Thursday’s launch pad test firing accident that destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and SpaceCom’s AMOS-6 communication satellite payload was certainly not a tragedy (no injuries or loss of lives), but it still represents a potential major setback for SpaceX, SpaceCom (and Facebook users and customers who were counting on the success of AMOS-6), and the burgeoning commercial space industry overall.
Fortunately, however, because of strict adherence to proper safety and documentation protocols, it is likely that the root cause of the accident will be identified, and that SpaceX will be able to make improvements in their fabrication, testing, and operations procedures to mitigate against future such mishaps. In this regard, last Thursday’s events only serve to amplify the fact that space travel is hard, and that (like the airline industry) it will never be 100% safe. It’s a lesson we have been reminded of most poignantly by the 2014 Virgin Galactic SpaceShip One tragedy at the Mojave Spaceport in California, and of course prior to that by tragic events like the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, the 1986 Challenger explosion, and the 2003 break up of Columbia during re-entry.
This is the second catastrophic Falcon 9 launch failure (the first coming a little more than two minutes after launch in June of last year) out of 29 launch attempts in the vehicle’s three main configurations since 2010. Both incidents appear to have involved the upper stage liquid oxygen tanks and their environs, and so as the investigation into last week’s mishap unfolds, those systems and subsystems are sure to be the focus of substantial increased scrutiny. Still, SpaceX’s 93% launch success rate for the Falcon 9 is essentially the same as that of the global rocket launch industry’s long-term ~95% average.
Accidents are an unfortunate but understood part of the launch business, and nearly all companies and governments who launch rockets have suffered past failures. While failure will never be regarded as an acceptable option, the industry and its customers, regulators, and insurers appear to accept that a ~5% failure rate is simply part of doing business. Indeed, beyond just being sustainable, the commercial space launch and infrastructure industry is actually growing dramatically, fueled in large part by the vision, talent, and business acumen of relatively small but disruptive newcomers like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital Sciences, and others.
Still, CEOs like SpaceX’s Elon Musk are wise to treat mishaps like last week’s as strongly undesirable anomalies rather than simply part of the business. By responding rapidly, and publicly (often by Tweet), and by keeping the media, the public, and their present and potential future customers updated on the latest hypotheses as the investigation proceeds, he is helping to show that SpaceX – and by extension the entire entrepreneurial rocketry sector of NewSpace – can be disruptive while still playing by the industry rules established by previous government agencies and large aerospace contractors. Or at least most government agencies: the differences in openness and available information between the recent SpaceX accident and the apparent failure of a Chinese Long March 4C rocket launch attempt just the day before are a dramatic and striking reminder that not all of the world’s space missions are conducted under the same lens of scrutiny.
The official Chinese silence about the fate of their latest launch attempt is also a reminder that government space programs are not subject to the same kinds of intense market, investor, and competitor pressures as private ventures. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are not just trying to be another launch services provider, they are trying to revolutionize the industry by attempting to dramatically lower launch costs below the current ~$10,000 per pound launched into orbit.[1] New materials, technologies, and innovations like landing and re-using the rocket’s first stage could indeed help these new pioneers to achieve at least a tenfold decrease in launch costs in the coming decades. While some of the more established and traditional rocket providers are now contemplating similar kinds of innovations, the impetus to drive the launch cost market downward is coming from NewSpace.
And that’s what excites me about the future of the space economy. As an academic researcher and representative of public space advocacy organizations like The Planetary Society involved in the robotic exploration of our solar system, I see lower launch costs, and greater diversity of launch options, as an opportunity to conduct science and exploration missions that could simply not be afforded (or even conducted) before. As a fan and hopefully some day future customer of the space tourism industry, I see lower launch costs as enabling more people than just highly-trained astronauts to experience the thrill of leaving our home world and potentially exploring others. And as a consumer of a diverse and interconnected global economy, I see lower launch costs as a way to bring space-related jobs, products, and services to a currently underserved and underrepresented worldwide market.
Indeed, last week’s SpaceX/SpaceCom launch test failure, carrying a Facebook-funded satellite designed to provide internet service to sub-Saharan Africa, was an example of trying to do just that. Hopefully, the mission of AMOS-6 can be resurrected and successfully carried out in the not-too-distant future. And hopefully, despite occasional setbacks, SpaceX and other innovators will succeed in their quest to extend our small planet’s economic sphere ever deeper into space.
[1]See, for example, Launius, Roger D. and Garver, Lori B. 2009. Between a Rocket and a Hard Place: Episodes in the Evolution of Launch Vehicle Technology. In: Liepack, Otfried G., History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth History Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2000. San Diego, CA: Univelt, Inc, pp.97-123 (available for download from http://www.academia.edu/394743/Between_a_Rocket_and_a_Hard_Place_Episodes_in_the_Evolution_of_Launch_Vehicle_Technology).
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Jim Bell is a professor of astronomy and planetary science in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, and Director of the ASU NewSpace Initiative. He is the President of The Planetary Society and is an occasional science blogger for the Huffington Post. Jim’s latest book is The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission.