# A Brazilian Space Launch System for the Small Satellite Market
## 1 Introduction
The industrial sector and academia complete the system. For decades, the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have been cooperating in many space-related activities. DLR-Moraba, for instance, is investigating hypersonic flight techniques through re-entry vehicles launched from sounding rockets developed in Brazil. The program has already conducted two experiments, SHEFEX-1 and SHEFEX-2 [4], based on different launching platforms. The launch system for SHEFEX-2 was a two-stage sounding rocket, comprised of an S-40 and an S-44 solid rocket engines designed by IAE-Brazil. For a potential SHEFEX-3 experiment, Moraba partnered with IAE-Brazil to support the development of a novel three-stage vehicle with increased payload capacity. It has been decided that Brazil would develop a new solid rocket engine, named S-50, to perform as the first and second stages of the improved launch system. The new launch vehicle would also rely on an S-44 engine for the upper-stage, the same used in the SHEFEX-2 experiment. In this configuration, the launch system would be capable of placing small payloads into low Earth near-equatorial orbits. The launch system was then named VLM-1 (Microstellite Launch Vehicle). The ongoing National Program of Space Activities points IAE-Brazil as the prime contractor to develop the VLM-1 launcher. Figure 3 shows the micro-satellite launcher for orbital missions (A) and its sub-orbital version (B) as claimed by the SHEFEX-3 experiment. In the basic configuration, the launch vehicle has, approximately, 18 m of length, 1.4 m in diameter and 26 tons of total weight. The S-50 rocket motor was designed to have about 11,100 kg of propellant, 440 kN of average thrust, 266 s of sea level specific impulse. The S-44 solid rocket motor has about 800 kg of propellant, 38 kN of average thrust, 277 s of vacuum specific impulse. The S-50 motor is scheduled to have qualification tests within 2019-2021 period, whereas the S-44 motor is already qualified. In this configuration, the launch vehicle has a payload mass capacity of about 50 kg, for a 500 km altitude polar mission. For low-inclined orbits, the payload capacity increases to about 150 kg. Based on these mass figures, the specific transportation cost of VLM-1 would be over US$100,000.00 per kilogram of payload inserted in high inclined orbits. From a commercial point of view, this high specific transportation cost resulted in serious concerns about the vehicle's market penetration. Therefore, the Brazilian Space Agency and the MORABA team from DLR (Germany) conducted independent studies to enhance the performance of the VLM-1 launch system.  
Figure 2: Percentage of cubesats inserted in orbit as a function of launch vehicle [2].  
Besides increasing vehicle performance, the Brazilian team also investigated the costs of development and operation of selected launch vehicle configurations based on the VLM-1 platform.  
A survey of the literature showed that very few journal articles pay attention to cost analysis in the creation of future launch systems for the satellite market [5]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6], who addressed key aspects of the Vega launch system development plan, estimated the launch price of 18.5 ME (as in 1999) for one metric ton of payload mass, inserted in a circular polar orbit at 700 km of altitude. No detailed information, though, was given on cost assessment for the proposed launch system. The launch price for the Vega rocket weeks before the maiden flight was estimated at about 32 million euros [7]. Corrected for inflation, the estimated launch price of 1999 would be approximately 24.5 ME in 2012 and 26 ME in 2019. These figures are clearly much higher than the reported estimates of [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6]. Vega payload lift capability is 1430 kg for 700 km polar circular orbit insertion. The launch system can, therefore, place small to medium sized payload mass with a specific transportation cost of about 19,000 US$/kg of payload. More recently, [PERSON] et al.