Until quite recently, space was accessible and of interest only to the governments of leading countries, since space launches were very expensive, and successes were used mainly in the political arena. IN modern society satiety with space achievements has set in: flights to the ISS have become commonplace, telephone communications and even television are transmitted over the Internet, photographs earth's surface are freely available. The Space Shuttle took off. Perhaps the only space service of interest to the planet's population is global positioning. The question arises: what should a person do in space?
As it turns out, there are still a lot of rocket science enthusiasts. As usual, it's all about money. There were people willing to spend their considerable savings on their childhood dream of flying into space.
For incredible a short time private projects have offered their options for almost all types of space services. The most tasty morsel seems to be the entertainment sector: from taking tourists into the stratosphere to settling on Mars (the main cost coverage is expected by selling a live broadcast of the event). Also targeted are services for remote sensing of the Earth and various types of communications. The ongoing miniaturization of electronics already makes it possible to create a spacecraft literally on the table. And since the cost of launching into space is proportional to the weight, the desire to have your own satellite no longer seems unrealistic.
And of course, the living legend of modern astronautics is the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, who stated that he founded the company with the main goal of helping humanity become multiplanetary. True, there is another topic:
What do we (humanity) expect to see in the near future?
Domestic private space
Presented by Sputniks (Satellite Innovative Space Systems LLC) and Dauria Aerospace. Both companies produce microsatellites for Roscosmos and other interested parties. Sputniks proposes to launch small satellites into orbit using universal transport and launch mechanisms, integrating them onto domestic launch vehicles, and provides ground-based infrastructure for controlling and receiving data from them. Dauria's order portfolio includes two geostationary telecommunications satellites for India and two remote sensing (Earth remote sensing) devices for Roscosmos, which will be put into operation in 2015. On July 8, 2014, using the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle, the company launched the third device: experimental platform DX-1. Earlier in June, the Dnepr rocket successfully launched two Perseus-M microsatellites into orbit. These devices are based on the company’s own microsatellite platform and carry on board instruments for monitoring sea vessels.At the stage of stratospheric testing, the star satellite of the “Your Space Sector” community:
Cosmonautics is a company of like-minded people and interesting job, and not a group of slackers and a lack of interesting projects; this is science and creativity, and not blind copying of the heritage of fathers and grandfathers, this is our shining tomorrow, and not a fading yesterday.
More recently, the Lean Industrial company has been highlighted by attracting funds from virtual tank builders. It’s still difficult to say whether they will be able to create something that can fly in hardware; their plans are too ambitious.
Non-domestic space
Xcor Aerospace's Lynx is a two-seat suborbital spaceplane capable of taking off and landing on a conventional runway. In addition to entertaining commercial passengers, it is planned to hold scientific experiments. XCOR has already signed a contract with the Southwest Research Institute to fly its scientists and conduct experiments in suborbital space. The company plans to sell tickets for $95,000.Exos Aerospace, formed in May 2014 from Armadillo Aerospace, is developing spacecraft for vertical launch suborbital flights. The device will accommodate two passengers. Space tour operator Space Adventures is booking seats on the ship for $110,000. A man from Arizona recently won a free flight in a competition hosted by Space Adventures and Seattle's Space Needle, although the date of his flight has not yet been set.
Bigelow Aerospace designs and builds large, expandable modules that will be the centerpiece of private space stations in orbit. The company has already conducted two in-orbit tests of prototypes in 2006 and 2007. The six-seat module BA 330 provides approximately 330 cubic meters of useful volume. Bigelow envisions linking at least two 330s together. The company has contracts with Boeing and SpaceX to transport passengers to huge space hotels. Potential clients include space agencies, government departments and research groups.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently teamed up with aerospace pioneer engineer Burt Rutan to create a venture called Stratolaunch Systems. The company plans to launch rockets into space from a carrier aircraft that will be the largest aircraft in history, with a wingspan of 117 meters. Stratolaunch will initially launch cargo and satellites into space, but eventually hopes to launch astronauts as well. The first test flight is scheduled for 2015, commercial launches are possible from 2016.
Liberty Launch Vehicle, which produced solid rocket boosters for the Space Shuttle, has teamed up with Lockheed Martin and Europe's Astrium to develop its own system for launching astronauts into low Earth orbit. The upgraded 91-meter Liberty rocket will carry a capsule with seven passengers into orbit. Test flights of the system will begin in 2014, with the launch of the first astronaut expected at the end of 2015. If successful, commercial flights will be possible from 2016.
Blue Origin, created by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, hopes to win a NASA contract to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. The spacecraft being created is designed to carry seven passengers or a combination of cargo and crew. The company is developing a reusable first stage of the launch vehicle to make launch as cheap as possible. Company representatives claim that commercial flights of the spacecraft will begin by 2018. Blue Origin is also developing a suborbital spacecraft called New Shepard, which will be equipped with a reusable propulsion module.
Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser is a small spaceplane designed to carry seven astronauts into low Earth orbit. Participant in the final round (Commercial Crew Transportation Capability) of a competition organized by NASA for the right to transport American astronauts to the ISS. The device will be launched into space using an Atlas-5 launch vehicle, and land independently like an airplane. Company officials say the spaceplane should be ready by 2016. The first manned flight will take place in 2017.
The second participant in the competition, aerospace giant Boeing, is developing a reusable (up to 10 flights) spacecraft for delivering cargo and up to seven astronauts to the ISS called CST-100. The device uses proven technologies from Apollo and NASA's space shuttle. The CST-100 is expected to serve as a lifeboat on the ISS in emergency situations. Commissioning of CST-100 is planned for 2016.
Cygnus is an automated cargo supply spacecraft. Developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation program. Designed to deliver cargo to the International Space Station after the completion of the Space Shuttle program. The launch is carried out using Orbital's own launch vehicle - Antares, formerly called Taurus II. NASA has awarded Orbital Science a contract worth $1.9 billion for 8 Cygnus flights to the ISS until 2016.
California-based SpaceX is developing a reusable Dragon V2 spacecraft to transport cargo and crew to low-Earth orbit and beyond. The third participant in the NASA competition. The manned version will carry up to seven astronauts to the ISS or to deep space, such as Mars. The company has already launched several unmanned Dragons to the ISS. The flights were a demonstration of SpaceX's readiness to use its own Falcon 9 launch vehicle to fulfill a contract with NASA for 12 cargo deliveries to the station. Falcon 9 will also be reusable in the future with a vertical landing on retractable legs.
Mars One is a private organization whose mission is to establish a colony on Mars. The project itself is not an aerospace company and does not produce equipment. All equipment will be developed primarily by SpaceX. The uniqueness of the project lies in the fundamental impossibility of returning the colonists to Earth and in its financing through TV broadcasts in real time. The colony is expected to be replenished every two years by six people starting in 2025. Confidence in the success of the event is added to by rumors that the founder of Mars One, Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp, is himself going to move to Mars. Add tags
Text: Olga Astafieva | 2015-04-24 | Photo: SU.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll, Steve Paluch, WPPilot, D. Miller (all wikipedia.org) virgingalactic.com, Nasa, SpaceX | 4523
From the beginning of the space race until the late nineties, space was entirely government-owned “territory.” To attract private capital, the risks were too high given the complete uncertainty of future income, and the funds needed to be invested in a truly “cosmic” way at that time. This is in the USA. In the USSR, private capital simply did not exist. It was state companies that took the first steps in space exploration: thanks to their research, prospects for commercial projects began to be determined. However, private companies have an advantage over public companies. The main task of “private traders” is to make a profit: income to the maximum, costs to the minimum. For a private company, it is not enough to simply solve a problem - it is necessary to find an effective solution in terms of profit.
