This year may finally fulfill the promise of private human spaceflight

[Karlston]

This year may finally fulfill the promise of private human spaceflight

Big and small rockets. The Moon and Mars. Lots of asteroid stuff, too.

Enlarge / Is this the year paying customers fly into space on VSS Unity and White Knight Two?

GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images

This year could see the fulfillment of a number of long-promised achievements in human spaceflight. For the first time, private companies could launch humans into orbit in 2020, and two different companies could send paying tourists on suborbital missions. The aerospace community has been watching and waiting for these milestones for years, but 2020 is probably the year for both.

 

We may also see a number of new rocket debuts this year, both big and small. A record number of missions—four—are also due to launch to Mars from four different space agencies. That's just the beginning of what promises to be an exciting year; here's a look at what we're most eagerly anticipating in the coming 11.5 months.

Commercial crew

Yes, it's happening. Probably. Both SpaceX and Boeing have made considerable progress toward launching humans to the International Space Station from Florida. They've also had setbacks. SpaceX's Crew Dragon performed a successful test back in March, but a month later the capsule exploded during a thruster test. Boeing completed an orbital uncrewed test flight in December, but it was hampered by a software issue and unable to perform the primary task of its flight, approaching and docking with the International Space Station.

 

These issues are likely surmountable. SpaceX plans to conduct a test of its in-flight abort systems on Saturday—using a slightly modified version of the SuperDraco thrusters that caused problems in April. Success with this test could set up a crewed launch in late spring depending on how fast NASA can review data from that and other tests before signing off on Crew Dragon's readiness for flight.

 

Less clear is how long Boeing's software issues will set the company back. Starliner also experienced some thruster issues during its test flight. NASA has said it will spend the next two months reviewing the issue before deciding how to proceed. The bottom line is that it seems likely that one or both companies probably will get crewed flights off in 2020. We can't wait.

Space tourism

Let's face it: we've heard this before. Richard Branson has been promising to take tourists on a suborbital space ride for a long time. As far back as July 2008, Sir Richard said Virgin Galactic would be ready to bring its first paying customers into space within 18 months. More than a decade has since passed since then, but Virgin appears to be getting close.

 

The company has completed two successful suborbital test flights to the edge of space with its VSS Unity spacecraft, and Virgin has since begun refitting the cabin interior for customer missions. The first paying customers will likely fly later this year—including Sir Richard himself.

 

First image of article image gallery. Please visit the source link to see all 9+ images.

 

Meanwhile, Blue Origin's New Shepard vehicle passed a quiet year in 2019, with a seven-month hiatus between uncrewed missions from May to December. The company's chief executive, Bob Smith, said in October that Blue Origin had "tapped the brakes a bit" to ensure that everything inside the six-person spacecraft was safe for humans. It seems reasonable to ask, "If no humans fly on New Shepard in 2020, will they ever?"

A Martian quartet

Most readers will know that NASA's Mars 2020 rover (along with a small helicopter) is due to be launched in July 2020. But as many as three other spacecraft may leave Earth for the red planet this summer. That's partly because summer is when the prime launch window for Mars opens; this is the point every 26 months when the least amount of delta-v, or energy, is needed to get there.

 

The high number of launches is also because other countries want to get in on the red action. China plans to launch its first spacecraft to Mars, and the HX-1 mission is an ambitious one. It combines an orbiter, lander, and rover all into one mission. No country other than the United States has ever soft-landed a spacecraft on Mars and had it operate for any substantial period of time.

 

The European Space Agency, in concert with Roscosmos, is also attempting to put its ExoMars 2020 lander safely on Mars. There have been some serious problems with parachute testing and this mission, so it's not clear whether ExoMars will actually launch in 2020 or sit out until the next launch opportunity.

 

Finally, the United Arab Emirates will attempt to fly its Hope Mars Mission orbiter during the July window. The orbiter will launch from Japan on an H2-A rocket. The mission seeks to study the thin Martian atmosphere as well as inspire a generation of Emirati engineers.

