Black week "private space"

The past week has become truly black for the so-called "private space". The crash of the Antares rocket and the disaster of the suborbital spacecraft SpaceShipTwo can change the public attitude to “private space” and turn enthusiastic expectations “tomorrow we will fly into space on a tourist voucher” into public condemnation. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the “private astronautics”, and is it possible to hope that venture investors will present humanity with the available space?

Fuzzy definition

First of all, it must be recalled that the term “private astronautics” itself is somewhat blurred and is not always correctly used. In the United States, the state space agency NASA held tenders for the execution of contracts by private organizations (for example, 12 companies participated in the tender for the creation of the Mercury spacecraft and won McDonnell Aircraft), and private companies can already make their own satellite from NASA 1962 ( Communications Satellite Act of 1962 ). Currently, there are already many non-state companies that:

• Produce launch vehicles, stages, booster blocks, rocket engines and other components: Boeing , Lockheed Martin , Alliant Techsystems , Aerojet .
• Providing satellite launch services: United Launch Alliance (founded in 2006, actually created by Boeing and Lockheed Martin), Arianespace (works since 1980!).
• The satellites themselves are produced: Thales Alenia Space , again Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The only thing that private companies have not yet achieved is manned cosmonautics. To date, there are no manned spacecraft, created without the participation of the state order. The Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program is gradually becoming the usual competition for NASA with joint testing teams and the right of NASA to influence the choice of design solutions of the device. Private companies are now independently mastering only suborbital flights.
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At the same time, in the minds of the public there is a vague myth about the genius-millionaire who is interested in space and, in the style of "Iron Man", collects devices that change the history of mankind and work on fantastic technologies. In the history there were successful design engineers and businessmen in one person (one of the most famous examples is Howard Hughes , but this category includes William Boeing , John Northrop or Igor Sikorsky ). The history of aviation shows that they made innovative, special or just great planes, but the conquest of the air was evolutionary, with many dead-end paths, unsuccessful solutions and catastrophes. The real world is not a comic book, and it’s quite naive to wait for an instantaneous revolution in the high-tech industry
However, companies that are among the pioneers of "private space" have common features - they are usually relatively small and new in the market. Such a company may concentrate on a new technology, but in general it is not necessary. Also, it can be formed by the efforts of a person combining the functions of an investor, CEO and chief designer, but in the general case this is also not necessary.

Cygnus Orb-3 crash (CRS3) October 28

The Orb-3 mission was to be the third mission of the cargo ship Cygnus to the ISS. The launch was broadcast live, and it looked like this:



The chronology of events is as follows:
22:22:38: Ignition of the engines of the first stage.
10:22:40 PM: Operation of pirobolts connecting the rocket and the launch pad, the missile detaches from the launch pad.
10:22:53 PM: The flames of the rocket exhaust change color, become brighter, longer and more yellow.
22:23:54: The explosion in the tail of the rocket.
10:24:02 PM: The rocket hits the launch facility and explodes.

The fire at the launch site lasted more than an hour:



Damage to the launch complex in daylight ( large photo ):



After the accident, NASA released a FAQ , which, in a brief retelling, boils down to the fact that there are no dead, injured or environmental damage, and the ISS will not disappear without destroyed supplies.

That's all the information that we, as third-party viewers, have. It is necessary to understand that a space accident must be investigated thoroughly, and this takes time. Emergency commissions work for months, and, in the worst case, we will find out about the causes of the accident in about six months, and if we are very unlucky, then later. At best, if the cause of the accident is clearly visible by telemetry, this period can be reduced to a month. Without telemetry and access to the debris of the rocket, all our attempts to determine the cause will be fortune telling on the coffee grounds. But we can see some consequences of the catastrophe now.

The most noticeable result for today looks like this:



This is a stock price chart for Orbital Sciences Corporation. Investors, the exchange and potential customers do not like disasters. And this is the weakness of the “new private traders”. Large companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin have units in a variety of areas - aviation, weapons, launch vehicles, satellites, electronics, and many others. The size of these companies gives a sustainability margin that can survive even several accidents in a row. In this case, specifically, Orbital Sciences Corporation is doing quite well. The fact is that, despite the image of the “new private trader,” the company is rather old and large. Orbital produces:

• Satellites. The division has been operating since 1982. The most famous device - AMC Dawn , now working in the asteroid belt.
• Booster rockets. In addition to the "Antares", the Pegasus PH (a famous air launch vehicle) and Minotaur (a solid ground launch vehicle, a lot of modifications, are produced, in 2013, the LADEE lunar probe was launched).
• Military orders. Accelerators for missile defense missiles, ballistic targets and simulators of anti-ship missiles are produced.

With such a variety of units and in the presence of military contracts do not worry about the future of Orbital.

The future of the Antares launch vehicle is uncertain, mainly because the cause of the accident is unknown. But in the long run, this rocket has serious problems:

• The NK-33 engines, which are in a modified form at the first stage, are not produced now. After exhaustion of a stock of engines made 40 years ago, it will be necessary to redesign the launch vehicle for a new engine or to stop production.
• Tanks, pipelines, valves and other elements of the first stage are produced in Ukraine at Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. Under the conditions of political instability and economic problems in this country (in the media, information about the high risk of bankruptcy of Yuzhnoye Commercial Bank has been slipping lately), the chances of establishing the first stage mass production are very small.

