Answering journalists' questions at the round table "The World Space Market: Trends and Development Prospects", Alexei Dolgov, Director of the Department for Operational Efficiency Projects of Organization Agat JSC, which is the head economic institute of the state corporation Roscosmos, said that rocket projects reusable carriers can only be paid off if there are a large number of launch orders.
βOnly with a significant amount of consumption, which SpaceX achieved, letβs say, by informal methods, only by collecting orders from half of the market, can we achieve a payback for light and medium-class launch vehicle projects,β said Mr. Dolgov. In addition, he believes that with a decrease in the cost of rocket launches, this market may grow, which will allow new projects of reusable launch vehicles to pay off.
As for SpaceX, it has conducted 11 rocket launches this year and plans to carry out two more this month. In total, 2019 launches of launch vehicles were carried out in the world in 87, 82 of which were successful.
Earlier, the head of Roskosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said that the new Soyuz-5 and Soyuz-6 launch vehicles being designed by the corporation would be able to compete in the commercial launch market with their American counterparts. He also noted that the reusable rockets created by SpaceX will begin to pay off closer to the 50th launch.
At the same time, it is known about plans to create a domestic reusable launch vehicle, which will belong to the class of ultralight rockets. Obviously, a lot of time will pass before it is put into operation, which is necessary for design, development and testing.
Source: 3dnews.ru