EIS Final Project A Wide Lens Perspective on SpaceX - Colin Barclay, Bruno Correa, Vijai Krishnan, Swaroop Kumar, James Valdes
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EIS Final Project A Wide Lens Perspective on SpaceX Colin Barclay, Bruno Correa, Vijai Krishnan, Swaroop Kumar, James Valdes
Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................... 4
Innovation Context ........................................................................................................................................ 5
The commercial space flight landscape from the 1980s to 2000 .............................................................. 5
Renewed impetus for moving from government to private players post-2000 .......................................... 5
The International Space Station (ISS) Program ..................................................................................... 5
Columbia ............................................................................................................................................... 6
George W. Bush’s space reboot ............................................................................................................ 6
SpaceShipOne ....................................................................................................................................... 7
Attitudes shift within NASA .................................................................................................................. 7
Elon Musk creates SpaceX in 2002 in response to changing market dynamics....................................... 7
A Wide Lens Perspective on SpaceX ........................................................................................................... 8
Ecosystem reconfiguration ........................................................................................................................ 8
Separate ................................................................................................................................................ 9
Combine ................................................................................................................................................ 9
Relocate .............................................................................................................................................. 10
Add ...................................................................................................................................................... 10
Subtract ............................................................................................................................................... 10
Minimum viable ecosystem and financing staged expansion ................................................................. 10
Value capture .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Lean management structure............................................................................................................... 12
Competitive cost structure ................................................................................................................. 13
Co-innovation with NASA .................................................................................................................... 14
Forward-looking design ...................................................................................................................... 14
Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................. 15
Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 16
Key private players in the commercial spaceflight market before SpaceX ............................................. 16
Boeing ................................................................................................................................................. 16
Lockheed Martin ................................................................................................................................. 16
Arianespace......................................................................................................................................... 16
Role of government and national players in the International Space Station ......................................... 16
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) .................................................................... 16
Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency .................................................................................. 16Canadian Space Agency (CSA) ............................................................................................................. 16
European Space Agency (ESA) ............................................................................................................ 17
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) ...................................................................................... 17
Additional Sources ...................................................................................................................................... 17Executive Summary In the early days of the modern Space Age, space travel was the exclusive purview of government agencies such as NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) or Roscosmos. NASA slowly began the move towards privatizing parts of the space program in the 1980s, with the enactment of the Commercial Space Launch Act. In the post-2000 period, NASA fundamentally rethought commercial space flight, driven by the impetus to retire the ageing Space Shuttle fleet while still being able to support its commitments to the International Space Station Program, all on an ever-shrinking budget. Key events that contributed to this turn towards privatization were the loss of the Columbia space shuttle, the George W. Bush administration’s general bias towards private industry over government, and the winning of the Ansari X-prize by SpaceShipOne. The last achievement provided proof positive that a private company, with sufficient funding, could single-handedly conquer the challenges of spaceflight. At the same time, existing private players such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, were not viewed as likely saviors in this movement towards privatization, as they had contributed to the problem of escalating cost of access to space during the course of the Space Shuttle program. Elon Musk, a serial entrepreneur, stepped into this void by promising highly cost competitive launch services, American owned and operated, to service NASA’s ISS obligations. Though he started the company in 2002, he waited until NASA initiated the creation of a minimum viable ecosystem through the creation of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Under the COTS umbrella, he reconfigured the existing ecosystem, adopted a strategy of staged expansion through innovative financial arrangements and captured value through a series of choices in the way SpaceX is organized and in the way it collaborates with NASA. In this paper, we provide the context for the innovation, followed by an examination of SpaceX’s strategy using a number of Wide Lens frameworks, namely Minimum Viable Ecosystem, Staged Expansion, Five Levers of Ecosystem Reconfiguration and Value Creation. We use these frameworks to determine how SpaceX, in just a short span of 10 years, became the first private company to design and launch a spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. The future looks bright for SpaceX, as it presses forward into additional expansion opportunities such as human spaceflight. From the beginning, Musk has stated that one of his goals is to be the first organization (public or private) to put a human on Mars. Given SpaceX’s success to date, Musk’s ambitions may not be as unattainable or fantastical as they seemed when he first prophesized the opportunity for private spaceflight and outlined SpaceX’s goals to dominate this nascent industry.