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Unofficial date The birth of American private astronautics can be considered 1996, the year the X-Prize Foundation was created by businessman Peter Diamandis. A little later, he announced a competition to build a reusable spacecraft that could lift space tourists to an altitude of 100 km. (the conventional boundary of the atmosphere) and return them back to Earth safe and sound.
More specifically, the conditions of the competition were as follows: the projects of the participants should not be financially dependent on the government and government organizations, the ship should not only reach 100 km, but also return to Earth intact (without serious damage), there should be at least 3 people on board, and the flight itself must be repeated within two weeks.
By the end of 2003, 26 private companies from 7 countries (including Russia) competed for the main prize of $10 million. As a result, on June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne launched from the Mojave airfield (California), reached the boundaries of the atmosphere and returned to Earth. And its pilot, Michael Melville, became the first astronaut to receive this title, bypassing state corporations. SpaceShip was designed by the team of legendary US aero engineer Scaled Composites Burt Rutan for Virgin Galactic, a division of the world-famous Virgin corporation.
SpaceShipOne is the first private aircraft for flights above 100 km.
This Burt Rutan device is a combined system consisting of two devices: a high-altitude aircraft and a rocket plane. An eight-meter SpaceShipOne rocket plane with a delta-shaped wing and a cabin on three people is attached under the belly of the White Knight carrier aircraft. The construction of the SpaceShipOne apparatus is based on a hybrid engine that runs on polybutabiene and nitrogen oxide. The cabin is a sealed chamber with the necessary pressure. It was made especially for future “space tourists” a large number of portholes made of double-layer glass, each of which individually withstands pressure changes in space and during landing. And the air inside the cabin is created by a special triple system. All this makes it possible to get around inside without spacesuits.
The carrier rises to 14 kilometers, and at this altitude the rocket plane separates from it. About 10 seconds after the spacecraft separates, its single rocket engine fires and SpaceShipOne launches almost vertically at an angle of 84 degrees. The engine remains turned on for about a minute, this time is enough for the device to rise to an altitude of 50 kilometers. He covers the remaining 50 kilometers by inertia. SpaceShipOne was in space for about three minutes, moving along a parabolic trajectory. Before reaching the highest point, it retracts its wings and tail to enter the earth's atmosphere, and the crew gets the opportunity to experience a state of weightlessness.
The most difficult thing in this scheme is the return descent, which takes about 20 minutes. The SpaceShipOne design does not provide any parachutes or additional engines - the device must simply glide down using its wings.
This is exactly what happened on July 21 - with the only difference that there were no tourists in the cabin. Therefore, in order for its creators to receive the $10 million prize, the SpaceShipOne rocket plane had to fly into space a couple more times.
In this way, humanity is one step closer to private space exploration. Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire owner of Virgin (and by extension, VirginGalactic), has licensed SpaceShipOne for private flights.
Later, in 2010, the updated spaceship for space tourists, SpaceShipTwo, also the brainchild of Sir Branson and designer Rutan, underwent its first flight tests. SpaceShipTwo took to the skies from the same spaceport in Mojave. Company representatives reported that the first flight, which lasted 2 hours and 54 minutes, was successful.
Test flight of the spaceship for space tourists SpaceShipTwo, the brainchild of businessman Richard Branson and designer Burt Rutan.
SpaceShipTwo, like its predecessor SpaceShipOne, was designed by Burt Rutan, owner of Scaled Composites. According to Rutan's idea, the spacecraft is secured between the WhiteKnightTwo fuselages. The carrier aircraft lifts SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of 16 km, after which the device undocks and independently takes off to an altitude of 100-110 km. into suborbital space. The spaceship lands like an ordinary plane. That is, using the same principle of operation as the previous devices of Rutan and Branson in 2004. But the maximum flight altitude increased to 160 kilometers, the time the “tourists” spent in weightlessness increased exactly twice - up to 6 minutes of free flight, and the number of people on board increased to 8 (2 pilots and 6 passengers).
Burt Rutan is often praised for his originality in designing lightweight, powerful, unusual-looking, high-energy-efficient aircraft and has been called the "second true innovator" in aerospace materials technology after German engineer Hugo Junkers, a pioneer in the development of all-metal aircraft. Rutan's most famous creations: the “record-breaking” Voyager, which became the first aircraft to fly around the world without landing or refueling; suborbital spaceplane SpaceShipOne; small homemade airplane Rutan VariEze (1975) - the first airplane to use winglets (wing tips). Improved in 1990 by Louis Gratzer, they reduced fuel consumption by 7%. Such large-scale savings due to modernization turned out to be unprecedented in the history of aviation, unless you count the redesign of the entire aircraft or remotorization.
On October 23, 2010, the company opened the world's first private spaceport, America. Further test flights took place regularly and quite successfully (except for the emergency landing of WhiteKnightTwo due to a damaged landing gear in the fall of 2010). In May 2011, SpaceShipTwo once again demonstrated its maneuverability and stability, performing smooth ascents and descents at altitudes of 10 to 15 kilometers. In September of the same year, the landing system was successfully tested under emergency conditions. On April 30, 2013, the rocket engine of a suborbital ship was tested; in 16 seconds it covered supersonic barrier, after which he successfully landed at the departure airport.
Richard Branson said after this flight: “For the first time, we were able to test key components of the system in flight. The current supersonic success opens the way to a very realistic goal – full-fledged space flight.” However, at the end of October 2014, during another test flight, SpaceShipTwo crashed. One pilot was killed, the second was seriously injured. The WhiteKnight plane that lifted SpaceShipTwo into the air returned safely to Earth. It is not yet clear how the incident will affect space tourism, but, according to Branson himself, despite the accident of his ship, he does not intend to give up the idea of tourist space flights. By this time, Virgin Galactic had already sold more than 700 tickets worth $250,000 each.
Accelerator aircraft (carrier) WhiteKnightTwo.
WhiteKnightTwo docked with the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spacecraft.
In addition to Branson and Rutan, who have taken on the responsibilities of space tour operators, many “private owners” in the West are engaged in space exploration. This business turned out to be so tempting that new and sometimes even difficult to implement projects began to appear one after another. Here are some of them.
Golden Spike. The company has announced the commercialization of the Moon, and by the end of this decade, Golden Spike expects to send and return a two-person crew to the Earth's satellite. Such flights may be of interest not only to fans of extreme tourism, but also to states that have not yet had time to “check in” there (that is, everyone except the United States). Of course, there are chances for such a project if we find several potential customers for tours and, accordingly, ensure stable funding for such flights.
Planetary Resources. Much more ambitious than the previous project. Planetary Resources intends to extract minerals from the depths of asteroids. The company expects that the huge reserves of rare earth elements such as platinum, rhodium and iridium on these space objects will more than recoup the costs of sending, mining and delivering the minerals to Earth. In the near future, Planetary Resources plans to launch several telescopes to search for suitable asteroids. This is tentatively scheduled for the 30s. However, this project also had a lot of problems. In addition to the expensive technical base and lengthy design, there are also issues of delivery safety and legal subtleties. The fact is that there is a Treaty on the principles of the activities of states in the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies. It prohibits an individual country from owning a celestial body, but does not stipulate whether a private company can do so. It is not yet clear whether Planetary Resources has the right to privately mine asteroids and to whom it should (if at all) pay taxes. But the company has enough time to sort out these issues.
