rather than aggression. Dogs signal their intent to play with a range of behaviors including a "play-bow", "face-paw," "open-mouthed play face" and postures inviting the other dog to chase the initiator. Similar signals are given throughout the play to maintain the context of the potentially aggressive activities.

From a young age, dogs engage in play with one another. Dog play is made up primarily of mock fights. It is believed that this behavior, which is most common in puppies, is training for important behaviors later in life. Play between puppies is not necessarily a 50:50 symmetry of dominant and submissive roles between the individuals; dogs who engage in greater rates of dominant behaviors (e.g. chasing, forcing partners down) at later ages also initiate play at higher rates. This could imply that winning during play becomes more important as puppies mature.

Emotional contagion is linked to facial mimicry in humans and primates. Facial mimicry is an automatic response that occurs in less than 1 second in which one person involuntarily mimics another person's facial expressions, forming empathy. It has also been found in dogs at play, and play sessions lasted longer when there were facial mimicry signals from one dog to another.

Dog-human

NASA astronaut Leland D. Melvin with his dogs Jake and Scout

The motivation for a dog to play with another dog is distinct from that of a dog playing with a human. Dogs walked together with opportunities to play with one another, play with their owners with the same frequency as dogs being walked alone. Dogs in households with two or more dogs play more often with their owners than dogs in households with a single dog, indicating the motivation to play with other dogs does not substitute for the motivation to play with humans.

It is a common misconception that winning and losing games such as "tug-of-war" and "rough-and-tumble" can influence a dog's dominance relationship with humans. Rather, the way in which dogs play indicates their temperament and relationship with their owner. Dogs that play rough-and-tumble are more amenable and show lower separation anxiety than dogs which play other types of games, and dogs playing tug-of-war and "fetch" are more confident. Dogs which start the majority of games are less amenable and more likely to be aggressive.

Playing with humans can affect the cortisol levels of dogs. In one study, the cortisol responses of police dogs and border guard dogs was assessed after playing with their handlers. The cortisol concentrations of the police dogs increased, whereas the border guard dogs' hormone levels decreased. The researchers noted that during the play sessions, police officers were disciplining their dogs, whereas the border guards were truly playing with them, i.e. this included bonding and affectionate behaviors. They commented that several studies have shown that behaviors associated with control, authority or aggression increase cortisol, whereas play and affiliation behavior decrease cortisol levels.

Empathy

In 2012, a study found that dogs oriented toward their owner or a stranger more often when the person was pretending to cry than when they were talking or humming. When the stranger pretended to cry, rather than approaching their usual source of comfort, their owner, dogs sniffed, nuzzled and licked the stranger instead. The dogs' pattern of response was behaviorally consistent with an expression of empathic concern.

A study found a third of dogs suffered from anxiety when separated from others.

Personalities

The term personality has been applied to human research, whereas the term temperament has been mostly used for animal research. However, both terms have been used interchangeably in the literature, or purely to distinguish humans from animals and avoid anthropomorphism. Personality can be defined as “a set of behaviors that are consistent over context and time”. Studies of dogs' personalities have tried to identify the presence of broad personality traits that are stable and consistent over time.

There are different approaches to assess dog personality:

• Ratings of individual dogs: either a caretaker or a dog expert who is familiar with the dog is asked to answer a questionnaire, for instance the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire, concerning how often the dog shows certain types of behavior.
• Tests: the dog is submitted to a set of tests and its reactions are evaluated on a behavioral scale. For instance, the dog is presented to a familiar and then an unfamiliar person in order to measure sociability or aggression.
• Observational test: The dog’s behavior is evaluated in a selected but not controlled environment. An observer focuses on the dog’s reactions to naturally occurring stimuli. For example, a walk through the supermarket can allow the observer to see the dog in various types of conditions (crowded, noisy…)

Several potential personality traits have been identified in dogs, for instance "Playfulness", "Curiosity/Fearlessness, "Chase-proneness", "Sociability and Aggressiveness" and "Shyness–Boldness". A meta-analysis of 51 published peer reviewed articles identified seven dimensions of canine personality:

1. Reactivity (approach or avoidance of new objects, increased activity in novel situations)
2. Fearfulness (shaking, avoiding novel situations)
3. Activity
4. Sociability (initiating friendly interactions with people and other dogs)
5. Responsiveness to training (working with people, learning quickly)
6. Submissiveness
7. Aggression

Dog breed plays an important role in the dog's personality dimensions, while the effects of age and sex have not been clearly determined. The personality models can be used for a range of tasks, including guide and working dog selection, finding appropriate families to re-home shelter dogs, or selecting breeding stock.