Innovation Context The commercial space flight landscape from the 1980s to 2000 The 1980s marked a turning point in the role of private spaceflight companies as the United States enacted the Commercial Space Launch Act, which allowed NASA to oversee the launch of commercial satellites, and later the Launch Services Purchase Act, which opened the possibility of NASA purchasing launch services from private contractors. Since then, other countries have followed a similar path of deregulation and privatization that has opened the door for growth throughout the private spaceflight industry. Over the past decade, private companies have become an integral part of space travel worldwide; private contractors now serve every size of government space organization, from NASA to the Malaysian government, in addition to large commercial (e.g. aerospace) customers. The companies with the most well-established presence in private spaceflight included Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Arianespace. Renewed impetus for moving from government to private players post-2000 NASA is one of the key contributors to the International Space Station (ISS) and its obligation to that program, coupled with three key events post-2000, resulted in a renewed impetus for moving routing space flight into the private sector. The International Space Station (ISS) Program Floating some 240 miles above Earth's surface, the ISS has hosted a rotating international crew since November 2000.The ISS Program is an international partnership of various national space agencies. The principal partners include space agencies of the US, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The Program combines international flight crews, launch vehicles, operations, training, research and development, and communications networks. Station components are launched from different countries and continents and are not often mated together until they reach orbit. The ISS is treated a lab in space where experiments in various sciences such as medicine, biology and geology are conducted. Extensive international collaboration went into the plan to implement a phased build out of the station – some future elements were not even built when prior elements were already in orbit. Operating the station is also a complex endeavor because each international partner has the primary responsibility to manage and run the hardware it provides. Partner contributions include construction facilities, launch support and process, mission ops and world class R&D. Continued operations require two kinds of high level logistics: ferrying material (Cargo resupply Services - CRS) and transporting humans (Commercial Crew Development – CCD). Until recently, this was done by the Shuttle program and also by the Russian rockets of Soyuz and Progress.
The various international agencies involved are detailed below. From the amounts of the
individual contributions, it would appear that NASA is a dominant partner. Additional information
on each of the players below can be found in the Appendix.
Agency Contribution so far Responsibilities
NASA ~$37B Overall management
Roscosmos Not available Crew & supply transport
Canada (CSA) $1.2B Robotics
Europe (ESA) $12B Columbus lab
Japan $10B Pressurized module
Table: Contributions from partners in the ISS program
Three critical events in the past decade caused NASA to rethink its way of doing business and
reconsider how to support its commitments to the ISS program.
Columbia
The February 2003 seven American astronauts died as the Columbia Shuttle disintegrated while
reentering earth’s atmosphere from space. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's final
report "found a NASA blinded by a 'Can Do' attitude, a cultural artifact of the Apollo era that was
inappropriate in a Space Shuttle program so strapped by schedule pressures and shortages
that space parts had to be cannibalized from one vehicle to launch another."
NASA's tight relationship with a small number of major contractors and its persistent problems
integrating political and legal demands with the need to maintain engineering excellence had
stressed the agency to the breaking point, the report said. The Board also concluded that
NASA's management system is unsafe to manage the shuttle system beyond the short term
and that the agency does not have a strong safety culture. As a result, the Board recommended
replacing the Shuttle as soon as possible as the primary means for transporting humans to and
from Earth orbit.1
George W. Bush’s space reboot
In January 2004, President George W. Bush decided to "reboot" the space program,
announcing his "Vision for Space Exploration" to go back to the moon and to eventually send
humans to Mars.
