Intospace a European industrial initiative to commercialise space

October 11, 2017 | Autor: J. von der Lippe | Categoria: Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Acta Astronautica
Share Embed


Descrição do Produto

Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648 www.elsevier.com/locate/actaastro

Intospace a European industrial initiative to commercialise space A critical analysis of commercial business from Spacelab to ISS Juergen K. von der Lippea,∗ , Heinz J. Sprengerb a vdlconsult, Richard-Wagner-Str. 9, D 30177 Hannover, Germany b ex. Intospace, Postweg 78, D 81827 Munich, Germany

Abstract Intospace, founded in 1985, was the response to the government’s request to provide evidence to the industrial promises of commercial utilisation of space systems such as Spacelab and the already planned space station. The company was set up with an exceptional structure comprising 95 shareholders from all over western Europe from space and non-space industry and financial institutes. The companies joined as shareholders and committed beyond the basic capital to cover financial losses up to a given limit allowing the company to invest in market development. Compared to other commercial initiatives in the European space scenario the product that Intospace was supposed to offer, was without doubt the most demanding one regarding its market prospects. The primary product of Intospace was to provide services to commercial customers for using microgravity for research and production in space. This was based on the assumption that an effective operational infrastructure with frequent flights of Spacelab and Eureca would be available leading finally to the space station with Columbus. A further assumption had been that basic research projects of the agencies would provide sufficient data as a basis for commercial project planning. The conflict with these assumptions is best illustrated by the fact that the lifetime of Intospace is framed by the two shuttle disasters, the Challenger accident a couple of months after foundation of Intospace and the Columbia accident with Spacehab on board leading to liquidation of the company. The paper will present the background behind the foundation of the Intospace initiative, describe the objectives and major strategic steps to develop the market. © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. General analysis of Intospace approach ∗ Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.K. von der Lippe), [email protected] (H.J. Sprenger). 0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2005.03.003

Intospace received a specific assignment which was born out of the Spacelab programme with its high

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

expectations of making use of microgravity for industrial purposes.

643

• the image of spaceflight would be an additional bonus to attract investment of industry in PR and for marketing of advanced products, • modified conditions for industry access could be established that would lead to substantial lowering of investment barriers for industrial customers (costs, lead time, user friendliness), • agencies would readily support private activities of strategy definition, market development and implementation of industry-operated projects including flights and pay load operation, • the marketing capabilities of a private company should by far exceed the possibilities of bureaucratic agencies, and of space companies which were only familiar with public customers (i.e. the space agencies). The experience of more than 17 years of Intospace in dealing with the needs and business rules of industry has, however, shown that only a small part of these preconditions were actually met.

Early optimism to start with The task assigned was laid down in the company’s articles of association: To promote, initiate, and support space activities such as research, development and commercial production tasks to be carried out in space, as well as to render assistance and consultancy with respect to such space activities. This task can be translated into the original intention of Intospace which was the acquisition of industrial customers for the use of space infrastructure for research and development. In the year 1985 the founding shareholders of Intospace and the agencies were convinced that • possible benefits from the utilisation of the weightless environment of space would be sufficient to attract industrial customers for doing research in space, • space agencies would conduct extensive research missions generating high class scientific results from research under microgravity, • results of experiments could directly be used for the design of new products or for the improvement of existing products, resulting in calculable market advantages,

2. Experience achieved 2.1. Impediments of industry for space utilisation The main reasons for the limited interest of industry were thought to be the lack of knowledge about microgravity advantages and the high cost related to space flight. Therefore, information activities about possible commercial advantages and definition of inexpensive and shortly available flight opportunities were the major activities carried out by Intospace in the early phase. This was accompanied by the preparation of their own projects on research topics (protein crystallisation, zeolite catalysts, high-temperature superconductors, etc.) which were subject of intensive ground research and for which the contribution of targeted space experiments would lead to substantial added value to compensate for financial investment of industry. These activities were supported by some space agencies since their own programs were directed towards long-term utilisation of manned spaceflight and finally the International Space Station. Insofar the Intospace market development projects on unmanned carriers were considered as important contribution to

