In the past ten years, we have seen literally a revolution in private astronautics. It began in the United States, but today this revolution is changing approaches to the use and exploration of outer space around the world, including in the aspects of scientific and technological policy of states and their competition in this area. In parallel with the explosive growth of the commercial space sector, there are qualitative changes in the field of space technology. Of course, all the ongoing changes affect Russia and its long-term interests.
Commercial space revolution
From the very beginning of space exploration in this area, there are private companies that acted as contractors under government contracts in the framework of space programs, as well as independently developed and created spacecraft and services based on them. It is important to emphasize here: the state order covered the development and creation of launch vehicles, other means of launching payloads, satellites, scientific vehicles, cargo and manned ships and orbital stations. Since the 1960s, the telecommunications sector has been attractive for private investment - the development, creation and operation of communication and broadcasting satellites. This alignment was generally maintained over the next 35-40 years.
The prerequisites for changes began to emerge in the second half of the 1980s, when the economic effects of space activities and the commercialization of technologies created in the aerospace industry under government contracts began to be realized. This area has been increasingly conceptualized in terms of potential profit. Let's not forget the role of the Cold War as an incentive for huge government investments in space programs. However, at the end of their confrontation, the Soviet Union and the United States themselves argued more and more about the surplus value created by each ruble or dollar invested in such programs.
Dennis Tito, the first space tourist
In addition to the more prudent approach of the superpowers to their spending on space, the "revolution in military affairs" that began in those years played an important role. The integration of space communications, reconnaissance and navigation systems into the daily activities of the armed forces and the emergence of the phenomenon of "high-tech war" [1] required the involvement of a significant number of civilian specialists, as well as the use of commercial communications satellites by the troops.
The beginning of a new era was laid by the war in Iraq in 1991, after which it became clear that no army could fully meet its needs for space systems through the use of exclusively military vehicles - too expensive. At the same time, it was clear that, for example, navigation satellite systems (then it was the American GPS and the Soviet / Russian system, later called GLONASS), the creation and maintenance of which is commercially unprofitable, should be part of the civil economic infrastructure, such as roads and electric networks. With the development of technology, such an infrastructure has gone over - and even turned into a separate segment of the space business - satellites for remote sensing of the earth, which make it possible to survey the earth's surface in high resolution and transmit data in real time to a wide range of customers (initially, satellite surface survey was carried out exclusively in the interests of intelligence).
Another powerful incentive for the development of commercial space exploration was the collapse of the Soviet economic system and the formation of the world market for space goods and services, which now includes Russian and Ukrainian enterprises with launch vehicles and rocket engines. Later, they were joined by China, which is carrying out commercial satellite launches using its launch vehicles and producing satellites for customers in Africa and Latin America. Russia also pioneered the commercialization of space stations and the emergence of space tourism (this began at the Mir station).
The end of the Cold War freed significant numbers of specialists previously employed in government programs from the aerospace industries in the United States and Russia. And we must pay tribute to the Americans - they managed to create conditions for some of these people to remain in the profession, switching to commercial space topics or founding their own space companies. This is how the "ecosystem" of private astronautics was formed.
Still, 2001 was the starting point for a revolution in commercial space exploration, when the all-private suborbital plane Spaceship-1, sponsored by billionaire Paul Allen, flew and formed the basis of a project to create a spacecraft for mass space tourism. For the implementation of this project, called "Spaceship-2", together with P. Allen took the company "Virgin Galactic" billionaire Richard Branson. A year later, another billionaire, Elon Musk, founded Space Exploration Technologies, which eventually developed the Falcon family of launch vehicles and the Dragon cargo spacecraft.
The main thing to look out for is that private equity has started to make venture capital investments in space transportation, the goal of which is to reduce the cost of getting goods and people into orbit and returning them to earth. Thus, the cost of launching a cargo into low-earth orbit with a Falcon-9 rocket is $ 4300 / kg, and on a Falcon Heavy rocket it has been reduced to $ 1455 / kg. For comparison: the cost of launching cargo into low-earth orbit by the Russian Proton-M rocket is 2600–4500 USD / kg [2].
SPACEX
Rocket "Falcon-9" project SpaceX
State policy also plays a role here. In the 2000s, the American government carried out, within the framework of the Constellation program (the so-called lunar program of George W. Bush) (1, 2, 3), the transfer of technologies and experience accumulated over decades to business, and also actually abandoned its own new projects in the field of applied manned astronautics and rocket science in favor of orders for the services of commercial space systems. Thus, it partially "insured" the investments of the business.
