SpaceX’s First Steps in Conquering Mars
SpaceX and its carrier rocket Falcon 9 have recently made much buzz in the media. What caused such an interest? What does this company actually work on? Today we will tell you everything you need to known about SpaceX.
It is the world’s first privately owned company which started the development of launch vehicles for space passenger transportation. Elon Musk (CEO) founded the company in 2002. The main goals of the company are to reduce the costs of space flights and the development of space technologies for the future colonization of Mars.
NASA signed a contract with SpaceX in 2015, according to which the company will deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) with their “Dragon” spaceship. Previously NASA had a similar contract with Boeing. Using the CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Dragon spaceships, the delivery will be cheaper than what Roscosmos charges. At this moment, Soyuz TMA-01M (which is developed and produced by a Russian corporation “Energia”) delivers people to the ISS.
In just fourteen years SpaceX achieved incredible success. The company developed the first private carrier rocket Falcon 1 with liquid engines which brought a payload into the orbit. SpaceX created the spacecraft “Dragon” which was successfully launched, put into orbit and returned to the Earth — the world’s only cargo spaceship which is able to return to the Earth after the flight and in May 2012 it became the first private spacecraft which docked to the ISS. The launch of the first commercial satellite SES-8 to the geostationary transfer orbit in December 2013 is also one of the achievements of SpaceX.
Falcon 9
Another SpaceX’s success is Falcon 9, which can be considered as the beginning of a new space age. The company struggled to land the first stage of Falcon 9 for quite some time but finally coped with its task. It was returned to Earth after the orbital launch on 22 December 2015. Such a landing was performed for the first time in history.
Reusable launch vehicles are very important for the development of space as they will allow to reduce the costs of sending goods and people in ten or even one hundred times, which will make the space more accessible. Elon Musk’s words, that building a Falcon 9 is worth 60 million dollars and the fueling of the rocket are just 200 thousand dollars, prove that.
Success of “Blue Origin”, another private company, whose founder is Jeff Bezons (owner of Amazon.com) is worth mentioning. The company was able to launch its spacecraft “New Shepard” and get it back to Earth on 24 November 2015. Two month later this spacecraft took off once again and landed back on Earth. People start comparing the success of Blue Origin and SpaceX after reading the news.
Is It Correct to Compare Falcon 9 to New Shepard?
It is incorrect to compare these launch vehicles! Why? First of all, they have different objectives. Let’s look at them in a detail. Falcon 9 is designed to launch satellites and delivery goods, for example to the ISS, and go back to Earth. In contrast, New Shepard’s task is completely different: it will bring tourists to an altitude of one hundred kilometers, where it will remain for four minutes and afterwards will return to Earth. In other words it will not flight high and far. Remarkably, the rocket will land in parts: the tourist capsule apart from the launch vehicle.