644

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

strengthen the public support for the construction and useful utilisation of large-scale space infrastructures. These smaller space projects were indeed attractive for industry and showed the participation of a number of leading companies involved in materials production, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc. Since the scientific results did not meet the industrial expectations the interest for participation of industry in such missions was quickly declining. 2.2. Scientific value of microgravity and its potential for industry It was shown that the Intospace projects did produce scientific results comparable to those achieved in the experiments organised by the agencies. On the other hand, however, the results only in exceptional cases were beyond the standard achieved in sophisticated laboratory equipment. This was the reason why the evaluation of world-wide available results of microgravity had to become one of the important tasks of Intospace. Therefore, attempts were made to identify and to quantify scientific advantages that might be considered to bring calculable benefits for industry. These efforts, carried together with leading experts in their fields, belonged to the most difficult tasks that were taken into account. Careful examination of application possibilities of microgravity research for industry finally led to the conclusion that no promising example for which industry might show interest could be identified from the past and ongoing research activities. This was in line with the analysis of the industrial research scene which had changed significantly in the early 1990s. Whereas in earlier periods large companies had their own research departments dedicated to fundamental research the situation changed towards product-oriented development and outsourcing of basic scientific activities to public laboratories and academia. This change was supported by the funding policy of the European Commission setting its priorities to industry-driven research networks with the objective to support development of marketable products. The scientists working in the space agency programs were, however, not in favour of such policy and continuously emphasised the basic character of microgravity research, in line with the scientific evaluation criteria set by the agencies. In order to achieve

high ranking of their proposals the scientific experiments were dedicated towards the collection of basic research data, which turned out not to be attractive for the solution of industrial problems. The thorough analysis of microgravity results achieved in the different disciplines together with representatives of industrial research laboratories showed only very limited advantages for industrial product development. Therefore it was and still is an indispensable task of the agencies to generate by its scientific programmes those data that would be needed for industrial application and which might be able to attract industry investment in the field of R&D. It is doubtful whether this goal will be achieved in the nearer future because of two reasons: (1) Nature may dictate that the influence of gravity on the collection of meaningful data is so small that the benefits from microgravity research for industrial products or processes are negligible. (2) It appears that the access rules of agencies for application-oriented and/or industry-driven research remain unchanged, i.e. they are not competitive with terrestrial opportunities. 2.3. Implementation of industry-orientated market development The strategic approach of Intospace for market development toward the industrial utilisation of space was well accepted by the major players (agencies, space companies, shareholders and research groups) in the field of microgravity research.

Photon ready for launch, an alternative to Spacelab

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

The original concept to make the utilisation affordable to industrial customers through inexpensive flight opportunities was successful for a short period only because the results were not spectacular enough to attract a broader industrial interest. The expectation to achieve a kind of “breakthrough” in areas of high industry potential (protein crystallography, catalysts, high-temperature superconductors) was not fulfilled due to only marginal improvement of data from space and due to the failures which were observed in flight experiments. A further drawback of the programmes was their strict orientation towards space and the lack of microgravity research to match the requirements of actual terrestrial research. Microgravity has never reached the status of being a real “tool for research” and the “added value” for applied research is still doubtful. Therefore Intospace has made a number of attempts to promote the development of a suitable strategic approach. It is now generally accepted that for successful implementation the microgravity activities have to be part of a larger terrestrial research programme. Unfortunately, the Intospace activities were supported by the agencies and backed by the space industry only at the initial phase. This phase mostly had to be restricted to the establishment of industry/university networks and the definition of research objectives including the use of microgravity. Attempts to generate and to manage industry-driven projects achieved only little support by the agencies when they were directed towards the preparation of flight experiments. Since the flight opportunities were still under control of the agencies they continued to determine the access rules (price, peer-review, safety, etc.) which were extremely unfavourable for private space activities. Finally, because of the political pressure to justify the high amount of public investment into manned space flight, the agencies developed their own activities (Commercial Agents, MAP Programme, etc.) that were even in competition to private attempts, such as initiated by Intospace. Proposals for getting financial support for industrial market development frequently resulted in take-over of the presented ideas and strategies by the agencies themselves. This attitude consequently resulted in the financial dry-out and decline of Intospace in the past years.

