Opening the aerospace agency in 2002, the American entrepreneur Elon Musk set quite ambitious goals for him. He stated that soon extraterrestrial space would become available not only to state military and space corporations, but also to the ordinary tourist.
Private or public?
Over more than 15 years of SpaceX activity, Musk has managed to do much of what was announced at the beginning of his creation. A new generation of SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets has appeared, capable of returning to Earth, and not burning up in dense layers of the atmosphere. It was possible to establish that tourists can potentially visit Earth orbit. It may not be high, only 100 thousand kilometers, and from there to observe our planet for only four minutes, but this is also a big 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 constant funding of the Musk agency from the NASA budget has not been available for a long time.news. In addition to the money that the entrepreneur's corporation receives in an amount sufficient for his projects, he has access to all the secret developments of NASA.
Despite many unsuccessful experiments using the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle, whose launch lists contain about 50 dates at the beginning of 2018, only a few of them turned out to be really failures. But the main task - the reusable use of the first stage, and then other key elements of the space-conquering apparatus, Elon Musk's engineers 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 developments. Nevertheless, Falcon 9 flights are positioned exclusively as private flights.
Trial - with varying success
Initially, Musk planned to create a device capable of visiting space like a taxi by 2018. But much more than the time planned for the implementation 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 served their creator only as promotional material, proving the availability of space for private developers.
The first Falcon 1 launches were made four years after SpaceX was founded. They cannot be classified as successful because of unreasonably high equipment costs and three disasters in a row with the complete loss of missiles. Large investors to their ideas Musk alsofailed to attract. It took a few more years before SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 booster. But what made this possible was largely due to several successful Falcon 1 launches in 2008, when the booster was able to deliver the payload to its intended orbit. According to Musk himself, if he had failed again 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 all over the world was a tremendous success. Musk could not wish for a better advertisement for his brainchild.
Step tested
By 2013, the corporation's equipment had improved so much that SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket in the hope of saving the first stage for future flights. Finally, Musk was able to start realizing his main task - the invention of a reusable apparatus. On September 13, a new modification of the Falcon family launch vehicle was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Merlin 1D engine on it helped launch several satellites into LEO (low reference orbit). In total, on this day, the device delivered almost 13 tons of cargo into space. During the launch and disconnection of the first stage, a test of its return to Earth was carried out. But the grandiose Grasshopper project, which was supposed to be the most successful since the inception of the SpaceX corporation, failed.
Due to inaccuracies in the calculations and unexpected rotation of the first stage during the braking period, the feedfuel 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 carry out the mission of launching spacecraft into higher orbits with multiple engine starts. Since the failure with the first stage turned out to be completely unexpected for the developers, they were afraid to decide on a further test of the second. However, the reason for the failure of the operation was established. It was fuel freezing. A total of three Falcon 9 launches were made in 2013, one of which involved placing a satellite into geotransfer orbit.
There is a return of the first stage
To understand why it was so important for Elon Musk to achieve the preservation of the first step, there are a few pluses in favor of this idea. Firstly, it is much cheaper to use the same engine repeatedly than to install a new one before each start. It's like the owner of a car before the next trip to change the engine. The costs are incommensurable, of course, but the example is more than illustrative. Secondly, even with a colossal repair, the engine will still be cheaper than a new one, therefore, albeit in a somewhat damaged form, but returning it back could lead to a reduction in the cost of the project as a whole. But Musk is still a businessman. And thirdly, new launches could be organized with the saved money. Therefore, he had high hopes for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which had already been able to cope with several serious tasks.
Firsta 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 at 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 unfavorable weather conditions in the splashdown area and inaccurate miscalculations by the designers, it was not possible to save the first stages. They all sank. But flight telemetry showed that all three experiments were successful, and the stages descended in the given squares.
Breakthrough 2015
But the real triumph Musk experienced in 2015. And the point is not that during these 12 months he has already managed to carry out seven flights, and two of the four experiments on the return of the first stage ended favorably. One of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, which launched on February 11, managed to take the spacecraft to the Lagrange point 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 her failures that the launch of the rocket was postponed several times, but in the end it was nevertheless carried out, and very successfully.
The loss of the first stages in all seven launches against the backdrop of such a significant breakthrough also did little to overshadow the creator of SpaceX. He understood that in the very near future they would be able to carry out a more accurate landing in the squares determined for this, and they would be able not only to save, but also to reuse. After all, onceat once, experiments on their landing turned out to be more successful. However, one of the flights of 2015 was disastrous for Elon Musk's corporation. At 139 seconds, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded, and with it the Dragon spacecraft. In subsequent studies, it was possible to establish that the reasons for the destruction of the carrier were malfunctions of the second stage. Nevertheless, the failure did not knock down the entrepreneur, and already in December of the same year he carried out the next launch of Falcon 9 with the launch of 11 satellites into their orbits. Moreover, having landed at Cape Canaveral, from where it started, the first stage after repairs 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. By this time, he was carrying out launching into orbit, in addition to 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 spacecraft to the International Space Station in 2012. The first launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was made on May 22 as part of the COTS Demo Flight program of the combined second and third missions. The spacecraft managed to approach the ISS at a distance of ten meters and dock. On the sixth day, Dragon went on a return flight and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on May 31.