Sentinel telescope. In the summer of 2012, the private fund B612 began searching for investors for its Sentinel project to launch a telescope into space. Its main task should be the search for asteroids and meteorites that pose a potential danger to the Earth. It is assumed that the infrared telescope, orbiting the Sun, will track 90% of space objects that may approach the Earth. The data collected by the device will have to allow the identification of dangerous objects 50-100 years before a hypothetical collision. The data obtained can also be used when planning research missions. Sentinel is scheduled to launch in 2017–2018. The telescope is designed to last at least five and a half years, and the collected data is planned to be made publicly available. Obviously, the main problem, as in most private space projects, is financing.
Mars One. While such state-owned companies as NASA are sending robots to explore Mars and are studying the possibility of flying to it, the Dutch Mars company One is set to begin building a colony on the Red Planet as early as 2023. The essence of the project is as follows. Once every two years, a team of four people will be sent to Mars for permanent residence, without the possibility of ever returning to Earth. To support their life, Mars One proposes to use solar energy and local resources, for example, extracting water by melting ice, and obtaining oxygen through electrolysis. About 200 thousand people expressed their desire to be on Mars as part of the Mars One program, and 663 applicants were subsequently selected.
SpaceX. The company, founded by Elon Musk, produces Falcon space rockets and Dragon cargo ships. On September 28, 2008, the fourth launch of the Falcon 1 rocket was successful for the first time. A mass equivalent of payload was delivered into an elliptical orbit at an altitude of 500-700 kilometers. On December 8, 2010, the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship were successfully launched. The ship entered orbit, transmitted telemetry information, left orbit and successfully splashed down into the ocean. SpaceX became the world's first non-governmental organization to launch and successfully return an orbital cargo ship. On August 16, 2011, NASA gives consent to the launch of the Dragon spacecraft on November 30 and its docking with the ISS, which was carried out for the first time on May 25, 2012. The contract concluded between NASA and SpaceX for the delivery of cargo to the ISS provides for 12 Dragon flights to the station. The total value of the agreement is $1.6 billion. On May 30, 2014, Elon Musk unveiled a passenger version of the Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon V2.
Fifth launch of the Falcon 1 rocket. Omelek Island.
Dragon docking with the ISS.
One of the goals of the project is to create reusable launch vehicles, which will significantly reduce the cost of flights. On April 18, 2014, the first stage of the Falcon-9 launch vehicle successfully made a soft landing in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean after the Dragon truck was launched to the ISS and collapsed under the impacts of the waves. Two attempts to land the stage on the ocean platform ended in failure, but progress was obvious - the second time, just a little was not enough for success. Reusing the first stage, the most expensive part of a rocket, could reduce the cost of space launches by 70%.
The Grasshopper VTOL rocket, built to develop and test the technologies SpaceX needs to create reusable rocket systems. At the end of 2013, Grasshopper rose to 744 meters, after which it smoothly, with the precision of a helicopter, landed on the launch pad.
In 2013, SpaceX received permission to build a private launch facility for launch vehicles in Texas. The company plans to carry out 24 launches per year, producing 2 rockets per month.
Google Lunar X-Prize. In 2007, the Google Lunar X-Prize competition started: participants were invited to send an unmanned vehicle to the Moon. The robot must make a successful landing and cover several hundred meters along the lunar surface, transmitting video, high-quality panoramic images and related information to Earth. The winner of the competition will receive $20 million. Initially, the end date of the competition was 2012, but during preparation it became clear that not a single team could meet this deadline. As a result, the final was postponed to the end of 2015.
Currently, the main income of non-state companies (with the exception of SpaceX) comes from unmanned space flights: navigation and communications satellites, space research stations. Manned space flight is much more expensive and there are a number of reasons for this.
Firstly, this is the “physics” of flight itself. The satellite weighs much less than the manned vessel, which means it requires less fuel to launch. And the further existence of a satellite is also not as complicated as that of a manned spacecraft. Having “worked out” its purpose, the satellite continues to remain in orbit in an inoperative state. This cannot be done with a manned object. He, or at least his crew, must be returned back to Earth, preferably safe and sound, and this also requires spending fuel.
Secondly, an unmanned object does not need a “delicate” launch, since there are no people on board who are more sensitive to overloads than the instruments. In addition, a manned spacecraft needs greater maneuverability. Overloads should be kept to a minimum for the safety of space tourists. Although they are trained as professionals, they are still amateurs. And the company that sent them on the flight is entirely responsible for their life and health. The situation is the same as with land tourists.
Finally, it is necessary to take into account the risk factor - both technical and commercial. Before moving on to commercial use of the vessel, at least 30 successful test flights are required. And these are huge costs and the image of the company itself. In the event of several failures, the attitude towards a private organization will not change for the better.
However, the main reason for the delay in tourist flights into space should be considered not only financial and technical, but also “organizational and bureaucratic” problems. The US Congress several years ago decided to push the start of commercial space flights. To achieve this, laws were passed to provide for minimal government oversight of flight safety in the nascent industry. Under current law, passengers will receive minimal emergency training and must sign risk acknowledgments. Operators hope to be partially protected from legal liability by giving passengers basic information about the safety of their vehicles.
However, private companies focused on transporting passengers and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must develop appropriate regulations. It is very difficult for specialists to work - they have no precedents to guide them. Therefore, none of the parties involved in the process knows how long the “bureaucratic procedures” will take. We can only hope that all these difficulties can be overcome sooner or later, and space will welcome new guests.
The successes of SpaceX have allowed Elon Musk’s company to constantly be in the news. However, few people know that, for example, SpaceX's main competitors - the American ULA and the French Arianespace - are also private companies.
But besides them, there are other private owners in the world with interesting projects and promising developments! In this video, we will not once again raise the topic of Musk’s brainchild. We will try to tell you about its possible partners and competitors.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has achieved significant success in private space: in just ten years, they have gone from being guys who were openly laughed at by future competitors to becoming a real monster, devouring commercial orders and carrying out almost a third of all world launches of this type. And now competitors are saying that, “We are considering the possibility reuse rocket stages,” conduct their own tests, or directly announce plans to create new, reusable models. But since these competitors are not always large government entities, today I want to tell you about the smaller fish of commercial space - private space companies.
In this review I will omit plans that are written only on paper. Just as we prefer not to talk about Elon Musk’s ideas for colonizing Mars, I would prefer to tell you only about those companies that have built something, launched something, or at least presented working prototypes. So here we will only talk about, let’s call them that, “operating” private space companies.
To begin with, it is worth noting that companies may not be completely private. Because of this, I will split the review into two parts: first, let’s talk about those companies in which some state has a stake, and then we’ll move on to completely independent players. At the same time, keep in mind that, for example, in the USA, such players are quite supported by NASA with the help of budget money. But this is still not direct financing, but rather assistance interesting projects, running as a common line in the budget for everyone.
It’s probably worth starting with the biggest players: French company Arianespace has been on the market for almost 25 years. They recently underwent a management reformatting, so now Arianespace is part of the ArianeGroup association - together with, again, the French Airbus.
Well, I consider it partially private precisely because a third of the shares of Arianespace for a long time belonged to the state-owned French space agency. Or - the National Center for Space Research.
ArianeGroup is involved in three areas: space launches, security and defense. But we are interested in the first, the management of which is assigned to Arianespace.
