The Commercial Spaceflight Revolution

The Commercial Spaceflight Revolution

Duncan Law-Green, University of Leicester

Thursday, 15 September 11

Commercial SpaceflightThe What & Why of “NewSpace”

• What: Innovative, low-cost, efficiently managed programmes

• Why: To open the space frontier to all of humankind


Sponsored by Trans World Airlines

Opening Centrepiece of Tomorrowland, Disneyland

Adjacent to “Rocket to the Moon” movie exhibit

TWA Rocket: 1955 - 1961


1968: Space Tourism in Film


2001: A Space AdventureUS company Space Adventures forms agreement with Russian Space Agencyfor space tourism trips to International Space Station. Cost $20-30 million

2001

2002

2005

2006

2007/2009

2008

2009

Dennis Tito (US)Soyuz TM-32

Mark Shuttleworth (SA/UK)Soyuz TM-32

Greg Olsen (US)Soyuz TMA-7

Anousheh Ansari (Iran/US)Soyuz TMA-9

Charles Simonyi (Hun/US)Soyuz TMA-10/TMA-14

Richard Garriott (UK/US)Soyuz TMA-13

Guy Laliberte (Canada)Soyuz TMA-16


Peter DiamandisFounder of the X-Prize organisation


Ansari X-PrizeDevised by Peter Diamandis, inspired by Orteig Prize for first solo transatlantic flight, won by Charles Lindberg in 1927.

$10 million for first vehicle to carry 3 people (or one person and equivalent mass) to 100km altitude and back, twice in two weeks.

Prize funded by Iranian/American telecoms entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari Prize won 4 October 2004, by SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan, funded by Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft).

Anousheh Ansari


Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwoUnder construction at Scaled Composites, Mojave


SpaceShipTwo & WhiteKnightTwoCompleted, official rollout 8 Dec 2009


Spaceport AmericaWorld’s first purpose-built commercial passenger spaceport


SpaceShipTwo Drop TestsAerodynamic glide tests started 10 Oct 2010


XCOR “Lynx” suborbital rocketplaneArtist’s impression



VTVLVertical Takeoff, Vertical Landing

• Several companies including Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace working on fully-reusable VTVL rockets


Armadillo AerospaceSUPER MOD TEST

CADDO MILLS, TEXAS, 16 SEPT 2010Thursday, 15 September 11

Armadillo AerospaceSUPER MOD TEST

CADDO MILLS, TEXAS, 16 SEPT 2010Thursday, 15 September 11

Blue Origin• Founded by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, working on

suborbital and orbital manned spacecraft

• Private spaceport at Van Horn, Texas

• Unmanned PM-2 launched 24 Aug 2011Achieved 45,000ft, Mach-1.2 before loss of vehicle



To Orbit and Beyond...Thursday, 15 September 11

SpaceX• Founded by software entrepreneur

Elon Musk in 2002

• Developer of low-cost launch vehicles (Falcon-1, Falcon-9), spent ~$500M

• Dragon: orbital spacecraft for cargo and crew. Winner of a NASA COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) contract.

• Successful Falcon-9 first launch 18 June 2010

• Successful Dragon flight test and re-entry 8 Dec 2010


Falcon 9/Dragon launch, Cape CanaveralThursday, 15 September 11

SpaceX Dragon in orbitThursday, 15 September 11

SpaceX Dragon

LAS (Launch Abort System) to enable powered landings


SpaceX: Falcon Heavy53 metric tons to LEO


COTS & CCDev

• COTS: Commercial Cargo to ISS

- SpaceX (Dragon)- Orbital (Cygnus)

• CCDev: Commercial Crew to ISS

- SpaceX (Dragon)- Sierra Nevada Corp. (Dream Chaser)- Boeing (CST-100)- Blue Origin

• Funding in low hundred million $


Bigelow Aerospace

• Founded by construction magnate Robert Bigelow in 1999

• Commercial space stations, based on “Transhab” inflatable habitat technology developed at NASA JSC

• Two subscale demonstrators already in orbit (Genesis-1, II).

• Leases access to stations, $8 million/month

• Oct 2010: Signed MOUs with Japan, Singapore, Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, UK. Full-scale due to launch 2014.


Bigelow Aerospace: Full-scale mockups of space station modules



Private Space Stations• Excalibur Almaz

(US/Russia/Isle of Man)

• Orbital Technologies(Russia)


Return to the Moon... ...this time to stay


• £30M prize for first commercial rover on lunar surface. First landing by 2015.

• 29 teams competing, includes major universities and aerospace companies

• Rover must land, travel 500 metres, return science data and HD video

Google Lunar X-Prize

Astrobotic (US) Odyssey Moon (US, UK)


Circumlunar flight

• Space Adventures planning circumlunar flight ($150M/seat)

• One ticket already sold, one under negotiation

• Modified Soyuz plus boost stage, “free return” trajectory (similar to Apollo 13)

• Flight expected around 2016.

DSE Spacecraft


Mining the Moon & Asteroids

• Helium-3 from lunar soil, fuel for fusion reactors (Harrison Schmitt et al.)

• Platinum group metals (Paul Spudis et al.)

• Rare earth elements (MoonEx)

• Iron, aluminium, titanium...

• Oxygen from lunar minerals

• Water (Shackleton Energy Company)


Satellite Solar Power

• April 2009: Pacific Gas & Electric makes agreement to purchase space solar power from Solaren


Future NASA PolicyThursday, 15 September 11

NASA Budget Challenges

SLS: Space Launch System

Commercial Crew

Science Missions

$$

$$

$$

Exploration Tech$16bn to first flight


Deep Space Missions?

Design for a “true spacecraft” proposed by NASA Technology Applications Assessment Team