NASA estimated that to accomplish this vision it would have to roughly double its annual budget
of $19 billion yearly. Some critics questioned whether money will be found each year to finance
1
The Columbia Accident Investigation Board, “The CAIB Report,”
http://caib.nasa.gov/news/report/default.htmlPresident George W. Bush's vision of missions to the moon, Mars and beyond, given that federal ledgers were running at $300 billion to $400 billion of deficit spending each year.2 In order to meet financial obligations, the agency announced that it would reprioritize its investments. NASA announced space shuttle flights would be halted after about 2010, and NASA would backpedal US involvement in the space station later in that decade. The effort to develop an orbital space plane to deliver crews to ISS would be scrapped, as would NASA's work to push advanced technology for reusable launch vehicles. These cuts would save NASA $3 billion a year. SpaceShipOne In October 2004, engineer Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize. The rocket was the first privately built manned flying machine ever to reach space. SpaceShipOne incorporated three brand-new technologies. Perhaps the most exciting was the "feather re- entry," where the wings are angled -- adjusted pneumatically rather than electrically because electric systems are more prone to problems -- and the vehicle automatically turns over and rights itself for re-entry. Rutan's team also developed its own rocket technology, with much safer materials, and also developed a cabin that is not pressurized.3 Attitudes shift within NASA As a result of the Columbia tragedy, the impetus provided by George W. Bush’s administration, and the success of SpaceShipOne, NASA decided to focus on commercial alternatives to Space Shuttle replacement. In late 2005, then-agency Administrator Michael Griffin announced that NASA was considering buying crew and cargo transportation services to the International Space Station from private industry. "We believe," he said, "that when we engage the engine of competition, these services will be provided in a more cost-effective fashion than when the government has to do it," Griffin said.4 Elon Musk creates SpaceX in 2002 in response to changing market dynamics Elon Musk was a highly successful serial entrepreneur and Space exploration Technologies (SpaceX) was his third venture. Founded in 2002 with a $100 million investment from Musk, SpaceX aimed to develop and manufacture space launch vehicles and make a business out of inexpensively launching satellites into orbit. Shortly after founding SpaceX, he acquired a stake in Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial space program by the end of the decade. The technology SpaceX acquired from partnering with 2 “NASA Moon, Mars Missions Seen Gaining Funds Despite Fiscal Crunch” National Aeronautics & Space Administration, 6/26/2006 3 Alan Bock “A Vision in Flight,” Space Exploration 4 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519609,00.html
Surrey Satellite and testing for the U.S. Air Force were critical in helping them win the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract later in 2006. Musk aimed to develop an all-American option that will be price-competitive and break the duopoly of Lockheed and Boeing on contracts with the federal government.5 As of May 2012, SpaceX has operated on total funding of approximately $1 billion in its first ten years of operation. Of this, private equity has provided about $200M, with Musk investing approximately $100M and other investors having put in about $100M.6 The remainder has come from progress payments on long-term launch contracts and development contracts. NASA has put in about $400–500M of this amount, with most of that as progress payments on launch contracts.7 A Wide Lens Perspective on SpaceX With the context above, we examine the ecosystem strategy adopted by Elon Musk to push SpaceX to the forefront of the burgeoning field of commercial space exploration. Ecosystem reconfiguration Part of Space X’s success has also come from its decision to control the entire ecosystem of spaceflight, from launch services to the launch vehicles themselves. As Elon Musk puts it: “I do think it’s important to... ensure the whole system is done right.” Much in the way that companies like Better Place and Apple have tried to redefine an industry, SpaceX is pursuing a strategy of ecosystem reconfiguration in order to drive value and compete with the large incumbents, some of whom (e.g. Lockheed Martin and Boeing) have had relationships with NASA for decades. Consider the following diagram: 5 New York Times “A Bold Plan to Go Where Men Have Gone Before” – http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/business/yourmoney/05rocket.html?_r=0 6 https://www.secondmarket.com/company/spacex 7 All Things Digital – “Kevin Rose Interviews Elon Musk” CrunchBase – Elon Musk Bio - http://www.crunchbase.com/person/elon-musk
Relocate
Previously SpaceX
NASA pays for NASA pays for
equipment services
Separate Combine
Previously SpaceX New Blueprint: Previously SpaceX
Contractual Funding plus
streamlined process, Joint ventures Proprietary
agreements and milestone increased value and partnerships spacecraft and
lump sums payments launch vehicle
Add Subtract
Previously SpaceX Previously SpaceX
Internal Musk as CEO with
Space Shuttle Falcon V cost per
bureaucracy – engineering
cost per pound: pound:
engineers and background
$23k $1.3k
CEOs
The above diagram summarizes the ways in which SpaceX has taken advantage of the Five
Levers of Ecosystem Reconfiguration.
