Masters of Chinese watercolor. Watercolor ballet

The next year should be important for the space industry, both economically and ideologically. NASA plans to break Russia's monopoly on transporting astronauts to the International space station(ISS).

The launch of cargo into low-Earth orbit (and even cars to Mars) with the help of private companies has already become commonplace. But the positions of Roscosmos, which since 2011 have delivered Soyuz cosmonauts from all countries going to the ISS, were equally unshakable.

Material interest

According to the document with NASA’s draft budget for the next year, the first private mission to the ISS should take place in April 2019, within the framework of which a crew will be delivered aboard the station. The prospect of such a move would not only undermine Roscosmos’ monopoly on delivering cosmonauts into orbit, but would also give rise to a future mini-race in space. And there is something to chase - from 2007 to 2017, Roscosmos received almost $3.5 billion for cosmonaut delivery services, and more than two players are vying for this money.

As you might guess, one of the main contenders for leadership is billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and its Crew Dragon project, also known as Dragon 2.

While earthlings were distracted by the creation and launch of the Falcon Heavy super-heavy rocket, SpaceX was simultaneously working on its own spacecraft. Its cargo Dragon has already proven that Elon Musk can deliver cargo to the ISS.

The several hundred millions a year that SpaceX can “gnaw off” from Roscosmos is not the only incentive for Elon Musk’s company. His space corporation signed a $2.6 billion contract with NASA to develop and certify a manned spacecraft for flights to the ISS. The existing Falcon 9 can deliver Dragon Crew into orbit.

Musk and Roscosmos have another competitor. Boeing also makes private manned spacecraft. It also has a contract with NASA (worth up to $4.3 billion) and a project for its own ship, which is developing literally “neck and neck” with Musk’s brainchild. It's about from the Boeing Starliner, "the space capsule of the 21st century." The Boeing project is launched into orbit by the Atlas 5 launch vehicle. It also already exists and has been in use for quite a long time, but its launch is much more expensive than the Falcon 9.

Let us note that the first manned flight of an American spacecraft will not cancel the use of Soyuz; they are also included in the draft budget.

Money is not the main thing

In addition to material interest, the battle between SpaceX and Boeing is over the title of the first creator of a private manned spacecraft. Although SpaceX appears more often in space news, it was Boeing that was at the origins of the US space successes. In particular, she took part in the development of the Saturn-V rocket, the Destiny laboratory module for the ISS, and even the top-secret military vehicle X-37b. Considering the history of the company, its weight in the American industry and connections with government agencies, the author would not classify the Starliner project as an outsider.

It stands somewhat apart from the projects discussed above reusable ship Orion from Lockheed Martin. The device will not only be able to restore communication between Americans and the ISS, but also become the basis for NASA’s lunar and even Martian missions. It has already been tested in space: in 2014, Orion was launched into orbit by the Delta IV Heavy carrier. In the future, NASA plans to use it in conjunction with the powerful SLS rocket, capable of delivering astronauts to the Earth’s satellite and even to the Red Planet.

Who will be the first on the moon

The Orion project is undermined by the excessively high cost of SLS launches - it is estimated at $500 million versus $90 million for the Falcon Heavy. Therefore, you should not count on using Orion in Earth orbit.

But it was SLS and Orion that were especially loved by American congressmen - during the latter, it was these two projects that added the most funds. The head of NASA's manned program, Bill Gerstenmaier, noted that the SLS will be used for missions to the Moon, in particular to the projected lunar station, because the Falcon Heavy has a slightly worse payload capacity.

However, Elon Musk planned a flyby of astronauts around the Moon without help from NASA - there is an unspoken competition going on to see who will be the first to do this in the 21st century.

NASA may still adjust the budget, and technological difficulties may delay the start. But, unfortunately, the Americans are trying to repeat the successes of Russia (USSR), such as delivering people to the ISS. In a year or so later Russia will lose the opportunity to be proud of the unique technology for delivering people to the station. Meanwhile, a battle is unfolding in the United States for the future of not only the business of delivering cargo and astronauts to the ISS, but also the entire space industry as a whole.

If after the launch it is possible to return the first stage to Earth without damage, then its reuse will make the next launch cheaper, admits the press service of the United Rocket and Space Corporation of Russia. Russia has developments on similar missiles, adds a company employee.

