# A Brazilian Space Launch System for the Small Satellite Market
## 1 Introduction
[8] presented a hybrid novel tool for space system cost analysis. The proposed model is based on subsystem level development costs estimates, proposed by the authors, in combination with operation cost correlations from the TRANSCOST model. Manufacturing cost predictions were compared to three launch system, a sounding rocket (Maxus 9), Falcon-1 and Pegasus XL. Price per flight estimations were conducted for Falcon 1 and Pegasus XL. Overall, the accuracy of the proposed hybrid model was within 20% for both manufacturing and operation costs. In a recent review, [PERSON] and colleagues [9] listed a series of launch vehicles designed for the small satellite market. The reported specific transportation cost for those vehicles ranged from about 20 to 67 thousand US dollars per kilogram of payload. The authors inferred specific transportation cost after dividing the reported cost of the vehicle by its payload capacity delivered at some reference orbit. In another publication [PERSON] and collaborators [10] listed a set of launch vehicles (operational and under development) with payload capacity varying from 1.33 to 584 kg, from which, specific transportation costs were in the range of 20 to 120 thousand US dollars per kilogram of payload. This large dispersion estimate on specific transportation cost would suggest a strong scaling effect considering limitations in vehicle performance, which depend on the type of technology adopted for the stages as well as how the vehicle is fabricated and the launch system operated. Heavier expendable launchers have ratios of payload mass to launch mass as high as 4% compared to less than 1% for the smaller launchers. In comparison to heavy launchers, one should expect much higher specific transportation costs for those small vehicles [11]. Most of the heavier launchers (the US and European) operate in the range of, roughly, 13 to 34 thousand dollars per kilogram of payload. Small satellites, however, are launched as hosted payloads from these heavy platforms. For the last couple of years, a great number of launch vehicle developers have unveiled their systems with a target launch price for small payloads (\(<\)500 kg) that seems too low for that class of vehicle. It is clear, therefore, whether comprehensive cost analysis is a key element in the development of future commercial launch systems. In this paper, we present a cost analysis of three launch vehicle systems that could offer competitive prices to deliver small satellites at dedicated orbits. We combined  
Figure 3: The VLM-1 launch system in orbital (**A**) and sub-orbital (**B**) configurations. a detailed cost valuation for development, fabrication and operation (direct and indirect costs) along with vehicle performance to infer launch system specific transportation costs. A straightforward vehicle configuration was obtained by simply adding two S-50 motors to the first stage of VLM-1 launcher. Therefore, the proposed vehicle would rely on three S-50 motors for the first stage, one S-50 motor for the second stage and one S-44 for the upper-stage. The next two concepts follow the preliminary version of the Ariane-6 family in which the first stage would comprise a bundle of three identical solid-rocket motors, operating as a single unit, and the same solid motor would be employed in the second stage. A LOx/LH\({}_{2}\) engine was considered for the upper stage. The final concept of Ariane-6, however, changed to a modular three-stage launcher (solid-cryogenic-cryogenic). Similarly, we targeted increased commonalities among lower rocket stages and very low development effort for the upper stage, taking advantage of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) propulsion hardware from the satellite industry. Therefore, in the other two proposed configurations, the launch vehicle combines three S-50 solid motors for the first stage, an S-50 motor for the second stage and a more conventional upper stage based on a pressure fed liquid rocket engine relying on hypergolic storable propellants.