In total, since the mid-80s, Arianepsace has already made 243 launches. Her Ariane 5 is considered one of the most reliable rockets in history: 81 successful launches in a row! The company has a missile fleet of three launch vehicles: the heavy Ariane 5, the light Vega and the Russian medium Soyuz. The rockets are launched from the Guiana Space Center. It's not far from Brazil, if anything. Yes, Russian engineers fly there specially for Soyuz launches.
Currently, the company has 58 advance orders and is developing its new rocket, Ariane 6. Rumor has it that engineers are thinking about creating a separate version of Ariane 6 with the possibility of reusing the first stage. So far, there is quite a bit of information on this matter, but what is known for sure is that the rocket will be produced in two versions: logically, for lighter and heavier missions.
It is worth mentioning here the Airbus division, Airbus Defense and Space, which is engaged in the creation of commercial and military satellites. Their satellite platforms are used in orders for various devices: from small ones designed for remote sensing of the Earth to large telecommunications satellites.
One way or another, today Arianespace/ArianeGroup is one of the leaders in the global space launch market, completing more than 10 orders annually. We have many recordings of their broadcasts on our channel, and, of course, you can also watch future launches with us.
Mitsubish(с)i Heavy Industries
Let's jump to Japan. Everyone has heard about Mitsubishi. At least everyone who has seen cars of this brand. But few people know that the company is a huge association of subsidiaries. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is engaged in areas traditional for parent associations of space companies: defense, security, aircraft manufacturing, shipbuilding... But, as always, we are only interested in rockets and space trucks.
And there are already three of them in the MHI park. The HII-A and H-IIB launch vehicles and H-II transport cargo ships, originally developed by the Japan Space Agency.
As you probably know, Japan participated in the construction of the International Space Station: it gave money, it spent the whole module (the largest one, by the way). It's called kibo, or “hope” in our language. So, since 2009, they have also been sending trucks to the ISS, on average one per year, and launches are already planned until 2019.
If we return to missiles, then here with the Japanese everything is somehow very… Japanese. Not in the sense that it is stubborn and incomprehensible, but in the sense that it is clear and sharpened: their first H-I successfully completed 9 launches since 1986, it was replaced by H-II, which sent 5 missions into orbit, which after the first serious failure was sent for revision. And finally, the modifications that followed, H-IIA and H-IIB, together made 40 launches, plus one failure. It is noteworthy that the H-IIB was developed precisely as an even more reliable version of the H-IIA to launch trucks to the ISS. And so far she has only been working on trucks.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is currently working on the next generation of the Launch Vehicle, you'll never guess what it will be called. Okay, yes, H-III: the first launch is scheduled for 2020, and entry into service, if successful, is planned for 2021.
The fact that Mitsubishi's launch vehicle and spacecraft development is paid for by the Japanese government prevents me from including it as a completely independent player.
Orbital ATK
From Japan we smoothly move to America, where we try almost until the end of this review. For starters, in Dulles, Virginia. This is where the former Orbital Sciences Corporation, now known as Orbital ATK, is headquartered. The renaming took place after a merger with another large American private company - Alliant Techsystems, which gave the company the abbreviation ATK. It would be logical to split our story in two, so I’ll start with Alliant Techsystems.
This company is a true veteran of space development. They have collaborated with other giants like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and scientists to create more than 10,000 parts for the James Webb Telescope, and even developed solar panels for the InSight Mars lander, scheduled to launch next year.
Their GEM solid rocket boosters are installed on the Delta II and Delta IV rockets, and right now, as part of Orbital ATK, they are working on components of the future super-heavy launch vehicle Space Launch System, the first test launch of which is expected in 2019.
As you can see, ATK mainly dealt with rather narrow-profile orders: to assemble a motor here, to screw a solar panel here - simple, high-quality, but small. It was the merger with Orbital in 2015 that allowed the company to get a permanent customer in the form of itself, and Orbital to get rid of the need to constantly enter into contracts with contractors, now using its Alliant Techsystems production facilities.
The history of Orbital is no less rich than that of SpaceX: its own, albeit built with money from the US defense industry, the small Minotaur rocket launched from a Pegasus aircraft, the lightweight Antares, designed to launch its own Cygnus trucks to the ISS. Participation in the state CRS program for the commercial supply of the station, where Orbital has already won twice and received much-needed private contracts. And if SpaceX, in addition to launches to the ISS, was able to actively engage in the development of commercial launches on the heavy Falcon 9, then Orbital is doing worse: Antares flies only with Cygnus, Minotaurs - exclusively in the interests of the US Air Force. And in 27 years, a little less than forty Pegasus were launched.
But, to be honest, Orbital ATK does not pretend to do much: the company exists precisely for the sake of working on US government programs, the merger of its two constituent manufacturers has significantly simplified organizational issues, and stable participation in scientific missions, such as work on future telescopes and interplanetary devices , suggests that the state will continue to use the services of Orbital ATK's reliable engineers.
Well, now let’s move on to completely private space companies.
Completely private companies
United Launch Alliance
As in the case of conventional private companies, we start with a real giant of the space industry: the merger of two American companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. I will deliberately not devote too much attention to ULA, because if we separately consider the successes and work of its constituent companies, I will have to make a separate video, perhaps more than one. My goal is to tell you about smaller market players.
However, I just can't help but mention that before the merger; Boeing, for example, participated in the development of the legendary Saturn V launch vehicle, which carried American astronauts to the Moon. She created a lunar all-terrain vehicle, which successfully carried the same astronauts on the satellite. The upper stage, which was used to launch spacecraft using the Space Shuttle. Launch vehicles Delta II, Delta III and Delta IV, in partnership with McDonnel Douglas. The X-37B spaceships fly in orbit in fully autonomous mode for three years, carrying out a mysterious mission commissioned by the US Air Force. Spacecraft Surveyor, Mariner-10, Curiosity, in the end! And I haven’t yet mentioned my active participation in the development of the International Space Station and the Unity and Destiny modules built for it. In general, since the beginning of active space exploration by the Americans, the private Boeing, better known in the world for its aircraft, has successfully assisted NASA in almost all key missions. Let's not forget about the platforms for commercial telecommunications satellites, which are used by broadcasters along with the previously mentioned platform from Airbus Defense and Space.
Lockheed Martin has an equally impressive track record: working on the Atlas family of launch vehicles since its second version (at that time it was handled by General Dynamics, whose division was later sold to Lockheed). Interplanetary missions to the Moon and Mars: MAVEN, Juno, OSIRIS-REx, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: devices that are now in the news. Spitzer and Hubble telescopes. Even the GPS program that we all use was developed by Lockheed Martin.
In general, everything is clear here without additional explanation: ULA, one way or another, bears the majority of historical research missions, including interplanetary ones. Today they carry out about ten launches a year (and the number of planned ones has decreased by almost a third after SpaceX received permission to carry out government launches), the company is also losing private orders, but it is foolish to think that they will give up all their markets without a fight. The main problem here is different - over decades of de facto monopoly, United Launch Alliance has become a clumsy and extremely bureaucratic company, in many ways similar to other state-owned ones.
ULA's current rocket fleet consists of two families of launch vehicles: Atlas and Delta. Work is underway on a partially reusable Vulcan, and the company is also involved in the development of the Space Launch System. Well, I can’t help but remember the Orion manned spacecraft: they should go to the ISS before 2021. In addition, a test of the manned CST-100 Starliner, which is produced by Boeing outside the ULA association, is expected next December.
Again, we should not forget that NASA is giving away near-Earth space to newcomers in the space industry, and ULA continues to receive contracts for the assembly and launch of interplanetary spacecraft, at least by inertia. The rest, apparently, have not yet matured.