Leadership, dominance and social groups

Two dogs playing follow the leader.

Dominance is a descriptive term for the relationship between pairs of individuals. Among ethologists, dominance has been defined as "an attribute of the pattern of repeated, antagonistic interactions between two individuals, characterized by a consistent outcome in favor of the same dyad member and a default yielding response of its opponent rather than escalation. The status of the consistent winner is dominant and that of the loser subordinate." Another definition is that a dominant animal has "priority of access to resources". Dominance is a relative attribute, not absolute; there is no reason to assume that a high-ranking individual in one group would also become high ranking if moved to another. Nor is there any good evidence that "dominance" is a lifelong character trait. Competitive behavior characterized by confident (e.g. growl, inhibited bite, stand over, stare at, chase, bark at) and submissive (e.g. crouch, avoid, displacement lick/yawn, run away) patterns exchanged.

One test to ascertain in which group the dominant dog was used the following criteria: When a stranger comes to the house, which dog starts to bark first or if they start to bark together, which dog barks more or longer? Which dog licks more often the other dog's mouth? If the dogs get food at the same time and at the same spot, which dog starts to eat first or eats the other dog's food? If the dogs start to fight, which dog usually wins?

Domestic dogs appear to pay little attention to relative size, despite the large weight differences between the largest and smallest individuals; for example, size was not a predictor of the outcome of encounters between dogs meeting while being exercised by their owners nor was size correlated with neutered male dogs. Therefore, many dogs do not appear to pay much attention to the actual fighting ability of their opponent, presumably allowing differences in motivation (how much the dog values the resource) and perceived motivation (what the behavior of the other dog signifies about the likelihood that it will escalate) to play a much greater role.

Two dogs that are contesting possession of a highly valued resource for the first time, if one is in a state of emotional arousal, in pain; if reactivity is influenced by recent endocrine changes, or motivational states such as hunger, then the outcome of the interaction may be different than if none of these factors were present. Equally, the threshold at which aggression is shown may be influenced by a range of medical factors, or, in some cases, precipitated entirely by pathological disorders. Hence, the contextual and physiological factors present when two dogs first encounter each other may profoundly influence the long-term nature of the relationship between those dogs. The complexity of the factors involved in this type of learning means that dogs may develop different "expectations" about the likely response of another individual for each resource in a range of different situations. Puppies learn early not to challenge an older dog and this respect stays with them into adulthood. When adult animals meet for the first time, they have no expectations of the behavior of the other: they will both, therefore, be initially anxious and vigilant in this encounter (characterized by the tense body posture and sudden movements typically seen when two dogs first meet), until they start to be able to predict the responses of the other individual. The outcome of these early adult–adult interactions will be influenced by the specific factors present at the time of the initial encounters. As well as contextual and physiological factors, the experiences of each member of the dyad of other dogs will also influence their behavior.

Scent

Dogs have an olfactory sense 40 times more sensitive than a human's and they commence their lives operating almost exclusively on smell and touch. The special scents that dogs use for communication are called pheromones. Different hormones are secreted when a dog is angry, fearful or confident, and some chemical signatures identify the sex and age of the dog, and if a female is in the estrus cycle, pregnant or recently given birth. Many of the pheromone chemicals can be found dissolved in a dog's urine, and sniffing where another dog has urinated gives the dog a great deal of information about that dog. Male dogs prefer to mark vertical surfaces and having the scent higher allows the air to carry it farther. The height of the marking tells other dogs about the size of the dog, as among canines size is an important factor in dominance.

Dogs (and wolves) mark their territories with urine and their stools. The anal gland of canines give a particular signature to fecal deposits and identifies the marker as well as the place where the dung is left. Dogs are very particular about these landmarks, and engage in what is to humans a meaningless and complex ritual before defecating. Most dogs start with a careful bout of sniffing of a location, perhaps to erect an exact line or boundary between their territory and another dog's territory. This behavior may also involve a small degree of elevation, such as a rock or fallen branch, to aid scent dispersal. Scratching the ground after defecating is a visual sign pointing to the scent marking. The freshness of the scent gives visitors some idea of the current status of a piece of territory and if it is used frequently. Regions under dispute, or used by different animals at different times, may lead to marking battles with every scent marked-over by a new competitor.

