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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!bellcore!petrus!karn
From: karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: communications satellite insurance rates
Message-ID: <564@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 00:37:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: petrus.564
Posted: Wed Sep 18 00:37:52 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 04:53:49 EDT
References: <536@petrus.UUCP> <528@riccb.UUCP> <539@petrus.UUCP> <530@riccb.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 56

> You're right - it was sheer BAD luck for the shuttle that these "oppor-
> tunities" occurred.  People tend to blame NASA and the shuttle even when one
> of its contractors, customers, or the military screws up one of the motors
> for which NASA has no responsibility or control.

Very true! Except for the fact that you wouldn't have needed a PAM had you not
been riding on the Shuttle, you're right. 

> So what's your opinion, Phil (and anyone else), do you
> think the latest Ariane failure will affect insurance rates and how?  Will
> this apply just to Ariane or to all expendable launchers?  How will it
> affect the insurance rates of satellites launched by the shuttle?

Obviously they won't go down as a result of the failure. But 10 straight
successes is nothing to sneeze at; even Delta had a failure now and then.
You can't get a real idea of the reliability of a launcher until its had
plenty of flights. The real problem is that because of the economy of scale
in launchers (big launchers are in general cheaper per kg than small
launchers) people are putting lots of eggs into single baskets, and the
pool of insurance money is becoming VERY strained. I don't see any easy
way out of this for the near term.

> What really gets me is that ESA gets to keep all its fee for blowing up its
> payload.  That's something NASA would never do with the shuttle. 

This is only partially true. According to the STS user's manual, NASA gives
non-government users a "reflight guarantee". This is not insurance on the
payload against a launch failure, but provides for another launch
opportunity assuming that the previous payload is returned in launch
condition or a replacement payload is provided by the user. This is a nice
advantage of flying with the shuttle, although of course PAM failures aren't
covered. The fact that the Shuttle is a lot more likely than the Ariane
to come back in flyable shape even after a malfunction is what makes this
guarantee possible.

I admit I'm a bit down on the Shuttle because of my own experiences on the
PACSAT project. We hams got spoiled by our previous experiences on
expendable launchers like Delta and Ariane (except for Phase-3A, which got
dumped in the drink!) On the pad we got battery charging and a
telemetry/command umbilical; once in orbit we got spun up and deployed
within a fraction of an orbit. There was no problem in flying a hypergolic
kick motor on Oscar-10 once we convinced ESA that "we hams" knew what we
were doing. This is out of the question on the shuttle, where it is said
that the mass of the safety qualification paperwork is always equal to or
greater than the mass of the spacecraft. Almost all of our efforts so far in
PACSAT have concentrated on finding ways to do things that are made
necessary only because of the shuttle (keeping batteries up without external
charging during a 4-month wait on the pad, surviving -100 to +130C
temperature swings for a few days in orbit in a GAS can, maneuvering into a
stable orbit with a "provably safe" propulsion system, and so on.)

The Shuttle is a magnificent vehicle for manned space activities. I believe
the jury is still out on whether the Polish (Belgian, Chelmian, whatever)
Bomber is the best way to launch unmanned spacecraft, though.

Phil


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