Bigelow aerospace
Speaking about ULA's plans, one cannot help but recall another private American company - Bigelow Aerospace. Yes, we will periodically move away from rocket technology to talk about other areas in space. It is the brainchild of Robert Bigelow (which the billionaire modestly named after himself) that is working on interesting, deployable space modules, one of which ULA and Bigelow aerospace are going to launch to the Moon in the early 2020s.
In the press, such modules are often called “inflatable”, which is incorrect. The design of an expandable room involves its deployment, this process is somewhat similar to the unfolding of a tourist tent. You're not inflating a tent, are you?
In general, since the company's founding in 1999, Bigelow aerospace has been actively inventing new space modules: they conducted two successful tests of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 single chambers in 2006 and 2007, and then began designing a full-fledged BEAM module for International Space Station.
The company's persistence (and success) convinced NASA to at least give Bigelow Aerospace a chance, and a contract was signed in 2012. The company joined forces with Sierra Nevada Corporation, which we will talk about later today, and completed the creation of the module within three years. It was docked to the Tranquility module of the ISS in test mode (that is, it was hermetically sealed, and the cosmonaut team opened it several times a year and took measurements), but two years later, when the reliability of the design and materials was confirmed, it was decided to leave BEAM orbit and used as a spare warehouse, which made it possible to free up several racks at the station itself for equipment for scientific experiments.
And if BEAM itself is quite small: about 16 cubic meters in volume, then the new developments of Bigelow Aerospace look much... larger. First, we are talking about the A330 and B330 modules, each of which is about a third in volume of the International Space Station, and inside is more reminiscent of the American Skylab: a large hollow space with rod-shaped instruments inside. Secondly, it is impossible not to mention the Bigelow commercial space station project, which will be assembled from just such B330 and small Sundancer modules, which will most likely be used as gateways and docking nodes. The launch is tentatively scheduled for 2020, although delays in test manned flights of SpaceX Crew Dragon and Starliner, produced by Bigelow and Boeing, may push this date forward by 2-3 years. In any case, the project of a private commercial space station is very ambitious, although even today Bigelow has everything it needs to implement this idea. True, there is nothing yet to transport staff and tourists to this space hotel. So we are waiting: in the next year and a half, plans and dates should become significantly clearer.
Blue Origin
A company that is often compared in the press to SpaceX, although, perhaps, they do not have much in common. In any case, this was the case until recently, when Blue Origin, founded by the owner of the Amazon online store, Jeff Bezos, announced the development of its own reusable launch vehicle with its own BE-4 engines.
But if we talk about what Blue Origin has now, we will only find the New Shepard suborbital single-stage rocket and a small capsule ship of the same name. All this beauty should serve the interests of the space tourist, allowing people with wide and full pockets to fly into space for a few minutes and then return to Earth. We watched the tests of New Shepard live: it looks, of course, beautiful, but it is more of a pampering experience. Although I also don’t want to downplay the successes of the private company’s engineers.
New Glenn is of much greater interest, especially considering that the ubiquitous United Launch Alliance is involved in the development of the BE-4 methane engine. Already, Blue Origin has rented the LC-36 site at the Space Center. Kennedy (the one in Cape Canaveral) and is gradually preparing the infrastructure for launching a future rocket. The availability of commercial contracts for the first launches is also encouraging: Eutelsat and OneWeb have already bought space on New Glenn for their satellites.
In general, Blue Origin quite successfully got into the program of replacing Russian rocket technologies in the United States: the development of BE-4 was carried out even before the signing of final contracts with the United Launch Alliance, and the presence of an already operating system in the form of New Shepard allowed it to attract additional attention. We can only wait for the beginning of the 2020s: that’s when Vulcan should definitely fly, and testing of the New Glenn rocket will just begin. Most likely, Blue Origin will become the first company after SpaceX capable of fully reusing the first stages of its launch vehicles.
Vector Space Systems
The market for commercial launches is gradually growing, more and more companies can afford their own small satellites in orbit, and the miniaturization of technology allows these satellites to be made much more compact than 5-6 years ago. It is logical that in such conditions companies appear that want to provide the opportunity to launch a small spacecraft into orbit at a reasonable price. Vector Space Systems is just one such company.
Its founder, Jim Cantrell, helped Elon Musk launch SpaceX, but soon left the company, believing that it would not be profitable. As the years passed, SpaceX captured the market, and Jim (probably) counted the lost profits. And he got to the point that in 2016 he founded his own private space company: Vector Space Systems. A few months later, already in 2017, he carried out the first test launch of the ultra-light Vector-R launch vehicle, developed by Garvey Space Systems, which Vector absorbed literally immediately after its founding.
One way or another, VSS now already has a contract to launch six satellites weighing up to 50 kilograms (that’s how much the rocket can launch into low Earth orbit), and is preparing to refurbish launch pad number 46 at the same Space Center. Kennedy at Cape Canaveral, and is actively trying to get permission from the US authorities to launch ultra-light rockets from mobile launch platforms, literally from large trucks. In parallel, work is underway to create our own small spaceports and the possibility of using floating barges for launches from the ocean. But warm and luminous launches from a forest clearing will always remain in our hearts.
Rocket Lab
You may have noticed that we are moving from large and well-known companies to newcomers in the space industry. From, ahem, large rockets to ultralight ones. And it is with a small private launch operator that we close today’s topic of rockets.
Rocket Lab, another relative peer of SpaceX and Blue Origin, was founded in 2006. The company is notable for the fact that, despite its “registration” in the United States, it uses a private spaceport located all the way in New Zealand.
This year, 2017, tests of our own Electron launch vehicle began. The first launch was not successful, but the second is already planning an attempt to put four nanosatellites into orbit. If everything goes well, the company’s Moon Express spacecraft should be launched to the Moon in 2018 - this will happen as part of the Google Lunar XPrize competition. By the way, write in the comments if you are interested in the topic of the lunar competition from Google, if there are many people interested, we will make a separate video about it.
In general, Rocket Lab cannot boast of great achievements so far, but the future fate of the company will become known in the near future. We include it in this list primarily due to its existing developments, its own cosmodrome, and the ability to already launch rockets.
Virgin Galactic
Following the names of Elon Musk and Jeffrey Bezos, you can often hear the name of Richard Branson. Yes, this is another billionaire who decided to make money in space. Well, to be more precise, on suborbital flights.
Founded by Branson in 2004, Virgin Galactic already has its own spaceport and two suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, and, guess what, SpaceShipTwo.
I really doubted whether to include Virgin Galactic in this list, because the flights of their ships are carried out to an altitude of about 100 kilometers, and the pilots are not formally considered astronauts... Again, rockets are not used here, the first escape velocity is not achieved - the flight takes place along a parabolic trajectory - spaceships are more like high-flying airplanes. But still, Branson’s brainchild deserves our attention with its plans to make regular suborbital tourist flights, a kind of space tourism on the Blue Origin level.
It is worth mentioning that during testing of the SpaceShipTwo spacecraft in 2014, one of the pilots died as a result of an accident, which significantly slowed down development. But by the end of 2016, the company was able to recover from the consequences of the tragedy and successfully tested a new ship of the same model - VSS Unity.
Well, it won’t hurt to know that Virgin Galactic includes the company Scaled Composites, which designed both ships. By the way, she, together with Orbital, already known to you, worked on the Pegasus launch vehicle, the one that is launched from an airplane. Well, she also had a hand in the mysterious X-37 rocket plane.
