Opening an aerospace agency in 2002, the American entrepreneur Ilon Musk set rather ambitious tasks for him. He stated that soon extraterrestrial space would become available not only for state military and space corporations, but also for ordinary tourists.
Private or public?
For more than 15 years of the SpaceX agency’s activity, Mask has managed to make much of what was announced at the dawn of its creation. A new generation of SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets appeared, capable of returning to Earth, and not burning in dense layers of the atmosphere. It was possible to establish that near-Earth orbit could potentially be visited by tourists. Even if it’s not high, only 100 thousand kilometers away, it’s only four minutes to watch our planet from there, but this is also a great victory for private business. However, few people believe that SpaceX is a company operating on individual funds. Even in the United States, information about the continued funding of the Mask Agency from the NASA budget is no longer news. In addition to the money that the entrepreneur’s corporation receives in sufficient amounts for his projects, he has access to all NASA’s secret developments.
Despite many unsuccessful experiments using the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle, the launch lists of which at the beginning of 2018 contain about 50 dates, only a few of them turned out to be truly failures. But the main task - reusable use of the first stage, and then other key elements of the space-conquering apparatus, the engineers of Elon Mask managed to achieve. Seeing their real successes, one should not be surprised at the fact that a private entrepreneur receives billions of budget money for his development. Nevertheless, Falcon 9 flights are positioned solely as private.
Trial - with varying success
Musk originally planned to create an apparatus capable of visiting space like a taxi by 2018. But much more than the time planned for the realization of these goals passed before SpaceX Falcon 9 was created. The first-class rockets of this family, Falcon 1, were already capable of launching cargo into low Earth orbit by 2009, but they served their creator only as advertising material proving the availability of space for private developers.
The first launches of the Falcon 1 were made four years after the founding of SpaceX. They cannot be attributed to successful ones due to unjustifiably high costs for equipment and the three consecutive disasters that occurred with the complete loss of missiles. Musk also failed to attract large investors to his ideas. A few more years passed before SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. But the fact that this became possible was largely due to several successful launches of the Falcon 1 in 2008, when the launch vehicle was able to deliver the cargo to a given orbit. According to the assurances of Mask himself, if he failed again at that time, he would have had to abandon high-profile ambitious projects due to the usual lack of money. In terms of economic indicators, his idea turned out to be a failure, but its image component throughout the world was a tremendous success. Mask could not have desired the best advertising for his brainchild.
Level tested
By 2013, the equipment of the corporation was so advanced that SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket in the hope of maintaining the first stage for subsequent flights. Finally, Musk was able to start implementing his main task - the invention of the reusable apparatus. On September 13, a new Falcon carrier rocket launched from Vandenberg airbase. The Merlin 1D engine, which stood on it, helped bring several satellites to the DOE (low reference orbit). In total, on that day, the device delivered into space almost 13 tons of cargo. During the launch and disconnection of the first stage, a test of its return to Earth was conducted. But Grasshopper’s grandiose project, which was supposed to be the most successful since the creation of SpaceX Corporation, failed.
Due to inaccurate calculations and unexpected rotation of the first stage during the braking period, the fuel supply from the tanks went intermittently, which led to the destruction of the first stage and the abandonment of the planned test of the second. According to the original plan, she was supposed to fulfill the mission of launching spacecraft into higher orbits with multiple engine starts. Since the failure with the first stage was completely unexpected for the developers, they were afraid to decide on the further test of the second. However, the reason for the failure of the operation was established. It was the freezing of fuel. In 2013, three Falcon 9 launches were made, one of which launched a satellite into geo-transition orbit.
There is a return of the first step!
To understand why it was so important for Elon Musk to achieve the preservation of the first stage, several advantages should be given in favor of this idea. Firstly, reusing the same engine is much cheaper than installing a new one before each start. It’s like changing the motor before the next trip. Costs are disproportionate, of course, but the example is more than indicative. Secondly, even with a colossal repair, the engine will still be cheaper than the new one, therefore, even if in a slightly spoiled form, but returning it back could lead to a cheaper project as a whole. But Musk is still a businessman. And thirdly, new launches could be organized with the money saved. Because on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which was already able to cope with several serious tasks, he had high hopes.
The first successful operation to return the first stage was carried out in 2014. In total, during this period, six launches of launch vehicles were carried out. All from the launch pad of Cape Canaveral. In three of them, produced on April 18, July 14 and September 21, it was planned to carry out operations to return the first stage. Unfortunately, due to adverse weather conditions in the area of splashdown and inaccurate miscalculations of the designers, the first steps could not be saved. They all sank. But flight telemetry showed that all three experiments were successful, and the steps descended in the given squares.
Breakthrough 2015
But Musk experienced a real triumph in 2015. And the point is not that during these 12 months he managed to carry out seven flights, and two of the four experiments to return the first stage ended favorably. One of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, launched on February 11, managed to bring the spacecraft to the Lagrange point located outside the earth's orbit. Three American state corporations became partners of the project: NASA, NOAA and USAF. The latter provided the operation with a radar installation. It was because of its malfunctions that the launch of the rocket was postponed several times, but in the end it was nevertheless made, and very successfully.
Losses of the first steps in all seven launches against the backdrop of such a significant breakthrough also overshadowed the creator of SpaceX. He understood that in the very near future they will be able to make a more accurate landing in the squares defined for this purpose and they will be able not only to save, but also to reuse. Indeed, time after time, experiments on their landing turned out to be more successful. However, one of the flights of 2015 became catastrophic for the Ilona Mask corporation. At 139 seconds, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded, and with it the Dragon spaceship. In subsequent studies, it was possible to establish that the causes of the destruction of the carrier were problems of the second stage. Nevertheless, the failure did not cripple the entrepreneur, and already in December of the same year he carried out another launch of the Falcon 9 with the launch of 11 satellites into their orbits. Moreover, having landed on Cape Canaveral, where it started, the first stage after the repair soon set off again.