Separate
Previously, when NASA would partner with private companies for spaceflight services,
it was done on a contract basis. SpaceX (and, to be fair, the entire COTS program)
have separated the payment mechanism into separate components. Rather than
paying a lump sum, the COTS program allows NASA to award relatively small funding
distributions to private companies such as SpaceX, followed by milestone payments
for certain achievements. SpaceX has been able to take advantage of this program by
using those cash flows to finance its development – in essence, reducing its working
capital needs. [Note: The company’s financial model is also addressed in later
sections in this paper.]
Combine
Whereas many of the companies that submitted a proposal for the COTS program
were consortiums of companies that had separate areas of expertise (e.g. Boeing
elected to partner its Orbital Transfer Vehicle with launch services from Arianespace),
SpaceX was able to propose a bid that combined both a spacecraft (its Dragoncapsule) and proprietary launch services (Falcon 9 rocket). The combination of those
elements allowed the company to create additional efficiencies and drive value by
reducing costs and bureaucracy.
Relocate
In the past, NASA would pay contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed for equipment,
which they would in turn operate themselves. By anticipating that NASA would place
value not in equipment but in services and positioning SpaceX to capture that
opportunity, Musk has positioned the company to gain a foothold in the spaceflight
market.
Add
SpaceX has introduced technology that has drastically reduced the cost of orbital
launch systems. Musk testified before Congress that the cost per pound to orbit the
Falcon V rocket was $1,300, whereas the Space Shuttle cost per pound to orbit is
estimated at $23k. Furthermore, Musk believes that with future iterations of the
Falcon, it will be possible to attain a sub-$1,000 cost per pound to orbit – an
achievement Musk likens to the “four minute mile [of the space industry].”
Subtract
Because Musk comes from an engineering background and also holds the title of
CEO, SpaceX has eliminated the need for coordination between technical (engineers)
and non-technical (CEOs and other executives) employees, which has helped create a
streamlined process. In Musk’s words “Normally you have a chief engineer and a
CEO, and they're kind of different. In my case, it's the same, so I can simplify the
decision making, and I only need to convince myself whether the decision is correct.”
[Note: The company’s management structure is also addressed in later sections in this
paper.]
As Musk accurately states, controlling the system and reconfiguring it to SpaceX’s advantage
has allowed the company to make significant strides. It not only has allowed SpaceX to “do it
right;” it has also allowed the company to usurp powerful incumbents and achieve what no other
private company has ever been able to achieve. Furthermore, by positioning the company as a
central conduit of value for NASA, Musk has set the stage for future growth opportunities with
NASA, both through COTS and future private spaceflight and service opportunities.
Minimum viable ecosystem and financing staged expansion
Another key driver of SpaceX’s success is the way that it has sequenced its expansion and
financed growth to date.Financing timeline
Seed financing Series A Series C
($100M) ($20M) ($50M)
Series B • NASA funding ($500M)
($30M) • Private contracts ($300M)
Complete
Expansion Stage 3
?