Overall, Virgin Galactic certainly deserves a place on the list of suborbital carriers. But its place on our list, rather, was ensured by the presence of its own spaceport. And the absence of any government money basically.
Sierra Nevada Corporation
The name of this company has already been heard today in the context collaboration c Bigelow on the BEAM extensible module. Sierra Nevada Corporation. A large-scale private American space company with representative offices in the UK, Germany and Turkey.
Founded back in 1963, SNCorp has long been developing various electronic systems for the defense industry, such as training stands, virtual shooting ranges, and the like. But I began to study space seriously in the mid-2000s. To be completely precise - since the acquisition of SpaceDev. The latter also has a rather interesting history: engineers developed a device for a mission to study one of the near-Earth asteroids, tried to fit into a flight to Pluto, even helped Scaled Composites (well, the one that is now in Virgin Galactic) with engines for SpaceShipOne.
However, we are interested in the history of both companies right from the moment of their merger: it was then that work began on the DreamChaser spacecraft. There is a rather complicated situation with participation in the NASA competition for commercial manned spacecraft, the death of the director of SpaceDev, James Banson, who left his post after losing this competition... Then repeated participation, the first money received, again “flying” past the contract... But the most important thing is that in In the end, the persistence of Sierra Nevada Corporation did bear fruit: the company received funding from NASA to develop its own ship.
Externally, DreamChaser is a bit reminiscent of SpaceShuttle, being three times smaller in size. The ship is a transport and cargo ship, unmanned, although development of a manned version is still underway. There is even consideration of sending a service team to carry out technical work on the Hubble telescope in the mid-2020s.
It turns out that SNCorp became the only company after SpaceX and Orbital ATK that received permission from the US authorities to fly to the ISS. The first launches of DreamChaser on an Atlas V launch vehicle are expected in 2019, and final checks and tests of the system are now underway.
By the way, the UN also wants to use the ship’s services, as part of a program that should allow UN member countries that do not have the ability to independently launch missions into space to conduct experiments in the DreamChaser cabin in zero-gravity conditions. But such missions are unlikely to begin before the dream chaser has proven his reliability.
Sierra Nevada also tied itself with the US Department of Defense with a contract to create a new generation of satellites, but, as always, there are few details here.
And again I have to end the story about yet another private owner with the words “there are a couple of years left to wait.” We wait!
Masten Space Systems
It's time to move on completely small companies. Masten Space Systems is a space, or rather rocket, company based in the Mojave Desert in California. Since 2005, she has been desperately trying to win some kind of competition, to get at least a small contract, but so far the company has not received the prize jackpot. However, MSS has prototypes and even working samples, so it would be rude of me not to include it in this list.
The main area of work is vertical take-off and landing systems: those that can be useful both in the operation of interplanetary missions (landing modules, for example), and in the development of future reusable launch vehicles. The most promising development is Xeus, a lunar lander that has been improved several times, pre-approved by NASA as a possible prototype for a manned lander, and even taken under the wing of ULA: the latter want to try to install their own stage from the future Vulcan rocket on Xeus.
In general, now the situation with Masten Space Systems is reminiscent of Orbital or the same ATK at the very beginning of their development: a small company with promising developments, which serious players are just beginning to become interested in, including in the form of the state. We'll keep an eye on it!
Moon Express
Here we come to the last company in today's review. I will allow myself the audacity to ask you to like this video, of course, only if you really liked the video. And to remind you that such videos come out thanks to the guys who support us on The Patreon. The link to it will be in the description, so if you want to join them, please - we will be very glad!
Well, for now let's move on to Moon Express.
The history of this company is quite interesting: it was founded by several entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, they immediately managed to reach some agreements with NASA, and the main direction of work was the extraction of resources beyond the Earth. First of all, on the Moon.
With this set of initial data, Moon Express begins its journey to participate in the Google Lunar XPrize competition, while simultaneously launching other promising and interesting projects from a technical point of view, such as a lunar telescope the size of a shoebox. Gets into a couple of programs from the same NASA: first of all, Lunar CATALYST, which, by the way, includes our previous heroine, Masten Space Systems... Finally, in 2016, it receives for use two launch complexes at the Kennedy Space Center, 16th and 17th, and a year later becomes the first private space company in history to receive permission to explore the surface of the Moon.
In 2017, Google fully paid for the ticket to our satellite for Moon Express on the Electron rocket, which we talked about a little earlier, and now the only thing left to do is deliver the MX-1 lander with thirty kilograms of payload to the Moon.
The company also has further plans: if the planned mission is successful, they will receive a prize from Google of $20 million: this will allow them to develop the MX-1 platform. First, install an additional engine on it and increase capacity. Then - increase the possible payload mass to 150 kilograms. Well, in the final version, MX-9, with a capacity of 500 kilograms, it will be possible to return samples from the Moon to Earth.
Of all the future dates I announced today, the closest ones are the launches of Electron with a test load and with the Moon Express device. So we will definitely show you and tell you about these events in more detail.
As you can see, almost all active private space is concentrated in the United States. Of course, there are small German, Italian, Indian, Russian companies, however, as I said at the beginning of the video, today I would like to discuss only more or less large players: those who already have something to show, something to launch, something to surprise. Not all of the companies announced today compete with each other, but many, as you already understand, on the contrary, cooperate closely.
It is cooperation, bold ideas and government support that are the real engine of space progress today. It is private space companies that make it possible to reduce the cost of launching spacecraft; the spacecraft themselves are developing ambitious missions to explore the Moon, Mars and other planets of the solar system.
And we believe that we are now on the threshold of a great future. A future in which space will become close and accessible, and people will finally take their eyes off our tiny planet and look up.
Alpha Centauri will try to be a kind of information telescope for you. Alas, we will not be able to bring the stars closer to you. But we can bring you closer to the stars.
I constantly hear that the Americans, after the closure of the Shuttle program, do not have their own ship, launch vehicle, etc., and use the services of Russia, that they are suckers and that’s where we “made” them. I decided to understand the topic a little and see what developments are currently available in the USA.
I've heard about this company for a long time Space-X, which developed the Falcon launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft.
On December 21, 2015, they successfully launched the ship with cargo and successfully landed the launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral.
After some research on Wikipedia, it turned out that the United States has a program Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS)
They also write that the goals of the program are as follows:
NASA plans to spend $500 million (less than the cost of a single Shuttle launch) through 2010 to finance the development and commercial demonstration of vehicles to carry cargo, and eventually crew, to the International Space Station. Unlike past NASA projects, the created ships will be owned by the development companies themselves and will be used as part of Commercial Resupply Services commercial contracts with NASA to supply the ISS.
Private spacecraft and their providers compete for four service areas:
- Level A: delivery of cargo in unpressurized compartments of the ship and disposal;
- Level B: delivery of cargo in sealed compartments of ships and disposal;
- Level C: delivery of cargo in sealed compartments of ships and return it to Earth;
- Level D: crew transportation.
According to information, there are now 2 contracts with private companies Space-X and Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation, has a huge history behind it, they have manufactured more than 560 launch vehicles that are still in use today, developed the Cygnus spacecraft and the Antares launch vehicle for it.
Cyrnus- a ship for delivering cargo to the ISS, but Antares- disposable launch vehicle, being developed Orbital Sciences Corporation and the Ukrainian company Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, currently the launch vehicle uses the RD-181 engine developed by the RussianNPO "Energomash".
With Space-X and Orbital Sciences Corporation - everything is clear, but I also came across the Blue Origin company and I was wondering who they are and what is their goal?
