Nevertheless, we've been limited to expensive
single-use spacecraft.
Commercial companies like SpaceX and government
agencies like NASA are working toward creating
reusable spacecraft.
SpaceX's Falcon9 and Falcon Heavy are already
proving that the concept works, while NASA's
Space Launch System (SLS) has yet to take
its maiden voyage.
For years, European space companies have been
complaining: SpaceX prices are impossible
to beat!
In fact, booking a ride on a new SpaceX Falcon
9 rocket rides costs $62 million while rides
on Falcon 9 equipped with reused rockets are
going for as low as $50 million.
That's less than half the cost of launch on
the heavy-lift Ariane 5 from Airbus subsidiary
ArianeSpace, for dual launches to geostationary
transfer orbit.
While he was still ArianeGroup CEO, Alain
Charmeau warned that SpaceX is going to "kick
Europe out of space" unless Europe does something
about this -- and fast.
Charmeau retired March 31 and his successor,
André-Hubert Roussel, is expected to continue
along the route Charmeau has charted simply
because ArianeGroup has no choice but to match
SpaceX in the reusable launch business.
Doing so will be the only way for ArianeGroup
to compete against SpaceX.
The success of SpaceX in dominating the multi-billion
dollar space launch market is all due to the
much, much lower launch costs it charges customers.
Apart from the Ariane 5, ArianeGroup has the
Soyuz-2 as a medium-lift alternative and the
solid-fueled Vega for lighter payloads.
ArianeGroup was founded in 1980 as the world's
first commercial launch service provider and
its defeat by newcomer SpaceX is a testimony
to the folly of refusing to adapt to the realities
of a much-changed marketplace.
SpaceX began testing supersonic retro-propulsion
as far back as September 2013, when the company
first flew its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket, v1.1.
This involves relighting the rocket's Merlin
engines as the SpaceX Falcon thunders toward
Earth through the atmosphere at supersonic
speeds.
Relighting a rocket's engines and controlling
its descent with aerodynamic surfaces was
a huge engineering challenge that the company
has now mostly mastered.
Initially, SpaceX's competitors looked askance
at the concept of vertically landing rockets,
but as the company has racked up dozens of
successes—and began to fly the same first
stage boosters two and even three times—those
attitudes have begun to change.
US-based United Launch Alliance has begun
exploring how to reuse its rocket engines,
China has dozens of new space companies exploring
these kinds of reuse technologies, and now
Europe also appears to have shifted its stance
as well.
So it's probably good news for Airbus and
Ariane that Europe has decided it will finally
do something.
Specifically, the European Commission announced
that it's going to ante up some seed capital
to begin researching a pair of "reusable upright-landing"
rockets that could theoretically, eventually,
compete with SpaceX in the reusable rockets
market.
In this video Engineering Today analyses why
Europe Challenges SpaceX in Reusable Rockets
at last?
How will this reusable spacecraft work, and
how long until it heads skyward?
Let’s get into details.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has helped set
a new bar for rocket reusability, and now
the European Union wants in on the action.
For that, they commonly decided to investigate
and develop key technologies to land rockets
backwards.
What is state-of-the-art in the USA is only
in its beginnings in Europe, and the consortium
is determined to accept the challenge and
to become important players in this game changing
technology.
To rectify the problem, five European companies
and the German space agency are pooling resources
to develop reusable rocket technology of their
own.
In a tweet, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk praised the
news.
“Good to see this,” Musk wrote in response.
“Splitting inter stage into 4 sections will
have some challenges, but could work.”
Developing reusability has been one of SpaceX’s
signature breakthroughs.
The company has successfully landed 43 cores
in total, ever since its first failed attempt
in 2013.
This is helping bring down the cost of space
flight.
Reusing a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster saves around
$46.5 million of the estimated $62 million
launch price.
Musk has compared not saving the booster to
not saving an airplane and asking everyone
to parachute out near the destination.
It’s a great idea, but an incredibly tricky
challenge.
It involves bringing the booster back to Earth
after liftoff and reducing its speed so it
can safely land on the pad.
That’s easier said than done.
RETro propulsion Assisted Landing Technologies
(RETALT) is a European project which got funded
with €3 million ($3.4 million) by the European
Commission in the frame of Horizon 2020.
