Manned missions on the agenda: Space odyssey in reusable rockets

Over the weekend, SpaceX demonstrated its mastery of reusable space technology. Its Dragon rocket flew with a four-person crew to the International Space Station (ISS), 408 km above the Earth, on April 23. And on Sunday, May 2, the Dragon returned to Earth with four astronauts who had served a stint on the ISS.
 
The Crew Dragon module splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico in the first night splashdown since 1968. The six-hour return trip was postponed twice before launching due to poor conditions. The plunge into the sea was broadcast live on infrared cameras. The Crew Dragon’s parachutes, which ensure a soft landing, detached upon hitting the water, as planned. A SpaceX recovery ship arrived soon and hoisted the floating module onto a platform.

 
The ability to reuse a rocket and the ability to reuse a space crew module are critical components of future space exploration. Over the next few years – starting perhaps as early as mid-2024 — several manned space missions are on the agenda. Humans could be walking on the moon again in 2024, and they may be exploring Mars sometime in the mid/late 2030s.
 

The considerable costs of such missions would be reduced if rockets and the crew modules are reusable. SpaceX has successfully demonstrated its ability to design and build reusable rockets. It has also demonstrated its ability to build crew modules that can splashdown and be retrieved safely.

 
On the back of that, it was awarded a Nasa contract to build a moon lander and crew module. But that has now been challenged and the American equivalent of a “Stay Order” issued. This is a battle of billionaires with Elon Musk’s company SpaceX facing off against Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Legal shenanigans apart, it’s good to know several companies are interested in overcoming the technological challenges of extra-terrestrial transport and human habitat systems.
 
Space pioneer John Glenn once reportedly said, “As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind — every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.” US agency Nasa tenders out its requirements after setting specifications. And yes, it selects the company (or companies) that promises to meet the specifications at lowest cost. This is how it procured Spacex’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s Starliner, the two “commercial crew” systems used as ISS ferries.

 
In mid-April, Nasa selected SpaceX for its Artemis Mission to develop a lander to carry two astronauts (one of whom will be a woman) to the moon and back. The agency’s Space Launch System rocket will launch four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft for a multi-day journey to lunar orbit.
 
There, two crew members will transfer to the SpaceX human landing system (HLS) for the final leg of their journey to the lunar surface. After a week of exploring, they will return via the lander to the orbiting Orion and head back to Earth.
 
The fixed price, milestone-based contract total award value was $2.89 billion. But this contract was challenged by Blue Origin and another disappointed bidder, Dynetics. They filed a protest at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is a body that adjudicates on government tender disputes in America.

 
SpaceX’s HLS Starship design, which is supposed to land on the Moon, relies on the company’s tested Raptor engines and the multiple flight demonstrations of the Falcon and Dragon rockets, which have done several trips to supply the ISS and also taken crews there. But the first few attempts by SpaceX to demonstrate an HLS ended in spectacular failures with fireballs.
 
The three-engine Starship will include a large cabin and two airlocks for moonwalks. The architecture of the module is intended to evolve to a fully reusable launch and landing system for travel to the Moon, Mars, and maybe even to asteroids and comets. The tender insists on an un-crewed test flight before the manned flight.

 
Work on this has been halted but the GAO is supposed to give a decision on the protest this week. The Blue Origin bid was over double that of SpaceX at $5.99 billion. The tender was initially supposed to be awarded to two different bidders because Nasa wanted redundancy of design. But the US Congress has so far only provided $850 million — about one-fourth of Nasa’s funding request of $3.4 billion — for the HLS development in financial year 2021. Nasa estimates the entire mission will cost around $16 billion by FY2025.
 
Both billionaires have dreams that seem just a little crazy at first hearing. Bezos wants to “rezone” Earth for the residential and light industry by moving heavy industry to the Moon and automating it. Musk wants to colonise Mars to become a “multi-planet species”. Being able to put humans on the Moon and keep them safe for extended periods would be the first toddler steps to fulfilling such grandiose plans.