We've been waiting for commercial spaceflight ever since the Pan Am Orion III space plane lifted Dr. Floyd to Clavius Base in 2001: A Space Odyssey. (I'll admit to having cheated and looked up the name of the base.) By 1997, commercial companies were using the Eastern Test Range regularly to test rockets. In 2004, Virgin Galactic formed with the intention of using private money to put private individuals into space. But time marched on, no one bought a ticket to space, and commercial spaceflight looked like it was always on the horizon, never getting any closer.
Pan Am won't be flying us to the moon any time soon (especially since it was shuttered in 1991), but this week we crossed the threshold into an era where commercial spaceflight exists.
At 8:35 Eastern Time on Sunday, a rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral to bring supplies to the International Space Station. Like many missions before it, this flight, officially labeled CRS-1, will bring cargo and supplies to the space station. The difference is, this time the rocket and capsule are entirely built and operated by a commercial company.
The rocket was the SpaceX Falcon 9, and the capsule was the SpaceX Dragon. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell had the following to say about the launch: "It's just awesome."
Yes. Yes it is.
If this news gives you an eerie sense of deja vu, it's because the Falcon 9 technically has flown to the ISS before. This past may, SpaceX ran a demonstration flight of the Falcon 9 with the Dragon capsule to prove it had sufficiently developed the technology. For that flight, though, all that was on the line was SpaceX's reputation. The CRS-1 launch, on the other hand, was carrying over a thousand pounds of science equipment (including silly putty, for an experiment I won't claim to completely understand), plus ice cream sandwiches as a special treat for the astronauts. This was no demo; it was a real space mission, with real government property (and ice cream) at risk.
CNN quotes Mission Control as calling the event "a picture-perfect launch and a flawless flight". That's not exactly true. SpaceX has since acknowledged that one of Falcon's nine engines failed and was automatically shut down by the rocket's computer. Rather than bemoaning the failure, however, SpaceX is claiming a triumph: Falcon is actually designed to make on-the-fly calculations and adjustments to its flight in the case of engine failure. Said SpaceX of the "engine out" feature: "Falcon 9 did exactly what it was designed to do. . . . Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine out situation and still complete its mission. No other rocket currently flying has this ability."
So, was the mission perfect? No. But the Falcon flew as designed and performed to requirements in the face of a technical failure. In two days, it will dock with the ISS and the cargo will be offloaded. Commercial spaceflight is real.
This is a victory not only for SpaceX but for NASA as well. NASA has faced tough scrutiny from Congress, stakeholders, and even retired astronauts for its decision to transition to private systems. But they appear to have found a model that works. The COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) and CRS (Commercial Resupply Service) programs were designed to reach this very outcome. Under COTS/CRS, NASA awards incentive payments to specified private industry organizations that demonstrate enabling technologies for critical NASA missions. Specifically, NASA has been subsidizing the development of vehicles and capsules capable of carrying cargo to the ISS.
The COTS/CRS program has faced some hostility in recent years, including from former NASA employees who worried that the US was neglecting its space program. Critics say that the US cannot remain dominant, or even competitive, in outer space if government programs are replaced by private ones. But Falcon's so-far successful delivery demonstrates that private industry, in conjunction with NASA's Commercial Crew & Cargo Program Office (C3PO), is headed in the right direction. (Yes. It's really called C3PO. I am not making that up.)
We still have a very long way to go. The US is currently without a vehicle capable of carrying astronauts to the ISS, and we rely on (and pay) the Russians for our crew transportation. (A related program, CCDev, or Commercial Crew Development, creates similar incentives for private companies to develop crew transportation capability.) Only a handful of nations can claim the ability to launch man-made objects into orbit. The US arguably just became the first country to create an independent commercial space industry.
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