Real savings

Russian experts believe that the head of the company may be exaggerating the size of the savings, but admit that the repeated use of accelerators will have a great economic effect. The cost of the first stage is 60-70% of the price of the rocket, noted Igor Afanasyev, editor of Cosmonautics News magazine, but the Falcon 9 has a thin-walled stage, several millimeters thick. Because of this, the share of the first stage cost in the total launch costs may be lower.

The cost of manufacturing the rocket will need to be divided by the number of possible re-launches, to which will be added the costs of fuel and the expedition to return the stages to the launch site. “In addition, there will be costs for stage restoration, certification, performance assessment, refueling and restart. And what about profit? “Musk will not work without it,” Afanasyev is sure.

Previously, developers, trying to achieve multiple use of launch vehicles, took a different route, using wing-based gliding and “airplane-type” landing.

Corresponding Member Russian Academy cosmonautics named after. K.E. Tsiolkovsky Andrei Ionin believes that the Falcon 9 operating scheme has its own pros and cons. On the plus side: the stage itself and, most importantly, the engine are preserved. The expert considers the disadvantages to be the need to place additional systems on the rocket to ensure landing of the first stage, including additional landing engines, fuel for them, and so on. All this makes the launch vehicle heavier, reducing the mass of the payload launched into orbit by 10-30%. In addition, testing the returned first stage for reliability and absence of serious defects after landing can be comparable in cost to building it from scratch.

By saving the first stage, you can save money on building it again for future launches. On the other hand, by losing the mass of the payload, the company loses money for putting it into orbit. “Schemes with a recoverable first stage can only be successful if a balance is achieved between the price of the rescued stage, the price of the cargo put into orbit, and the cost of preparing the stage for re-launch,” Ionin tells RBC.

According to him, now the price of rocket engines is up to 40% of the cost of the entire launch, which, in turn, ranges from $60-100 million. That is, the project can be considered successful if the costs of technical solutions for the return of the stage, its retraining and the loss of income from reducing the mass of the withdrawn cargo will not exceed $25-40 million.

Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon cargo ship in numbers

505.8 t launch vehicle mass

3.7 m diameter of Falcon 9 and Dragon

68.4 m launch vehicle height

5.88 MN launch vehicle launch thrust at sea level

180 s operating time of the first stage

5.2 m cargo ship length

6 t cargo ship mass

Source: SpaceX

Battle for kilograms

Russia still maintains a leading position in the commercial market for delivering cargo into space. The main advantage of the domestic astronautics is the lower cost of launching a payload into orbit than its competitors. According to the data, the weighted average market cost by the number of launches over the past five years for delivering the maximum payload to low reference orbit (LEO) using Russian rockets was $6.3-8.9 thousand/kg. In the USA this figure is $12.5-18.8 thousand/kg, in Europe it is $11.0-13.6 thousand/kg. In China, the cost of delivering cargo to LEO is approaching Russian level and amounts to $8.1-10.8 thousand/kg. The market cost of delivering cargo to a geotransfer orbit (GTO) already varies less between countries and is approximately $21-27 thousand/kg for Russia and $21-32 thousand/kg for the USA.

The minimum cost of delivering 1 kg of cargo to a low reference orbit for Falcon 9 rockets is now about $4.3 thousand. If this indicator decreases, it will become more profitable to use American launch vehicles than Russian ones: now the cost of launching a Proton is $80-100 million, the rocket can launch to a low reference orbit 23 tons of cargo ($3.4-4.4 thousand per 1 kg)

Musk's rockets also lack in carrying capacity - Falcons are capable of delivering satellites into orbit about one and a half times lighter than our Protons can. It is possible that Musk’s price is dumping and, having received part of the market, he will raise prices, says Igor Afanasyev. But if he manages to achieve reusability of the media, the opposite may happen - he will still omit them, he continues.

Musk’s company also plans to develop manned flights, and not just cargo delivery. Russia's income from delivering American astronauts to the ISS in 2013 amounted to $335 million. NASA signed a contract with Roscosmos for these services for the period from 2014 to 2016 in the amount of $753 million. Since 2017, the American space agency plans to send people to the ISS on ships own production. The corresponding projects are being developed by SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada. If the Falcons become reusable, the domestic astronautics will lose in this component, says Igor Afanasyev.

