[Satellite News – 3-20-08] Boeing Launch Services could take up the slack if Russia’s Proton rocket is grounded for an extended period following the March 15 failure of a mission for International Launch Services (ILS), a Boeing executive said.
    Ken Heinly, president of Boeing Launch Services, said the Delta 4 could now be “an attractive choice” for customers that can neither afford to wait until the Proton returns to flight nor find a slot with another commercial launch provider.
    “We talked last year in Paris right after the September Proton failure about the additional strain that would put on the already full launch manifests,” Heinly said. “Our situation has not changed significantly since then. We still have some commercial Delta launch slots available in late 2009, both for Delta 2s and for Delta 4. Although our pricing may not be competitive with the major commercial launch providers, our reliability is second to none. Delta 2 just had its 80th consecutive successful launch and Delta 4 has a 100 percent success rate with eight out of eight. I would think Delta would be an attractive choice for some users who absolutely want the best possible chance of getting their spacecraft successfully launched.”
    With both Sea Launch and ILS suffering launch failures in the last 15 months, customers have seen that access to space can be a tricky proposition. “It may be a more uncertain period for the users than the launch providers as they see manifest changing and available launch slots becoming even more scarce,” Heinly said. “I am thinking the near-term future is to some extent in the hands of the users. There is additional launch capacity out there. Certainly the Delta launch vehicles are an example. They need to decide if they are willing to pay the premium to get the reliable Delta rockets into the mix.”
    But before customers can even look at the potential price of a Delta 4 launch, Boeing will need to make itself more visible in the market, Heinly said. “I was recently at the SATELLITE 2008 conference in Washington D.C.,” he said. “In one of the panel discussions of launch procurers, when they discussed the list of available launchers, Delta wasn’t even mentioned.  So we still need to work on that.”