Launch heralds new era for Nasa
Until 2011, Nasa relied on a single, versatile design to both ferry astronauts to space and transport enormous scientific instruments. It was known as the Space Shuttle, but in operation, it was more like a space pickup truck.
Yesterday, a new generation of astronaut transporters was set to lift off with a far more specialised purpose.
SpaceX’s launch of its Crew Dragon capsule – without humans – for its first test mission signifies a major shift in the way Nasa does business. It again sets Nasa on a path towards craft designed not to be a jack of all trades but a master of one. And it marks the beginning of new partnerships with commercial firms that will design, build and own the vessels that take the agency’s astronauts to space.
‘‘We are now able to take advantage of commercial industry in a way that used to not even be available to us,’’ Nasa Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. ‘‘Where risk has been retired and markets develop, we want to be a customer. Then we can use our money to do what we’re intended to do, which is explore and make discoveries and do science.’’
Since it started, Nasa’s human spaceflight programmes revolved around craft owned by the agency. Though contractors built the Apollo capsule and the Space Shuttles, Nasa oversaw every aspect of development, and the vehicles were tested, launched and operated under the agency’s oversight.
When the decades-old shuttle programme ended amid rising costs and growing safety concerns, Nasa started relying on commercial companies to take supplies to the International Space Station. In 2008, the agency first awarded US$1.6 billion to SpaceX for 12 resupply flights, and US$1.9b for eight flights to Orbital ATK, which was acquired by Northrop Grumman last year. Additional awards followed.
A Nasa audit released last April found that ‘‘continued reliance on commercial operators to provide this vital service could play a major role in Nasa’s future plans as it searches for cheaper and more efficient methods to explore space’’.
In 2014, SpaceX and Boeing won Nasa contracts worth a combined total of US$6.8b to develop crew capsules.
If SpaceX’s uncrewed test flight is successful, the next step will be another test flight as early as the middle of the year, with Nasa astronauts aboard. Boeing’s spacecraft are also set for upcoming test flights.
‘‘The Space Shuttle was incredibly complicated to make – a vehicle that was able to launch like a rocket, be in orbit like a laboratory and land like an airplane,’’ said Michael LopezAlegria, a former Nasa astronaut who made four space flights, including three shuttle missions.
The SpaceX and Boeing capsules’ specific mission could indicate that space activity was becoming normal and did not require one system that accomplished everything, he said. ‘‘You build different targeted systems that meet certain parts of demand.’’
The capsules are also coming at a time when transporting large amounts of payload are less necessary, though Nasa is developing a massive rocket called the Space Launch System, intended to take bigger payloads further into space. Some commercial