People in Russia are also thinking about the possibility of saving money when starting up. “The returnable first stage is one of the options that are being considered today to reduce the cost of launching a payload into space,” says the press service of the United Rocket and Space Corporation. URKK specialists believe that this idea is economically justified: the most expensive element of the first stage, the engine, is developed with a significant safety margin, allowing for multiple launches. The development of a rocket with a reusable first stage is provided for by the federal project space program until 2025.

The market for delivering cargo and astronauts is far from the largest in the space business. According to the Space Report 2014, prepared by the Space Foundation, the size of the global space economy in 2013 grew by 4% - to $314.2 billion. Of this, the commercial component reached $240.1 billion, and the government segment - $74.1 billion. Two The largest industries in commercial space are satellite TV and the market for global navigation services. These two industries account for about 60% of total revenue.

Of the active spacecraft in orbit, only about 10% belong to Russia. These are mainly GLONASS satellites, as well as military navigation and communications satellites. In terms of the number of satellites, we are four times inferior to the United States, where most of devices is responsible for commercial communications. The reason for the lag is the poor development of the domestic radio-electronic industry, says Igor Afanasyev.

SpaceX was founded in the summer of 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk, co-founder of the PayPal payment system. The first few years of operation of the company were developing technologies and searching for government contracts. Musk's company launched its Falcon 1 rocket for the first time in March 2006, but then a leak in the fuel system caused a fire, the rocket lost control and fell into the sea near the launch site. Only the fourth launch of Falcon 1, in September 2008 (shortly before signing the contract with NASA), was successful.

Falcon 9, three times the size past type rockets, began to be developed as a promising carrier even before the first failures of the Falcon 1. Agreements under the CRS program (NASA commercial cargo delivery program) only spurred this research. A new line of rockets, the Falcon Heavy, is scheduled to be launched in 2015.

Forbes magazine called Elon Musk “a revolutionary in two industries at once.” The businessman even became the prototype for the main character in the film " iron Man"(the hero of the original comic book series was “copied” from the image of Howard Hughes). At the end of 2014, Musk, with a net worth of $8.2 billion, ranks 158th among richest people world according to Forbes.

SpaceX Company

Founded in the summer of 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk, co-founder of the PayPal payment system. The first few years of operation of the company were developing technologies and searching for government contracts. Musk's company first launched the Falcon 1 rocket in March 2006, but then a leak in the fuel system caused a fire, the rocket lost control and fell into the sea near the launch site. Only the fourth launch of Falcon 1, in September 2008 (shortly before signing the contract with NASA), was successful.

Falcon 9, three times larger in size than the previous type of rocket, began to be developed as a promising carrier even before the first failures of Falcon 1. Agreements under the CRS program (NASA's commercial cargo delivery program) spurred this research. A new line of rockets, the Falcon Heavy, is scheduled to be launched in 2015.

How Falcon was returned

To land the spent rocket stage, SpaceX built a special offshore spaceport platform. It was located in the Atlantic Ocean and held in place using water jet engines - a similar system is used on oil platforms deepwater drilling. Quite impressive, by human standards, the dimensions of the landing site (100 m long and 60 m wide), however, are very small for landing an object from a great height: for example, the maximum length of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier is 306 m.

The company itself estimated the probability of an accurate landing at no more than 50%. The difficulty is the need to reduce the falling speed from 1300 m/s to 250 m/s and braking just before landing, when the falling speed should not exceed 2 m/s. The rocket, the height of a 14-story building, was supposed to land vertically and stand on a platform using special supports, the span of which is about 20 m. For a more accurate landing, the designers used lattice stabilizers, which were previously used only on air-to-air ballistic missiles and in the emergency rescue system Soviet ships"Union".

As a result, the first stage of the Falcon 9 hit the landing pad. But the landing, as reported in his

Russia and the United States will stop the program to deliver American astronauts to the ISS by Russian Soyuz spacecraft from April 2019, Interfax quotes the Deputy Prime Minister as saying.

The timing of the termination of cooperation with Borisov was indicated at a meeting at the Energia rocket and space corporation, which was devoted to the prospects of manned space exploration. “The landing of the Soyuz-MS spacecraft in April completes the fulfillment of our obligations under the contract with NASA related to the delivery of American astronauts to the ISS and return from the station,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.

