A new era of space flight begins: what will change after SpaceX’s historic success?

Here is the 1989 then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, announced a space exploration initiative aimed at bringing people back to the Moon at the end of the millennium and flying astronauts to Mars in 2010. His son, also US President George W. Bush, also planned the return of the astronauts to the Moon, and his 2004 program was called Constellation. But immediately after the presidential elections and the change of government, these programs were canceled.

So it should come as no surprise that, after the first successful flight of the SpaceX rocket, leading space enthusiasts and experts were somewhat skeptical of the prominent and promising speeches. Well, it’s true that SpaceX, along with NASA’s Demo-2 mission to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), was the first of its kind to be carried out from US territory. USA And using American teams since 2011. And that’s really important. But does that really mean that “the commercial space industry is the future,” as the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, said right after launch?

Mike Wall, a journalist at space.com, is confident that this is the case.

After all, Demo-2 is not just a one-time demo. This is a test flight intended to finally validate the suitability of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and its Falcon 9 launch vehicle for manned missions to the International Space Station. The company has signed 2.6 billion. A contract worth USD 6 for six manned flights to TKS. The next one should take place in late August.

SpaceX is an exceptionally ambitious company that has already succeeded in seemingly incredible things. The company has been flying cargo pods to TKS since 2012, and in terms of the number of satellite launches, a private US company. USA It has surpassed the Russian space agency, which once dominated the field. Now, it seems, the Russian space agency will also be kicked out of the market for lifting people into space, where until now it has simply had no competitors. Experts have virtually no doubt that SpaceX will successfully fulfill its part of its contract with NASA in parallel with several other commercial space missions in Earth orbit.

SpaceX CEO Elonas Muskas has already signed several additional Crew Dragon capsule usage agreements with other clients. Suppose the American company Axiom Space, which intends to build a commercial space station in Earth orbit, will pay for a Crew Dragon flight to TKS; the flight itself is scheduled for 2021. in the end. At around the same time, space travel company Space Adventures would also like to take advantage of Crew Dragon’s ability to move humans into a higher Earth orbit, well above TKS.

And while SpaceX’s success seems amazing right now, they are already breathing from behind. Aerospace giants Boeing have also signed a contract with NASA’s Commercial Pilot Flight Program – the company is also expected to operate six manned flights to and from TKS. Boeing will use the Starliner CST-100 capsule, which is still being tested. So far, only one unmanned test flight of this capsule has been conducted. Oh, and that didn’t go exactly as planned.

AFP / Scanpix Photo / Starliner before you start

The Starliner capsule, launched in December last year, was supposed to merge with TKS, but due to a flaw in the capsule’s internal timer system, it got stuck in the wrong orbit. Despite this failure, Boeing plans to repeat the unmanned capsule flight to TKS later this year, and if the flight is successful, it intends to transport people to space soon after.

Competition is also intensifying in suborbital space, which is officially closer to Earth.

Suppose Virgin Galactic, led by billionaire Richard Branson, has already conducted two manned missions in suborbital space using the company’s latest VSS Unity missile. The company is completing its testing program and plans to launch space tourists in the near future.

Scanpix / AP Photo / Virgin Galactic Spacecraft

Not to mention, Jeff Bezos, the billionaire who runs the world’s largest online store and owns Blue Origin. The company’s New Shepard missiles have repeatedly hit suborbital space. So far, all flights have been unmanned, but it is expected that solvent customers will soon be planted on the Bezes rockets.

Reuters / Scanpix Photo / Blue Origin New Shepard

Note: Three of the four companies mentioned, although formally called start-ups, are run by billionaires, so they shouldn’t be complaining too much about the funding and can do all the scientific and engineering research necessary to ensure the safety and efficiency. Not to mention Boeing, a giant space company with a longer history in space than its competitors. For example, he was NASA’s prime contractor for the construction of the TKS, they built the first stage of the giant Saturn V rocket that took the first humans to the Moon.

Reuters / Scanpix photo / Saturn V missile carrying the Apollo 11 spacecraft: first stage built by Boeing

Therefore, a new era of manned space flight can be expected with great optimism, perhaps an era in which we will also see manned flights to the Moon, Mars or other hitherto inaccessible places.

E. Muskas never hid that SpaceX was founded in 2002 primarily to help humanity colonize the Red Planet. The company is already developing and testing various prototypes of the Starship rocket for flights to Mars. Jeff Bezos is not unambitious, as he has repeatedly publicly said that his great vision for Blue Origin is to transport and recruit millions of people in space.

And this does not mean that the state-funded NASA agency will hand over the entire initiative only to private companies: The state program Artemis predicts that two astronauts should land near the South Pole in 2024, and a long-term human base should be built in the Moon by 2028.

The moon will be a springboard for more space flights: if everything goes according to NASA’s plans, those flights should help acquire the skills and develop the technologies that will be necessary for humans to reach Mars.

NASA would like to take this great leap, a human flight to Mars, sometime in the 1930s.

But pessimists will really count: People have not come close to Mars since the time of the Apollo mission, because the implementation of the Mars flight program is still planned “in twenty years.”