US small and secondary payload services provider Spaceflight Services (Spaceflight) has partnered with Dutch counterpart Innovative Space Logistics BV (ISILaunch) to expand operations internationally.
The joint marketing agreement sees Spaceflight…
US small and secondary payload services provider Spaceflight Services (Spaceflight) has partnered with Dutch counterpart Innovative Space Logistics BV (ISILaunch) to expand operations internationally.
The joint marketing agreement sees Spaceflight integrate prospective orbital and suborbital payloads on US vehicles and suborbital platforms, with ISILaunch handling these services for outside the US.
Both companies have already been brokering such capabilities independently since 2009, but by coming together they promise clients unified services across the US, Europe, Asia and Russia.
Jason Andrews, President and CEO of Spaceflight, said: “The commercial rideshare approach Spaceflight and ISILaunch offer provides truly revolutionary global space access at significant savings compared to purchasing a dedicated vehicle. For certain payload sizes this is an entirely new capability at a compelling price point.” In an email to SatelliteFinance, Andrews said the group has been registering “strong” interest from meetings with prospective commercial and government customers in the US, and some overseas, since early 2010.
“In general there is a desire to move towards smaller spacecraft for technology demonstration and some operational missions, but there is a limited number of launch opportunities,” he said.
“Most of the existing ones are on government launch vehicles and customers have responded very positively to the prospect of a commercial “turn key” service.” Andrews said the group has been contacted by multiple people this month about flight opportunities outside of the US using its ISILaunch partnership, for the launch of both government and commercial payloads.
He declined to disclose any more customer details, but hinted it was quite possible that the joint venture could soon broker services on Asian launch vehicles other than in India.
A spokesman for ISILaunch also said the group is in “continuous discussions with other launch service providers worldwide”.
Spaceflight and ISILaunch are self-funded and “for the short term there are no large investments required for the partnership, other than the mutual marketing cost and investments in customer relations of course,” the spokesman said.
He added that the company expects to see a “change towards clustering more payloads through Spaceflight and ISILaunch together, and create what we call ‘dedicated cluster launches’ on very small launch vehicles. This service will become available from 2012”.
