Освещение космической индустрии в американских медиа

Space industry experts say that Mr. Musk faces risks in balancing SpaceX's backlog of contracts -- spanning the next few years -- without cutting corners to stay on the company's busy schedule.

''Whenever you have a failure along these lines, you of course face delays, which inevitably sets back some of your commercial and government satellite contracts,'' said Marco Cбceres, senior space analyst and director of space studies at The Teal Group, an aerospace research firm. ''They have to fight the temptation to keep to a schedule, even if that means setting back their launches into next year.''

SpaceX had hoped for 18 rocket launches this year; so far, eight have occurred. Over all, SpaceX has had 27 successful launches of Falcon 9 rockets.

An episode like Thursday's is rare. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who tracks rocket history, said the last time such an explosion happened on a Cape Canaveral launchpad, before the ignition of engines for liftoff, was in 1959.

SpaceX is rebuilding a separate launchpad, one of the two formerly used for NASA's space shuttle missions, for the astronaut launches. That launchpad is scheduled to be ready by the end of the year.

Business analysts were mixed on the effects of the explosion on Mr. Musk's other investments at a time when he is under considerable financial pressure with the planned merger of Tesla and SolarCity.

Mr. Musk draws vocal admirers and detractors, some of whom are ''short'' investors betting that Tesla cannot execute on its business plan.

Trip Chowdry, a senior analyst at Global Equities Research who studies Tesla's performance, described Mr. Musk's situation as a ''double-edged sword.''

''When things work out well, people believe Musk to be a superstar,'' Mr. Chowdry said. But when things go wrong like an explosion at a separate company, Tesla investors tend to make more general inferences, too.

''When all is said and done, does it have any impact on Tesla stock? No,'' he said. ''But events at SpaceX do create headline risk for Tesla stockholders.''

The demise of the satellite, called Amos-6, puts a significant damper on Facebook's Internet.org initiative, a grand plan spearheaded by Mr. Zuckerberg to provide wireless connectivity to nations across the world that do not otherwise have easy internet access.

In a partnership with Eutelsat, a French satellite provider, Facebook planned to use Amos-6 to offer internet coverage to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Along with satellite coverage, Facebook is teaming with local internet providers to offer access, and is also building its own drones -- the first of which is named Aquila -- to beam internet connectivity down to cities.

Its Internet.org initiative had already sustained a setback when the company's aggressive overtures were rejected by local regulators in India earlier this year.

On Thursday, Mr. Zuckerberg struck an upbeat tone in his post about the rocket failure, noting that the company has other strategies in the works to expand internet connectivity across the world. Aquila, the Facebook-built drone, he noted, recently undertook its first successful flight in the desert.

Still, the setback will delay Facebook's ambitious plans and even more ambitious timetable.

Shortly after his SpaceX comments, Mr. Zuckerberg struck a cheerier note by posting some ''good news'' from the region: A family of baby giraffes was seen on his safari.

Приложение 9. Explosion Mystery Solved, SpaceX Plans New Launches

By KENNETH CHANG

909 words

5 November 2016

Engineers investigating the explosion of one of SpaceX's rockets in September have figured out what went wrong, and launches could resume in mid-December, Elon Musk, the company's chief executive, said on Friday.

''I think we've gotten to the bottom of the problem,'' Mr. Musk said during an interview on CNBC's Squawk Box program. ''Really surprising problem that's never been encountered before in the history of rocketry.''

Mr. Musk described it as the toughest puzzle solved that the company has ever had to solve.

The cascade of explosions on Sept. 1 that destroyed the Falcon 9 rocket as well as a $200 million satellite was perplexing because it occurred before the ignition of the engines for a planned test. The actual launch was scheduled for two days later.

The accident has complicated NASA's operations with the International Space Station. SpaceX is one of two companies ferrying cargo to the space mission. SpaceX's next flight had been scheduled to launch this month but is postponed indefinitely.

