RUSSIA IS LOSING ITS SPACE LAUNCH EDGE: As well it should.

Russia is trying to adapt to its reduced presence in space. While Russia still spends about $1.6 billion a year on its space program, even that is a financial strain. Most (62 percent) of that goes towards building and maintaining its military satellites, which comprise the majority of their 160 satellites in orbit. Most of the rest went to maintaining 27 GLONASS satellites, the Russian version of GPS. Another $100 million is for maintaining the military satellite launch center at Plesetsk with the remainder going to other ground-based space facilities.

One aspect of the decline became obvious back in early 2018 when Russia confirmed the obvious and admitted they had lost their huge market share of commercial satellite launches. As recently as 2013 Russia had half that market. Five years later their market share had fallen to about ten percent and Russian showed no signs of regaining their dominance and now expects their share of the commercial market to sink to as low as four percent.

Jim Dunnigan wrote this post. It’s packed with technical observations, but provides excellent background for understanding the current space race. He compares SpaceX’s reusable launchers to fracking, an “unexpected new American technology that drove down the world price of Russians’ main export; oil and natural gas.” He also points out America’s real space competitor is China.