645

3. Alternatives to improve the income situation The original goal of the Intospace founding fathers to achieve sufficient income from non-agency-funded projects in the area of R&D was never achieved. During the past 17 years the main funding came through Space Agencies (ESA, DARA/DLR, CNES) which gave support for strategy development, establishment of industrial research networks and identification of industrial demands of industry for space utilisation. Further contributions came from the European Commission (studies and partner in projects) which was interested in the implementation of space utilisation, including microgravity into their own R&D activities. Intospace attempted to verify the concept as partner in different EC Framework projects which revealed, however, the incompatibility with the boundary conditions of ESA.

Blood Pressure Instrument on board the ISS Commercial instrument sponsored by BOSCH & SOHN GmbH & Co. The implementation of the developed marketing strategies for agencies and space industry on private base failed since the financial investment of industry was by far not sufficient to cover the expenses of Intospace. This was already visible in the early phase of the Market Development Projects and continued during the initiation of microgravity projects with industry-university networks which had to be partly

646

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

supported by public financing. Because no more financial support was provided according to the rules set by ESA for Pathfinder Project development, other approaches were developed to generate additional income from industry sources. The idea was to combine scientific investigation with marketing and public relation activities of industry. After careful examination of possibilities and discussions with industrial representatives (high management level and research directors) two major fields were identified: • sponsoring of ISS research by industry, • use of high-standard (off-the-shelf) industrial research equipment in space. 3.1. Research sponsoring Based on the success of research sponsoring for terrestrial research in which large companies identify themselves as supporters of technical development by funding of advanced research projects and investment into university campuses it was assumed that financial support of ISS research activities would be similarly attractive. It turned out that this concept might be realistic but it was also apparent that for successful implementation the Space Infrastructure (in particular the ISS) has to be better visible, e.g. in the media, to take full benefit from such an engagement. This will certainly be the case only when the European research module will be part of the ISS and the regular information about ongoing research will allow the industrial sponsors to benefit from television, internet or newspaper reporting. It was therefore concluded that sponsoring of high-quality scientific and applied research would rather be a subject for medium-term activities, but could not immediately be considered to achieve income from private financial contributions.

to limit the cost for qualification procedures to a minimum, mainly because the budgets of SMEs for investment are limited to a financial volume about an order of magnitude smaller than current expenses for space qualification. A recent example (blood measurement device) showed that the concept for the approach is realistic. Further bonus of the approach is that it is also of advantage for the agencies which could save substantial cost for scientific utilisation which was demonstrated in business plans submitted to ESA. But again, some hesitation has been observed in testing the new concept by utilisation for scientists during Russian flights in the present year. And, in addition, the recent Columbia shuttle accident has slowed down the intended straight-forward approach. It should be mentioned that the concept implies different steps of complexity for qualification and financial investment so that for realisation the use of agencies as first paying customer is required. 3.3. Sales of flight opportunities Starting with Spacelab and Texus Flight sales to the Japanese industry represented by Space Technology Corporation (STC) with the very successful utilisation of Spacelab D2 mission, resources procured from DLR. Besides the smaller sales of resources from Eureca and MIR the most successful sales had been Spacehab for which Intospace received the exclusive marketing rights for Europe. A total sales of Spacehab services, worth 26 Mio $, had been achieved through the Intospacehab joint customer support office in Leiden, The Netherlands.

3.2. Industrial research equipment on ISS A more promising approach was to promote the use of industrial equipment of latest technology for scientific use onboard the ISS in order to use spaceflight as a promotional tool for terrestrial sales. Within a short time a number of companies were identified which were interested to demonstrate the capability of their instruments through utilisation on the ISS. Interested industry is mainly coming from small and medium sized enterprises (SME). This concept would require

Spacehab Single Module

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

3.4. Non-research projects With the start of the ISS operation the resources and services for sale expanded beyond the use of microgravity with utilisation of the media attractiveness of the ISS. It was realised that this “product” could be offered in connection with research activities, hightech product presentation or selfstanding PR-activities. Since these activities are even more demanding regarding the commercial requirements by industry, the conflict with the present agency boundary conditions were a serious obstacle. 4. Assessment of agency boundary conditions The promotion of the industrial utilisation of space was, from the beginning of the Spacelab utilisation onwards, a major goal of the agencies. A strong involvement of European industrial partners was observed in the Spacelab Missions FSLP (SL1), Dl and D2 (e.g. MAN, Krupp, Thyssen, Roussel–Uclaf, RhônePoulenc, Wacker, Japanese semiconductor companies) which led to the impression that financial investment would be a matter of time and costs only. The strong public support of national agencies and ministries for the preparation activities of those missions and the generous provision of free “flight tickets” for experiments prevented any consideration for a realistic evaluation of industrial interest.