In addition, Borisov added that the creation of the new Soyuz-5 rocket, the first launch of which is scheduled for 2022, will return Russia to the status of a leading space power. “There is a unique technically complex task to be solved, but its implementation will restore and secure Russia’s status as the world’s leading space power,” he noted.

NASA astronauts used Russian spacecraft for flights to the ISS, since the American side did not have suitable equipment for this, which, in turn, is associated with the end of the Shuttle program.

Back in 2016, NASA, through the Boeing Corporation, purchased five seats on Soyuz spacecraft to transport its astronauts to the ISS. In April of this year, information appeared that the management had purchased three places for 2019. In addition, NASA has an option for additional seats, which the organization periodically uses. For example, last year an additional place was taken by astronaut Joe Acaba, who went to the station along with Russian Alexander Misurkin and American Mark Vande Hei.

According to media reports, in 2018, additional space may be allocated to Shannon Walker, who has worked on the ISS robotic systems since the mid-90s and stayed at the station in 2010 with the crew of the Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft for 163 days. After this, Walker's flight was postponed to the spring of 2019. Then she will fly with the crew of the Soyuz MS-12.

The plans for 2019 tentatively included three starts of Russian spaceships"Union". In addition to the Soyuz MS-12, the flight of the Soyuz MS-13 with an American on board was scheduled for May - early summer, and the Soyuz MS-14 was scheduled for the fall.

However, NASA still hopes to resume its own manned flights. The department pinned its hopes on the programs of private corporations involved in the development of launch vehicles, primarily Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The program to support private space exploration, within which, as Bloomberg reported, $8 billion was allocated, was developed by .

In early August, it became known about SpaceX's plans to conduct the first manned flight in April 2019. After some time, in the middle of the same year, Boeing Corporation is going to conduct a manned flight.

NASA has even announced the names of the astronauts who will be the first to go into space on the Dragon and CTS-100 Starliner spacecraft. Victor Glover, Bob Behnken and Dog Harley will travel to the ISS on the Dragon spacecraft. John Cassada, Sunita Williams, Eric Bowe, Chris Ferguson and Nicole Amapu-Mann will fly to the ISS on Starliner. As the agency noted, this will be the first flight of astronauts to the space station on an American spacecraft since 2011.

When the Shuttle program ended, the Russian corporation Energia and the Roscosmos agency maintained a virtual monopoly on the market for manned space flights. To deliver astronauts into orbit, NASA had to enter into contracts to purchase seats on Soyuz spacecraft. Over the past three years alone, the United States has spent $935 million on paying for space for astronauts in Russia.

By the way, recently an air leak occurred on the Soyuz docked to the ISS, the statement cites general director state corporation "Roscosmos".

The problems were caused by a microcrack 1.5 millimeters wide, which, according to the designers, appeared as a result of a collision between the ship and a micrometeorite.

The ship is reported to have the necessary repair kit.

“Tonight we had an emergency situation on the ISS, an air leak, a drop in pressure. Measures have been taken to determine where the leak is coming from. The American crew gathered in the Russian segment. All six cosmonauts were in the Russian segment. Then the compartments were overlapped one by one to understand where exactly what happened. As a result, we localized the problem,” Rogozin emphasized.

At the same time, according to the source, a total of two holes were discovered (in the service compartment of the Soyuz MS-09). “They are sealed with Kapton tape. This is enough to safely complete the mission of the ship docked to the ISS. The leak does not pose a threat,” the interlocutor emphasized.

According to federal portal US government procurement, the most recent cash tranche from NASA to Roscosmos dates back to March 28, 2016 - America regularly pays for the delivery of astronauts to its segment of the ISS, and this is becoming more and more expensive. As NASA told Life, over the past ten years, flights into orbit have quadrupled in price - from $21.8 million per astronaut to $81.9 million. This is how Russia compensates for losses from the sale of Soviet technologies to Americans in the 1990s and free delivery in the early 2000s

How the United States bought up the USSR's space experience

In the first week of January 2013, when Russia was celebrating Christmas, US President Barack Obama made a difficult decision: he put his final signature on a congressional law authorizing NASA to pay Roscosmos hundreds of millions of dollars annually until 2020 to transport astronauts to the ISS. The Americans have no other choice: the shuttles that have become household names have long been recognized as dangerous, and other ships are still being developed or tested. Astronauts on the ISS will not wait - the crew needs to be regularly updated.