Crash SpaceShipTwo October 31

On this day, the first flight was to take place with the inclusion of a new type of hybrid engine. Judging by the photos, the engine managed to work for a few seconds, after which the vehicle was destroyed ( large photo ):



Of the two crew members, Peter Sibold managed to jump with a parachute (there are no catapults on SpaceShipTwo, this is a mistake of journalists) and was taken to hospital with serious injuries, and Mike Alsbury was killed.


Mike Alsbury, photo taken after the first flight of SpaceShipTwo with the inclusion of the engine, 2013

The wreckage of the ship was scattered over a wide area, as it always happens with the destruction of the aircraft in the air.


Right tail stabilizer.


The tail of the fuselage, visible oxidizer tank.


The same chip, front view. The hole in the tank cannot be attached to the fuel chamber, because it is the front of the tank, and the fuel chamber is located behind the oxidizer tank.


The same chip, rear view. The fuselage skin is probably torn off by excessive oxidant pressure

Video from the crash site:



The investigation of this disaster will also take a lot of time, and now there is no point in trying to guess what caused it.
From the perspective of private suborbital tourism, this disaster is a very serious blow, much more dangerous than the Antares accident. In order for the situation to be clear, it is necessary to make a rather extensive excursion into the past.

Victory, turning into defeat

Remember these beautiful futuristic ships? Ten years ago, on October 4, 2004, Scaled Composites won the Ansari X Prize by launching a manned ship above 100 km twice within two weeks. It seemed that the road to suborbital flights was open, and dozens of rich tourists would get a unique experience of three-minute weightlessness, an opportunity to take a selfie at an altitude of 100 km and an astronaut badge (according to US rules, an astronaut is anyone who has risen above 50 miles). But for ten years, not a single such flight took place, and the anniversary of 2014 became very sad. Why did this happen?

Who made just 14 flights SpaceShipOne went to the museum in 2005. Cosmoblogger Douglas Messier, in his article written the day before the crash, writes that after the victory in the X Prize, the roads of designer Burt Rutan and billionaire Paul Allen went their separate ways. Rutan planned to conduct at least twenty more flights - ride twenty of his friends and twenty friends of Allen and simultaneously collect statistics on the behavior of SpaceShipOne in flight. The fact is that only six flights were made with a running engine, this is not very much, and additional data on the properties of the vehicle, flying at a speed of 3 Mach and rising to a height of 100 km, would be very useful. But Allen did not want to finance new flights. First, the costs of these flights were not planned in the original arrangement. Secondly, sending SpaceShipOne to the museum was an act of charity that was supposed to provide tax holidays for Allen and reduce his expenses for participation in the project. SpaceShipOne has been developing since 1996, and development costs of $ 25 million were only partially offset by a $ 10 million prize from the X-Prize. And thirdly, humanly, the ship has already become historical, and in further operation it could be damaged or completely broken.

Now, having post-knowledge, it is clear that Rutan would be better to build a second flight SpaceShipOne and, finally, start commercial flights. But he went the other way. The first version of the ship could only hold two passengers and did not differ in a spacious cabin. It was logical to make the second version of the ship - for six passengers, with a large cabin, on which you can swim freely in zero gravity. You can put a more powerful engine, climb higher and please the passengers with a longer weightlessness. But with the second version of the ship there were serious problems.



This is the scheme of the hybrid rocket engine used in SpaceShipOne. Nitrous oxide is used as an oxidizing agent (“laughing gas”), and polybutadiene with terminal hydroxyl groups (HTPB) serves as fuel. The polybutadiene used in SpaceShipOne resembles rubber in appearance and physical properties. It is not very solid and therefore does not burn completely evenly - pieces of fuel of different sizes can come off in the combustion chamber, and the combustion process goes with vibrations and shakes. It was unpleasant, but tolerable for the SpaceShipOne engine, but it turned out to be dangerous for the more powerful SpaceShipTwo engine. In fact, the engine turned out to be difficult to scale. To remedy the situation, rubber-like HTPB was changed to solid polyamide , which, in theory, should ensure a uniform burning process without bursts of thrust from the detached pieces. One cannot speak about the effectiveness of this measure - a catastrophe occurred during the first flight with a new type of fuel.
In addition to problems with the engine, the construction of SpaceShipTwo and the aircraft carrier under it took a lot of time and, certainly, demanded a lot of money. Burt Rutan is already retired and will not participate in the creation of new devices, and Richard Branson has become the main investor.

The crash on the test stand in 2007 was an alarm bell. When checking the oxidizer supply (without igniting the fuel), the tank was destroyed, which caused a big explosion, which destroyed the test stand and killed three engineers. The very fact that people were in close proximity to the tested equipment raises serious questions about safety measures at work.