Expansion Stage 2
CCDev
Value
Expansion Stage 1
Proposition Pilot demonstration Resupply missions to ISS
(First flight of Falcon 1 rocket)
MVE
(COTS)
Prototype
(Firing of Falcon 1 engines)
Limited
Trial Scale of Deployment Commercial
As the diagram above shows, SpaceX was strategic in the way that it has developed its
offerings to the market. The company’s financing timeline further reflects this staged expansion
strategy. When Musk founded SpaceX with $100M of his own money, he knew that there would
eventually be a market for private spaceflight – though when, he probably could not have said.
Accordingly, Musk capitalized the firm with enough money to allow it to develop its technology
and be ready to act when the opportunity presented itself. Within a year, as previously noted,
SpaceX had developed and tested its first prototype – the Falcon 1 engine. Over the next three
years, the company continued to make improvements, iterating rockets that were progressively
more powerful and less costly to operate. The Falcon V rocket, for instance, cost 1/3rd as much
to launch into orbit on a cost per pound basis than the original Falcon 1.
The company continued to make moderate gains throughout the development process,
surviving on its initial seed financing until there was an opportunity for rapid expansion. That
opportunity finally came to fruition in November 2005 when NASA announced the launch of the
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. With COTS, the market had
finally become a minimum viable ecosystem or MVE. Six months later, SpaceX completed its
first successful test flight of the Falcon 1 rocket, essentially announcing to the world that it was
ready to accelerate its growth. By the summer of 2006, SpaceX had secured $278M in
financing from NASA to further develop its launch systems and vehicles, and the race was on.In parallel, SpaceX began to capitalize the company according to its expansion opportunities and needs. Once there was a MVE, Musk began to approach outside capital sources in order to fuel the company’s growth and, over the next few years, SpaceX raised a total of an additional $100M in private equity. The company also began taking advantage of commercial opportunities to monetize its technology. For instance, in addition to relatively small-scale launch service contracts with ancillary spaceflight players such as the Malaysian government and the Swedish Space Corporation, SpaceX signed a $100M contract with the Pentagon – all of which included down payments that would contribute to SpaceX’s ongoing development. The biggest windfall, however, came in 2008 the form of a $1.6B contract from NASA to SpaceX for at least 12 resupply missions to the ISS. Clearly, the ecosystem was minimally viable enough to create the inflection point for which SpaceX and Musk had so patiently been waiting. Since reaching that inflection point, SpaceX has continued to build on its success to further fuel growth and development. Over the past two years, the company has achieved historic milestones that few would ever have thought possible at the company’s inception, including being the first private company to launch a spacecraft into orbit and recover it successfully, and being the first private company to successfully attach to the ISS, deliver supplies, and return to Earth. All of these achievements will inevitably lead to more financing, which will in turn lead to additional opportunities in the future. For instance, SpaceX is now also participating in a NASA program called Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) that will provide funding for private companies to develop spacecraft that can launch humans into orbit. SpaceX has already passed several rounds of elimination in that program and is considered to be one of the front- runners to ultimately launch privately-owned manned vehicles into space orbit. Value capture SpaceX captured value through four major initiatives – lean management structure, industry leading cost structures, co-innovation with NASA, and forward looking design. We explore each of these in more detail below. Lean management structure There were two key aspects to the lean management structure – initial startup equity structure and engineering/financial decision making. SpaceX was launched by Elon Musk with an initial investment of $100M. Since 100% of equity invested came from him, and he was the CEO from the start, Elon was able to create and implement strategy for the company without any delay. It is remarkable that SpaceX’s market advantage today was reflected in a vision statement released soon after the company was launched. "Satellites and spacecraft urgently need a more reliable and cost effective launch vehicle than the options available today. SpaceX is confident that our Falcon rocket will achieve that end in the near future," said Elon Musk in March 2003. In
over a year, SpaceX had just gone from a startup8 with no assets (except the $100M of capital)
to completing ground-up designing, building and testing of their engine – a rocket engine no
less!
