*Originally published at uwspacerace.com/blog.
During the days leading up to Christmas 1968, the United States adventured where no man had gone before, to the moon.
Now, 50 years later, the commercial space industry is making massive strides, going only where massive governments have gone before.
Last year proved to be a tremendous year for space technology. With this, 2019 is shaping up to be exponentially more transformative.
All of this rapid growth in the space industry necessitates talented, driven, passionate, and experience young engineering talent — the very kind being cultivated on the UW Space Race Team.
In this blog we’ll cover:
- A 2018 Year In Space Launch Review
- What’s In Store For 2019?
3… 2… 1… lift off, of blog-two.
2018 Year In Space Launch Review
Fueled by over $3 billion of venture capital and led by billionaires, spaceship-2018 saw an abundance of unique, historic launch initiatives, among many other breakthrough technologies and companies.
Billionaire Space Race
Spaceflight 2018 kicked off in grandiose fashion on February 6th, when SpaceX entered the heavy-lift rocket game. In an exhilarating demonstration of the world’s most powerful operational launch vehicle, Falcon heavy, SpaceX delivered a Cherry-Red Tesla Roadster driven by a space-suit wearing Starman on a trajectory for the Asteroid Belt.
SpaceX made launch-history again (2 times in one launch) in 2018 when they launched a Falcon Nine for a third time (#1 for the most times a rocket has been reused) to place 64 CubeSats and smallsats (#2 for an unprecedented rideshare size), from 34 different organizations into orbit.
Next, United Launch Alliance selected Jeff Bezos lead Blue Origin to supply their BE-4 engine for ULA’s in-development Vulcan Rocket. Along with this fruitful revenue stream, Blue Origin proved, once again, that they are a silent-but-strong player in the launch industry with the eighth and ninth successful test launches of New Shepard.
Finally, to round out the 2018-leg of the billionaire-space-race, both of Richard Branson’s launch companies achieved major milestones in 2018.
Virgin Orbit, the Branson-backed smallsat launch provider, completed their first set of captive carry flights, a critical test for proving out their 747-wing approach to driving down launch costs.
On the space-tourism side of Branson’s operation, Virgin Galactic had an inspirational return-to-space, fourteen years after winning the Ansari XPRIZEwith Spaceship One.
On December 13th, Virgin Galactic launched SpaceShipTwo to an apogee of 51.4 miles — officially reaching space. Patriotically, this mission marked the first time astronauts returned to space from American soil since the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
Let’s rewind for a moment, to the first Ansari XPRIZE in which SpaceShipTwo’s predecessor, SpaceShipOne, kick-started the commercial Space Race. In parallel the primary mission of that Ansari XPRIZE -to invigorate a new-age of space exploration- the UW SPACE RACE team is driven to support the now-burgeoning new-space industry.
After the launch, Virgin Galactic CEO, George Whitesides said: “What we witnessed today is more compelling evidence that commercial space is set to become one of the twenty-first century’s defining industries.”
Abundance Of Launch Vehicles
Beyond the billionaire-space-race, this year saw an order of magnitude reduction in launch cost by space-startup Rocket Lab. Launching from a breathtaking peninsula on the coast of New Zealand, the company successfully completed its first commercial launch. The two-stage Electron can place 500 lbs into Low-Earth-Orbit for a mere $5 million.
2018 also saw a first-of-its-kind Soyuz mission abort, with astronauts on their way to the space station safely aborting mid-flight. We learned an important lesson from this mission abort: contingency planning is critical. While the Soyuz’s boosters failed, the launch-abort system operated perfectly, proving the effectiveness of contingency planning.
To round out the year in launch capabilities, the Sierra Nevada Corporation (with a branch in Madison, formerly ORBITEC) received approval from NASA to begin full-scale production of its Dream Chaser spacecraft. This approval is a major step toward SNC fulfilling their six mission International Space Station Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.
Overall, it’s been a transformative year for space launch — but these launch vehicle breakthroughs are accompanied by a just-as-transformative part the new-space ecosystem: imaging and communication satellites.
What’s In Store For 2019?
While 2018 proved to be a massive year for space launch, Morgan Stanley predicts that 2019 could “be the year for space.”
Here’s why.
Moon-Centric 2019
To kick off the fiftieth year since Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, on January 3rd, 2019 China’s Chang’e 4 spacecraft landed on the far side of the moons. This landing is a major milestone in moon-exploration, as it is the first time any man-made object has successfully landed on the far side. To make this landing possible, China launched a relay satellite to send radio signals from the spacecraft that otherwise would not pass through the moon back to Earth.
Continuing the semi-centennial of “One Small Step For Man…,” on February 13th, Israeli startup and former Google Lunar XPRIZE competitor, SpaceIL, will launch their lunar lander on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9. When successful, this mission will mark the first privately funded and built spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.
This achievement will be a major milestone for commercial space while proving the power of incentive prize competitions (like the UW SPACE RACE’s Base 11 Space Challenge) to inspire even the private sector from the smallest of nations to innovate on a galactic scale.
Following SpaceIL’s launch, three other former Lunar XPRIZE contenders also plan to launch their craft to the moon: Moon Express (Based in Florida), Team Indus (Based in India), and PT Scientists (Based in Berlin). There’s a new gold rush brewing, and this it’s shaping up to be a race for lunar resources.
A New Class Of Launch Vehicles
Next in autonomous space flight, we expect to see the first customers for SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, as well as the first grasshopper testing of SpaceX’s Starship (Formerly Big Falcon Rocket).
This year, we likewise expect the likes of Blue Origin’s New Glenn to liftoff, Virgin Orbit’s Launcher One to deliver its first satellites to orbit, and Virgin Galactic’s first customers to travel to space (Richard Branson plans to go to space by mid-2019!).
Moving from unmanned to manned space travel, let’s look at what history will remember as the true hallmark of the space industry in 2019: Commercial Crew.
SpaceX is one of two major players here, with the Crew Dragon capsule, scheduled to both demonstrate flight readiness and launch astronauts in January and June, respectively. Boeing, is the other major player, with Starliner slated to prove flight readiness in March, with a crewed demonstration planned for this summer.
If all goes according to plan, this first set of commercial crew launches to the International Space Station (ISS) will mark the first time astronauts have journeyed to orbit and to the ISS from US soil since the end of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
In a future blog, we’ll dive into the massive disruptions to the global economy coming from communications and imagery satellite from SpaceX, OneWeb, planet, etc planned for 2019.
It’s safe to say that 2019 will be an extraordinary year for space.
Conclusion
With space history made several times in 2018, mankind is preparing journeying back to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
We are deeply grateful to be up-and-coming (and LEARNING) in the space-industry at the precipice of this new space age.
We are steadfast believers that commercial space is already the transformative force of the 21st century.
What exciting space flight milestones are you most excited about? Did we miss something? Let us know in the comments!
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