Further information: Dog communication

Feral dogs

Feral dogs are those dogs living in a wild state with no food and shelter intentionally provided by humans, and showing a continuous and strong avoidance of direct human contacts. In the developing world pet dogs are uncommon, but feral, village or community dogs are plentiful around humans. The distinction between feral, stray, and free ranging dogs is sometimes a matter of degree, and a dog may shift its status throughout its life. In some unlikely but observed cases, a feral dog that was not born wild but living with a feral group can become behavior-modified to a domestic dog with an owner. A dog can become a stray when it escapes human control, by abandonment or being born to a stray mother. A stray dog can become feral when forced out of the human environment or when co-opted or socially accepted by a nearby feral group. Feralization occurs through the development of the human avoidance response.

Feral dogs are not reproductively self-sustaining, suffer from high rates of juvenile mortality, and depend indirectly on humans for their food, their space, and the supply of co-optable individuals.

See further: behavior compared to other canids.

Other behavior

Dogs have a general behavioral trait of strongly preferring novelty ("neophillia") compared to familiarity. The average sleep time of a dog in captivity in a 24-hour period is 10.1 hours.

Reproduction behavior

Further information: Canine reproduction

Estrous cycle and mating

Although puppies do not have the urge to procreate, males sometimes engage in sexual play in the form of mounting. In some puppies, this behavior occurs as early as 3 or 4 weeks-of-age.

Dogs reach sexual maturity and can reproduce during their first year, in contrast to wolves at two years-of-age. Female dogs have their first estrus ("heat") at 6 to 12 months-of-age; smaller dogs tend to come into heat earlier whereas larger dogs take longer to mature.

Female dogs have an estrous cycle that is nonseasonal and monestrus, i.e. there is only one estrus per estrous cycle. The interval between one estrus and another is, on average, seven months, however, this may range between 4 and 12 months. This interestrous period is not influenced by the photoperiod or pregnancy. The average duration of estrus is 9 days with spontaneous ovulation usually about 3 days after the onset of estrus.

For several days before estrus, a phase called proestrus, the female dog may show greater interest in male dogs and "flirt" with them (proceptive behavior). There is progressive vulval swelling and some bleeding. If males try to mount a female dog during proestrus, she may avoid mating by sitting down or turning round and growling or snapping.

Estrous behavior in the female dog is usually indicated by her standing still with the tail held up, or to the side of the perineum, when the male sniffs the vulva and attempts to mount. This tail position is sometimes called “flagging”. The female dog may also turn, presenting the vulva to the male.

The male dog mounts the female and is able to achieve intromission with a non-erect penis, which contains a bone called the os penis. The dog's penis enlarges inside the vagina, thereby preventing its withdrawal; this is sometimes known as the "tie" or "copulatory lock". The male dog rapidly thrust into the female for 1–2 minutes then dismounts with the erect penis still inside the vagina, and turns to stand rear-end to rear-end with the female dog for up to 30 to 40 minutes; the penis is twisted 180 degrees in a lateral plane. During this time, prostatic fluid is ejaculated.

The female dog can bear another litter within 8 months of the previous one. Dogs are polygamous in contrast to wolves that are generally monogamous. Therefore, dogs have no pair bonding and the protection of a single mate, but rather have multiple mates in a year. The consequence is that wolves put a lot of energy into producing a few pups in contrast to dogs that maximize the production of pups. This higher pup production rate enables dogs to maintain or even increase their population with a lower pup survival rate than wolves, and allows dogs a greater capacity than wolves to grow their population after a population crash or when entering a new habitat. It is proposed that these differences are an alternative breeding strategy, one adapted to a life of scavenging instead of hunting.

Parenting and early life

All of the wild members of the genus Canis display complex coordinated parental behaviors. Wolf pups are cared for primarily by their mother for the first 3 months of their life when she remains in the den with them while they rely on her milk for sustenance and her presence for protection. The father brings her food. Once they leave the den and can chew, the parents and pups from previous years regurgitate food for them. Wolf pups become independent by 5 to 8 months, although they often stay with their parents for years. In contrast, dog pups are cared for by the mother and rely on her for milk and protection but she gets no help from the father nor other dogs. Once pups are weaned around 10 weeks they are independent and receive no further maternal care.