On Friday, NASA juggled its order for the next flight from the other company, Orbital ATK of Dulles, Va., switching to a larger rocket that would allow additional cargo. That launch is scheduled for the spring.

SpaceX also has a NASA contract to carry astronauts to the space station beginning as early as late next year.

Mr. Musk indicated on Friday that the problem occurred during fueling. As liquid oxygen flowed into a tank on the second stage, the propellant was so cold that it froze solid, setting off a domino effect that destroyed the rocket in a succession of fireballs on the launchpad. At normal atmospheric pressures, oxygen turns solid at -362 degrees Fahrenheit.

Last week, SpaceX released a statement that it was focusing the investigation on one of three helium containers within the oxygen tank. During launch, as the liquid oxygen is consumed, the helium is heated up and released to maintain pressure within the tank. The company said that its tests had replicated the rupture of the helium containers, made of carbon fiber composite materials.

''It basically involves a combination of liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites and solid oxygen,'' Mr. Musk said. ''Oxygen so cold that it actually enters solid phase.''

Mr. Musk did not provide other details about how solid oxygen affected the carbon fiber composites.

In December 2015, SpaceX began using an upgraded Falcon 9 design that uses supercooled liquid oxygen at -340 degrees, 40 degrees colder than what is typically used for rocket propulsion. The lower temperatures make the oxygen denser and improve engine thrust, SpaceX has said.

If the helium were in a liquid state, it would be even colder (-452 degrees), and that appears to have provided unintended additional cooling that turned some of the oxygen solid.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that hazards could be greater for future astronauts riding on SpaceX rockets. With supercooled fuel, the launch occurs soon after the fuel is pumped into the rocket. SpaceX has proposed that the astronauts would be strapped in before fueling begins instead of boarding after fueling.

In a letter last December, a space station advisory committee headed by retired Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford of the Air Force strongly and unanimously objected to that idea, saying it was ''contrary to booster safety criteria that has been in place for over 50 years, both in this country and internationally.''

SpaceX officials have suggested that a change of procedure would prevent a recurrence, and the rocket's launch abort system would have carried the astronauts to safety in case of an emergency.

When SpaceX resumes launching, the first flight will be for one of its commercial customers, but company officials have not said where the next launch will occur. The accident damaged the Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station that SpaceX has used for almost all of its Falcon 9 launches so far.

SpaceX has also been renovating Launchpad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, once used for space shuttle launches, and it also has a launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

For NASA, the space station is not running short of supplies. But Orbital ATK is recovering from its own mishap, when an Antares rocket with NASA cargo exploded two years ago. It then launched two of its Cygnus cargo ships on a competitor's rocket, the Atlas 5 built by United Launch Alliance, and last month, it launched with a redesigned Antares.

Russian and Japanese cargo ships are scheduled to head to the station before the end of the year.

Frank DeMauro, the vice president of Orbital ATK's advanced programs division, said that a couple of months ago, NASA officials began discussions to launch the next cargo flight with an Atlas 5 instead of an Antares rocket. That would increase the cargo capacity by about 660 pounds.

Mr. DeMauro said that an Atlas, which has a track record of more than 60 successful launches, would decrease the chances of delays. ''It highlights our focus on supporting our customer even if it means launching on another company's rocket,'' he said.

Приложение 10. The Challenge Ahead in Space

680 words

6 July 2003

The board investigating the space shuttle Columbia accident will soon issue its final report, setting the stage for an important national debate over the future of the space program. By all accounts, the board will harshly criticize the performance and competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and rightly so. The space agency's two catastrophic shuttle accidents -- the loss of the Challenger in 1986 and of the Columbia last February -- resulted from management failures, pure and simple. As Congress and the White House assess the future of the nation's space program, they must start with the need to refashion NASA, whose reputation for engineering excellence and dedication to safety is in tatters. Once that work is done, Washington will have to address the long-term issue of whether the space program should continue to focus on operations in low Earth orbit or reach for bolder, more adventurous missions deeper into our solar system.