NTSB press conference on November 2

The crash is being investigated with the participation of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). On November 2, a press conference was held at which new data was announced:

• It must be remembered that the investigation will take months, and the published information is not an announcement of the cause of the disaster. The NTSB reports the facts that are currently set.
• Since the flight was a test, a lot of documentary evidence was found - telemetry, video, pictures from the ground.
• The engine worked fine for nine seconds.
• No traces of burnout of the combustion chamber or other signs of explosive destruction were found on the fragments of tanks and the engine.
• The ship has a braking system, which raises up the tail. This system is controlled by two toggle switches. The first is responsible for blocking (“Locked / Open”), the second turns on / off the braking mode. At a speed of ~ 1.0 Mach, the co-pilot unlocked the first toggle switch, although according to the flight plan this operation was to be carried out at a speed of 1.4 M. Despite the fact that the braking system was turned off by the second toggle switch, the tail plumage began to rise. After that, telemetry and video stopped recording - the ship began to collapse.
• Specially repeat again. These facts do not yet allow to establish the cause of the disaster. For the time being, it is impossible to talk either about the pilot’s error, or about the malfunction of the control system, or about the incorrect strength calculation of the vehicle or the failure of the power actuators.

NTSB Press Conference November 3

The following data was announced at the press conference on November 3 :

Time binding of events:
10:07:19 AM local time: Separation of SpaceShipTwo from carrier.
10:07:21: Starting the engine.
10:07:29: Speed ​​has reached 0.94 M.
10:07:31 am: The speed of 1.02 M, the toggle switch of the blocking system of braking is transferred from the position "Blocked" to the position "Open". The tail starts turning.
10:07:34: Termination of video and telemetry.

• The size of the crash site is about 8 km. The lightest fragments were found at a distance of 50 km (apparently, blown down by the wind).
• The flight sheet contains the instruction “do not unlock the toggle switch of the braking system until the speed reaches 1.4 M”.
• The condition of the surviving pilot is too heavy to be interviewed.
• The pilot who switched the braking system toggle toggle switch is the deceased Mike Alsbury.
• This is the last daily briefing, the following updates will not be soon. The expected investigation period is 12 months.

The future of suborbital space tourism

What consequences of the SpaceShipTwo disaster are already evident?

1. Destroyed the only built ship of this type. The investigation of the disaster, the construction of a new ship, new tests - all this postpones suborbital space flights from Virgin Galactic for years. Theoretically, this is an excellent chance for competitors to occupy the market, but the problem is that other private companies have not advanced to the level of manned flight tests of their vehicles.
2. Virgin Galactic may not survive this catastrophe - money is needed for a new device, which is not a fact that investors will have it. But there is good news - according to the official report of the Virgin Galactic, the second ship of the SpaceShipTwo type is 60% ready.
3. The catastrophe raises questions of safety - the SpaceShipOne and -Two ships were built on the principle of civil airliners, when even on test flights the pilots did not have high-altitude compensating suits and catapults. Those. any catastrophic failure in flight with passengers means the death of all on board. And here questions of scale come up again. Theoretically, in SpaceShipOne, the take-off weight of 3 tons could put two or three standard (or minimally modified) aircraft parachutes that could save the cockpit with people even with the destruction of the wings. In SpaceShipTwo weighing 9.7 tons, aircraft parachutes for light aircraft can no longer be delivered - additional funds and time is needed to develop rescue systems. At the same time, you can try to leave everything as it is, sending tourists on the flight after signing a document on the company's refusal of responsibility, but how many people are there?
4. A catastrophe raises issues of state security regulation. The result of the work of the NTSB can be documents about the obligation to equip the devices with certain equipment (for example, the same rescue systems) and to certify suborbital devices. These requirements have a good purpose - safe flights. But they will definitely increase the cost and complexity of the development and operation of such devices.
5. A catastrophe can undermine public confidence in private suborbital flights. If in the course of the investigation the facts of savings in safety, quality or staff training are found, rich clients can refuse suborbital tourism.

Strength and weakness of the "private space"

If you observe the development of what is now called "private space", you can highlight their strengths and weaknesses:
Strengths:

1. The small size of private companies makes them more flexible, they are not afraid to experiment with new technologies.
2. “New private owners” do not incur costs for the extensive bureaucracy of large companies and can compete in the market by lowering prices. Best of all, today, this is being done by SpaceX, which can become a serious competitor to existing companies offering launch services, and reduce the cost of putting one kilogram into orbit by several percent.

Weak sides:

1. The small size and dependence on investors makes these companies vulnerable. Accidents undermine trust, and the investor can run out of money.
2. The low price carries the risk of savings in research, testing or quality.

In general, the "new private traders" are useful, but one should not expect miracles from them. Who remembers Rocketplane Kistler , which in 2006 was selected by NASA along with SpaceX, was excluded from the COTS program due to the deadline and went bankrupt in 2010? And such a fate awaits the majority of "private space companies." According to various statistics, new companies in the "ordinary" sphere are burnt out with a probability of 50-90% in the first year. A high-tech business is complicated, and the statistics are merciless - any organization that will launch rockets will face accidents.