New smallsat rockets

Several smallsat-launch companies said at the outset of 2019 that they planned to launch their first orbital missions last year and, well, none of that happened. Instead, the biggest news in the realm of small-satellite rockets was the continued plugging away by Rocket Lab, with six successful missions, construction of a new launch pad, and plans to reuse the Electron booster's first stage (which the company may try in 2020).

 

However, we really do expect new players to enter the smallsat-launch race this year. Virgin Orbit has taken some final steps toward flying its Launcher One booster from the Cosmic Girl airplane. This mission could come in the first quarter of 2020, and the company hopes to move smoothly into operation flights shortly after with an additional half-dozen rockets under production on its factory floor. (Good luck—the step from test flight to operational flight is often a big one).

 

Firefly Aerospace, too, says it is getting closer to the inaugural flight of the Alpha rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. After it had to switch from an automated flight-termination system to a more traditional one, the company is now targeting April for the first launch.

 

And then there may well be some surprises in 2020. Astra Space, which has also gone by Stealth Space Company, may emerge from a period of quietude this year. Moreover, a handful of other entities around the world—including Ariane Group's Vega C rocket, India's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle, and a few players in in China—may step forward with orbital flights in 2020.

New big rockets

We may see the debut of a couple big new rockets in 2020, too. First up is Starship, and we may see a suborbital (or even orbital) test of SpaceX's second-stage vehicle later this year. The company has now begun work on the third iteration of its Starship prototype in South Texas, and this may be the Starship that ultimately launches from near Boca Chica Beach.

 

The activity surrounding Starship may seem a little chaotic and frenetic, but that's just how SpaceX operates. With development projects like this, the company likes to move fast, sometimes break things, and then rapidly try new ideas out. This iterative design process is different than a traditional linear program, in which years are spent locking in a design before any metal is cut. But it works for SpaceX, and seeing the Starship prototype fly will be something wild to see in 2020.

 

If you're looking for a more conventionally designed big rocket, Ariane Group continues to say it is on track for a 2020 debut of its Ariane 6 booster from its European spaceport in French Guiana.

Digging asteroids

In 2016, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu, and this summer the spacecraft will finally make its attempt to grab a sample from the asteroid. In July, the spacecraft will extend a three-meter arm, known as the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism, toward the asteroid.

 

During the exercise, NASA hopes to grab at least 60 grams of pebbles from Bennu. But in truth, it may capture as much as 0.5 kilograms. Then after more study at Bennu, OSIRIS-REx is due to return to Earth in 2023.

 

Meanwhile, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft remains on track for a rendezvous with Earth late this year after its encounter with Ryugu, another asteroid. As the spacecraft nears Earth, it will eject a capsule containing samples gathered from Ryugu. If all goes well, the capsule will then safely land in Australia.

Space Launch System comes alive

Building the large Space Launch System rocket has been a long (nearly a decade) and expensive (more than $10 billion, and counting) road for NASA. This has been especially frustrating because the architecture chosen for SLS was supposed to be relatively straightforward: the main engines were used by the space shuttle, and the solid rocket boosters are only slightly modified.

 

But the development process has been anything but smooth, especially as the prime contractor for the core stage has struggled to put together the rocket at Michoud Assembly Facility in Louisiana.

 

Now, the first core stage is complete, and the rocket (with its four space shuttle main engines) has been moved to Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi. This sets the stage for an 8-minute test firing of the rocket some time this summer. This should be fun to see.

 

Following the tests at Stennis, barring major issues, the core stage will be shipped to Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast. There, large solid-rocket boosters will be attached to the side of the vehicle before the upper stage and Orion spacecraft are strapped on in anticipation of the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission. NASA has not yet set a date for this mission, but it seems unlikely to happen before the second quarter of 2021.

The Moon is about to heat up

Lunar landers built in Israel and India failed to reach the surface of the Moon during 2019. There may be one or two more missions this year.

