SpaceX laid down the gauntlet to Russia today when Senior Vice-President Tim Hughes said the private company plans to take 65% of the commercial space launch market in the year 2018, leaving stalwart Russia behind with a paltry 10%. European Arianspace will take the remaining share.
The SpaceX senior vice-president spoke before the Subcommittee on Space, Science and Technology of the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology, reported Russian state news agency TASS.
The schedule presented by Hughes in his report and based on the company’s forecast suggests that this year SpaceX will capture about 45% of the commercial launch market, the European operator Arianspace will get 40% while Russia’s share will equal 15%, wrote TASS.
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“Currently, SpaceX has approximately 70 missions on manifest, representing more than $10 billion in signed contracts for a diverse and growing set of customers, including NASA, the Department of Defense, commercial satellite operators, and allied international governments,” described a report presented by Hughes.
“Prior to SpaceX entering the commercial space launch market with the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the U.S. had effectively ceded this market to France [Arianspace] and to Russia, and no U.S. company had launched a single commercial mission to GTO [Geostationary Transfer Orbit] since 2009. SpaceX has brought this multi-billion dollar market back to the United States,”