NASA also never had its own full-fledged station, because the most stable source of the National Aerospace Agency’s image is telescopes.

Back in the days of Reagan there was ambitious project Freedom station, which amazed with its size and weight of 100 tons, but when the Americans calculated the budget, they decided that flying with the Russians to the Mir station would be four times cheaper, says Vladimir Zernov, associate professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute.

The Russian Aerospace Agency found its best client almost immediately after its creation. In the summer of 1992, an agreement was signed with NASA on joint project"World - Shuttle".

The Americans have always been pragmatic, so even then they set out to resolve their issues, says one of the Roscosmos employees. - The conditions for this were ideal: glasnost began in Russia, technology became available, the space industry needed money. The Americans literally bought the technologies and documents they needed for pennies.

This was a kind of industrial espionage: NASA was interested in maneuvers, dockings, rendezvous, accommodation, and medical support for flights. Roscosmos expert, corresponding member of the Tsiolkovsky Russian Academy of Cosmonautics Andrei Ionin noted that the Americans were especially hunting for the experience of long-term stay of people in space, which only the USSR had. The experience was invaluable because it had been accumulated over decades and was associated with risks to people’s health and lives. The Americans had a gap in this area: almost all of their flights were short - within 10 days.

In March 1993, Roscosmos General Director Yuri Koptev proposed to NASA head Daniel Goldin to create the International Space Station (ISS, created in 1998, regular expeditions began in 2000). The Americans liked the project, and they financed the creation of the first Russian modules of the station.

In the early days of cooperation, American astronauts usually flew into space as the third member of the Soyuz crew. Although he sits to the right of the commander, but according to his duties he is a passenger. Then the Americans reached the second seat in the cockpit - the flight engineer. This is a completely different level of training and clearance, because he participates in the control of the spacecraft - he gives commands, collects various parameters. Many astronauts flew in this capacity. The highest level is commander. He controls the ship and makes dockings. Americans will never occupy this chair - Russian spaceships will always be piloted only by Russians. Even the inside of the ship itself is designed in such a way that the main optical sight is accessible only to the commander.

The Americans then carefully studied the technologies, which they then used to build their ISS module,” says Andrei Ionin. - The funny thing is that the money was refundable: Roscosmos carried astronauts on Soyuz for free for many years, working off this loan. Only since 2006, the United States began to pay Russia real money for the delivery of astronauts and cargo into orbit by Progress and Soyuz [NASA Life clarified that they do not pay separately for the transportation of cargo by Progress].

Revenge on space minibuses

If earlier Americans were interested in technology, now they are interested in delivery to orbit by a single minibus, and again a Soviet one: the first launch of Soyuz series ships took place back in 1967.

After the Columbia disaster in 2003 and the subsequent suspension of Shuttle flights, NASA no longer had its own delivery vehicle. There are currently two delivery schemes to the ISS: in the first case, the space crew consists of two Russians and one foreigner, and in the other, vice versa. The ISS crew is updated every three months - that's four Soyuz flights a year. Thus, Roscosmos sells six seats a year to foreigners.

Roscosmos refused to answer questions about the financial aspect of cooperation with the United States, but NASA gave calculations.

The full cost of the contract for 2018 is $491,172,275 for six seats, NASA spokesman Daniel Huot told Life. - The United States is acquiring seats in Soyuz for NASA astronauts and international agencies(European ESA, Canadian CSA, Japanese JAXA), they are then compensated by barter. Four flights a year: two with a NASA astronaut, two with one astronaut and one partner from international agencies, for a total of six seats. The contract includes crew landing and rescue in 2019 through December 31, 2020, all necessary training and preparation for launch and flight, delivery of some crew baggage to and from the station, as well as additional services related to launches and landings.

Huot provided data on NASA transfers to Roscosmos since 2006, and it turned out that since then transportation has quadrupled in price (cumulative inflation - 276%):

Total - $3.4 billion. To understand, the last tranche of half a billion dollars is about a third of the annual budget funding of the Federal Space Program for 2016-2025 (104 billion rubles). When asked how Roscosmos justified the price increase (despite the fact that the dollar has devalued by 18% since 2006, the ruble by 145%), the NASA representative only stated that the United States has no choice.