 

India will follow up its Chandrayaan-2 mission that crashed into the Moon with the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover. There is some confusion, however, as one Indian minister says the mission is on track for a 2020 launch, while another says it may slip into 2021. (In spaceflight, it seems smart to always bet on the later launch date.)

 

China, too, plans to launch the Chang'e 5 mission to the lunar surface near the end of 2020 on its recently returned-to-flight Long March 5 rocket. This is an ambitious mission that seeks to return samples of lunar rocks to Earth. Only NASA (with its Apollo Program) and Russia (with its robotic mission) have succeeded with lunar-sample return.

 

Despite this activity, however, it seems like 2021 may actually be the year of the Moon. This is when NASA's Artemis 1 mission will probably fly an uncrewed Orion around the Moon, and two or three of the space agency's small science missions—flown by Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, and ispace—may launch.

Solar Orbiter

Following the launch of NASA's Parker Solar Probe in 2018, which has begun to deliver tantalizing results about the Sun's magnetic structure, the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter is due to launch in February. An Atlas V rocket will send it into space from Cape Canaveral.

ESA's Solar Orbiter mission will face the Sun from within the orbit of Mercury at its closest approach.

ESA/ATG medialab

 

The probe is particularly well suited to study how the Sun generates its heliosphere and the solar wind. Scientists working on the probe will coordinate their measurements with data from the Parker Solar Probe to develop a much finer picture of the Sun's physics.

Internet from space

SpaceX has now launched three batches of 60 Starlink Internet satellites—one of which was experimental, and two of which are expected to be operational as part of a low-Earth-orbit constellation. The California-based rocket company plans as many as two Starlink launches per month as it builds out this constellation.

 

At this kind of launch cadence, SpaceX should be ready to offer an initial, "bumpy" service by the middle of 2020, the company's president and chief operating officer, Gwynne Shotwell, said in December. The company plans to offer "mature" service in 2021.

 

First image of article image gallery. Please visit the source link to see all 9+ images.

 

It will be interesting to see how SpaceX rolls out the service, which will necessitate "user terminals" to receive Internet signals from the orbiting satellites. This will be the first consumer-facing product that SpaceX offers. And if it's successful, it could eventually provide revenues to accelerate the development of Starship and its Super Heavy rocket.

 

A competitor, OneWeb, also anticipates several launches in 2020, mostly on Soyuz rockets, as it too seeks to build out a low Earth orbit constellation. Other competitors are also deep into development. This year, we may begin to get a glimpse of which companies will be successful.

Big contracts on offer

2020 is a big year for NASA's Artemis Moon program. Four groups—consortiums led by Blue Origin, Boeing, and Dynetics, as well as SpaceX—submitted bids to participate in the development of a "human landing system" to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon. Sometime in February or early March, NASA will select two to four of those companies for 10-month studies. After that, the current plan is to winnow down to two finalists to actually develop hardware for a potential landing in the mid-2020s.

 

These will ultimately be multibillion-dollar contracts if the Artemis Program advances. They also represent a fascinating window into the mind of Jim Bridenstine, who has preached the value of private investment in spaceflight. Will he ultimately go with the companies that have walked that walk (notably Blue Origin and SpaceX, which have invested in their vehicles)? Or will he go with a more traditional bid like that of Boeing, which relies heavily on government contracts?

 

The Air Force, too, faces some big decisions this year. Four companies are competing for national security launch contracts from 2022 to 2026: United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Northrop Grumman. The Air Force is expected to pick two winners later this year, although there has been a lot of lobbying for the military to consider a third choice as well.

 

As the US military pays a premium for launch contracts to its nine reference orbits, this guaranteed revenue is extremely valuable to US companies aspiring to run a profitable launch business.

 

 

Source: This year may finally fulfill the promise of private human spaceflight (Ars Technica)  

 

(To view the article's image galleries, please visit the above link)