Behavior problems

There are many different types of behavioural issues that a dog can exhibit, including growling, snapping, barking, and invading a human's personal space. A survey of 203 dog owners in Melbourne, Australia, found that the main behaviour problems reported by owners were overexcitement (63%) and jumping up on people (56%). Some problems are related to attachment while others are neurological, as seen below.

Separation anxiety

When dogs are separated from humans, usually the owner, they often display behaviors which can be broken into the following four categories: exploratory behaviour, object play, destructive behaviour, and vocalization, and they are related to the canine's level of arousal. These behaviours may manifest as destructiveness, fecal or urinary elimination, hypersalivation or vocalization among other things. Dogs from single-owner homes are approximately 2.5 times more likely to have separation anxiety compared to dogs from multiple-owner homes. Furthermore, sexually intact dogs are only one third as likely to have separation anxiety as neutered dogs. The sex of dogs and whether there is another pet in the home do not have an effect on separation anxiety. It has been estimated that at least 14% of dogs examined at typical veterinary practices in the United States have shown signs of separation anxiety. Dogs that have been diagnosed with profound separation anxiety can be left alone for no more than minutes before they begin to panic and exhibit the behaviors associated with separation anxiety. Separation problems have been found to be linked to the dog's dependency on its owner, not because of disobedience. In the absence of treatment, affected dogs are often relinquished to a humane society or shelter, abandoned, or euthanized.

Resource guarding

Resource guarding is exhibited by many canines, and is one of the most commonly reported behaviour issues to canine professionals. It is seen when a dog uses specific behaviour patterns so that they can control access to an item, and the patterns are flexible when people are around. If a canine places value on some resource (i.e. food, toys, etc.) they may attempt to guard it from other animals as well as people, which leads to behavioural problems if not treated. The guarding can show in many different ways from rapid ingestion of food to using the body to shield items. It manifests as aggressive behaviour including, but not limited to, growling, barking, or snapping. Some dogs will also resource guard their owners and can become aggressive if the behaviour is allowed to continue. Owners must learn to interpret their dog's body language in order to try to judge the dog's reaction, as visual signals are used (i.e. changes in body posture, facial expression, etc.) to communicate feeling and response. These behaviours are commonly seen in shelter animals, most likely due to insecurities caused by a poor environment. Resource guarding is a concern since it can lead to aggression, but research has found that aggression over guarding can be contained by teaching the dog to drop the item they are guarding.

Jealousy

Canines are one of a number of non-human animals that can express jealousy towards other animals or animal-like objects. This emotion may feed into other behavioural problems, manifest as attention-seeking behaviour, withdrawing from social activity, or aggression towards their owner or another animal or person.

Noise anxiety

Canines often fear, and exhibit stress responses to, loud noises. Noise-related anxieties in dogs may be triggered by fireworks, thunderstorms, gunshots, and even loud or sharp bird noises. Associated stimuli may also come to trigger the symptoms of the phobia or anxiety, such as a change in barometric pressure being associated with a thunderstorm, thus causing an anticipatory anxiety.

Tail chasing

Tail chasing can be classified as a stereotypy. It falls under obsessive compulsive disorder, which is a neuropsychiatric disorder that can present in dogs as canine compulsive disorder. In one clinical study on this potential behavioral problem, 18 tail-chasing terriers were given clomipramine orally at a dosage of 1 to 2 mg/kg (0.5 to 0.9 mg/lb) of body weight, every 12 hours. Three of the dogs required treatment at a slightly higher dosage range to control tail chasing, however, after 1 to 12 weeks of treatment, 9 of 12 dogs were reported to have a 75% or greater reduction in tail chasing. Personality can also play a factor in tail chasing. Dogs who chase their tails have been found to be more shy than those who do not, and some dogs also show a lower level of response during tail chasing bouts.

Behavior compared to other canids

Comparisons made within the wolf-like canids allow the identification of those behaviors that may have been inherited from common ancestry and those that may have been the result of domestication or other relatively recent environmental changes. Studies of free-ranging African Basenjis and New Guinea Singing Dogs indicate that their behavioral and ecological traits were the result of environmental selection pressures or selective breeding choices and not the result of artificial selection imposed by humans.