The second part of his management structure had to do with Elon’s personal skillset. With
undergraduate degrees in Physics & Economics and experience of starting a highly successful
internet commerce company, Paypal, he was in the unique position of being in command of
both engineering and strategy. He was both the Chief Engineer and the Chief Executive Officer
of SpaceX. In another example9 of his quick decision making, Dan Rasky, a senior scientist from
NASA working on site at SpaceX, is asked by Elon Musk for his preferences for an important
design choice. On Dan giving his preferences, Elon immediately decides that that’s the way the
design choice will be made and the team is asked to execute on the plan. Dan Rasky compares
this to the process at NASA where such a key decision would have needed detailed studies and
committees before a final consensus would have been reached. Dan goes on to explain that the
quick decision-making was a dramatic difference from how NASA operated. The decision
making process ultimately provides some proof of why a startup from nowhere was able to bring
rocket launching services to market.
Competitive cost structure
The next key initiative was SpaceX’s focus on costs. Again, we see two main themes on how
costs were kept low. Reusability is the holy grail of space launch services. Right from the start,
SpaceX has focused on reusable rockets and clearly saw that as the key to reducing the cost
per pound of space launch services. Falcon 1, one of its early versions of satellite launchers10
was partially reusable and was 70% cheaper to launch than any of the competitors. They have
continued to move along the technology trajectory of reusability11 and moving towards both a
fully reusable launch vehicle (Falcon) and a capsule (Dragon). A fully reusable system is
expected to reduce turnaround from months to hours and reduce the cost per launch by a factor
of 100. The other key cost driver has been the concept of a vertically integrated company.
SpaceX believed that for a particularly complicated product that rockets are, there were
significantly reduced transaction costs by being a fully integrated company and not having to
deal with subcontractors – a common practice at NASA. In fact, SpaceX quantified that every $1
SpaceX12 contracted out, it faced a further $3-$4 of extra costs in overhead costs. If we actually
8
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=1
9
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/appel/ask/issues/40/40s_space-x.html
10
http://www.economist.com/node/2787812
11
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/rockets/elon-musk-on-spacexs-reusable-rocket-
plans-6653023
12
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/586023main_8-3-11_NAFCOM.pdfcompare SpaceX’s initial cost quotation, they were almost 50% cheaper13 than services
provided by their competitor ILS (International launch services).
Co-innovation with NASA
SpaceX has benefited from having NASA teams embedded alongside SpaceX development
teams. These Partner Integration Teams (PIT) have worked alongside SpaceX in an oversight
role and provided expertise that has helped to speed up the development cycle. Each “PIT
Crew” is made up of about 10 to 15 dedicated spaceflight experts, supported by 10s if not 100s
of system expert engineers, who are available to help SpaceX meet their established milestones
in developing commercial transportation capabilities.14
As stated by Jon Cowart, NASA's SpaceX partner manager, "Our NASA team brought years of
experience to the table and shared with SpaceX what components, systems, techniques and
processes have worked for the agency's human space transportation systems in the past and
why they've worked. This sharing of experience benefitted both NASA and the company, and is
creating a more dependable system at an accelerated pace." The schematic below outlines the
team structure that embeds NASA “PIT Crews” within SpaceX:
Forward-looking design
Lastly, we look at their strategy for technical excellence and how this resulted in forward-
thinking designs that allowed the company to remain competitive through additional NASA
funding rounds. For instance, SpaceX intended to compete for manned space launches from
the start. This approach worked both for SpaceX and NASA, as it reduced redesign costs
(converting from unmanned to manned), while providing a natural extension from supply
services to crew transport. Another aspect of the design was the early recognition of the
13
http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/prices-demand-and-spacex
14
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/ccdev2_pitcrew.htmlimportance of working with NASA. NASA served not only a key funding source, but the
collaboration also served as a signal of launch quality to the private industry.15
Conclusions
In a short span of 10 years, SpaceX has become the first private company to design and launch
a spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. The company achieved this
remarkable feat by waiting for NASA to prime the ecosystem via the Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) program, in response to a series of events including the
Columbia disaster, the Bush administration push for privatization, and the winning of the Ansari
X-Prize by SpaceShipOne.
