What Will Happen With Private Space In 2011

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- XCOR 5K18 "Lynx" Engine, Photo by Mike Massee - 

 

The Adventure Continues...

There are those going to work today, thinking about the future of space travel. How cool is that? Of course I am not saying that they just started thinking about it, they have been thinking about this since the first man ever stepped foot in space almost 50 years ago now. They are building the next generation of rockets, space planes, and space stations. Fortunately, the environment in which they have built these new space businesses has been one that allows them to operate on much smaller budgets, due to advances in propulsion, computers, robotics, and commercial off the shelf parts that make things much easier to build. NASA has also realized the value of these new commercial businesses, and have dedicated a good amount of extra funds to help them. Let us hope that our government also realizes how important they are, and keeps the funding going (fingers crossed). There is no shortage of amazing things that will happen this year, and I would like to highlight some of the companies and what they plan to do this year.

 

You ready for this? Let's get to it.

 

Virgin Galactic

This year for VG will be very interesting. They have performed many tests with their WhiteKnight 2 and SpaceShip 2 vehicles which included captive carry tests, and even drop tests where SpaceShip 2 was simply dropped but it did not have a rocket to fire. This year they are going to perform a full flight test, which involves carrying SS2 to 50,000 feet, dropping it, firing the hybrid rocket system, and sending it up to 110km (68 miles). This will be a very exciting (scary) thing to watch for all those who were involved in the creation and development of the vehicle to see it really take off for the first time. Imagine also the 390 passengers that have already bought tickets, don't you think they would want this to be as flawless as possible? The pressure is certainly on for the company, but so far they have showed no signs of any real road blocks. I'm kind of hoping as a christmas gift they may decide to carry paying passengers at least by this next holiday. It could happen, right? If not a customer, then maybe Richard Branson and Burt Rutan can take a flight! I'm sure they are itching to take one.

 

*Another cool thing*

 

Virgin is hoping to sell tickets aboard orbital vehicles currently in development by SpaceDev and Orbital Sciences. Spaceship 2 will only be capable of suborbital flights, which will bring passengers up 68 miles. Orbital vehicles can easily bring people up as high as the International Space Station, which sits around 360km (223 miles). This will make for a much longer flight, and a cooler view.

 

XCOR

XCOR finished 2010 with a successful wind tunnel testing of their Lynx space plane, and also secured a nice SpacePort from which to launch from. Wind tunnel testing was done on a smaller precision scale model, so now it's time to start building the real thing! They will be involved with building their prototype Lynx Mark 1 vehicle, and will also test fly it. If they succeed there, then they will build their Mark II model, which is their production model, 9-18 months later. Virgin Galactic has really taken everyone's attention in the space plane/glider category. But the plane that XCOR is building will be a pretty amazing vehicle, and a lot cheaper to fly since they are not flying as high as VG.

Sidenote: does anyone feel in the giving mood? Because I would really like one of these...

SpaceX

SpaceX broke records last year, being the first commercial company to have a space capsule orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. With 2 more launches of their Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule this year, they will break even more. They are performing 2 flights under NASA's COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) program. This program invests NASA's financial and technical resources to stimulate efforts within the private sector (namely SpaceX and Orbital Sciences) to help them develop safe and reliable space transportation. NASA wants SpaceX to prove they can safely bring cargo and possibly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) with their vehicle. The first flight to qualify SpaceX was performed on December 8th, which involved putting the Dragon in orbit around the earth at least 2 times. Needless to say for those who watched, it went flawlessly! More details on this launch can be found here. Now the second launch being performed soon will involve the Dragon space capsule approaching the ISS, and coming within 6 miles of it. If all goes well there, the third launch will involve bringing cargo to the ISS and docking with it. They are the first private company to orbit the Earth, and will be the first ones to bring cargo (maybe Astronauts?) to the ISS this year. What an amazing year to be SpaceX. Speaking of COTS, let us move on to the next group under this program.

 

Orbital Sciences

This company has been in the background as SpaceX really took everyone's attention away. This year we will see Orbital Sciences re-emerge as they make their flight under the COTS program this year, using their Taurus 2 rocket, and Cygnus spacecraft. Orbital has been around for 29 years, so they have had a lot more time than SpaceX to develop reliable space systems. For this reason, NASA only requires one launch under COTS, which involves carrying cargo to the ISS. If all goes well, Orbital will be providing cargo on 8 more missions between 2011 and 2015. I don't think they can steal too much of the spotlight from SpaceX, however, it will be interesting to see how well they do. The launch has now been set for December 14th.
 

Space Dev (Subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corp)

This company is currently in development of a vehicle known as the DreamChaser, a vehicle based of the NASA HL-20. It is a vehicle similar to the space shuttle in look (except a lot smaller) which rides atop a rocket, and then at a given altitude will disconnect and rocket itself up the rest of the way to orbital altitudes. The development of this vehicle will move quickly due to the fact that NASA has already done extensive testing on this model, including 1200 hours of wind tunnel testing. Last year, SpaceDev was awarded over 20 million dollars in the first CCDEV (Commercial Crew Development) program, and hopes to procure more in the second round of CCDEV this year. 

 

The Google Lunar X Prize

If you haven't been paying attention to what has been happening with this competition, I suggest you start now. There are currently 20 Million dollars in prizes awaiting privately funded space teams worldwide that can land a robot safely on the moon, have it move and take photos/video and collect data. This competition was open to any team who met the qualifications (most important that it is a privately funded group), but they are no longer accepting new team applications as of December 31st 2010. There are 20 teams currently from countries spanning the globe, including the US, Canada, Italy, China, Spain, Russia, Germany, and more will be added soon! The best thing about this competition is that every team is taking such a unique approach to getting to the moon, that I truly believe something innovative will come of it. We have the Ansari X Prize to thank for the creation of Virgin Galactic, so imagine how much more often we will be sending robots to space after this competition for scientific study, and maybe sometimes, just for fun!

 

My last thought: 500 in 50...

This post represents a small portion of what I'm excited about. There are also the amazing things going on at Armadillo, Masten Aerospace, Ad Astra, Bigelow, Boeing, Orbital Outfitters, and Blue Origin to name a few. 2011 will be an amazing year for the future of space travel for everyone, and I can't wait to see what else happens.

I made mention at the beginning of this blog that it will be 50 years (coming this april 12th) since the first man ever went to space, Yuri Gagarin. Since then we have had about 500+ people travel to space, thanks to NASA, and other government run space agencies. Think about how many people have been inspired by space travel, dream of its future, or simply just want to go there someday, and so far we have only sent 500 people. 500? Does that sound like a lot of people? I used to think that was a pretty good number, until you compare it with the the total number of people who haven't. 500 only represents somewhere around .000007 % of the total world population that has traveled to space. That still leaves 99.999993% (or safe to say the ENTIRE WORLD) that has not traveled to space. Does space belong to a privileged few or to everyone? I say everyone! Thankfully there are private space companies who are now working on this, and they will be responsible for the exponential growth in human space travel we will see in the next couple of years.

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