Early aggression

Dog pups show unrestrained fighting with their siblings from 2 weeks of age, with injury avoided only due to their undeveloped jaw muscles. This fighting gives way to play-chasing with the development of running skills at 4–5 weeks. Wolf pups possess more-developed jaw muscles from 2 weeks of age, when they first show signs of play-fighting with their siblings. Serious fighting occurs during 4–6 weeks of age. Compared to wolf and dog pups, golden jackal pups develop aggression at the age of 4–6 weeks when play-fighting frequently escalates into uninhibited biting intended to harm. This aggression ceases by 10–12 weeks when a hierarchy has formed.

Tameness

Unlike other domestic species which were primarily selected for production-related traits, dogs were initially selected for their behaviors. In 2016, a study found that there were only 11 fixed genes that showed variation between wolves and dogs. These gene variations were unlikely to have been the result of natural evolution, and indicate selection on both morphology and behavior during dog domestication. These genes have been shown to affect the catecholamine synthesis pathway, with the majority of the genes affecting the fight-or-flight response (i.e. selection for tameness), and emotional processing. Dogs generally show reduced fear and aggression compared to wolves. Some of these genes have been associated with aggression in some dog breeds, indicating their importance in both the initial domestication and then later in breed formation.

Social structure

Among canids, packs are the social units that hunt, rear young and protect a communal territory as a stable group and their members are usually related. Members of the feral dog group are usually not related. Feral dog groups are composed of a stable 2–6 members compared to the 2–15 member wolf pack whose size fluctuates with the availability of prey and reaches a maximum in winter time. The feral dog group consists of monogamous breeding pairs compared to the one breeding pair of the wolf pack. Agonistic behavior does not extend to the individual level and does not support a higher social structure compared to the ritualized agonistic behavior of the wolf pack that upholds its social structure. Feral pups have a very high mortality rate that adds little to the group size, with studies showing that adults are usually killed through accidents with humans, therefore other dogs need to be co-opted from villages to maintain stable group size.

Socialization

The critical period for socialization begins with walking and exploring the environment. Dog and wolf pups both develop the ability to see, hear and smell at 4 weeks of age. Dogs begin to explore the world around them at 4 weeks of age with these senses available to them, while wolves begin to explore at 2 weeks of age when they have the sense of smell but are functionally blind and deaf. The consequences of this is that more things are novel and frightening to wolf pups. The critical period for socialization closes with the avoidance of novelty, when the animal runs away from - rather than approaching and exploring - novel objects. For dogs this develops between 4 and 8 weeks of age. Wolves reach the end of the critical period after 6 weeks, after which it is not possible to socialize a wolf.

Dog puppies require as little as 90 minutes of contact with humans during their critical period of socialization to form a social attachment. This will not create a highly social pet but a dog that will solicit human attention. Wolves require 24 hours contact a day starting before 3 weeks of age. To create a socialized wolf the pups are removed from the den at 10 days of age, kept in constant human contact until they are 4 weeks old when they begin to bite their sleeping human companions, then spend only their waking hours in the presence of humans. This socialization process continues until age 4 months, when the pups can join other captive wolves but will require daily human contact to remain socialized. Despite this intensive socialization process, a well-socialized wolf will behave differently to a well-socialized dog and will display species-typical hunting and reproductive behaviors, only closer to humans than a wild wolf. These wolves do not generalize their socialization to all humans in the same manner as a socialized dog and they remain more fearful of novelty compared to socialized dogs.

In 1982, a study to observe the differences between dogs and wolves raised in similar conditions took place. The dog puppies preferred larger amounts of sleep at the beginning of their lives, while the wolf puppies were much more active. The dog puppies also preferred the company of humans, rather than their canine foster mother, though the wolf puppies were the exact opposite, spending more time with their foster mother. The dogs also showed a greater interest in the food given to them and paid little attention to their surroundings, while the wolf puppies found their surroundings to be much more intriguing than their food or food bowl. The wolf puppies were observed taking part in antagonistic play at a younger age, while the dog puppies did not display dominant/submissive roles until they were much older. The wolf puppies were rarely seen as being aggressive to each other or towards the other canines. On the other hand, the dog puppies were much more aggressive to each other and other canines, often seen full-on attacking their foster mother or one another.

