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Two crashes, within days of each other, in the last week of October have shaken up the fledgling commercial space industry. The first on 28 October was the explosion during launch of an Antares rocket owned by Orbital Sciences Corporation.
It was on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) with 2,200 kilograms of supplies on its Cygnus cargo ship that was also destroyed in the explosion. Fortunately, there were no casualties in the accident which was the first since private companies began supplying the ISS.
US has keen interest in the ISS which it wants to be operational even beyond the current 2020 timeline and regular resupply missions are a critical facet of this endeavour. In face of the impending shutdown of the US space shuttle programme in 2011, NASA sought commercial providers for regular orbital transportation services that would provide both cost cutting as well as redundancy and allow it to focus on more ambitious futuristic programmes. In 2006, it initiated a programme called Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS), through which it helped fund two contracted private companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, to develop vehicles to deliver cargo to the ISS. In 2008, Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts were signed with these commercial companies for a minimum of 12 ISS cargo transport missions to be provided by SpaceX and 8 to be provided by Orbital Sciences.
SpaceX conducted its first successful mission to ISS in 2012 using its Falcon 9 rocket to launch Dragon cargo capsule. Orbital followed in September 2013 using its Antares expendable launch system to launch its Cygnus cargo carrier. Antares was developed to launch payloads heavier than 5000 kgs into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) using two AJ-26 engines, a failure in one of which is being suspected as the cause of failure. These engines that had been built in the Soviet Union in the 1960s to power its N1 rocket for a lunar programme (that had subsequently been abandoned), had been refurbished by Aerojet Rocketdyne[i], a US company. It is reported that after four successful launches, the company had used an upgraded engine this time in a bid to increase its payload capability. Both Orbital and NASA have put on a brave face, the former reiterating its commitment to the contract with minor adjustments to the schedule and the latter expressing confidence in the programme and its partners. Official statements confirm that the ISS is well stocked to cater to such eventualities and the integrated schedule of cargo resupply among participating nations is going to ensure that the accident is going to have minimal effect on its operation.
However, it has been a big blow to the US efforts to reduce its dependence on other nations, particularly Russia at a time when their relations are under intense pressure. Hours after the crash, the Russian Progress cargo spacecraft that has regularly been undertaking such missions since 2000, carried out a successful resupply mission, delivering nearly 3 tons of necessary supplies to the ISS. Among other international vehicles that deliver cargo to the ISS, European Space Agency’s (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle ATV stopped its flights after its fifth and final mission in August 2014 and the last mission by Japan’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) flew in September 2013. As the US looks in anticipation at the next SpaceX mission on 09 December, it has reaffirmed its plans to continue cooperation with Russia in the space industry.[ii]
The focus is now on the AJ-26, another of which had blown up during a ground test at a NASA centre in May. While the company had already been contemplating their discontinuation and was looking at alternates, ironically, the choice is expected to be another Russian engine the RD-193 which belongs to the same family of engines as the RD-180 being used on the US Atlas V rocket. The use of RD-180 on the Atlas V itself has been at the centre of recent debates in the US and of geopolitical posturing among the two nations. Critics claim that decades of bad government policy, insufficient funding and corporate mergers has left US with only a single major American rocket engine manufacturer, Aerojet Rocketdyne, as well as a single major manufacturer of large launch vehicles, United Launch Alliance (ULA).[iii] (ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin) SpaceX has developed cheaper engines for their Falcon launch vehicle and Blue Origin, founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has struck a deal with ULA to build a US-made rocket engine called the BE-4 to reduce reliance on Russian engines for American satellite launches.[iv] However, any efforts that are initiated now will take years of development, testing and certification before being operational.
This is not to say that it is only the US programme that can be faulted. Globally also, while space has seen vast improvements in infrastructure and satellites, developments in rocket technology have lagged behind, sticking mainly to evolutionary upgrades of existing engines. Russia also has had its share of problems with its launchers in the last few years, the most recent being a Proton launcher crash in May 14 and a failure in August of a Russian made Soyuz rocket to place two satellites for the ESA Galileo system in the correct altitude due to a problem with the rocket’s upper stage. India itself has had its share of setbacks with its rocket development, especially with the GSLV and the indigenous cryogenic engine. Fresh from the success of its Mars mission, ISRO is looking forward to the launch of the GSLV III, with an indigenous cryogenic engine, in mid December. By providing higher payload capability of about four tonnes, it holds the key for many of ISRO's future programmes including Chandrayaan-II and the proposed human spaceflight programme. This launch will be experimental and no satellite will be launched. GSLV III is expected to be ready for developmental flight in two years time.[v]
It would be incorrect to highlight the accident as failure of private enterprise. It is well known that the challenging and inherently risky domain of space has had its own share of mishaps since the beginning of the space efforts that were all governmental. Eighteen astronauts and cosmonauts have died in flights organised by the American and Soviet space programmes - and three others were killed in a fire during a rehearsal on the ground.[vi] Such crashes while unfortunate help draw attention to safety issues and in having a relook at policies that accept use of not only decades old technology but also of engines of the same vintage. Private participation in space endeavours cannot be curtailed and will only increase in times to come as space provides increasing economic opportunities. It would be prudent to address the safety and legal issues right from the nascent stages.
The article is part one of a two-part series. Part two to follow.
By Special Arrangement with The Centre For Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) (http://www.claws.in)