"NASA needs to secure delivery through a qualified contractor to maintain the operation of a multi-billion dollar asset and to fulfill NASA's obligations to Russian, Canadian, European and Japanese partners. Thus, NASA needs to acquire seats on the Soyuz."

The profit of Roscosmos at least covers the costs of delivering Russian cosmonauts to the ISS: according to Ionin, “the Soyuz itself costs about $30 million, the launch costs another $30-40 million, which means that one seat already costs $25 million, don’t forget about expenses for preparation, adaptation, return."

“NASA can afford this, given their budget of $17-18 billion and the fact that launching one Shuttle cost between $450 million and $1 billion in the early 2000s.”

By the way, for space tourists the ticket is cheaper. In 2001, Dennis Tito paid $20 million for a short-term flight, and last year she was supposed to fly into space famous singer Sarah Brightman, after preparations, she withdrew her candidacy. Official reason were named " family circumstances", but, according to another version, she was never able to raise the required $52 million.

The Americans will have to renew their contract

On the one hand, the Americans have become dependent on us and their pride has been damaged, but on the other hand, they are winning because they do not spend money on expensive launches and use it to develop new ships, a source in Roscosmos noted. The Americans are currently developing four ships of different series at the same time: state project Orion and three projects with participation commercial structures. More than $11 billion has already been spent on Orion. The development of the super-heavy launch vehicle Space Launch System (SLS), which will be capable of launching up to 100 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, is estimated at $20 billion.

Daniel Huot reported that the American ship on a commercial basis will deliver astronauts to the ISS, as expected, as early as 2017.

The interlocutor emphasized that as soon as the ship is ready and meets the requirements, it will become the priority method of delivering astronauts to the ISS, and seats on the Soyuz will no longer be purchased. But Roscosmos still has significant chances for additional revenue.

Even if they have their own ship ready in 2017, it will take several more years to test it - after all, you need to think about human lives, says Andrey Ionin.

The Soyuz is known not only as a ship for delivering and launching astronauts, but also as a space rescue capsule. Only the Soyuz is certified according to all international standards to remain in orbit for six months - people can safely take refuge in it and descend to Earth. American spacecraft designs provide only for the delivery and descent of astronauts; they are not certified for long-term stay in orbit. When the ISS project was created, the Americans took upon themselves the creation of such lifeboat, but then they calculated the budget and refused.

According to international certification standards, a drone must have a confirmed reliability level of at least 0.95 - that’s five failures in 100 launches, said Vladimir Zernov, associate professor of the Moscow Aviation Institute. For a manned ship, the international standard is 0.99. The shuttles no longer meet these standards: out of 150 launches they had two failures. To carry out international certification of a new ship, you need to conduct 100 launches and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on it. Soyuz has the following statistics: more than 2 thousand launches with two non-catastrophic failures.

“In the next 10 years, the Americans will not have anything like this. Although the Soyuz is considered cramped and uncomfortable, it is better to survive in such conditions than to die in a comfortable Shuttle.”

On the other hand, he concludes, the Russian space industry also only has a maximum of 10 years - then it will no longer be possible to go out and make money on the Soviet space heritage.

On the night of December 3-4, the Cygnus space truck of the American company Orbital ATK is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station. This is the first launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida since the accident in 2014.

What will it bringCygnus?

Cygnus, which will be launched into orbit by the Atlas V launch vehicle, should deliver about 3.5 tons of cargo to the ISS. In addition to food, water and basic necessities, the truck will deliver materials for scientific experiments and equipment to the orbital station. Among other things, the crew will receive a microsatellite, which will be launched into orbit from the ISS for the first time.

The space truck will spend more than a month docked to the station. Next, a ton of waste will be loaded into it and undocked from the ISS. In January of next year it will burn up in the dense layers of our planet’s atmosphere.

IN next year Orbital, under contract with NASA, will carry out at least three missions: two using the Antares rocket, another will be carried out using the Atlas V rocket belonging to the ULA alliance.

Accident at the cosmodrome

Orbital ATK stopped launches for a year after its Antares rocket exploded during takeoff at Wallops Space Center (USA) on October 28, 2014. As a result of the crash, equipment for scientific experiments was lost, as well as spare parts for the station.