The future looks bright for SpaceX, as it presses forward into additional expansion opportunities
such as human spaceflight. From the beginning, Musk has stated that one of his goals is to be
the first organization (public or private) to put a human on Mars. Given SpaceX’s success to
date, Musk’s ambitions may not be as unattainable or fantastical as they seemed when he first
prophesized the opportunity for private spaceflight and outlined SpaceX’s goals to dominate this
nascent industry.
15
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=29Appendix Key private players in the commercial spaceflight market before SpaceX Boeing Boeing is “the world’s largest aerospace company and a leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems.” The company is organized into two divisions – Commercial Airlines and Defense, Space & Security – the latter of which began working with the US government and NASA in 1996 to develop launch services (in partnership with Lockheed Martin). Lockheed Martin One of the world’s largest defense contractors, Lockheed Martin has defense, aerospace, security, and advanced technology business units. The company has strong ties to the US government (receives 85% of its revenue from US government contracts) and has partnered with Boeing on numerous occasions, most recently the United Launch Alliance which provides launch services to the United States. Arianespace Based in France, Arianespace is a private launch service company that serves a majority of both government and commercial payloads throughout Europe. Role of government and national players in the International Space Station National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NASA exercises management policies and analyzes all phase of the space station program. NASA's 2007 budget lists costs for the ISS (without Shuttle costs) as $25.6 billion for the years 1994 to 2005. For each of 2005 and 2006, about $1.7 to 1.8 billion are allocated to the ISS program. The annual expenses will increase until 2010 when they will reach $2.3 billion and should then stay at the same level, however inflation-adjusted, until 2016, the defined end of the program. Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos oversees all Russian human space flight activities. A considerable part of Roscosmos budget is used for the ISS. Since 1998 there have been over two dozen Soyuz and Progress flights, the primary crew and cargo transporters since 2003. The question of how much Russia spends on the station (measured in USD), is, however, not readily available. Canadian Space Agency (CSA) CSA provides the resources, equipment and expertise needed for the engineering and monitoring of the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) as well as crew training. CSA estimates that through the last 20 years it has contributed about C$1.4 billion to the ISS.
European Space Agency (ESA) The European contribution to the International Space Station comes from 10 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) and amounts to an 8% share in the program. It consists of a number of modules (primarily the Columbus laboratory) in the US segment, ATV supply ships, launchers, software and €9 billion over the life of the project. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) The development of the Japanese Experiment Module has cost ~$2.8 billion. In total, over the 24 year lifespan of the ISS, JAXA will contribute well over $10 billion to the ISS program. Additional Sources “Arianespace.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianespace. “Commercial Orbital Transportation Services.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Orbital_Transportation_Services. “Comparison of orbital launch systems.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_orbital_launch_systems. Boyle, Alan. “Private ventures vie to service space station.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927039/page/2/#.UJ1xg4cX-So. Musk, Elon. “Prepared Statement by Elon Musk at a Senate Hearing on Space Shuttle and the Future of Space Launch Vehicles.” http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=12774. “Orbital Sciences Corporation.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_Sciences_Corporation. “Rocketplane Kistler.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketplane_Kistler. Space Exploration Technologies. https://www.secondmarket.com/company/spacex. “SpaceX.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX. SpaceX press release. “SpaceX performs first rocket engine firing.” http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=1. “United Launch Alliance.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Launch_Alliance. Wayne, Leslie. “A Bold Plan to Go Where Men Have Gone Before.” New York Times February 5, 2006. Wells, Jane. “Elon Musk on Why SpaceX Has the Right Stuff to Win the Space Race.” http://www.cnbc.com/id/47207833.
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