While industry heavyweights such as Arianespace and International Launch Services (ILS) are facing increased competition from the emergence and re-emergence of SpaceX and Sea Launch, Gao Ruofei, Executive Vice President and General Legal Counsel of CGWIC, wants to add his company’s name to the list.

            Ruofei spoke with Satellite News about how CGWIC plans to shake things up in the international markets and boost its Long March rocket’s reputation as a viable, low-cost launch option.

 

Ruofei: China Great Wall is providing satellite in-orbit delivery services with Chinese built satellites and launchers to international customers. This year, we will launch a satellite for a European customer and will also deliver two Chinese built satellites to Asian and African customers. We expect that there will be more contracts coming from international customers in the near future.

To better explore and support our cooperation with the potential and existing customers worldwide, China Great Wall is planning to establish an overseas sales network, covering the major continents. As of today, our representative offices in France, Russia and Nigeria have been put into operation. This year, we will reopen our representative office in Washington, D.C. and more offices are expected to be set-up outside of China in the future. We will continue our commitments to serve international customers.

 

Ruofei: Yes, we have. We hope to see breakthroughs after more than a decade of unfair treatment, but we are not sure if and when the ITAR restriction on launching U.S.-built satellites or satellites with U.S. controlled components to be launched on Long March will be lifted. We welcome the ongoing export control reform promoted by the U.S. government, which is beneficial to the development of the industry and U.S. economy. We would like to see what would happen next. We are still confident that more customers will choose Long March in the near future.

 

Ruofei: If China Great Wall can compete fairly, without any political obstacles in the market, we would bring benefits to the market with our reliable and cost-effective services.

A new player in the market needs to prove itself with more commercial launches before being a strong player. People are also wondering whether the price currently offered can sustain them in the market. From the perspective of operators, price is only one of the factors when they select launch services. They also focus on reliability and track record. The reliability and schedule flexibility of Long March has already been demonstrated by its good launch track record and recognized by the customers, not through the aggressive marketing efforts. We are not afraid of fair competition.

 

Ruofei: The current price of launch services is the reflection of market situation. The satellite operators are crying out for more access to space. There are virtually two major launch services providers available in the commercial launch market, and both are very busy receiving more and more orders and launching more and more satellites. A new entrant will take years to prove itself in the market, while another launch services provider just came back to market and has not recovered yet. Long March is a reliable alternative, but not accessible to many operators due to restrictions imposed more than a decade ago. So it is obviously still a duopoly, in which you can hardly expect price to go down significantly. Two is not enough and there should be more players in the market.

First, a duopoly cannot fully meet the market demand in terms of launch opportunities and the price is high from the perspective of operators. Second, only two launch services providers available are risky to the industry. In case that either of them suffers a failure or a serious anomaly, there will be a negative impact and shortage in market supply. So duopoly is not in the interest of operators. This duopoly has contributed to the high price in the market.

Ruofei: We are hoping to be a more active player in the commercial launch market and we do not expect to see significant changes for pricing under the current market situation. There could be more players in the commercial market, pending on the performances of new launch vehicles.