Cosima accommodation for Photon The experience gained from the Market Development Projects (COSIMA, CASIMIR) clearly showed that industry involvement in space missions presently can only be expected if preparation activities are

647

covered by the work that is outsourced to research laboratories which are financed by public money. This funding can either come from space agencies combined with grants from non-space research programmes, such as the EC Framework programmes or similar national research programmes. This was a main conclusion which led to the described Intospace strategies and activities with the objective to initiate and manage industry/university networks. The agencies principally agreed to follow such an approach, but surprisingly, they also showed a strong tendency to take over full control of the activities once the projects or proposals had come to a state in which the necessary flight activities had to be prepared. According to their self-understanding the agencies gave the impression to be the one and only authority who were capable to bring industrial research experiments to fly. This attitude was expressed in almost all cases in which Intospace made attempts to implement flight projects designed and managed by industry itself. 5. Recommendations The long-term co-operation of Intospace with agencies has shown that the experience gained in many discussions and co-operative projects with the industry would have to be transformed into a generally accepted strategy which combines the interests of the agencies and the requirements of the potential user industry. In our opinion this would mean that agency programmes aiming at the promotion of industry as users of the ISS in the field of R&D have to be strongly orientated towards the demand of possible private users and should consider the management of those programmes by a private user organisation. Since such an approach would require the development of an ISS user market these programmes have to be carried out through support of a specific market development programme in which both sides, the agencies and the users would learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the present access conditions in exemplified projects. A promising utilisation promotion programme, borne together by ESA and the different National Agencies, has to consider the major drawbacks that have been identified in studies of the past years: • The agencies have to accept that presently available microgravity data are not sufficient to attract indus-

648

J.K. von der Lippe, H.J. Sprenger / Acta Astronautica 57 (2005) 642 – 648

trial users for ISS utilisation. Therefore the microgravity utilisation should be better focused on the creation of those data. • The access conditions for industrial users presently range between “free ticket” and take-over of full utilisation cost. The business plan required by ESA for evaluation of proposals would have to be based on more realistic assumptions which make a possible return better calculable. • Since possible returns for improvement or new development of industrial products by research on the ISS are not visible yet, the approach proposed by Intospace to combine R&D with marketing and PR activities should be considered as a first step of a meaningful market development programme. Such a programme currently is not under consideration by the agencies. It is self-evident that such a programme cannot be managed by the agencies alone and therefore has to be subcontracted to an experienced private entity. 6. Summary and outlook Intospace continuously has been trying to identify the demands and needs of industry for their potential interest for the use of microgravity and, in particular for the ISS. The agencies primarily have supported those activities to learn about the possible needs in order to restructure their own programmes in order to make the space infrastructure more attractive for potential private customers.

Unfortunately, almost no change was observed in the attitude of agencies to really implement the experience in a programmatic manner. After the termination of Intospace activities no organisation will be available which is capable to talk to industry in their language about their interests and needs—which are dedicated to broad and private markets, in contrast to space industry which has only one customer: the agency. The industrial structure of Intospace with a large number of shareholders from private industry and finance institutes from nine European countries and the USA provided a fairly independent organisation dedicated to its task to serve the industry offering economical access to space infrastructure. Intospace has attempted to achieve success by strategy definition and implementation of projects. It turned out, however, that at the phase of individual project implementation strong competitors were appearing (agencies and space companies) which quickly tried to take over the ideas and to use the proposed approach for their own short-term benefit. It showed that space industry missed to continue talking with possible customers from non-space industry, and that the agencies had difficulties in optimising their programmes to meet the demands of industrial customers. But exactly this capability together with financial support of market development would be a key element for the successful promotion of private ISS utilisation. It is hoped that, in spite of the dissolution of Intospace—formed by the consideration that space promotion tasks have to be performed by an experienced independent private organisation—the utilisation of the ISS by industry will materialise.

Lihat lebih banyak...

Comentários

Copyright © 2017 DADOSPDF Inc.