Members of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, headed by Harold Gehman, a retired admiral, have identified the likely cause of the accident. They blame foam insulation that broke loose from the external fuel tank for punching a hole in the thermal protection system on Columbia's left wing, allowing hot gases to enter. The immediate question raised by this accident is whether the shuttle fleet is safe enough to fly again. Admiral Gehman says the investigation has found no showstopping flaws. He expects the shuttles to resume flying in six to nine months, after NASA fixes some defects and makes it possible to inspect and repair the shuttle in orbit.

But the shuttle, which has suffered two lethal losses in 113 flights, will remain highly risky. Even after many years of flying, the shuttles should still be considered experimental vehicles, requiring the utmost nursing and attention, rather than space trucks whose flights can be treated as routine. The shuttles were sold to the nation as technology that would make space travel cheap and reliable. In practice, they have proven to be finicky, complicated, costly vehicles that pose considerable risk to the astronauts.

There is considerable danger that any decision to resume flights quickly could be driven primarily by a realization that the international space station, now circling overhead, can't be completed without the shuttle to lift its heavy structural parts. That would be a poor basis for launching a high-risk vehicle. If the nation is to make a wise decision on shuttle flights, the panel will need to make its rationale compelling.

It is possible, even likely, that the first several flights could be relatively safe, since NASA, stung by the accident and the investigation, will undoubtedly take exquisite care. But the deeper question is whether NASA can be relied upon to operate the shuttles safely for many years to come. Past experience is not reassuring. The Challenger exploded in 1986 because NASA failed to fix a longstanding problem with booster rocket seals and ignored a last-minute warning from engineers not to launch in cold weather. The Columbia was lost because NASA played down the dangers posed by insulating foam that had been seen to fall off in previous flights. We wonder whether NASA, with an aging work force, an inability to attract young talent and increasing reliance on industrial contractors, has the expertise and resources to meet the challenge of safe flight.

Sooner or later, humans ought to venture once again to distant worlds, perhaps setting foot on Mars or exploring an asteroid. The sheer thrill of discovery compels it. But spaceflight can't be done well or safely on the cheap. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars for even modest fixes to the shuttles and billions more to build a successor vehicle to carry a few astronauts to the space station in low Earth orbit. Once the Gehman board presents its findings, it will be time to debate whether to pour large sums of money into such near-space activities or go instead for something grander and more stirring.

Приложение 11. The SpaceX Explosion's Echoing Impact

By STEVE LOHR; Kenneth Chang contributed reporting.

1132 words

5 September 2016

The explosion of a SpaceX rocket last Thursday will have an impact across the space industry, far beyond the losses on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

An Israeli satellite operator's deal to sell itself to a Chinese company is imperiled. Planned launches of communications satellites that support international mobile phone service and digital television are delayed and put in doubt. NASA's cargo deliveries to the International Space Station will probably be disrupted.

All of them are customers of the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, whose rocket exploded in Florida. The private space launch company, led by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a generally solid safety record.

But last week's setback and a failed launch last year, when its rocket carrying a NASA cargo fell apart in flight, are raising questions about SpaceX, a company that has risen rapidly by offering lower costs and promising accelerated launch schedules.

At this stage, there are more questions than answers. The key for SpaceX will be how quickly it can satisfy federal investigators, rebuild the damaged launchpad at Cape Canaveral and resume sending satellites into space. For commercial telecommunications customers, getting a satellite manufactured is time-consuming and expensive, taking two years or more and costing $200 million to $400 million each.

The launch itself is a high-risk step, but once in orbit the satellites are money spinners. The upfront investment is paid back in a few years, and they then generate hefty profits for the remainder of their useful life, which could be as much as a decade.

So once a satellite is ready to go, time on the ground -- and delay -- are financially painful. Among the commercial satellite operators lined up for SpaceX launches later this year are Iridium Communications, SES of Luxembourg, EchoStar and KT Corporation of South Korea.

