2017 was an amazing year for commercial spaceflight. Entrepreneurial firms in the New Space realm scored a number of notable achievements last year and the White House embraced the use of public-private partnerships to pursue its ambitious exploration goals. It's hard to chose, but here are my top five great commercial space moments from 2017.
Blue Origin New Shepard Test
Jeff Bezo’s New Space venture, Blue Origin, continues to move quietly but relentlessly toward commercial spaceflight operations. On December 12, 2017 a redesigned version of the New Shepard sub-orbital tourism vehicle flew atop an improved booster. Both new components performed flawlessly in this seventh test of the system. The capsule, which features absolutely HUGE view ports, descended via parachute with its test dummy,"Skywalker" comfortable and safe, while the booster returned under power to its landing pad. Personally, I can hardly wait for an opportunity to purchase an e-ticket for this amazing ride.
Stratolaunch Roll-out
Undoubtedly, the largest New Space story of the year was the rollout of Stratolaunch’s mega-big carrier plane. It’s hard to find enough superlatives to describe this beast of an aircraft. It’s 385 ft. wingspan couldn’t even fit on a football field and it is powered by six engines salvaged from two Boeing 747 airliners. It’s 1.3-million-pound maximum takeoff weight is more than twice that of a 787 Dreamliner. This versatile plane can perform a number of unique functions, but it’s primary mission is to carry orbital rocket boosters above the weather and the thickest part of the atmosphere to locations where launches can be made into at a wide variety of orbital inclinations. The Stratoluanch plane will initially carry up to three orbital Pegasus XL rockets, lofting small payloads into Low Earth Orbit. However, this carrier is capable of hauling a mid-sized orbital rocket (in the Falcon 9 or Atlas V class) whenever such an air-launch booster is built. The most exciting speculation involves popping a mini-sized Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser onto an Orbital booster for the most responsive crewed launch system ever built.
1st Space Council Meeting
The reconstituted National Space Council met on October 5 in a dramatically staged public event at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. The Space council previously existed in various incarnations from the 1960s to the 1990s as a forum for integrating U.S. space policy at the cabinet level. The council is led by the Vice President, who stood in front the Space Shuttle Discovery, and called on the secretaries of Transportation and Commerce to conduct a “full review of our regulatory framework for commercial space.” The council is clearly focused on the immediate development of cislunar space, the region of space between the Earth and the Moon. Acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot noted:
The vice president also announced a call for renewed U.S. leadership in space – with a recommendation to the president that NASA help lead and shape the way forward. Specifically, NASA has been directed to develop a plan for an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system, returning humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.
Made In Space
A little California manufacturing company, which got its start out of NASA’s Ames research Center may have just disrupted the economics of space. The December 15th SpaceX CRS-13 launch carried a small machine to the International Space Station that has the very real potential to make money in space! Made In Space started out with a zero-G 3D printer developed through NASA’s Flight Opportunities Program and tested on the famous Vomit Comet aircraft. The firm then qualified for a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and launched a working printer to the Space Station in 2014. This newest Made In Space device will extrude “Space Fiber”, likely to be the highest grade fiber optic cable ever produced. Made out of ZBLAN preforms from New Jersey’s Thorlabs, this cable should sell for hundreds of dollars a meter. Current ZBLAN cable sells for $200/meter or more, despite containing significant numbers of gravity induced crystalline imperfections. The space based cable should be nearly defect free and sell for considerably more. The Made In Space mini-factory should able to churn out 4km from a single kilogram of preform and send it back to Earth for sale. At a cool million dollars per kilo, even drug smugglers should be jealous of that cargo.
SpaceX – Just So Many Things
In 2017, Elon Musk’s SpaceX moved from being the entrepreneurial upstart to the Big Dog of the space launch business. The company had a flawless year with 18 launches carrying commercial, NASA, NRO and DOD payloads to orbit. They made landing rocket boosters look boringly simple and in March they relaunched one! In June, they sent a previously flown dragon capsule to the ISS. In December, they delivered the coup de grace to disposal space-tech by flying a flight proven Dragon to the Station on a flight proven Falcon 9 booster (NASA deserves kudos for accommodating). As a year-end bonus, the back-lit evening launch of a Falcon 9 carrying several Iridium communications satellites from California’s Vandenberg AFB sent most of Los Angeles into a frenzy.
2018 Promises To Be Stellar
2018 is likely to be the tipping point for New Space. The year should begin with the quirky launch of Elon's Musk's Tesla Roadster to Mars aboard the giant Falcon Heavy, already in place on the pad at the Kennedy Space Center. Both Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic are set to fly humans on sub-orbital spaceflights in 2018.
Most importantly, Boeing and SpaceX are both schedule to fly their new Commercial Crew spacecraft, designed to transport NASA astronauts to the Space Station and potentially other destinations in Earth orbit. If all goes well, we will have four different, American commercial space transportation systems carrying paying private passengers and governmental astronaut to space. That is the future I signed up for as kid!
