The Exploration Company is a European Union space company working to develop orbital spacecraft for cargo, and eventually humans. They had their first test flight early this week, and apparently was progressing well until they lost contact with their "Mission Possible" vehicle. It powered up and flew successfully in orbit before making a controlled reentry into Earth's atmosphere. However between reentry into the atmosphere and landing, they lost contact with vehicle a few minutes before splashdown.
In an update on LinkedIn Tuesday morning, the company characterized the test flight as a partial success—and a partial failure.
"The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in-orbit, stabilized itself after separation with the launcher, re-entered and re-established communication after black out," the company said in a statement. "We are still investigating the root causes and will share more information soon. We apologize to all our clients who entrusted us with their payloads."
That second paragraph leads off with saying they launched, powered on the payloads nominally in-orbit, and so on ... but especially note that it says, "...re-entered and re-established communication after black out." That implies that the vehicle got through the most thermally challenging part of reentry into Earth's atmosphere and at least have some indications of the spacecraft's handling and ability to withstand maximum heating.
Following this, according to the company's timeline for Mission Possible, the capsule's parachutes were due to deploy at a velocity between Mach 0.8 and Mach 0.6. The parachutes were selected for their "proven flight heritage," the company said, and were procured from US-based Airborne Systems, which provides parachutes used by SpaceX’s Dragon, Boeing's Starliner, and other spacecraft.
Given when the spacecraft was lost, it seems most likely that there was a problem with the deployment of the drogue or main parachutes.
When you see the capsule, you might get a feeling of deja vu, or having been
here before. It's a ringer for the Apollo program command module or the Orion capsules:
The Mission Possible vehicle is seen during assembly. Image credit: The
Exploration Company
Mission Possible was a 2.5-meter diameter demonstration vehicle that was among the larger payloads launched Monday afternoon on SpaceX's Transporter 14 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The mission sought to test four primary areas of spaceflight: structural performance in orbital flight, surviving reentry, autonomous navigation, and recovery in real-world conditions. It only clearly failed in this final task, recovering the vehicle within three days to return on-board payloads to customers.
You might recall having read about Mission Possible and founder Hélène Huby, this program was featured in a story back in last November. In an interview then, Huby said Mission Possible was developed at a cost of about $20 million in 2.5 years, in addition to $10 million for the rideshare launch on the Falcon 9 rocket. At the time, she said Mission Possible was on track to launch this summer, and the company met this timeline.
The company has bigger goals, one of which is literally a bigger version of this vehicle, to be called Nyx.
To date, the company has raised more than $230 million and plans to use much of that for the development of Nyx, which could fly as early as 2028 and focus on cargo delivery missions to low-Earth orbit. By demonstrating this capability, Huby said her company would like to secure funding from the European Space Agency to develop a crew-rated version of the spacecraft and a vehicle to return cargo from the Moon.
I'd like to wish Hélène Huby and her team luck with that. I have a rather strong memory of reading that the European Space Agency had said they were of the opinion that if they were to develop reusable rockets that the EU countries wouldn't put up with them. In other words, this is just a jobs program with some "feel good" aspects to it. I hope they recover from that.
The shape of the capsule, well, there are two basic reentry capsule designs.
ReplyDeleteOne is the Apollo-style, wide and short. Like Apollo, Orion, Starliner, the reentry vehicles for early Keystone spy satellites, most other returning sampling capsules and the above capsule. Why wide and short? Moves the center of gravity towards the heat shield, but off-center (due to the way objects are stashed or installed) which gives it an easy shape to 'maneuver' while doing the burn.
The other is the narrower longer cone shape, of Mercury, Gemini, Dragon, Soyuz (the reentry vehicle) and China's and India's copy of the Soyuz system. Allows for a narrower mounting collar, narrower service module. So you don't end up with a gawky too-wide mount on a pencil, like Ares1 with the Orion. More detail required as to mass placement in the capsule, from installed equipment to stored movable stuff, to keep the center of gravity nearer to the heat shield.
It's actually pretty amazing how 'maneuverable' reentry capsules can be made to be. And how important center of mass/gravity and storage is very important else the reentry trajectory can easily be screwed up.
As screwed up as the EU's Space Program is, don't count on them doing ANYthing intelligent in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThe far future doesn't look so good either.