At the same time, the American space agency NASA was able to focus on fundamental space research and development, as well as the integration of results obtained in the framework of civil and military space activities into the field of aviation. In particular, we can mention here an experimental high-altitude unmanned aircraft powered by solar batteries, the adaptation of aviation and space systems used in military unmanned aircraft to the needs of the commercial sector, as well as the development of "flying wing" technologies, first used on military aircraft and space shuttles, in civil aircraft construction. This should be taken into account, since the space and aviation industries need synthesis, which creates the basis for their mutual technological enrichment and acts as one of the key locomotives of economic development.
Vectors of global competition
Speaking about the areas of space activities of key foreign players, three of them can be distinguished.
Deep space exploration. This includes sending spacecraft to other bodies in the solar system - to the moon, asteroids, Mars, other planets and their satellites. The United States, Europe, Japan, China, India are involved in these studies. However, players' goals differ in detail. If Americans and Europeans carry out super-difficult missions to maintain their scientific and technological leadership, then the missions of China and India are simpler in content and are aimed at improving their own technological and industrial base through these projects. At the same time, in December 2013, the Chinese automatic scientific station "Chang'e-3" was dispatched to the moon as part of the landing module and the "Yuytu" lunar rover, coupled with the successful completion of the manned flight program of the first Chinese orbital station "Tiangong-1" in the summer of the same year. testify to the desire of the PRC to become a space power capable of fully independently operating in space. As for Japan, its goal is to maintain leadership in certain technological niches in the field of robotics and natural sciences, in order to have opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation in space with the United States and the EU, as well as for superiority in these niches over China.
CNSA / Chinanews
Chinese automatic scientific
Chang'e-3 station on the Moon
Astrophysics. Here we are talking about studying the structure of the Universe and other stellar systems, checking the basic concepts of theoretical physics. The championship in this direction is held by the Americans and Europeans, and there is no talk of active competition from other players so far. Russia retains the potential for the implementation of such projects, which corresponds to its vital interests, but needs a verified policy in the field of fundamental space research.
New spacecraft. Leadership in this area remains with the United States, significant R&D in this area is also being carried out by the European Space Agency. The criterion here is not so much the cost of space programs, but the quality of the vehicles being developed and the complexity of scientific missions sent into space again [3]. The new spacecraft, along with new launch vehicles, are designed to simplify and reduce the cost of using the near-earth orbit for solving various applied problems, to have greater flexibility in use, as well as to have a long service life and maintainability.
The American reusable unmanned shuttle X-37B deserves special attention, which was created in the interests of the US Air Force and has already carried out a series of long experimental flights in orbit. In devices of this class, the most promising and valuable is the ability to play the role of an operatively deployable space communications and reconnaissance system over a given area of the earth's surface, which the armed forces need in preparation for the conflict and the conflict itself.
Such a system allows to solve the problem of the lack of bandwidth of commercial communication channels in the event of hostilities, as well as the problem of the coverage area of satellite systems in various regions of the Earth. Currently, the X-37B apparatus is playing the role of an orbital laboratory, where new space technologies are being tested. In the future, the use of such devices (improved compared to those tested today) will, apparently, include the maintenance and modernization of already deployed satellites and telescopes.
U. S. Air Force photo / Michael Stonecypher
American space drone
X-37B
For comparison, we note that the European experimental reusable suborbital shuttle IXV is being created to test the technologies of future space transport systems. At the same time, the Europeans at the beginning of 2014 officially became interested in the private development of a manned reusable shuttle by the American Sierra Nevada Corporation.
Speaking of new manned spacecraft, it is worth noting that the American company Boeing is developing a reusable CST-100 cargo-and-passenger vehicle with a capacity of up to 7 people. Despite the fact that it is planned to test and initially use it on the ISS, it is intended rather for servicing and delivering passengers to a private orbital space station, which is being developed by the American company Bigelow Aerospace. At the same time, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, under a NASA contract, are participating in the creation of the multipurpose research manned spacecraft Orion <(1, 2). Flight tests of this spacecraft should begin as early as 2014. And although the United States does not yet have a clear understanding of whether a new manned expedition to the moon or one of the nearby asteroids is needed, companies in the American space industry are busy developing basic technologies in this direction and rethinking the experience of previous manned programs.
These areas of global space competition also have political implications. Today, there are practically no new projects in which fundamental cooperation of the leading space powers would be possible, as was the case with the Mir-Shuttle and ISS programs. Different approaches, goals and opportunities, including different institutional arrangements for space activities, make it difficult to find a common language and common interests in space. However, what cannot be achieved at the state level may well be achieved at the level of the scientific, university community and business.
