Reusable Rockets Get Read
But is anyone prepared to pay for them?

By Jeff Foust

Reducing the high costs of placing a satellite into orbit has been a major goal for the aerospace industry for years. The current cost of sending up a satellite starts at a couple thousand dollars per kilogram on unmanned, expendable boosters like the Atlas and Delta. Reusable launch vehicles (RLVs), however, could put satellites in orbit for significantly less.

At least one of these promising new rockets is preparing to fly. Roton, which is being built by Redwood City, Calif.-based Rotary Rocket Co., is ready to begin atmospheric test flights. If all goes according to plan, the cone-shaped Roton will take off like an ordinary, single-stage rocket. After delivering its satellite payload in orbit, the vehicle will re-enter the atmosphere, sprouting a set of rotor blades that allow it to land like a helicopter.

The Roton is one of several RLVs that could be in service within two to three yearsn size of the market. Most proposed RLVs are best suited for launching small satellites into low orbits (typically less than 1,500 kilometers). Hundreds of these satellites will form the infrastructure of the global telecom systems for companies like Iridium, Globalstar and Teledesic. But with Iridium facing financial problems and with Teledesic’s design in flux, demand for RLVs is uncertain. The proposed RLVs are not powerful enough to lift heavy communications satellites 36,000 kilometers up into geosynchronous orbit for broadcasting television and other signalsadvocate Max Hunter, would be like “explaining Hollywood to Queen Isabella.”

Jeff Foust is the webmaster at Technology Review.

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