Blast-Off For Profits

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As it thundered into space last week, the tall, slender rocket looked like hundreds of satellite boosters launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Despite a drizzling rain, the blast-off put a marine observation satellite into orbit without a hitch. The launch pad, though, was not in California or Florida. It was on Tanegashima Island, and the rocket bore on its side, in prominent black letters, a single word: NIPPON.

Japan has joined a host of other nations that are striving to enter a fiercely competitive new space race. After the U.S. shuttle program was grounded last year by the Challenger tragedy, NASA ceased to be the world's principal carrier of commercial space cargo. Following President Reagan's announcement in August that future U.S. shuttle flights would carry few commercial payloads, space agencies from Peking to Paris have been hustling for their share of a world satellite-launching business that could be worth $2 billion to $5 billion annually.

Dozens of NASA clients have been forced to shop around for other launchers. Among the more than 150 scheduled payloads left grounded by the U.S. space agency were satellites owned by GTE-Spacenet, RCA and Western Union, and by communications services in Canada, Britain and Indonesia. Many companies turned to Arianespace, the French-led European space consortium, which quickly booked all its flights through 1989. But the European concern could not take on all of NASA's customers, partly because it can handle only about ten lift- offs a year at its launch pads in the jungles of French Guiana.

The rush then began among fledgling launchers to help clear the world cargo backlog and carve out a piece of future business. In the U.S., aerospace giants Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics, all longtime manufacturers of the rockets used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, are determined to capture a share of the new market. Space agencies in the Soviet Union and China as well as Japan are also gearing up to provide launching services.

Martin Marietta, which produces Titan-class rockets for the Air Force, was the first U.S. firm to sign up a client. It plans to launch an ExpressStar communications satellite for Federal Express in 1989. Says Richard Brackeen, a vice president in charge of launch systems for Martin Marietta Aerospace: "The private launching business could be the next widebody jet business." +

In January, McDonnell Douglas hitched a ride into the space race when the Air Force awarded it a $734 million contract. The firm will build a fleet of up to 20 unmanned rockets by 1991 to launch military satellites. While that work is under way, it will be relatively cheap for McDonnell Douglas to build additional rockets to haul commercial payloads.

Much smaller U.S. operators are also reaching for the skies. Robert Truax, a former Navy engineer, built a rocket in his Saratoga, Calif., backyard four years ago, and hopes to be the first private businessman to launch commercial cargo into space, possibly from Cape Canaveral. Entrepreneur George Koopman's Menlo Park, Calif., firm, American Rocket, is conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Like Truax, Koopman says the hardest part about starting a space-transport firm is raising enough money. Says he: "I'm still out there beating the bushes for funds."