Is Europe moving to manned spaceflight?

That's what Eric Berger at Ars Technica is thinking, based on a mission we talked about in June when the Exploration Company's first test flight of their Mission Possible capsule was lost during reentry.  

You might recall having read about Mission Possible and founder Hélène Huby because they were 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.  The test craft was lost at 26 km above the planet, as the spacecraft slowed to Mach one.  Huby was unsure how this loss would be received back in Europe.  It turned out to not be worth worrying about.

"What was interesting is the feedback I got in Europe," Huby said in an interview this week at the company's offices in Houston. "The German Space Agency, the French space agency, the European Space Agency said, OK, that's a great achievement. For the time and money we spent, performing 80 percent of that mission was a good investment." 

The Mission Possible vehicle is seen during assembly. Image credit: The Exploration Company

While the spacecraft was lost so they couldn't do a postmortem on it, the downlinked data from the flight leaves Huby and staff "99%" sure it was a parachute system problem.  You see, they never did any drop tests of any kind with the parachute system they purchased for Mission Possible.  That would have been a complication adding both mission delay and cost and Hélène Huby's background is in economics.  

"We made a mistake, basically, to underestimate the risks," she said. In retrospect, Huby added, the company could have done more testing on the ground.  

This puts them in a bit of mess figuring out where they go from here.  Do they go with a duplicate of Mission Possible, adding more testing, or do they say that phase of getting started is over and work on their next goal, a considerably bigger spacecraft called Nyx.  

This larger spacecraft is quite ambitious. It is similar in size to SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, perhaps even a bit bigger. The initial version is intended to fly cargo into low-Earth orbit. Huby said the vehicle is being designed with crew in mind, however. For example, the initial version will use four parachutes, which is overkill for cargo but necessary for astronauts.

One reason Huby was in the United States this week was to work with NASA on requirements. That's because the company aspires to fly Nyx to the International Space Station as early as 2028, two years before the orbiting laboratory is due to be retired. At this point, in talking to Huby, the company seems likely to move directly into Nyx development and flying to the space station on its first mission. 

This leads one to wonder if the Space Station isn't even going to be there much longer than their 2028 goal, what are the chances they make that goal and are able to fly a test mission with a couple of test pilots/astronauts?

One thing that has changed in recent months, Huby said, is that there is increasing support in Europe for the development of a crew spacecraft.

"In Europe, there is additional support to go fast to crew," she said. "One year ago, this was out of the discussion. I think this is clearly a consequence of geopolitics."

Those geopolitics, of course, include the election of Donald Trump to a second term as US President and his attitude toward allies in Europe, proposed budget cuts that would end NASA participation in space programs important to Europe, and the fact that the only way European astronauts can get to space today is on board Dragon vehicles built by SpaceX.

So there is a clear lane for a European company to build both cargo and crew spacecraft. Clear though it may be, however, it is a long and difficult technical lane to traverse. Huby and The Exploration Company have their work cut out for them.

The Exploration Company's bigger idea, their Nyx spacecraft, comparable to SpaceX's Dragon capsule with a cargo and crewed version. Image credit: the Exploration Company

Eric Berger's conclusion that "... it is a long and difficult technical lane to traverse. Huby and The Exploration Company have their work cut out for them" is certainly true.  Given their performance in getting this far, I don't think it's a good idea to count them out.