Blue Origin- is a private company that probably makes money by putting satellites into orbit, but in addition to this they are developing a new manned spacecraft New Shepard which will be able to deliver both cargo and people into space.
Most recently, they successfully launched a ship, reaching a 100-kilometer altitude and returning from there both the ship itself and the launch vehicle.
Wikipedia writes the following about this ship:
Three-seater ship being developed by the company New Shepard designed for vertical takeoffs and landings. The conical-shaped spacecraft is about 15 meters high and 6 meters in diameter at the base. The device consists of two modules - the engine compartment and the crew capsule, which can accommodate three or more people.
The total fuel mass is about 54 tons. The thrust of engines running on concentrated hydrogen peroxide and kerosene should be approximately 100 tons. In 110 seconds they must raise the device to a height of 40 kilometers, then the engines will turn off, and the rise will continue by inertia. The ship must rise to a height of about 100 kilometers, after which; move to the landing trajectory. The engines are restarted for landing at the Corn Ranch spaceport. The flight duration will be about 10 minutes. The interval between flights should be no more than a week.
It is assumed that the ship being created will be based on the concept of the Delta Clipper DC-XA reusable vertical take-off and landing vehicle being developed by McDonnell Douglas.
There are other companies in the United States that are building reusable transport ships: Orion, CST-100 and Dream Chaser.
It turns out that the Americans are trying to create a reusable launch vehicle in order to reduce the cost of cargo delivery, they also decided not to engage in development and construction at the state level, but to transfer this stage into the hands of private organizations, creating competition between them for the tender for cargo delivery and people into space. In my opinion, this is an excellent strategy that will bear fruit in the next 10-15 years.
I am also confident that private companies, due to their mobility and commercial interest, are able to attract the best specialists/fanatics from all over the world into their ranks. Why is it important? New people, new ideas, strengths, approaches, with proper funding - success is guaranteed.
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If we compare the development strategy of the US space industry with Russia, it becomes clear that there really is a crisis in the Russian space industry.
At the moment, there are three largest state-owned companies that are engaged in the production of launch vehicles and ships.
Since Soviet times, it has been producing manned Soyuz spacecraft and unmanned Progress spacecraft. They have a contract with NASA to deliver crews and cargo to the ISS. They participate in many places and do many developments. Most recently, they announced the development of a partially reusable Federation ship, which will replace the Soyuz and Progress. For now, they plan to deliver the ship on a heavy Angara-5 launch vehicle. In general, the story with the new ship is still murky, there is an economic crisis, unclear goals and objectives, and very distant plans.
Like NPO Energia, the enterprise was created back in the days Soviet Union, and during the collapse it survived as best it could. Now the company consistently produces launch vehicles: Proton-K, Proton-M, and is the manufacturer of the new family of Angara launch vehicles. From the information on the website, it becomes clear that the main customer is the Ministry of Defense, and the carriers “do not have to” be returned to the ground after launch.
They were the creators of the ship on which Yuri Gagarin flew into space. A company with a great history and heritage.
At the moment, they are the manufacturer of the family launch vehicles "Soyuz", and subsequently its redesigned version " Soyuz-2-1V".
After a superficial analysis, I felt sorry that only state-owned companies, accustomed to receiving huge funds from the country’s budget, are involved in space exploration. I like the American strategy of space development through private companies and talented people better.
Private companies have made significant progress in space exploration. Private rockets launch private satellites that generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue per year. Private astronautics has also achieved a lot of success in the development of technology - many are looking with hope at reusable rockets that promise to reduce the cost of access to space. Private companies have already appeared, targeting near-Earth asteroids, and tourists are buying tickets to the vicinity of the Moon. Is a science-fiction future awaiting us, where corporations are in charge of space exploration, and what is behind today's successes of private individuals outside of Earth?
Today, the world's attention is focused on the successes and failures of just one private space company - SpaceX. Someone is waiting for the revolution that will come when the price of a space launch drops tenfold or more, someone is rubbing their hands in anticipation of the moment when the “bubble will burst” and the “swindler Musk” will admit how he faked a video of a rocket landing on offshore platform. In both cases, no one remains indifferent. Bringing back the first rocket stage after a space launch is certainly a major engineering achievement. But practically the same thing has been done since the 80s as part of the program Space Shuttle, then the bodies of the solid fuel boosters returned by parachute, and the Shuttle was nothing more than a reusable third stage. And such technology did not reduce the cost of conquering outer space; the complexity of the system and the cost of inter-flight maintenance killed the entire economic sense of reusability. That, however, did not stop NASA from operating the system for 30 years. And here we see an important significant difference between private and state cosmonautics - the private owner follows the beaten path after the state and tries to benefit where state-owned enterprises have not tried. Therefore, about the success of the company SpaceX we can confidently say when reusable rockets will become more profitable than disposable ones.
Private astronautics made a real revolution in the 2000s, although few people paid attention to it then. It was then that the revenues of the world space market exceeded the total government spending on space. Since then, this difference has grown every year and now space allows private companies to earn three times more than the world's government budgets spend on it. Although in Russia it is traditionally believed that you can make money in space only through a government contract, abroad the main source of money from space is retransmission: satellite television broadcasting, transmission of large amounts of data, provision of live television broadcasts. A good income comes from the provision of navigation services, the production of ground-based receiving, processing and transmitting equipment, and, to a lesser extent, satellite imagery and the use of this data. Currently space communications occupies approximately 10% of the global telecommunications market, the rest of the information is transmitted via terrestrial networks, but the demand for transmission is growing exponentially, so the role of space is not reduced, despite the optical fiber entangling the Earth. A third of the entire space market is occupied by the production of satellites and rockets, and the launches themselves do not exceed approximately 2% of the total “pie.” Therefore, leadership in space launches does not at all mean leadership in space exploration; neither fans should forget this SpaceX, nor Roscosmos fans.
Despite the thousands of near-Earth satellites that are launched and paid for by private customers and which generate profits for their owners, not a single private satellite has entered interplanetary space. There, near the Moon and on Mars, near Saturn and beyond the orbit of Pluto, state apparatuses continue to reign supreme. Most of them are produced by private companies, Lockheed Martin, Thales Alenia Space, Orbital ATK, but the customer and operator in all cases is the state. And here it’s time to understand the terminology and separate the two types of activities in space, which are often confused by both the media and the space agencies themselves.
Saturn 5, NASA's heavy rocket, with Apollo 17 as its payload. Photo before the start of today's last manned expedition to the Moon. December 1972.
Space exploration is the main activity carried out by states since the very beginning of astronautics. Study of the conditions of near-Earth and interplanetary space, visiting and examining the bodies of the Solar System, delivery of extraterrestrial matter, astrophysical research. All this is fundamental science, which expands the limits of knowledge of the surrounding world, but does not bring practical benefit. Fundamental science funding traditionally lies on the shoulders of the state, although private capital is now one way or another involved in this activity, but the share of its participation in space exploration is low, and, as a rule, is associated with the financing of ground laboratories and research centers.
Space exploration - practical use conditions of outer space or the opportunities it opens. Historically, the state has been a leader in this type of activity. Weather satellites and the first television repeaters were launched for civilian use. For the military, communications satellites, spy satellites: optical and radar, warning satellites have been actively used and continue to be used. missile attack. Initially, both GPS and GLONASS navigation systems were considered as military devices for guiding ballistic missiles. However, in the 2000s, private astronautics became leaders in the exploration of near-Earth space. The provision of communication services and the use of satellite data have made it possible to deploy large-scale private relay networks and launch hundreds of satellites to image the Earth. In the United States, the capabilities of private owners are actively used even in public interests. Gradually, government services are moving from operating their own spacecraft to ordering commercial services, this applies to satellite imagery, relays, rocket launches, and supplies to the International Space Station.