A 2005 study comparing dog and wolf pups concluded that extensively socialised dogs as well as unsocialised dog pups showed greater attachment to a human owner than wolf pups did, even if the wolf was socialised. The study concluded that dogs may have evolved a capacity for attachment to humans functionally analogous to that human infants display.

Cognition

Despite claims that dogs show more human-like social cognition than wolves, several recent studies have demonstrated that if wolves are properly socialized to humans and have the opportunity to interact with humans regularly, then they too can succeed on some human-guided cognitive tasks, in some cases out-performing dogs at an individual level. Similar to dogs, wolves can also follow more complex point types made with body parts other than the human arm and hand (e.g. elbow, knee, foot). Both dogs and wolves have the cognitive capacity for prosocial behavior toward humans; however it is not guaranteed. For canids to perform well on traditional human-guided tasks (e.g. following the human point) both relevant lifetime experiences with humans - including socialization to humans during the critical period for social development - and opportunities to associate human body parts with certain outcomes (such as food being provided by human hands, a human throwing or kicking a ball, etc.) are required.

After undergoing training to solve a simple manipulation task, dogs that are faced with an insoluble version of the same problem look at the human, while socialized wolves do not.

Reproduction

Dogs reach sexual maturity and can reproduce during their first year in contrast to a wolf at two years. The female dog can bear another litter within 8 months of the last one. The canid genus is influenced by the photoperiod and generally reproduces in the springtime. Domestic dogs are not reliant on seasonality for reproduction in contrast to the wolf, coyote, Australian dingo and African basenji that may have only one, seasonal, estrus each year. Feral dogs are influenced by the photoperiod with around half of the breeding females mating in the springtime, which is thought to indicate an ancestral reproductive trait not overcome by domestication, as can be inferred from wolves and Cape hunting dogs.

Domestic dogs are polygamous in contrast to wolves that are generally monogamous. Therefore, domestic dogs have no pair bonding and the protection of a single mate, but rather have multiple mates in a year. There is no paternal care in dogs as opposed to wolves where all pack members assist the mother with the pups. The consequence is that wolves put a lot of energy into producing a few pups in contrast to dogs that maximize the production of pups. This higher pup production rate enables dogs to maintain or even increase their population with a lower pup survival rate than wolves, and allows dogs a greater capacity than wolves to grow their population after a population crash or when entering a new habitat. It is proposed that these differences are an alternative breeding strategy adapted to a life of scavenging instead of hunting. In contrast to domestic dogs, feral dogs are monogamous. Domestic dogs tend to have a litter size of 10, wolves 3, and feral dogs 5–8. Feral pups have a very high mortality rate with only 5% surviving at the age of one year, and sometimes the pups are left unattended making them vulnerable to predators. Domestic dogs stand alone among all canids for a total lack of paternal care.

Dogs differ from wolves and most other large canid species as they generally do not regurgitate food for their young, nor the young of other dogs in the same territory. However, this difference was not observed in all domestic dogs. Regurgitating of food by the females for the young, as well as care for the young by the males, has been observed in domestic dogs, dingos and in feral or semi-feral dogs. In one study of a group of free-ranging dogs, for the first 2 weeks immediately after parturition the lactating females were observed to be more aggressive to protect the pups. The male parents were in contact with the litters as ‘guard’ dogs for the first 6–8 weeks of the litters’ life. In absence of the mothers, they were observed to prevent the approach of strangers by vocalizations or even by physical attacks. Moreover, one male fed the litter by regurgitation showing the existence of paternal care in some free-roaming dogs.

Space

Space used by feral dogs is not dissimilar from most other canids in that they use defined traditional areas (home ranges) that tend to be defended against intruders, and have core areas where most of their activities are undertaken. Urban domestic dogs have a home range of 2-61 hectares in contrast to a feral dogs home range of 58 square kilometers. Wolf home ranges vary from 78 square kilometers where prey is deer to 2.5 square kilometers at higher latitudes where prey is moose and caribou. Wolves will defend their territory based on prey abundance and pack density, but feral dogs will defend their home ranges all year. Where wolf ranges and feral dog ranges overlap, the feral dogs will site their core areas closer to human settlement.

Predation and scavenging

Despite claims in the popular press, studies could not find evidence of a single predation on cattle by feral dogs. However, domestic dogs were responsible for the death of 3 calves over one 5-year study. Other studies in Europe and North America indicate only limited success in the consumption of wild boar, deer and other ungulates, however it could not be determined if this was predation or scavenging on carcasses. Studies have observed feral dogs conducting brief, uncoordinated chases of small game with constant barking - a technique without success.