The partnering organizations are the DLR and
MT Aerospace from Germany, CFS Engineering
and Almatech from Switzerland, Elecnor Deimos
from Spain and Amorim Cork Composites from
Portugal.
During the three years of the project lifetime
the consortium will investigate the areas
of aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, flight
dynamics, guidance, navigation and control,
and advanced structural parts, materials and
mechanisms.
For this purpose, two types of rocket launchers
will be investigated which both start and
land in an upright position.
One of them will have two stages and will
be similar to conventional rockets like the
Falcon 9 developed by SpaceX or the Ariane
5 launcher.
This is a two-stage-to-orbit craft that vertically
takes off and lands.
For this launcher only the first stage will
be landed again.
The plan is to design a vehicle that can take
30 tons to a low-Earth orbit of around 211
miles, separating from the second stage at
68 miles at a speed of Mach 7.1.
By comparison, the SpaceX Falcon 9 can lift
just under 23 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.
The RETALT 1 uses the Vulcain 2 engine, which
uses liquid oxygen and hydrogen.
The first stage uses seven of these engines.
Upon return it uses a deployable inter stage,
unlike the SpaceX Falcon 9 that uses grid
fins to stabilize on return.
The second launcher concept is a single stage
to orbit vehicle compared to the McDonnell
Douglas DC-X.
It will be designed for the use of smaller
payloads and when returning it will break
not only with retro propulsion but also with
the aid of a large aerodynamic base surface
at the bottom.
Will RETALT succeed?
I certainly hope it does.
But with the small size of the European Commission's
investment, the lack of involvement by marquee
space-tech companies like Thales or Ariane,
and the fact that the European Commission
seems to be designing its new rocket by committee,
I worry that this project has little prospect
of producing paradigm-shifting results for
Europe's space industry.
Consider the obstacles in the context of SpaceX,
the company Europe is trying to emulate.
SpaceX has been testing vertical landing of
rockets since at least as far back as 2012,
beginning with its Grasshopper test bed rocket.
Not only does this mean SpaceX has at least
a seven-year head start on Ariane, it also
suggests that the three years of funding the
European Commission is promising its consortium
may not be enough to get Europe's space industry
anywhere near the level of reusable-rocket
proficiency that SpaceX already possesses.
And speaking of funding, SpaceX spent nearly
$400 million designing and developing its
reusable Falcon 9 rocket, and a further $500
million to develop Falcon Heavy.
This suggests Europe's $3.4 million may only
be a down payment on what's necessary -- it
may need to scale up that investment by a
few hundred times in order to reach the point
that SpaceX is at already.
Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Dragon and Crew Dragon,
SLS, Orion, New Shepard What do all these
things have in common?
They're all reusable spacecraft, and together
they may represent the turning point in human
space travel.
NASA started the trend with the Space Shuttle
— the world's first reusable spacecraft,
but it relied on disposable booster rockets
and a fuel tank that was discarded after each
launch.
SpaceX continued with reusable rockets, cargo
shuttles and eventually crewed craft.
The company is even working on a foolproof
way to recover the rocket's fairing — the
cone that covers the rocket's payload, making
craft aerodynamic.
SpaceX will use fast boats to catch the two
pieces of the fairing as they decend back
to earth.
After Musk posted about the RETALT project,
a Twitter user followed up with a question
about whether major design changes could come
to the Falcon 9’s “Block 5” design.
Musk responded by declaring that “there
will be no Block 6” as the firm is “moving
to Starship architecture.”
This shift is not surprising.
The ambitious Starship, a stainless steel
behemoth designed to ferry the first humans
to Mars, is designed with a number of cost-cutting
measures in mind to make it profitable.
The goal with Starship, as outlined in September
2017 when it was still known as “BFR,”
is “to make our current vehicles redundant…we
want to have one booster and ship that replaces
Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon.”
SpaceX has set itself the ambitious goal of
producing a new Raptor engine every 12 hours
by the end of the year.
Each Starship will use around 38 engines,
meaning the company is putting a lot of resources
into getting the behemoth ready to take on
all of SpaceX’s future missions.
As RETALT starts to take flight, SpaceX may
have already moved on to the next big thing.