Today, the most valuable space resource actively developed by private owners is the geostationary orbit (GSO) in the equatorial plane, at an altitude of 36 thousand km from the Earth’s surface. GEO allows satellites to remain above one point on the surface as they orbit the planet. It is in this orbit that telecommunications satellites are located, providing television broadcasting, relaying, satellite Internet, and weather satellites are also located there, capable of observing each of its hemispheres in a constant mode.
Geostationary satellites represent the crown of development of space unmanned technologies: they have a mass of 1 to 8 tons, an impressive span of solar panels of a couple of tens of meters or more, are equipped with radiation-resistant electronics that allow them to operate in space for more than 10 years, ion and plasma engines, high-performance radio systems and laser communication system. Nowadays, it is not uncommon for a satellite to cease operations not due to technical problems, but due to obsolescence of the payload or exhaustion of fuel reserves; operational satellites are permanently sent to a “disposal orbit” to be replaced with more modern ones.
Why do private traders, having the most modern satellites and cheaper reusable rockets, not stick their heads beyond the geostationary orbit? The answer is simple: there is no profit. Working in low-Earth orbit allows us to provide services to solvent inhabitants of the Earth. Until such inhabitants appear on the Moon and Mars, launching private spacecraft there makes no sense.
Now let's remember about the lunar tourists and asteroid resources that we mentioned earlier. When will they allow exploration of the Moon and deep space to begin?
Unfortunately, not soon yet. The problem here is the complexity of the technologies that will need to be developed to create a lunar tourism infrastructure or asteroid mining. For example, consider asteroid hunting. To date, two companies have declared their goal to extract space resources: Deep Space Industries And Planetary Resources. About $20 million was invested in the first, about $25 million in the second, with $21 million received for the development of a near-Earth satellite constellation for imaging the Earth. The Luxembourg government has announced that it is ready to invest up to $200 million in private companies. Even if Luxembourg’s grants are included in private funds, it still amounts to a total of less than $300 million invested in the commercial development of near-Earth asteroids.
Japanese microsatellite PROCYON, developed at the University of Tokyo. To assess the complexity of the task, it is worth considering real examples of missions for the extraction of interplanetary matter or the study of small bodies in the Solar System. Japanese government spacecraft Hayabusa (Japanese. (はやぶさ, “Peregrine Falcon”), which managed to reach an asteroid, extract less than 1 gram of its substance and deliver it to Earth, cost $138 million. A more complex NASA project OSIRIS-REx has a budget of $800 million. Japanese student apparatus PROCYON, which was only supposed to approach the asteroid, cost $5 million, but was not successful due to a failure of the propulsion system, although it was able to spend a year in interplanetary space. The unsuccessful “Phobos-Grunt”, for studying and extracting samples of the Mars satellite Phobos, cost the Russian budget about $200 million. Do not forget about the timing of the missions: Hayabusa flew for 7 years OSIRIS-REx launched in 2016, should reach the asteroid in 2020 and return in 2023. But it still takes several years to develop the device. The most expensive and complex mission of this type is the project Rosetta, which included studying the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov - Gerasimenko and landing the module on its surface. Ten Year Flight Rosetta cost €1.4 billion.
It is very difficult to imagine an investor who would decide to invest in such an extremely expensive and extremely risky long-term project, seriously expecting financial benefits at the end of the flight. He may be driven by philanthropic motives or the desire to leave his name in the history of astronautics, but not by the desire to enrich himself at the expense of extraterrestrial platinum or water. The only practical financial interest here may be in the development of technology, but this will take more than a dozen years.
In the situation with space tourism, the scale of financial costs is orders of magnitude higher, meanwhile, near-Earth space tourism is already a reality, and lunar tourism can become a reality in a matter of years. How is this possible?
Here we return again to the role of the state. In 1957, only a playboy and philanthropist could invest in telecommunications satellites. The hope of making a profit by 2005 and recouping costs in 2015 could only belong to a madman. There weren't any of those in the 50s. Only when the state created heavy rockets capable of launching several tons into geostationary orbit, when the state tested in practice the telecommunications prospects of orbit, developed electronics capable of withstanding the conditions of space, created or paid for industrial capacity capable of producing satellites powerful enough, long-lived and cheap for this to become profitable, only then did commercial astronautics become real and profitable. In economic terms, the state took on all the capital costs of the space industry, leaving only operating costs and revenues for private owners.
In manned spaceflight everything is more complicated and expensive. By 1969, the idea of tourist flights to the Moon may have seemed more feasible, but in reality everyone knew the cost of NASA to get people to the Moon (roughly $5 billion in modern dollars for a ticket to lunar orbit), so not a single billionaire brought a truckload of cash to Houston so that he would be taken on the next flight. Today, two companies are ready to offer a tourist flight to the Moon and back: the Russian RKK Energia and the American SpaceX. In the first case, the tour will take place on board the modified Soyuz spacecraft, in the second - in the modified Dragon. In both cases, the capital costs of creating cosmodromes, rockets and ships capable of such a flight are state-owned. States act as regular customers for Soyuz spacecraft as part of the International Space Station program, and NASA orders and pays for the creation of the spacecraft Dragon. In both cases, near-Earth spacecraft are created at government expense, and improvements that will allow them to get to the Moon and back will need to be carried out solely in the hope of tourist income. And although the Soyuz has been flying for decades, it is still not capable of flying to the Moon, although the price tag for a lunar tour is significantly lower than in the 60s - about $120 million. The cost of lunar modernization still exceeds the expected commercial benefit, and existing demand is too low.
The result is disappointing. Despite all the desire and all the romance of private space, modern investors do not have the physical opportunity to undertake the real exploration of interplanetary space. At the same time, the role of the state in space exploration can be rethought taking into account the accumulated experience. At the dawn of astronautics, no one thought that a vacuum would ever be beneficial. Government investments were made for other purposes: military and propaganda, but ultimately they produced an economic effect. Unfortunately, the proportions of what was invested and what was received were not always preserved. The USA paid for about half of the world's space program, and now receives up to 60% of the world's space revenues; the USSR/Russia took over about a quarter of the world's space program and today is content with 1% of space profits. But that's another story.
Today we can say with confidence that space exploration is impossible without the joint efforts of the state and private business. Only the state can seriously invest “in the long term”: finance industry, develop infrastructure, train personnel. Only private owners are able to make this infrastructure profitable, enrich themselves and, through taxes, return its investments to the state. This is, of course, an idealized scheme that may not work. But technology is developing, and space is still an hour away if a car can go up, so each state is able to decide for itself whether it is worth the risk of investing in space in anticipation of an economic return in decades. But NASA is already building a whole series of spacecraft to reach and study asteroids, developing cislunar infrastructure: a super-heavy rocket, an interplanetary spacecraft, and plans to build a manned station. The head of the ESA is seriously calling for the construction of a Moon Village - with the active involvement of private space not only as contractors, but also as tour operators. Roscosmos hopes to regain the lost demand for space launches and start making money from Earth imaging and relaying, that is, start competing with private companies. There is no talk of developing the infrastructure for deep space exploration and no such task is being set. The project of the device for the Apophis asteroid has been cancelled, the Luna-25 -26 -27 lunar drones are constantly being postponed, the future of Phobos-Grunt 2 is not determined.