science

International Launch Services

International Launch Services is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand International Launch Services rather than just read about it. In short: International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services.

Key takeaways

International Launch Services belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect International Launch Services to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of International Launch Services from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services. Proton launches take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan while Angara is launched from the Plesetsk and Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia.

Ownership ILS was formed in 1995 as a private spaceflight partnership between Lockheed Martin (LM), Khrunichev and Energia. ILS initially co-marketed non-military launches on both the American Atlas and the Russian Proton expendable launch vehicles. With the Atlas V launch of the SES Astra 1KR satellite on 20 April 2006, ILS had made 100 launches, 97 of which were successful. In September 2006, Lockheed-Martin announced its intention to sell its ownership interests in Lockheed Khrunichev Energia International, Inc. (LKEI) and International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) to Space Transport Inc. Space Transport Inc. was formed specifically for this transaction by Mario Lemme, who has been a consultant to ILS since its inception and a board member for more than three years. The transaction between Lockheed Martin and Space Transport Inc. completed in October 2006. Lockheed Martin has retained all rights related to marketing the commercial Atlas vehicle and is continuing to offer Atlas launch services to the worldwide commercial market through its subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, Inc. (LMCLS). ILS, no longer affiliated with Lockheed Martin, continued to market the Proton launch vehicles to commercial clients. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. All Atlas V launches are now managed by United Launch Alliance, a joint-venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing (IDS/Defense, Space & Security/Launch Services) formed in December 2006, with all commercial Atlas V launches sub-contracted for ULA by LMCLS. In October 2006, Krunichev spokesman said that the firm was ready to buy the stake being sold by Lockheed Martin. Russian space agency spokesman said that despite that Lockheed is selling its stake to Space Transport, Khrunichev may eventually end up owning it. He expressed the desire of the Russian side to increase its presence in the joint venture. Space Transport Inc, registered in the British Virgin Islands and headquartered in Moscow, denied that it would be selling the stake. In May 2008, Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a Russian company, acquired all of Space Transport's interest and is now the majority shareholder in ILS. ILS will remain an American company and headquarters are currently in Reston, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. where approximately 60 employees are based. In April 2019, Glavkosmos and ILS announced that they will be working closer together in the future, in order to bring "pricing squarely in line with our customer's needs..." and to jointly work on solutions that facilitate "...better products, more services [...] and a capability to implement a broader and more flexible set of strategic launch agreements...". ILS' ownership structure remains unchanged and it continues to act independently as an American corporation. Any future change contemplated to change ILS' ownership structure, in place since 2008, would be subject to regulatory approvals.

Proton launches

In May 2008, ILS had a backlog of 22 orders, totaling approximately US$2 billion, and had flown 45 commercial Proton missions since 1996. By June 2009, the backlog had grown to 24 firm missions. The 50th ILS Proton launch took place in early 2009. In January 2014, ILS had an order book of 14 launches worth more than US$1 billion, with up to 6 launches planned for 2014. Most Proton payloads are too massive to launch with the less powerful Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket, and there were no spare Ariane 5 launch opportunities, so Proton customers cannot easily switch to other launchers. However, as of 2018, the Proton rockets had a very low launch rate with no commercial launches in 2018 and two commercial launches in 2019 due to multiple factors including the emergence of new commercial launch providers like SpaceX and a spate of Proton/Breeze M launch failures. In the last few years, most launch contracts for large commercial geostationary satellites — which have declined overall as more operators look at smaller spacecraft sizes — have gone to SpaceX and Arianespace. Proton flew its last scheduled commercial mission on 9 October 2019, delivering Eutelsat 5 West B and MEV-1 to geostationary orbit.

Atlas launches After October 2006, ILS focused solely on the Proton launch vehicle, so no longer offered Atlas launches. The first Atlas launch was the Atlas IIAS Intelsat 704 launch on 10 January 1995 and the last was the Atlas V Astra 1KR launch on 20 April 2006.

Angara launches ILS began marketing the Angara rocket to commercial customers in July 2015. The company's first commercial Angara mission is expected to launch in no earlier than 2023 carrying Kompsat 6, an Earth observation satellite operated by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, but the satellite is now planned to be launched by the Vega-C launch vehicle.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with International Launch Services

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what International Launch Services claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to International Launch Services before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about International Launch Services ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of International Launch Services

In research: International Launch Services appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses International Launch Services in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: International Launch Services is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1995 establishments in Virginia, Commercial launch service providers, Companies based in Reston, Virginia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for International Launch Services outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study International Launch Services in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what International Launch Services means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain International Launch Services out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is International Launch Services in simple terms?

International Launch Services, Inc. (ILS) is a joint venture with exclusive rights to the worldwide sale of commercial Angara and Proton rocket launch services.

Why does International Launch Services matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study International Launch Services?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on International Launch Services.