The second flight of Dragon to the ISS was not so successful: it was not possible to re-launch the second stage, andthe test model of the Orbcomm-G2 satellite, two days after the launch of the launch vehicle, deviated from orbit and burned up in the atmosphere. This SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Launch Pad SLC-40 took place on October 8, 2012. It was also run by NASA. Until 2016, it was the main test site for SpaceX rockets, until one of them destroyed it in an explosion.
Disaster on 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 on board, it was necessary to make a test burn. A powerful explosion and subsequent fire occurred in the area of the second stage while filling the tank with liquid oxygen.
Experts managed to establish that a change in the configuration of cylinders for compressed helium led to the tragedy. Deflections formed in the aluminum layers of the inner walls of the tanks, which were 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 the proven design.
After this failure, Musk did not launch SpaceX Falcon 9 again in 2016. Eyewitness accounts of this tragedy indicate that the catastrophe has become the main disappointment of the creator of a private space corporation and the most unprofitable company by this timethroughout its history. He decided on the next launch in January 2017.
18 starts. Of these, all were successful
The SLC-40 launch pad at Cape Canaveral has been out of use for a long time. Launches of the Falcon 9 family of rockets were moved to the Vandenbeh base and the Kennedy Center site. Since the first on January 14, ten satellites of the new generation Iridium have been successfully launched into orbit. This launch was in many ways a consolation for Elon Musk after the September disaster. The total payload weight was almost 10 tons. It was possible to successfully drive the first stage onto the Just Read the Instructions floating platform. Therefore, later the launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 with Iridium 4 Launch (a kind of satellite telephony systems for which demand began to grow, and the number of orders increased) was largely made possible thanks to successful launches carried out at the beginning of 2017.
In total this year, SpaceX Corporation has carried out 18 launches, and none of them has led to any significant losses. The first stages returned either to the sites of the stationary landing zone, or to the floating platforms. The satellites were successfully launched into orbits. It was possible to reuse the pressurized descent capsule of the Dragon spacecraft, launch the Boeing X-37B spaceplane, expand the geography of customers, and much more. All these successes provided tangible compensation for the financial losses of the disaster at Cape Canaveral. And, of course, the S paceX Falcon 9 Launch with Iridium NEXT satellites brought commercial success.
Secret Zuma
In addition to all the above undoubted successes of the Ilona corporationOne more mask can be distinguished, which has been observed over the past three years. The time interval between the launches of carrier rockets was noticeably reduced. At times, only a few days passed between Falcon 9 launches. The advantage of the corporation's employees is also the fact that quite often the next rockets were sent into space from the same site. As with the SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch from the Kennedy Center site on June 3 and 23, 2017. And two days later, the site at the Vandenbe base was used again.
Once again, Elon Musk intended to surprise the interested community in November 2017. But the launch of a rocket with a classified cargo, codenamed Zuma, was postponed to January 2018. On the 8th of this month, a rocket was successfully launched with a mysterious device for one of the US government customers, whose name the media has not yet been able to find out. However, soon there was a message that it was still not possible to put the secret satellite into orbit. Zuma was still on board the SpacexFalcon 9, and this is not at all hidden in the Musk corporation, but they prefer not to resort to detailed comments due to the extremely secret mission of the launched object.
Hopes and reality
Any significant breakthrough in the further development of the corporation from the secret mission in SpaceX is not expected. Launches will be carried out according to the previously scheduled schedule. In 2018 and in subsequent periods, several dozen launches of Falcon 9 are planned, reviews and reviews of experts about which agree on one thing:the main mission - to invent a reusable launch vehicle, to make space more accessible - Musk fulfilled, but he never colonized Mars, he did not achieve a significant reduction in the cost of producing one launch. By creating his corporation in 2010, he intended to achieve much more by 2018.
Perhaps the space launch of the Zuma SpaceX Falcon 9 in the very near future will open up new prospects for the private space agency, as the name of the manufacturer of the secret object - Northrop Grumman Corporation - speaks for itself. However, the project to create a new generation launch vehicle Falcon Heavy can bring greater success to Musk. Today it is the largest of all that have ever been created, and belongs to the category of a heavy class. Its power is capable of delivering much more cargo into space, reducing the cost of one flight by dozens of times and creating savings on the number of launches. In addition, it is planned to use it repeatedly.