''No doubt SpaceX will fix the problems, but if you're a customer time is money,'' said Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and a former NASA administrator. ''This will get customers looking at alternatives. It may give competitors an opening and slow down SpaceX.''

The large communications customers have the most money at stake in space. Revenue for satellite services last year was $127.4 billion, according to a report by the Tauri Group, a research firm, for the Satellite Industry Association. The launch business, though the gateway to space, is small by comparison -- $5.4 billion in revenue last year.

In the market for launching large, geostationary communications satellites, the main SpaceX rival is Arianespace, a French multinational company. And there are others, notably International Launch Services, an American-Russian joint venture, which launches Russian-designed Proton rockets from Kazakhstan.

But Arianespace, which has an excellent safety record, is considerably more expensive than SpaceX. And the safety and performance record of the Proton rockets lags behind that of the SpaceX workhorse, the Falcon 9.

If the SpaceX launch timetable is delayed by a few months, industry analysts say, its customers will probably wait. If the delays stretch out further, other launch providers will look increasingly appealing.

Recovering from delays to its aggressive launch schedule -- while losing momentum -- is the challenge for SpaceX, not a financial squeeze. In a statement on Friday, the company said its business was ''robust, with approximately 70 missions on our manifest worth over $10 billion.''

The company said it was too early to predict when its launches might resume. In addition to the damaged launchpad, SpaceX has two others under construction. One is in Florida, which the company says should be ready in November. The other is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which SpaceX said was in ''the final stages of an operational upgrade.''

A longer-term issue for SpaceX is whether the rocket explosion and its aftermath raise concerns about its plans to move into the field of manned spaceflights for NASA and for launching military and national security satellites for the Department of Defense. Its competitor for that business is the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The list price for the SpaceX Falcon 9 is $62 million while the larger, more powerful Falcon Heavy is $90 million. There are further costs beyond the rocket itself, but analysts say SpaceX launches cost at least 50 percent less than what its main competitors charge. It has achieved that efficiency by streamlining production techniques, designing a stripped-down launchpad and stepping up the pace of launches.

Each innovation adds risk, said Phil Smith, an analyst for the Tauri Group. But SpaceX, he added, has been approved by NASA for cargo missions and certified by the Air Force, both of which have high safety and performance standards.

The explosion investigation and launchpad repair seem sure to scuttle SpaceX's aggressive launch plans this year. The company had hoped for as many as 18 rocket launches this year. It has had eight so far; last week's would have made nine. Over all, SpaceX has had 27 successful launches of Falcon 9 rockets.

The Florida accident is also rippling through the insurance market. Insuring the risk of getting a satellite into space comes in two stages. The preflight insurance is intended to mainly cover the risk of damage to the rocket and satellite on their way to the launchpad. Premiums are a fraction of a percent.

Launch policies, which take effect when the rocket is fired up, are costly, ranging from 5 to 15 percent historically.

But the Falcon 9 exploded during a prelaunch test. So launch policies did not kick in. And the insurance payout will fall on the roughly two dozen preflight insurers.

Richard Parker, managing director of Assure Space, an underwriting agency, is waiting to see the cause of the explosion. If it is a design or manufacturing flaw or an operational error, launch rates for SpaceX flights may well go up. His firm had underwritten a launch policy on last week's flight at 6 percent, he said.

One business casualty of the explosion is the $285 million sale of Space Communications, an Israeli satellite operator, to a unit of a Chinese company, Xinwei Technology Group. That deal hinged on the launch of Spacecom's Amos-6 satellite, an Israeli design.

The satellite was insured, but because of the explosion, Spacecom's five-year contract with Facebook and Eutelsat Communications of France to supply internet access to people in sub-Saharan Africa was canceled.

Spacecom's stock price fell 9 percent on Thursday, and another 34 percent on Sunday. In a news conference on Sunday, Spacecom executives said they were trying to renegotiate the deal with Xinwei and exploring other options.

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