Space policy specialist and professor emeritus at George Washington University John Logsdon said RIA News, that the Antares incident may have been caused by problems with the engine, which he said “was originally designed for use on the Soviet N-1 launch vehicle more than 40 years ago.
By the way, the first stage of the exploded rocket was developed in Ukraine.

Leaders in cargo delivery into space

Delivery of cargo to the International Space Station is a very expensive and knowledge-intensive process. There are only a few countries capable of building even satellites, not to mention spaceships and stations. Of course, primacy in the construction of transport spaceships has always been shared among themselves Soviet Union and the USA.

Today, cargo is delivered to the ISS by the Dragon and Cygnus spacecraft; they have filled the Progress spacecraft’s niche. This is due to the fact that with each new launch of a ship, the United States adds a new function and implements new technology into their ships, so Roscosmos considers the drop in demand for Progress to be natural. However, they will continue to be in demand, since only they are capable of delivering fuel into orbit. American ships cannot do this, but they are capable of returning some of the cargo in a separate capsule. That is, each ship has its own advantages.

As for the delivery of the astronauts themselves, Russia will deliver them to the ISS until 2020. Back in 2013, quietly and without unnecessary fanfare, Barack Obama signed the corresponding law. The Americans have no choice: they do not have space technology capable of transporting people.

According to the document, NASA’s authority to use Russia’s services in work on the ISS and make corresponding payments to it, which expired in June 2016, has been extended until December 31, 2020.

Currently, the delivery of astronauts to the ISS is carried out using Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Sending each astronaut to the ISS on board a Russian spacecraft costs the American treasury $60 million.

Previously, the Americans, for financial reasons, curtailed their own reusable space shuttle flight program. It is expected that in the future this function will be taken over by ships developed by private companies. Thus, American state companies They don’t even hope to independently develop a solution better than the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Increasing competition

Private companies have begun to tighten the already fierce global space competition. Thus, the European commercial company Arianespace SA, which delivers space satellites into low-Earth orbit, significantly reduced the price a year ago.

SpaceX is squeezing out Arianespace, which is 34.7% owned by the French space agency and includes 20 European companies and government agencies, in the space transportation market.

In the long term, SpaceX plans to colonize Mars, but for now the company's business is focused on launching commercial satellites using lightweight launch vehicles. The company is working to create reusable rockets similar to airplanes, which it believes will dramatically reduce costs. The Satellite Industry Association estimates that the satellite launch market was worth $5.4 billion last year.

At the same time, SpaceX began to win over customers from the European company who wanted to launch small satellites weighing less than 4.5 tons. The prices of the American company are 30% lower than those of Arianespace, says Peter de Selding, director of the Paris bureau of SpaceNews.

In response, Arianespace, which does not disclose the cost of its services, has lowered prices. SpaceX's base prices, which are listed on its website, range from $61.2 million to $85 million.

Arianespace is putting pressure on its suppliers, many of whom are shareholders, to cut costs. The European company is also taking other steps to improve its competitive advantages. Arianespace currently uses Ariane 5 launch vehicles. A higher-capacity version of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle is expected to be ready in 2018. The model will allow the launch of two heavy-class satellites and will reduce the need to search for satellites light class to launch.

Today, not a single serious space project is carried out without insurance, either in Russia or abroad. Risks have no registration. On October 9, 2014, the Antares launch vehicle and the Cygnus spacecraft, carrying cargo for the ISS, were lost 6 seconds after launch. The accident could have been caused by engine problems.

April 28, 2015 unsuccessful launch of the Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle with the Progress M-27M cargo ship. After the cargo ship separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle, telemetry stopped receiving. The cargo ship was spinning uncontrollably and was well above its calculated orbit.

On May 8, the truck burned down in the dense layers of the atmosphere. The reason for the abnormal separation of the third stage of the Soyuz from the Progress was named by Roscosmos as the depressurization of the tanks in the rocket.

June 28, 2015 unsuccessful launch of the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. At 139 seconds of flight, a flight anomaly occurred, which ended 8 seconds later with the destruction of the launch vehicle. According to the head of Space X, Elon Musk, the cause of the incident was excess pressure in the oxidizer tank of the upper stage of the launch vehicle.

Russia once seriously lagged behind the United States and European countries in the field of space insurance. However, today Russian insurers are reaching the highest level of organizing this in the world. complex type insurance protection.

Marina Staroverkina