In 2004, a study reviewed 5 other studies of feral dogs published between 1975 and 1995 and concluded that their pack structure is very loose and rarely involves any cooperative behavior, either in raising young or in obtaining food. Feral dogs are primarily scavengers, with studies showing that unlike their wild cousins, they are poor ungulate hunters, having little effect on wildlife populations where they are sympatric. However, several garbage dumps located within the feral dog's home range are important for their survival. Even well-fed domestic dogs are prone to scavenge; gastro-intestinal veterinary visits increase during warmer weather as dogs are prone to eat decaying material. Some dogs consume feces, which may contain nutrition. On occasion well-fed dogs have been known to scavenge their owners' corpses.

Dogs in human society

Further information: Human-canine bond

Studies using an operant framework have indicated that humans can influence the behavior of dogs through food, petting and voice. Food and 20–30 seconds of petting maintained operant responding in dogs. Some dogs will show a preference for petting once food is readily available, and dogs will remain in proximity to a person providing petting and show no satiation to that stimulus. Petting alone was sufficient to maintain the operant response of military dogs to voice commands, and responses to basic obedience commands in all dogs increased when only vocal praise was provided for correct responses.

A study using dogs that were trained to remain motionless while unsedated and unrestrained in an MRI scanner exhibited caudate activation to a hand signal associated with reward. Further work found that the magnitude of the canine caudate response is similar to that of humans, while the between-subject variability in dogs may be less than humans. In a further study, 5 scents were presented (self, familiar human, strange human, familiar dog, strange dog). While the olfactory bulb/peduncle was activated to a similar degree by all the scents, the caudate was activated maximally to the familiar human. Importantly, the scent of the familiar human was not the handler, meaning that the caudate response differentiated the scent in the absence of the person being present. The caudate activation suggested that not only did the dogs discriminate that scent from the others, they had a positive association with it. Although these signals came from two different people, the humans lived in the same household as the dog and therefore represented the dog's primary social circle. And while dogs should be highly tuned to the smell of items that are not comparable, it seems that the “reward response” is reserved for their humans.

Research has shown that there are individual differences in the interactions between dogs and their human that have significant effects on dog behavior. In 1997, a study showed that the type of relationship between dog and master, characterized as either companionship or working relationship, significantly affected the dog's performance on a cognitive problem-solving task. They speculate that companion dogs have a more dependent relationship with their owners, and look to them to solve problems. In contrast, working dogs are more independent.

Dogs in the family

In 2013, a study produced the first evidence under controlled experimental observation for a correlation between the owner's personality and their dog's behaviour.

Further information: Companion dog

Dogs at work

Service dogs are those that are trained to help people with disabilities such as blindness, epilepsy, diabetes and autism. Detection dogs are trained to using their sense of smell to detect substances such as explosives, illegal drugs, wildlife scat, or blood. In science, dogs have helped humans understand about the conditioned reflex. Attack dogs, dogs that have been trained to attack on command, are employed in security, police, and military roles. Service dog programs have been established to help individuals suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and have shown to have positive results.

Attacks

Main article: Dog attack

 

A dog's teeth can inflict serious injuries

The human-dog relationship is based on unconditional trust; however, if this trust is lost it will be difficult to reinstate.

In the UK between 2005 and 2013, there were 17 fatal dog attacks. In 2007–08, there were 4,611 hospital admissions due to dog attacks, which increased to 5,221 in 2008–09. It was estimated in 2013 that more than 200,000 people a year are bitten by dogs in England, with the annual cost to the National Health Service of treating injuries about £3 million. A report published in 2014 stated there were 6,743 hospital admissions specifically caused by dog bites, a 5.8% increase from the 6,372 admissions in the previous 12 months.

In the US between 1979 and 1996, there were more than 300 human dog bite-related fatalities. In the US in 2013, there were 31 dog-bite related deaths. Each year, more than 4.5 million people in the US are bitten by dogs and almost 1 in 5 require medical attention. A dog's thick fur protects it from the bite of another dog, but humans are furless and are not so protected.

Attack training is condemned by some as promoting ferocity in dogs; a 1975 American study showed that 10% of dogs that have bitten a person received attack dog training at some point.