Customers choose Falcon 9
By 2016, Elon Musk enlisted the support of not only the state corporations of the United States, but also other states. At this point, he carried out orbit, except for the American, satellites of South Korea, Italy, France, Turkmenistan. Most of them were carried out under the patronage of NASA. So it was with the flights of the Dragon ship to the International Space Station in 2012. The first launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was carried out on May 22 as part of the COTS Demo Flight program of the combined second and third missions. The ship managed to get close to the ISS at a distance of ten meters and dock. On the sixth day, Dragon set off on a return flight and on May 31 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.
Dragon's second flight to the ISS was not so successful: it was not possible to restart the second stage, and the Orbcomm-G2 satellite test model deviated from the orbit two days after the launch of the launch vehicle and burned out in the atmosphere. This launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 from the launch pad SLC-40 of Cape Canaveral was made on October 8, 2012. It was also led by NASA. Until 2016, this was the main training ground for SpaceX missiles, until one of them destroyed it during an explosion.
Crash on the launch pad
It happened on September 1, 2016. Two days before the scheduled launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle with the Amos-6 telecommunications satellite, it was necessary to carry out a test burn on board. A powerful explosion and subsequent fire occurred in the second stage during the injection of the tank with liquid oxygen.
Experts were able to establish that a change in the configuration of cylinders for compressed helium led to the tragedy. Deflections were formed in the aluminum layers of the inner walls of the containers externally coated with carbon fiber. And in them, between the inner and outer layers, liquid oxygen accumulated, which subsequently ignited. Shortly before the launch of the rocket, the configuration of the cylinders was changed in order to modernize the equipment, but a proper test was not carried out. With further launches, it was decided to return to the tanks of a proven design.
After this failure, in 2016, Musk did not launch SpaceX Falcon 9. Reviews of eyewitnesses to this tragedy indicate that the catastrophe was the main disappointment of the creator of the private space corporation by this time and the most unprofitable company for its entire duration. The next launch, he decided in January 2017.
18 starts. Of them successful, all
The SLC-40 launch pad at Cape Canaveral is no longer in use. The launches of the Falcon 9 family missiles were moved to Vandenbe base and Kennedy Convention Center. Since the first of January 14, ten satellites of the new generation Iridium have been successfully launched into orbit. This start was largely a consolation for Ilon Mask after the September disaster. The total payload weight was almost 10 tons. It was possible to successfully bring the first step to the floating platform Just Read the Instructions. Therefore, subsequently the launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with Iridium 4 Launch (a kind of satellite telephony system for which demand began to grow, and the number of orders increased) was largely possible thanks to successful launches made in early 2017.
In total, SpaceX Corporation made 18 launches this year, and not one has led to any significant losses. The first steps returned either to the sites of the stationary landing zone, or to floating platforms. Satellites were successfully launched into orbits. It was possible to reuse the pressurized descent capsule of the Dragon spaceship, launch the Boeing X-37B spacecraft, expand the geography of customers and much more. All these good fortunes gave tangible compensation after the financial loss of the disaster at Cape Canaveral. And, of course, S paceX Falcon 9 Launch with Iridium NEXT satellites brought commercial success.
Secret Zuma
In addition to all of the above undoubted successes of the Ilona Mask corporation, one can distinguish another one that has been observed over the past three years. The temporary distance between the launches of launch vehicles was noticeably reduced. Sometimes between the starts of the Falcon 9 it took only a few days. Another advantage of the corporation’s employees is that quite often the next rockets were sent into space from the same site. As with SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch from the Kennedy Convention Center on June 3 and 23, 2017. And two days later the site at Vandenbe base was again used.
Once again, Elon Musk intended to surprise the interested community in November 2017. But the launch of a rocket with a secret cargo, codenamed Zuma, was postponed to January 2018. On the 8th of this month, a rocket with a mysterious device was successfully launched for one of the US government customers, the name of which the media have not yet been able to find out. However, a message soon appeared that the secret satellite could not be put into orbit. Onboard SpacexFalcon 9 Zuma was still there, and this is not hidden at all by Mask Corporation, but they prefer not to resort to detailed comments due to the extremely secret mission of the launched facility.
Hope and Reality
SpaceX does not expect any significant breakthrough in the further development of the corporation from fulfilling a secret mission. Launches will be made according to the previously scheduled schedule. In 2018 and in subsequent periods, several dozen Falcon 9 launches are planned, reviews and reviews of experts on which converge in one: the main mission is to invent a reusable launch vehicle, make space accessible - Musk fulfilled, but Mars did not colonize, a significant I did not achieve a reduction in the cost of a single launch. Creating his corporation in 2010, he intended to achieve significantly more by 2018.
Perhaps the launch of Zuma SpaceX Falcon 9 into outer space in the very near future will open up new prospects for the private space agency, since the name of the manufacturer of the secret object - Northrop Grumman Corporation - speaks for itself. However, the Maskon project can bring greater success to the creation of a new generation of launch vehicle Falcon Heavy. Today it is the largest of all that has ever been created, and belongs to the category of heavy class. Its power is capable of delivering much more cargo to space, reducing the cost of one flight tens of times and creating savings on the number of launches. In addition, its use is planned to be carried out repeatedly.