Russia in new realities
NASA concept representing the project
use of the Orion spacecraft for
asteroid exploration
Against the background of the ongoing processes, Russia's space activities have long been characterized by a combination of inertia and attempts to develop a new strategy. This state of affairs was objectively determined - the restructuring of the Soviet aerospace industry and its adaptation to the conditions of a market economy, given the failure of the conversion policy in 1992-1993, could not happen quickly. In addition, the foreign demand for domestic space products in the 1990s and the possibility of the existence of enterprises on old stocks created in Russian society a false illusion that one could not put much effort into space exploration. The situation began to change towards the end of the 2000s, when a series of unsuccessful space projects and missile launch accidents, as well as changes in the international competitive landscape, forced Russia to critically reflect on its position in this area.
Today, the Russian government is pursuing a course towards the creation of the United Rocket and Space Corporation (URSC), designed to combine and optimize state assets in the field of rocketry and spacecraft. Here it is appropriate to ask the question: how competitive can this new structure be in the international context and in the context of the development of private space companies?
URCS has a high chance of success if it operates as a development corporation. First, Russia needs a new family of launch vehicles. The Angara launch vehicle, which is at the stage of preparation for flight tests, is a significant, but only the first step on this path. Second, the criterion for the success and competitiveness of new launch vehicles should be the real, not the state subsidized price per kilogram of the withdrawn cargo. Today, the main battle in this area is being waged to bring this figure down to less than $ 1000 / kg. And most importantly, the activities of the URCS should be subordinate to the national strategy for space exploration, which must be developed now and the results of such work should be published. The key task should be to conduct fundamental scientific research in space and related R&D.
Dmitry Rogozin at the presentation of the rocket-
carrier "Angara" at the Center. Khrunicheva
It is important for Russia to form the understanding that the Americans came to a decade and a half ago: no space activity at public expense, including sending astronauts somewhere, makes no sense if it does not lead to the acquisition of fundamentally new knowledge and technologies. And today this understanding is taken as the basis for goal-setting not only by Washington and the Europeans, but also by Beijing, Tokyo, and Delhi. In this regard, it would be a mistake if the URSC continues to exist in the same paradigm in which Russian space enterprises and holdings exist, namely, maintaining production potential at a minimum sufficient level and serving the needs of government departments and, less often, state companies. Of course, this approach assumes that Russian satellite communications and television broadcasting systems should be created at the expense of communications companies and large television holdings, and not at the expense of the budget within the framework of state programs.
On this basis, it will be possible to develop new projects of international cooperation in space with the participation of Russia. In the coming years, there will hardly be many of them, but a clear formulation of goals, organizational structure and financial plan will ensure our country has equal participation, and somewhere full-fledged leadership in such projects.
It should not be forgotten that there is potential for the development of private astronautics in Russia as well. Of course, it is consistent with the state and capabilities of the domestic market, but it clearly surpasses what we are seeing today in Japan, China or India, where it is still generally difficult to talk about private astronautics. We are talking about private undertakings that are based on the Russian scientific community. The first such undertaking can be considered the Selenokhod research team, which until December 2013 participated in the Google Lunar X Prize competition to create and send the first private robot to the lunar surface (this team launched the domestic robotics venture company, RoboCV). Another example of Russian private astronautics is Dauria Aerospace, founded by billionaire Mikhail Kokorich and with offices in Russia (Skolkovo Technopark), Germany and the United States. The company plans to develop and deploy a system of communication and monitoring satellites and provide consumers with their services by electronic subscription.
Dauria aerospace
DX-1 satellite created by the company
Dauria Aerospace
The intensive development of private astronautics, which began in the United States in the last decade, is changing the world practice of space exploration. In fact, we can talk about the commercialization of all activities that are conducted in Earth's orbit, including manned flights. This became possible due to the fact that private companies that create space rockets and spacecraft based on new technologies have managed to significantly reduce the cost of launching cargo into low-earth orbit. At the same time, the informal status of a leader in the space sphere today, more than ever before, depends on the ability of a country or a group of countries to conduct a wide range of fundamental space research that forms the necessary technological and industrial potential.
Russia has a high chance of adapting to global trends in space exploration and taking its rightful place in the fields of fundamental research and private astronautics, creating the structure of the URSC and favorable conditions for the emergence of space startups in the university environment. The prerequisites here are a clear and transparent strategy formulated by the country's political leadership and the will to implement it. In general, space exploration will remain a highly politicized sphere of international relations, and in order to maintain its leadership potential in this area, Russia must be able to put forward and implement advanced scientific and technical ideas.
