The failure of the Proton rocket carrying the three Russian Glonass satellites will not have an immediate impact on insurance rates paid by operators, SatelliteFinance understands.
While the malfunction could well have a knock on effect in terms of…
The failure of the Proton rocket carrying the three Russian Glonass satellites will not have an immediate impact on insurance rates paid by operators, SatelliteFinance understands.
While the malfunction could well have a knock on effect in terms of potential delays to International Launch Services’ launch schedule, the satellites were insured domestically, for a rumoured US$65m, and therefore will not lead to any upward pressure on launch plus one pricing in the international space insurance market.
Following the abortive launch on 5 December, the Russian space agency Roscosmos launched an investigation into the reason for the failure. In the interim, no proton rockets will be launched meaning that ILS’ scheduled December 20 launch of Eutelsat’s KA-SAT spacecraft could well be delayed. It will not, however, affect the insurance placement on that satellite.
It is not just ILS that may be affected by the launch failure. The Glonass launch was the maiden flight of the Energia-built Block DM-03 upper stage and while ILS uses a Breeze-M upper stage, Sea Launch, which is now owned by Energia, used the Block-DM. If it is found to be an error in this new upper stage it could subsequently affect the insurance prices paid for satellites on future Sea Launch missions.
